Cool coincidince -- just yesterday I checked out this book from my local library:
Through the language glass: why the world looks different in other languages
By Guy Deutscher

(GoogleBooks Preview).

From the introduction:

In the pages to follow, however, I will try to convince you, probably against your initial intuition, and certainly against the fashionable academic view of today, that the answer to the questions above [e.g. “Can different languages lead their speakers to different thoughts and perceptions”] is – yes. In this plaidoyer for culture, I will argue that cultural differences are reflected in language in profound ways, and that a growing body of reliable scientific research provides solid evidence that our mother tongue can affect how we think and how we perceive the world. But before you relegate this book to the crackpot shelf, next to last year’s fad-diet recipes and the How to Bond with Your Goldfish manual, I give you my solemn pledge that we will not indulge in groundless twaddle of any kind. We shall not be imposing monistic views on any universes, we shall not soar to such loft questions as which languages have more “esprit,” nor shall we delve into the mysteries of which cultures are more “profound.” The problems that will occupy us in this book are of a very different kind.

I've only gotten 10 pages in so I'm not sure what his foundation will rest on, but the author has a precise and smooth writing style that promises to make the book an enjoyable read -- which is often a toss-up in nonfiction even when you're very interested in the topic.

I took some linguistics classes in college, and I remember learning about the Sapir-Worf Hypothesis, which the professor explained with obvious contempt. I've also read some of the work of both Pinker and Chomsky, and honestly, as persuasive and brilliant as both those men are, I never was convinced that there isn't a link between a group's native language toolset and the resulting thought process which might tend to be used to solve a problem such as differentiating between concepts or assigning priority or order to objects.

Furthermore, in this decade we have seen research indicating that native speakers of tonal languages may be more likely to develop the musical skill known as "perfect pitch". (Short version here). If the very tonal structure of a language can dramatically shape the brain's ability to acquire/process/interpret/sort tones in general, can we so easily scoff at the possibility that the semantic structure of a language might shape the brain's ability to acquire/process/interpret/sort concepts in general?

Should I have the right to drive to the central PD HQ, take the elevator to the third floor where they plan/coordinate investigations of narcotics trafficking, and open up a camping chair in the middle of the floor and sit there all day listening to the logistics of their current operations? Why or why not?

Agreed. The real short-sighted folks aren't the software companies driving their users crazy. Far worse are all the slashdot types saying "I'll just pirate this game instead", because their short-term benefit - getting to play the game - is completely negated by the long-term debit - creating and supporting the popularity and spread of games that have undesirable licensing agreements.

The reason we live in a Microsoft/Office/Exchange world today, is because years ago we bought one Win/95 or Office97 CD and piratically/illegally installed it on our home computer, and the church secretary's computer, and Aunt Susan's computer. The software industry looks at piracy as a marketing loss-leader until they have a sufficient slice of the market locked-in so that they can then suddenly go before Congress and be shocked -- shocked! -- to find out that people are pirating their products. Then they spring the trap of DRM and purchased legislation. Step 4) Profit!!!!

The argument is that if the government forcibly obstructs your right to be secure in your person and property, and to associate your person with and transact business on your property with whosoever you choose, then you have very few rights at all, for you have already accepted that the government can compel you to associate with another person against your will, and to make your property serve another person. Once you've accepted such a government, then you've subjected everything that you are and everything that you have to the will of the majority. Be careful -- the ballot box giveth, and the ballot box taketh away.

I'm not sure where you're getting your notions of the extant positions relative to affirmative action, but from my perspective your attempted analogy between hiring practices and Yale's admissions practices is a failed analogy, because you seem to have overlooked a viewpoint with a large number of adherents. All the conservatives I know are firmly supportive of at-will labor markets, which means both employee and employer retain their right to freely enter into whatever contracts they find mutually agreeable, and such contracts can be terminated at-will by either party for any reason not previously constrained by the terms of the contract. What this means is they are opposed to government-mandated or enforced affirmative action, but believe companies should be able hire and fire according to whatever standards they believe best. So if a muslim-owned business doesn't wish to hire alcoholic homosexuals, or a black-owned business wants to only provide employment for blacks, or a family-owned business wants to only hire their own children and grandchildren, that is perfectly acceptable. The same principle applies to other situations, such as university enrollment practices.

Your summary of the opposition to affirmative action as "Nobody should ever get anything based on who their daddy was", is grossly inaccurate, and therefore your attempt to paint anti-affirmative-action adherents as hypocrites has failed.

Co-inclusive with the right to put whatever drugs you choose into your body, and the right to end your own life when you choose, the right to have physical relations with whatever other consenting partners you choose, etc. would be the right to participate in human experimentation if you choose. By prohibiting widespread voluntary human experimentation, governments are depriving you of the right to sell your labor on the open market in exchange for wages.

Probably the same thing any other doctor would say about people whose blood type gives them an inherently stronger immunity to smallpox infection. Not everyone gets every disease/syndrome even when exposed to the same pathogens/conditions.

I have been typing at a high KPM (sometimes for several hours a day) for 25 years going back to CLI days and using a mouse daily since the spread of the PC GUI. I also have a modest but ongoing interest in playing the piano. I have never had any RSI problems.

Then two years ago I got a touchscreen smartphone and absolutely can trace a very clear rise in vision focal distance issues and recurrent wrist/elbow strain in that time period. Nothing else in my life hobbies, living patterns, or activity levels has changed in the last two years. The vision issues I could perhaps either partially or wholly pass off as the inevitable age-related presbyopia, but the wrist/elbow strain is indepedent of the aging process, entirely unprecedented in my personal medical history, and does in fact decrease markedly if I go for several days not using the phone, even while continuing other potentially implicated activities such as weight training, sports leagues, bike riding, PC keyboarding, driving, and so forth. It was interesting to read a comment above. I have experienced the same thing -- which is that sleeping with whichever hand is most affected inserted between pillow and mattress provides significant relief, kind of like the opposite of gout sufferers' extreme sensitivity to the slight pressure of their own bedsheets.

That's almost sad to hear. I've been bouncing around the Internet long enough to have had a presence on BBS FIDO relays and usenet, and in all my days CTS was one of the most effective trolls I've ever seen. I generally remain very cool online, but he managed to get under my skin several times, perhaps because he was so very effective at skating on the absolute last micron of the razor edge between hyper-abusive troll and hyper-substantive debater. I don't even remember the exact issues or who was pro and who was con, but I remember particularly after 9/11 and into the Iraq invasion getting in multiple hellacious arguments with him about some political issues that seemed like vry srs bznss at the time.

I was a K5 mainliner addict all through the early years. Haven't been back in about 5 years, but I thought I'd heard Crawford had finally been arrested or gone off his meds and been permabanned or something? Is he still the spectre haunting the diary ghetto? And did Husi go anywhere interesting or just die out?

For quite a while K5 was everything that was great about the Web, then it became everything that was awful/inane about the Web. I think Ruston's social experiment succeeded wildly -- he proved that even very intelligent human beings when given control of their environment will just run it into the damn ground.

And yes, I count the K5ARP as one of the greatest online personae I've ever seen on any forum anywhere. I still occasionally find myself remembering lines like "You are fliend of China, prease to move here" and chuckling all over again.