Before we get started, I started off the presentation with this world map for a specific reason. And the reason is I wanted to ask you guys all a question. And that question is, how many, what percentage roughly in your mind of places or countries on this map use western alphabets or writing systems versus non-western? Any guesses? No guesses? 25%? 25% what? 25% western? Versus 75% non-western? Just, no. Just a really rough estimate of how many places where it's official that it's used, whether it's used western typography or western writing systems versus non-western writing systems. So I have 25% western versus 75% non-western. Any other different guesses? 40% 90% 40% 50% Hand in language, interacted with one another and bring out the feeling of what what the meaning is, of what is being said. So since language is the most important thing here, we want to convey language through typography. It's important to keep in mind who speaks what languages, but in the context of typography, what do people write with? because everybody speaks a different language, but everybody speaks in a certain way. But how do people actually write it and convey it in a non-oral way? So this is where typography comes in. So here is the world map again, with a big chunk of it taken out. And this map, can anyone tell me what this map represents in the context of that first map I showed you? Is it for the U.C. team? Correct, yeah. Yeah, it's pretty self-explanatory. So all the gray countries, all the gray here is countries that use Latin scripts, so ABCs. The exceptions here are the dark color up there, which is Cyrillic scripts, which is Russian and Ukrainian and Bulgarian and all the Eastern European languages, Slavic rather, and the blue is Greek. So these are what are considered Western scripts, so originating in Europe and eventually spread because of a variety of reasons, colonization, which is why you see Africa and South America and Australia and Indonesia using mostly, or using Western scripts. Now that big chunk of the map that is cut out is shown here. And these are the countries of the world that do not use Western scripts. These are the countries that use their own native scripts or scripts that have been tossed around across the geography here, shown here. So the green is Arabic-derived scripts, so you can see North Africa, Iran, Lebanon, and the Levant region over there for the Mediterranean, as well as Afghanistan and Pakistan, which use Arabic-derived script. Then you see India, which is shown as orange and red. I think it's an oversimplification of the level of diversity in scripts here. But basically, India has its own script systems, which are just simplified for the sake of this map. Then you see the big red is China, and then Korean is different. I'm assuming people ever know those or everything else, but Korea, Japan, Southeast Asia is the same color as this because all these scripts come from India originally, the same with Java. And the oblires here are really Amharic, which is in Ethiopia, and Armenian, and Georgian, which are not really spoken by too many people. So those are non-Western scripts. This map, in particular, is extremely important because of the following reasons, and this is where I will answer the question that I posed to you guys in the beginning. This map is important because the countries of non-Western scripts represent approximately 50% of the world's population. That's weighed in heavily by India and China, obviously. But even when you have other countries like Thailand, which are not really that high in population compared to India and China. Anyway, so the map here represents 50% of the world's population, and if you look in comparison to the map before, landmass-wise, it's only about a third of the landmass approximately. That represents 50% of the world's population. And these countries represent 85% of the world's major writing system. So there's thousands of writing systems out there, like smaller languages in Africa and Australia and South America, but we're focusing on the major ones here. These countries in Asia and Africa and the Middle East represent 85% of the world's writing systems. But here's the kicker, and here's the thing that makes this topic the most important of all. And this is a totally unscientific estimate, but anyone that researches this on their own will probably come to a similar conclusion, if not the same, that with 85% of the world's writing systems, these languages in total contribute only about 10% of the world's total typefaces. So clearly, there's a huge deficit in the number of typefaces that are available for these languages or have been developed for these languages versus the percentage of the world that these languages occupy or the percentage of the world that these writing systems occupy. So the other important things here that make this particular region of the world most important in terms of typography is that these countries represent huge emerging markets, which again is weighed in heavily by India and China, but certainly also by the countries of Southeast Asia and developed economies like Japan, as well as some of the development that's happening in the Middle East. Really, it's India and China that are really the anchor weights of the countries that are representing 85% of the world's writing systems. It's kind of a mumble jumble of words there, but I hope you get the point. Since they're huge emerging markets, that means there's going to be increasing influence. That means these countries are going to be having a bigger say in the world's affairs as they already are. Obviously, China and India are. And that means that there's going to be differences and improvements and changes in social economic development. And as soon as increasing influence in social economic development and changes in economic booms and all this stuff happens, there's always an increase in need for all types of different services. One of them being designed and within design typography, which is such a core concept, such a core aspect of language and how language is disseminated throughout these places. What does all this mean? This means that we're just getting started in these parts and in this part of the world. These countries, like I said, they only represent less than 10% or less of the world's typefaces. So typography, in the context of typography, we've barely scratched the surface of what's possible and what kind of creativity we can dive into and what types of applicable typefaces we can design or how we can apply typography for society and a variety of other different things. And that's why this call, this talk, is called Type of the Rest of the World. And that's a picture that I took in Dubai, actually. I was trying to represent the increase in development and these sorts of things. What we'll do, basically, for the talk is I'll go through three mini case studies of three very typographically influential scripts that are non-Western. So the whole point of this talk is to dive into non-Western scripts. So we'll do three of them and then we'll do a little bit on Indian typography as well. So the first one we'll dive into is Arabic. And like I said earlier, Arabic includes, in the context of typography, Arabic includes Persian, Urdu. It also includes a bunch of other languages that like Sindhi, for instance, and Pashto and Jawi, which is used in Malaysia and Indonesia for official types of things. But Arabic is an interesting script because I think it's probably one of the most different that you can get from Western type, from the ABCs, just in terms of how it's structured and how it operates. So it's got a very long illustrious history. It's religiously very important because of the Quran, which is read by 1.2 billion Muslims. So here, the next slide showcases a quick snapshot of a font called Wadi, which was developed by Dina Mehrhedge, who is a designer from the UK. This font particularly characterizes some very key elements in Arabic. One very key element in Arabic, which is the tips of each letter. So each letter has different tips based on where it is in the alphabet. That's just to kind of get us started. But the characteristics really of Arabic are, it's a right to left language. So you read it from right to left. The letters flow together. So if you're writing cursive in English, Arabic is by default cursive. It's always cursive. So every time you look at an interaction with one letter with another, it has to physically join, unlike English, where as you can see, obviously the letters don't necessarily join unless you're writing in cursive. And this is really key here. So each Arabic letter has three positions, depending on where it is positioned in a word. So what's an Arabic word? Like the word could on, for instance. The q, the q in the beginning, looks different in the beginning of that word. For example, if that word was bukran, then the q in the middle of the word would look different. I should actually have some examples of that coming up. But the letters look different based on where it is. So each time you design a letter, you have to design it three times, because of the beginning and the middle in the end. So it's the initial, medial, and final positions of each letter. So this is an exploration of Arabic type by a Jordanian visual artist named Ahmad Sabah. And it gives us a feel for how the language operates. And this is more of a ornamental, fun way of looking at it. You can see the language has a very horizontal focus. So in English, from Western scripts, you can see our kind of tall A's and B's and the things are vertically aligned, even though it reads horizontally. But Arabic script is very horizontally based. This one, you can see each letter kind of, and because of the horizontal alignment of Arabic, where you have that focus, you can manipulate the letters to match kind of a grid as this guy has done here. This is a picture that I took of some graffiti that I saw in Berlin, Germany. So this is interesting because, well, not only because of the political statements that I think it's making, because of this happened right after the Arab Spring and all that stuff in Egypt. So Tahrir Square, if you guys don't know, is where the whole Arab Spring Revolution is a symbolic place for the entire revolution in Egypt. This is stencil art, so someone's pretty painted through with stencils. But the interesting thing here is that the English writing here is written in Helvetica, which, if you know anything about typography, Helvetica is kind of like the most ubiquitous font that you see all over the place. If I just look around here, I see Helvetica on this computer right now. I see Helvetica. Microsoft's logos in Helvetica. Microsoft's, yeah, exactly, yeah. Microsoft's logos in Helvetica. There you go. Many logos are in Helvetica. I think last time she did a Helvetica versus aerial quiz for everyone. But the interesting thing here is that the Arabic is also in Helvetica because there was a Helvetica that was developed for Arabic, which matches the English Helvetica. So it kind of takes the same characteristics of Helvetica and applies it to Arabic, which is very clean lines, very elimination of BS, if you will. And you can see kind of how the Arabic script matches the English script for this particular example. But the point here is that Arabic has been an interesting case because there's been a lot of Western scripts, Western typefaces, which have been adapted for Arabic. So Helvetica's not the only one. There's been Universe, Palatino, and Frutiger as well. Frutiger is a really important one that was designed in, I believe, the 60s or 70s when Paris Airport was looking for new signage. So they commissioned an entirely new font just for that. And that's been translated into Arabic. I believe some airports in the Middle East right now use Frutiger as well. But this is Helvetica in both languages. This one is an interesting example. This is basically a tourist guide for Arabs who are visiting the Netherlands. And it's entirely in Arabic. And it's called Shemal Nour. And it was developed by a collaboration between Dutch and Arabic designers from Egypt and elsewhere in the Middle East. And it was developed on the Federer stanz model. Federer stanz is another very important Latin or Western typeface. So that's been adapted into Arabic for this. And there is a typographic matchmaking project that was done between 10 Dutch and Arab designers to develop this sort of thing. I mean, this is just an example of how similar typography in different cultures can bridge the gap and get people to, for example, in this case, get Arabs to know more about it. It exposes Arabs to different aspects of the Netherlands by adapting Dutch typeface to the language of the people who are going to be reading this, in this case, Arabic. This one is another one just from Dubai. Another example of just how Arabic has been adapted towards Western typefaces. This is just falafel, which I think is opening in India soon. But it's a falafel joint. They're a chain across the Middle East, and they have some other branches as well. But basically, this is in Dubai, where you can see how the Arabic type has been adjusted to fit the English type. And the reason why, and you might be noticing a trend, that the Arabic type usually adjusts to fit the Western type. That's just because Western type has been around for much longer, and there's far more examples that you can adjust the Arabic type to for Western type. This, I thought was interesting, these are obviously major Western brands that have been given Arabic Arabization, if you will, of their logos and the typefaces of their logos. So you can see how, for example, in diesel, it's very tall. But they've adjusted the Arabic type, so that all is also tall. And you can see this one, for example, there's serifs that they've added on. Serifs, meaning the little tips at the end of each letter, have been added on to the letters in Arabic, which Arabic letters don't naturally have that at all. And Paul Smith at the bottom has been a cursive thing, so this one is probably the easiest one to do. It's because Arabic is naturally cursive. So that's just a little bit about Arabic. We can go on for hours, but this is just a quick overview. The next one we'll go on to is Chinese. And Chinese is particularly interesting because of a variety of reasons. And just like Arabic, it's extremely, extremely different from both Western type. But in terms of the language itself, it's completely different than any other language out there just because of the way that it's structured. So some characteristics of Chinese are that you can read it right to left, left to right, and top to bottom. So you could read it any which way you want. And the reason for that is because it uses characters. So there's no letters in Chinese. You can't read something out by sounding out what each letter sounds like. You just have to memorize the characters, rather. That's what enables it the flexibility of being able to read in whatever direction you want, basically. Has anyone here been to China? OK. So you probably, if you've been to any of the historic sites there, you'll notice that, and if you were noticing the language, you'll notice that the writing on the old palaces and old famous buildings are written from right to left. So traditional royal things are written from right to left. Nowadays, mostly it's left to right just because of, just to make it easier for everyone because people are learning English as well. But top to bottom is something that you'll see a lot in newspapers. So that's very interesting for Chinese. And in terms of characters, there's 5,000 characters that you have to know if you want to read like a basic newspaper that you just have to memorize. And these can be extremely complicated. So it's a huge task. I studied Chinese for three years, and it wasn't easy. But in reality, there's well over 25,000 characters in Chinese. So when you're designing type for Chinese, you're going to really just aim for the first 5,000 because most of the remaining 20,000 are either obsolete or used in very artistic cases or poems or things like that. The other interesting thing about Chinese is even though it's very complicated, it's also very simple in a weird way. Like all Chinese characters use the same set of strokes. So there's a set of like nine, I forget exactly how many there are, but there's a set of nine strokes that will say every single character in Chinese is a combination of some kind of those nine strokes. So in that sense, it makes designing Chinese type very easy.  So we'll dive into a couple of the examples of Chinese here. So this is a picture I took in Hong Kong at the Sanyat Sen Museum. You'll see Optima Sands as the typeface on the bottom for English, which kind of conveys a important regal feel without the use of Sarah. But in Chinese, however, you don't see the Chinese type being adjusted towards the Western type. You see the Chinese type using traditional Chinese characters. And the other thing that I forgot to mention is that they're simplified and traditional characters in Chinese. So simplified characters were ones that Chinese government implemented in the 50s or 60s to improve literacy across China. But in Hong Kong and Taiwan and by overseas Chinese communities, they used the traditional, sorry, and these are traditional characters. So these kind of have a calligraphic tone to them. It should also be noted that Chinese, I think the Chinese were probably the first real typographers because they invented woodblock printing on cloths back in like the second century BC. Far before the West even developed such things. It's funny that you don't hear about these things because 90% of the world's typefaces are Western, so you only really get to focus on those. But this is one example. I had to get a SIM card when I was in Hong Kong and this is an example of how Helvetica, you can see the English is in Helvetica, and the numbers are obviously in Helvetica. But this is how, just an example of how the Chinese text has been aligned to fit the English here. And the other interesting thing about Chinese is since it's based on characters and not letters, each character has one block space, so every single character takes up the same amount of space. So if you notice in Western type, or in type of most other languages actually, each letter will take up a different amount of space and W obviously takes up more space than an I. And in Chinese they are all the same size, regardless of how complicated or how simple they are. This next example, this is an interesting experiment by a Tao Chen, who's a designer in China, who did a gothic Chinese typeface. So gothic, so this style of lettering you might see in Western type on the titles of newspapers and that sort of thing. It's originally was called black letter, so this designer wanted to translate that over to the Chinese context. It's just, I just thought this was an interesting example of how you bridge different cultural roots, because black letter was one of the first Western style typefaces ever. So bridging that with Chinese, which has a far longer type of tradition was an interesting exercise, I thought. I just throw that in there. And also you can see that there's ABCs at the bottom too. And those set of characters are just, let's see, I believe this is just a description, it's not really saying anything, but the first, I think it's gothic, yeah. So the first three characters up here spell gothic. The first three characters up here spell gothic. This image was taken in Singapore, in Chinatown, which is I think the only area of the city where you'll see street signs entirely, or street signs in Chinese as well. I don't know, do you know the name of the Western font here? It's a pretty common one, actually. Exotic, exotic, exotic. Well, anyway, I just thought you see this quite a few places, actually, this Western font, at least I have. I think it's on signage, I think, but maybe. Yeah. But the interesting thing here is that that's, effectively, if you want to break it down, that's a sans serif. So there's no little tips at the end of the letters, but in Chinese, at the bottom, it's a serif font, which means that there's little, you see these little tips here, and this really, if this was a sans serif, it would just be a straight line, but there's little tips here, and it's sort of the same purpose as it does in Western type faces, which is to increase legibility, and given that this is a street sign, I think that makes sense. A similar example is this is in the Hong Kong MTR, effectively the Hong Kong Metro, where they use myriad pro, which is the same font that Apple uses for the English, or for the Western script, but they use a serif Chinese font for the Chinese names of the places. And I think that might have to do with the complex, since Hong Kong uses traditional characters, there's far more strokes and far more publications in the letters, or each of the characters, so using a serif in this context will probably make it easier for people to read each character. So each stroke or sound? No, okay, so each character represents one syllable. Oh, okay. Yeah, so for example here, it's yao ma te, that's yao, that's ma, that's te. Okay, but something like Prince Edward, how would they... What about Jordan? So they have different names, they'll have their own names for, I don't know what the Jordan one is, but... So it would probably be yao ma te. Maybe, yeah. Is there a big Jordan? Okay. Maybe, yeah. No, that's like an actual thing, that's probably what it is, but... Yeah, I mean, a lot of people also would call it yao ma te in the US, call themselves Jordan. Okay, yeah, that makes sense. Prince Edward is tai zi, so... It's probably a translation instead of a translation. Yeah, there's a direct translation. For like Starbucks coffee, for instance, in China is xing ba ke, which means xing means star, and ba ke is just the transliteration of bucks. So yeah. So Chinese is interesting, Chinese is very interesting in that way.  That's because Tsim Sha Tsui here is that Tsim, that's Sha Tsui, but when there's long words like that, they'll just shorten it down to one character, which represents the whole thing, so the Tsim, Tsim Tong, is what that says. This was in Cantonese, so it's a little bit different how they pronounce it, but the writing is the same. So is it that they have a single word, or is it with every other word in it? I mean, they were originally idiomatic, right? So they basically drew everything as a little picture. So there was a picture for the bird, and there was a picture for the house, and a picture for the river, and then you put two pictures together and they made a more complex word. Okay, perfect. Now it's just become letters, but people recognize it mostly it's the sound, which kind of sounds like the original word which it represented many, many years ago. Like when I was in Chinese class, I was asked to choose a Chinese name, and I could choose several of them because of just how I wanted them to sound and as well as what I wanted the characters to represent. So Chinese is interesting because there's just a ton of, there's a ton of English, 5,000, 25,000 characters, but the number of sounds is very limited. I forget exactly, I don't know, you might know this picture, but there's a very small number of, there's just a bunch of repetitive sounds because it's a tonal language, so there's four tones. Sorry? Yeah, well, yeah, it can be very hard to speak. Like for the word for India in Chinese, 印度, and you have to say it like that or else it'll have a different meaning. So, and like Bangalore is Banjialuo, or Banjialuo, I believe it's something like that. So it's, and the characters will have an associated meaning as well. So, and then there's some characters which are meant for usage in foreign words. So like the word for Delhi is the, and both of those characters for Delhi are, you'd only see that, I mean, you'd see that in other words that have a D-E in English. So you'll say the, like I'm trying to think of, another example, I can't think of one or I'll stop my head, but. What's that word? Yeah, maybe. For Denver there would be a syllable that's associated with it. So it'd be like a then, so like then would probably be the associated word. And then there's some words which are just totally different. Like San Francisco is Jiujin Shan, which means Old Gold Mountain because that represents when the Chinese immigrated to the U.S. back in, for the Gold Rush back in the 1800s. So. Yeah. How do the characters actually unique the tone? The characters don't. You just have to know. Oh. Yeah, yeah, literally. So which is why it's just extremely different. It can be very difficult, but like learning the language itself is actually, I found it kind of easy because there's no verb conjugations, there's no, it's very, very simple. So if you say, you don't have to say, I will be going to Microsoft. You can just say, I go to Microsoft or I will go to Microsoft and that's, and there's no two. So it's just like, I go Microsoft. So it's like, it's very simple in that sense. So. So it was basically like I made this thing and this means that we have to follow it. Yeah. Yeah, basically. Someone needed to be positive. Yeah. So yeah, Chinese, I mean, you can go on for hours talking about Chinese because it's probably one of the most interesting and complicated and complex systems out there. Both linguistically and written-wise. And the other interesting thing about Chinese is that the writing takes, the writing, there's a very, very heavy emphasis on the writing. So there's very heavy emphasis on the type, there's very heavy emphasis on the color of your feet, which is far exceeds the emphasis on the speaking just because there's so many, there's so many characters and there's so many meetings that you can pull out of each character. Well, that's not true. There are so many meetings that you can make with a combination of many characters, even though speaking, they might also sound the same. So we can go on with this for a long time. But so that was just kind of a quick overview, just a super quick overview of Chinese. I totally didn't do it justice because just judging by the questions that people are asking. But the next thing I wanted to jump into was Thai, which I think is particularly interesting because of A, here in India, it comes from the Brahmi script. So it's essentially an Indic script. So it's closely related to the Indian writing systems. And it's extremely translatable when you're trying to bridge Western typography with Thai typography or with the foreign, with the non-Western type. Few languages come as close to Thai in making it look very similar. Now, you'll see some examples going forward. So some of the characteristics of the language are left to right, so it's right just like English or any of the Indian languages.  So there's the consonant and you associate the consonant with a vowel and you create a letter. So there's like for the, for in, you know, pretty much all the Indian languages, the ka, there's ka, there's ki, there's ke, there's ku. So it's like that. So it's, Thai has that as well. The writing of Thai contains a lot of loops and holes, kind of like Tamil, for instance. It's different, you'll see it's different. Has it, who's been to Thailand here? I'm sure some of us have been to Thailand. Yeah, a few people have been to Thailand. So you'll notice that the writing system looks very, very Indian. And for the untrained eye, it looks, I mean, this might as well be another Indian script. And there's lots of marks. So unlike Chinese, which doesn't give you any marks for tones, Thai does. So there's tons of different marks that you can use for different sounds and different intonations and reflections that you can make, which is each letter. So this example is a Thai serif. So as you can see, it looks super similar to English, right? Like, I mean, there's, this looks like an S right here. That's a backwards G. I mean, it's, they've really, it looks like they've just taken English and screwed it up a little bit and made it their own, which is effectively what they've done, except they've really utilized what's already worked in English or with Western script and applied it to the, to the complexity, I guess, to the complexities that Thai might have. Is it also the case with Russian? Yeah, yeah, Russian is similar. Yeah. It's going up in English. Well, the script, the Russian script is kind of developed off of the European route anyway. So, but this didn't, which is what's interesting about this, this developed off of an Indian, Indic, not Indian per se, but Indic route. So, for example, the S thing you see here is a R, it's an R. Let's see, there's some other ones. This is just an R right here. And it's, and the way that they've, the way that they have kind of manipulated the alphabet to match up with a Western ideal for a Seraf is interesting. I guess in Western context, this would be considered a modern Seraf because there's a lot of contrast between how thin the Serafs are and how thick the trunks of the letters are. Also, this one was commissioned, you'll find this a lot in typography that fonts are commissioned or typefaces are commissioned based on need for a specific type of project. So this one was for, if my research was correct, it was for the L'Officiel magazine for the Thai version. And the typeface is L'Officiel TH. This is, this typeface is called Krum 3 Simple. And again, it takes cues from Western sans-serafs. So I mean, you see the same type of thing about the bra, which is, it just becomes an S. The, this is a la, but it looks like an a, like a lowercase a almost in English. So you see, so you see the, the way that they have kind of manipulated the language to fit a, to fit a, to fit a concept that has already worked in Western type. Which, which is, I think what makes Thai so interesting because you just, that they've been able to do this with such success and that it actually sometimes, if you look from afar, might look like English in a way, but you know that something's off. This one is called Ikea script, Thai. And if anyone's been to Ikea, you'll see like the sale signs and everything will be written in this type of a, of course, Western writing. But this one in was done for Thai. So this was another example of the flexibility of Thai alphabet. This is just another example of that as well. You can see how easily the letters in Thai match up with the way the letters in English interact with one another. This, this, this project I thought was super interesting and you might know about this because this was in, this was, this project was for the development of the lumen type phase. Okay, yeah. That's what I figured because I knew you went to writing. So, so Ben Mitchell is the guy that created this and basically it was a, it was a type phase to integrate Burmese, which you see on the left, Thai and Latin and no Western writing system as well. The whole idea was to, to have a, and you might know more about this than I do, but to integrate I guess the personalities of each, each type phase or each language into one so that each, whether it's in any in English, whether it's a ya in Thai or a similar character or if similar letter in Burmese it brings off the same kind of, it conveys the same meaning, if you will. They usually initialize it. Yeah, sometimes. I mean you see that here too because the Thai has its own numbering system and a lot of times they use that too. Like say similarly here in India, we have our own numbering systems as well, but you'll often see the Western numbers or the Arabic numbers, I don't know the exact term for it, but in the Arabic numbering system which is ironic I guess. So this one is a, this is just a road sign in Bangkok and this is just an example to show how they've, in Thailand the road signs have been standardized, so they've used, they've used, this is the, I mean you have, I'm sure if you've been to Australia or the U.S. or Canada, this is a type phase that you see on all the road signs. So they've integrated that with a corresponding Thai type phase and this is an example of how that sort of thing can be standardized and applied across the country. So this is another example of melding to languages types together. So this one is Helvetica, you saw earlier there is a Helvetica for Arabic that was developed. There's also a Thai Helvetica and I'm willing to wager that they were able to do a Thai Helvetica because of how translatable and how flexible the Thai alphabet can be with the shapes and the way that Helvetica already operates in a western context. Like this looks like a backwards C but it's a wa in Thai. The next we'll move into perhaps the most interesting, interesting part of the presentation that's Indian type. And the interesting thing about India is that I believe out of there's about 24, there's about 25, the 85% of what I was talking about, 85% of the typefaces in the world that are non-western, or the 85% of the population, sorry.  So you'll see, I mean there's Arabic and then there's all the Indian writing systems and then there's Thai, Burmese, Lao, Khmer, Chinese, Korean and Japanese and that's about it for major in-use today writing systems. The rest of them are Indians so who can name all of these? I think I heard all the names there. No one's in a room, that's what we're all about to bring up. Okay, she's in a room, okay. Yeah, so there's nine major in-use today, official Indian scripts that you see that are official. So there's obviously Dev Nagari, which you use for Hindi and Marathi and everything, company uses it as well, which by far is the lion's share of Indian type, or Indian scripts in the country. Below that is Kanada, I just took that right off in the very close to my house. I thought it was a cute saying, which just says, who can read Kanada here? Just a few, okay. Plastidae Ussidu, which you wrote down. Green is like, green is like, green is like, Plastidae Ussidu means green is, green alone is breath or breathing or something like that. Below that is Tamil, which I just took that picture which I did last week, and there's Bengali, which I have not been able to master yet. Super complicated. Above that, this is Gujarati, and this is Malayalam, Guru Ki, which is essentially Punjabi, Telugu, and Oriya. And Oriya is one of them, which people tend to overlook quite a bit just because of the, I guess, small population, I think there's only about 33 million native Oriyas speakers compared to far more, far higher numbers of each of these. Or far higher influence in the country. So clearly, we're looking at a very diverse, we are the most diverse country, obviously, in a variety of ways, but also in type, and the number of scripts that we have. Interestingly enough, all of these writing systems come from the Brahmish, which was used in Emperor Shokha's time. So Devanagri, and you'll see obviously parallels between Devanagri, and Bengali, and Guru Mukhi, as well as Gujarati. Gujarati almost looks like Devanagri, but don't have to line on top. And then, kind of not Telugu, but very similar. And Malayalam and Tamil kind of look similar as well. Oriya is the only one that really stands out as being really different. But even that is, if you kind of dig deep, you'll see similarities with the other languages. So the state of typography in India today is one which makes me very happy and also kind of sad. I think there is a lack of options. Just given the size of India, and given the scope of things that are happening in the country, there is a lack of official options. I'm official, meaning typefaces that have been developed and created by typographers. It's informal a lot of times, and that's very obvious. When you go outside, you can see guys painting on the side of the road. I guess we consider it informal typography. And a lot of times informal typography is kind of the essence of India because these guys have no real training. There's, and some might, but they really are just, they're just being creative with what they know and what they need to type out for this particular, or what they need to paint out for a particular task. It's impractical, and I think in a lot of times it's the informal type that's the impractical type because it's very flashy and very colorful and very exciting and very cool looking, but it's not really practical for day to day use most of the time in terms of informal type. And the other thing that I think is a reason for why there may be a lack of options is because English is already everywhere. And a lot of people can already read English. So what is the incentive, or where is the need for developing types for typefaces or fonts for each of the nine major Indian scripts? So these are just a couple of quick examples. This one is in Chennai. The top is Tamil, obviously the middle is English, and the bottom is Hindu. And you'll see the creativity. You'll see this particular type of designs on the type a lot of places where these bevel outwards, and it's just a pain to think that these guys use. And that's a cool example of how these guys are just being creative and being cool with the way that they do type. You don't see the same type of excitement with the Tamil or the Urdu, on this one. In fact, I have seen, like, Karnataka, they have done this bevel, and I have done a project that I told you about, I did a lot of photography in Karnataka just trying to find out. So these guys have done a lot of effects, like having two or three layers of, like, of all the type. Yeah, totally, yeah, that's there. I'm just saying in this particular example, it's not there. This is a, I didn't get to read this whole thing, but it'll probably take me a while to read it. But this is, I saw this in a shelter in Sakalishpur, which is, I went there a couple of months ago, and it has something to do with hygiene and bathrooms or family planning or something like that. So if people can, if people can read, if people can wanna read the whole thing through, then they can probably explain that to everybody. But basically the point is that it's hand-painted, it's an official, it's an official kind of notice board type of thing, but it's totally hand-painted, so effectively making it informal in this case. The informality extends to very official places as well. Again, so this is Chennai Central Station, this is the official station side, and it's hand-painted. So that speaks to the informality there as well. Generally, this is like the still-fake stencils. Yeah, well, sometimes, yeah. How do you differentiate between the official and the... How do you know it's hand-painted? Between, it's like a developed, between like, whether it's like a developed type force that has been built by, officially, through, you know, by a typographer versus something that is just put together. And you'll see that, you'll see the others. The next sign over will not have the same type of look to the letters, because it's just been painted. And you've got different ones in each station. Sorry? You've got different stations and you've got different ones in each station. Different ones in each station. Different stations. Yeah, different ones within each station, and of course, in different stations as well. And yeah, what you said was right, it's not standardized. Well, I guess standardization is the key thing, but I was gonna bring that up later, but this is another one in Chennai. This is the bus, the Metropolitan Bus Authority, which has also been hand-painted. But this, if you see on any Chennai bus, we'll use the exact same type of stencil. So, you know, this perhaps you could consider as standardized, and depending on, for this particular context at least. Can anyone read the other one? Yeah. Today. Yeah. No. No. So, Ratna Ramathan is a designer who's, I believe, splits her time between the UK and here. And she made an interesting point, which is that there's a great need in India for basic functional typographic design. And that was, and that comes back to the earlier point that I made that things tend to be flashy, not standardized, very colorful and exciting, but not quite functional and not quite applicable practically. For things, and when I mean practical, practically applicable, I mean things like textbooks or road signs or just very simple things that will make it easy for people to live their lives. But I think with many of the changes that are happening in India and with an increase, I guess, in delivering importance for typographic design, you'll see that there'll be changes in a lot of different ways. These are just four ways. I think as technology changes in the country, for example, there's an entire, I mean the entire, there's a whole generation in India which has skipped the whole landline phone phase and went straight to mobile phones. So, what are they reading on the mobile phones? A lot of these people are not able to read English or they're not able to read Latin script. So, in those types of circumstances, there'll be real value in delivering typography for a local language or, for example, that's readable on a mobile phone. Literacy can be improved by standardizing simple typography, I think. And that's something that we can touch on or that can go on for hours, that's another discussion. But again, to the point with the mobile phones that I made earlier, localization can happen with typography, which means that typography, as it makes sense for each place, can be developed. For example, how Thai brought in Western styles of type and adapted it directly to their local context. So, maybe new fonts will be developed based on the local cultural needs. So, if there's an IKEA that opens up with us, what if there's a need for a, you know, they have an Audrey style IKEA script. It's probably not the case because IKEA's clientele will probably not read English. And standardization, which, as they mentioned, was super, super important. And I think standardization is one of the things that drives practical applicability for typography. So, as you see development happening in India, you'll see, for example, there's BDA boards, for instance, which most of them use the same type. Banggood development authority. And you'll see the similar thing in Mumbai and Delhi as well, and Delhi road signs all have the same type in English, Punjabi, Devnagar, and Urdu. So, that sort of standardization, as it reaches beyond the metros and into the villages and into different areas of the country, will create an avenue for typography to flourish for Indian type. I found this interesting, this is in Singapore. And Singapore has standardized a tumult type face. The Bengali is just there because of that specific locale, which is in little India, and there's a lot of bum on the issue of people there in that area. But basically, it's interesting that Singapore has standardized the Indian type face, and we have yet to see such a level of standardization in most places within India. Like I said, Delhi and other places have it, but most of it is don't. Like I said earlier, practical applicability for, oops, practical applicability for type is key for the reasons I mentioned earlier. And one foundry, I guess, that creates type types, which I think that I admire a lot, and is one of the major ones here in the country, is Ahmedabad, and it's the Indian type foundry, which has created a set of a variety of different type faces for different languages, and they've touched on, let's see, they've not heard of Gujarati, Guru Muki, Bengali, and Tamil, as well as Latin script as well. So this looks super simple, not that exciting, but this is a type of type that we'll see, I think we need more of in the country too, as India develops and as India becomes a world power. The other interesting thing about this is that the first, I believe it's currently not here at the top, but it was at the Mahakumar Island this year, Life Boy did a, I don't know, did you see that? Yeah. It wasn't a project, it was Co-Hindered. Okay, maybe it was Co-Hindered, but basically it was an Indian type foundry, typeface, that was used by Life Boy to stamp chapatis that they were serving at the Mahakumar Island saying that you should wash your hands before eating. So that's just a creative way to use a very easy to read, practically applicable typeface for that particular campaign. So basically think of all the other cool stuff that you can do to reach the masters with basic, very easy to read typography that's practical and readable. So here's the world map again with all the countries and scripts together. So just to touch on again, so with one third of the world's land mass, it's 50% of the world's typography is non-western or 50% of the world's, or 80, I forgot the numbers, but basically what third of the world's land mass holds the vast majority of typefaces, 85% of the typefaces in the world. So as these countries develop, especially ours here in India, the development of new typefaces is crucial I think and is something that we can all look forward to. And it's something that's gonna be a signifier I think for the development of India going forward. So basically that's basically about it for what I have to say today. What's the other color of the top of North America? Last question. That's, that's, sorry? No, no, it's none of it. No, no, that was, that's the none of it region of Canada where it's, they use, they don't use western typeface, but it's a very, it's a very small, minor languages only, it's by a few thousand people, so hence, I didn't include small languages in this presentation, or small, you know, types, typefaces are type or scripts that are used by a small, very small number of people. So yeah, any questions? Thank you.


It's up everybody! It's showtime! Time! Oh, but I'll just gotta be a less painful way to get my attention. Merry Christmas, Sharon. So, isn't that a mistletoe? Uh-huh. Another dinosaur, a leaf eater. That way, I can play Dominant Predator. Quiet, everyone! Quiet! Molly's first present is... Way to go! I don't know! I'd better save! Come in, Braconsons! Andy is now opening his first present! Buzz! Buzz! Lightyear, you're not worried, are you? Wee! No, no, no, no, no, no. Are you? Possibly get. That is worse than you.


Hello and welcome to Digital Freethought Radio Hour on WOZO Radio 103.9 LP FM right here in Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday May 10th 2020, and I'm Larry Rhodes doubter 5 and as usual we have our co-host wombat on the phone with us Hello wombat and sings my song My save you died for me Oh Great great boys quadrice Bob And our guest today are joy woods Chad the in what Chad's not here, but Boudreaux is and red pirate Higgs Hey, hey Leave anybody out. I don't think so Digital Freethought Radio hours talk radio show about atheism free thought Rational thought humanism and the sciences and conversely. We also talked about religion religious faith God's holy books and superstition superstition almost well, I guess I did miss it If you get the feeling you're the only non-believer in Knoxville while you're just not there are several atheists Rethinking rationalist groups that exist right here in Knoxville And we'll be telling you how you can connect with them right after the mid-show breaks Did you know that there was a streaming call in? Atheist video show broadcasting right here in Knoxville. Did you know that? Well, I bet has been for 10 years. I have not been while I tried to watch it I only got to the second episode. I feel really bad about the Tigers I feel like if you make a show about how Tigers are exploited But you're kind of exploiting the people who are exploiting the Tigers You're still at the end of the day exploiting Tigers. I can't watch a show with you a hundred percent Okay, I'm gonna watch with her atheist Colin video show One of these days you'll find it and we'll be telling you how Right after the mid-show break so you can check that out. Remember if you don't have an atheist group in your town Start one nice easy as that If you'd like to interact with us during the show go to Facebook and search for our digital free thought radio hour And use the messaging function to send questions or comments Won't that what do you have for us today as far as a topic? I got a lot of stuff I want to talk about but actually I want to fill this one out to Eric Boudreau you had a really cool topic that you want to bring up and I want the freestyle on that so we might Spit in what we're about to drop down today Certainly, and I love love the way you characterize my question to make it even more fitting for this group so so the idea kind of spawned from Being on Facebook, which I know many of us are doing too much of and Insights it incites bad emotions. Yeah thoughts and arguments for me It's a cycle between Twitter Facebook and then reddit and then I was like I hate all these places And then I just go to the next place and I'm just in a circle. I'm like why am I wasting time? Yeah, it's all same thing But some some friends of mine some intelligent friends of mine post these off the wall Crazy things now I say that because it seems crazy to me, but to them it probably isn't crazy But I will you will see posts that make claims that just Don't even echo anything of scientific reasoning or backup or evidence But people are clinging to these thoughts and these these things and memes and they're sharing them and other people are buying into it Well, the example so well what one was Top-10 list or however many of of things happening currently with COVID-19 and basically saying do I think it kills people? Yes. Do I think? The hospitals are being overrun. Yes, and it goes down this list and it just gets No, they're trying to virus. Yes. Yeah. Yeah, they're trying to they're trying to say I agree with these things But then do you think that the government is taking away our liberties? Do you think that the media is conspiring to create this? Politicalization of it just kind of goes off the rails from there and it keeps going and I and I think your point Wombat was how do you how do you engage with these people on Facebook or how do you gauge with them at all people who are your friends? But are posting kind of nutty stuff It's almost like what's right word for it like snopes like and when someone posts something and you put a snopes link on there saying Hey, this has been debunked. He just don't stop posting this. It's you're just it's wrong and and they get mad and and how so so I'm I'm out of ideas. I've tried to engage with people before and it just makes them mad Well, tell me what didn't work and then Learn from that. Well, I guess I I've I've found that one friend in particular hated the fact that I challenged them Openly on Facebook, you know, like hey, you should have private messaged me this and I think they're they're embarrassed But you know, they're the ones making the open claim on Facebook So I didn't I didn't think I'm I'm not allowed to openly disagree with them Another way I tried to engage someone recently is someone posted a Response to the the pandemic the video. I don't know much about it, but it's another what is this thing that people are referencing man This is this is the fourth time I've heard about it this week. I Don't want to know what it is, but I also want to know what it is just But I don't want to know about it. It's it's the Sam Harris Of coronavirus stuff.  What is this portmanteau that you're putting together all I know about it is it's some anti-vaxxer doctor who I think has been kicked out of the scientific community for posting for publishing erroneous data and and and faked data and change data And it keeps getting removed from YouTube or other places and people are mad about It because they think the media is pulling down this real science that the scientists don't want to show pressing Yeah theories Yeah, and my my reaction to that is you know, hey this this whoever this lady is she doesn't need to convince us non Non-experts she needs to convince the other experts and if she can't do that I but we shouldn't give it any time of day. I think yeah, but I think I Wish that was a majority mindset And but at the same time I my question would be is it really beneficial and productive to delete it? You know, why not just let people like us comment on it and put, you know, Snopes links and When you delete it it just makes a lot of people won't think that's kind of shady and they kind of a more drawn to it People people don't like facts The thing about it is if they post it on Facebook, they're inviting comment I mean, that's you know, they unless they have comments turned off Then if that's the case then you can just bypass and go on but if they post it and leave comments open They're asking for it. They're asking for you to comment on it.  Of course, I can post it here I don't need to put these safe walls and they also aren't used to getting challenged on the internet because the internet very much caters to you as a as a potential customer of ads Such that if I look up Apple I've done this before I've looked up Apple on my computer And I get the company and I get the stock price that's associated with it And my friend will look up Apple and he gets the fruit and my other friend will look up Apple and it's because it's apples of fruit Yeah, like people are like what what apples are fruits like absolutely Larry. Why are you giving me that confused look? Yeah, because Google's like well you're a person of blank and blank your mail your blah blah blah blah We know what you want when you say this and so the whole internet more or less is looking through your cookie history and being like When you put in this weird gibberish keyword phrase We already know what server to pull the information from and we know what you're gonna look at next and we know what you're gonna Probably gonna buy next so we're gonna fill these ads out here at the right time and the internet just becomes this place Where you're always happy because you're always seeing what you want and then here comes, you know, Boudreau's little Counter claims like actually here are some facts that show that you're wrong Not in my world gets out of my domain.  Do I need to do that here? Do I need to lock my doors? Gary I'm wondering like is Canadian Facebook any more polite because you might be our last bash Absolutely, yeah, and I find actually in this in this, you know the small town that I live in It's very a surrogate.  So Yeah, yeah, Joey, how do you feel about the idea of you had mentioned that you wanted you didn't want the video to be deleted is there ever a point in time where it might be good to Control how media is being delivered like if there was for example the video Could have further drive people to do more crazy things or cause hate crimes or I don't know whatever Is there a line is there a line where it's like it was probably a good move to delete it at this point Like we're just not in the mood where we need more inflammatory information at this point. I See it's a very it's it's it's not a very black and white topic because it goes down the road of freedom of information And it's almost just that my only response was bees. I just wish it didn't have to be deleted I wish it just nobody would be interested in it because people would know People would do their own research and know that that's just bullshit. Mm-hmm. I'm sorry. Yeah, it's okay Yeah, I just I just So I don't really know because at what what's the motive behind it at what point, you know, you're trying to You know protect people from themselves or protect protect people from false information I mean, how far does that go and who's to say what's false information? And that's like we have the freedom to do or shouldn't it would it be best for us all to have the freedom to do our own research? I mean if it you know Even if even if a lot of us go down the wrong road, it's just I don't know It just enters into a grander topic about you know, what what power should a corporation have and what how what kind of power should a government have over People to you know, it goes down down to that Just so I actually look I actually looked at that top 10 list and at the start It seemed like it was building up some yes momentum, which is like, hey, do you have two thumbs? I have two thumbs Sure. Hey, do you breathe outside? I breathe outside. Is there a virus going on? Yes, and I'm like, yeah, yeah, yeah And then it was like started getting you're right, Bujo They were started getting a little like squirmy with the words because I was like Shouldn't I keep you agreeing with this? And I think the one of the things was like is American liberties being or American rights being violated by You know, like the the idea that you have to shelter in home and I was like, I mean I Understand the idea of like we have a right to protest and go outside But like not if it's absolutely detrimental to Like if you go out and die from a virus that you can't control I think like or kill others. Yeah.  Maybe there's a just think about it for like three seconds So I'm gonna say no here and then as you went down further and further was like no no No No, so You know, that's a list of ten different things maybe six things that I don't agree with Where do you even begin to start with as far as like your response to like wow? I just saw you post this How can I even formula response? Boudre? What would you even how would you even begin? What's what's what's the response? This is where I mean we've got the the the mind trust here I was hoping I was hoping we could answer this question because I really am my my instinct now is to Is to continue to be friends with this person and not say anything? Hmm. I mean, I that's that's where I feel like I'm stuck I want to I will say the other example I gave was someone posting the pandemic video and Someone has had posted a kind of debunking video of that and I and I and I said thank you Thank you for sharing this. I really need this out there because a lot of people Joey as you're saying that mean that they don't have They don't have I think the the capability of Detecting that it's wrong. So they're buying it. So so in a response I just put out a video that debunks that that junk video and I tagged the person that shared the pandemic video first Okay in it and said yeah, thanks for posting this a lot of people need to see this really smart people are buying into this stuff What do you think tagged friend? Zero response from him zero But on his own post he was he was plenty willing to argue with me up and down Yeah, you're you're a social media wizard What what is your take on like all of this and how would you know about responding the main response? I would think is that the cone of coronavirus doesn't respect anybody's rights. I Mean, there's just no rights involved I mean if you get exposed to it whether you're inside or outside or somebody outside ignores The threat because they say that they have rights to commingle and then go Go visit their their grandparents at a nursing home or something and that starts a pandemic in the inside the nursing home That's just totally responsible. Yeah, I mean and and the rights go out the window We have to there there are levels to your rights and the level of the right to societal Health I guess is is higher than your personal right sure like the idea of a soul part of the social contract, right? Exactly, it's my well-being that we really have the rights for and if you're doing something that harms the well-being Even if you're exercising rights, you're not really going towards the foundation why we have rights in the first place, right? The crux kind of all the crux with this argument though go for it go for it sure some people are claiming claiming using science That It's not true It's not having the death rate and all the all the other stuff that we're hearing so if if the question is We're telling you to stay home But your liberal scientists your brainwashed liberal scientists are lying to us about the problem now And again, I'm trying to play devil's advocate here because obviously I agree with science in this case now the argument is We are not Trying to tell you to stay home because of the dangers of spreading this thing We're telling you to stay home because we're lying to you about this and it's some power trip or control Well, I think that it's not just the power trip. This is a Russian year and people congregate Town halls they they go voting. They do all kinds of things. It's a political activity Which is a protected political activity to congregate. It's right by the Constitution, right? Some people say that this is all a hoax to keep us from congregating to keep us from Being politically active during the election here from Occupy in the streets My main issue with this is just that I mean the government is not their hands aren't clean and I get this the the The suspicion of things but if you look at the power grabs that governments do There's profit involved in in their power grabs and I fail to see What the profit is? Yeah, what is it? There's a power grab going on. It's just like what what is there? Well, what's the point? What's the long-term power play? Well, yeah, well the power if you have power you can generate profit if you lose power You you lose the ability to generate profit, you know from being in in office So, I mean, that's where the conspiracies theory comes from that you can't congregate Like no economy Why would they do this in the first place? Well, I see I see a failure I See a failure in the argument that it's preventing us from congregating because we're congregating We're online here five of us from all different parts of the country or North America here You know, it's really actually driving us together in in some respects because I'm having now more conversations with people I am more inclined to Is, you know empathize with or sympathize with in in terms of you know Subject in content and all that kind of stuff as opposed to just listening to the who's available, right? I don't and I don't think I think in the same epistemological way where we always try to think of a better way to think We can think of better ways to protest in the circumstances that we are currently in if there was a volcano outbreak like the movie volcano Amazing move. You got to watch it. It's amazing. I just watching all the old 90s movies like Dante's Peak or something No, it's like Armageddon, but cheese comes from the earth Yes So like if there's bulk if there's literally lava all throughout the streets and it's burning cars and melting everything You want to go outside and protest like I I hate lava like this is bad because No, let's just think about this a little bit and like take the high ground and find better places to do this safely We can still protest, but let's do it in a way That's very safe that make sure that we still exercise our rights But we aren't causing needless harm, which is the main reason why we have these rights in the first place And if it if it if we can do if we can still protest and if we can still congregate Then maybe we don't have to have a picket and be out on the street where we're coughing on each other to protest Maybe there's better ways to do this and I think yeah because of that. I don't think if there's an infringement on my rights I still feel like I have the ability to do all the protesting congregating that I need to do as Gary just pointed out we're congregating right now, but there's a better way to do it and it goes back to our people willing to Critically think for just a moment and and come to that conclusion on their own or are they more inclined to just hear someone say this is violating my rights and Allow the emotion to find a connection with something that's not necessarily based on reason. I Feel like we it's very easy to fall into those traps over and over again, right? I have this concern that there's something a little deeper going on and I mentioned this over the Messenger it it almost seems like they're looking for a fight like they've been all like a lot of these guys that are You know going to the protest with a k-47. Oh It's almost like they've been waiting like they've been waiting for an opportunity to show their patriotism and pronouncing it in English. No, you said it in French. So like Gary was laughing. He understands. He's like, oh, yeah finally The show that It's just but it just just doesn't seem to fit. It almost seems like I don't know.  It's just we're gonna I should laugh at that but you know There are some people who probably believe guns could solve that problem as well like it I would never take I never take the opportunity to say like there's gonna be someone out there. Who's just like I I have min maxed This is just very quick tangent. There are some people who like soda carrots school Cars and like maybe basketball, right? And then there are some people who just like one thing and they're all about that one thing and sometimes guns are for that One person. They're just like I'm all about guns I've min maxed all my skills all my intelligence points everything into guns. So if there's a virus out what else I do I'm gonna have a gun exactly. There's a virus outbreak I got a gun if there's a zombie outbreak gun if there's a anarchy in the streets gun if I need a Help deliver a baby tomorrow. I got a gun. I'm someone's gonna something happens. I got my gun on me step one everything else step two There's that saying when all you have is a hammer everything looks like a nail exactly. Yeah, and so the idea of Resolving her virus with an AK-47 is very funny, but I imagine there's has to be at least two people out there who are like That's a good idea Larry. Thank you for giving it to me All right, so we got five minutes left before we wrap up how about this just as a quick wrap-up session We're gonna be talking about Crazy things that we've heard on the internet and how we can approach them in a better way and does anyone have let's see Joey Larry you like I said you are a social cat You've been on the internet Have you heard any crazy things on the internet like we're delighting to the coronavirus Panic and and and people are scared and they're trying to figure out like like here's a conspiracy that I've fallen into Not nothing came comes to mind like somebody else answer if you will and I'll think about it and see I I had anything I've literally had a DM to me and my sister from one of my old English teachers Saying that we need to cover our gas exhausts because that's where the virus is coming from and so there was instructions With how much Kleenex that you need and a rubber band to put over your exhaust To keep the virus from coming out. Just give them a potato And I saw that message and I and my response to that and this happened like maybe three weeks ago my responses what virus And she was probably like are you serious and at that point I just had to like archive the conversation I was just like I can't deal with that today. I'm sorry. I'm sorry But that was a teacher that I've had in the past so like I don't think anyone is and I No one's immune. No one's immune. So I'm always wondering in my own head What kind of biases I'm carrying around with me and those are gonna be the most interesting ones, of course, right? Yeah, yeah All right, I'd say we're at the bottom of the half hour Larry. Why you take us out? Okay, this is digital free thought radio hour and w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM Right here in Knoxville, Tennessee, and we'll be right back after this short message 103.9 FM wozo digital free thought radio hour simply the best Nice, I like it. I love it. I love it Hey, we got an ad this time the ad is for soap. Hey, do you like saying wordy dirties? Do you have problems not cursing when you told not to I have the solution for you? It's called soap you put it in your mouth It's amazing and it saves the world editing time. Isn't that amazing?  All right back to the show Welcome back. I'm daughter five. This is digital free thought radio hour and w o zio radio 103.9 LP FM right here at Knoxville, Tennessee Today is Sunday May 10th 20 20th. Welcome back to the second half of the show Let's talk about the free thought groups that you can join here in Knoxville first. There's the atheist society of Knoxville ASK was founded in 2002 or in our 18th year We have over a thousand members now and you can join us online at Knoxville atheists org or go directly to meetup it's a meetup group and Join the meetup group searching for Knoxville atheists It's just that simple by the way, if you don't live in Knoxville and you should go to meet up and search for a group in your town Don't find one That's right another large free thinking group here in Knoxville the rationalist of East Tennessee Ret can be found at rationalist org Go there and click on upcoming events to find out what they're up to Earlier in the show. We said we talked about Knoxville. So atheists call in TV show Wait, we have an I fee is calling TV show. Yeah, it could happen It's been going on for ten years here in Knoxville It's been going out on the community TV radio of a TV station However, this year we've changed to YouTube format so that we can do our own thing there without having to pay this local studio Go to YouTube and search for three words free thinkers United coalition of Knoxville Okay, four words. Oh my remember you can find archives of their show on YouTube where a fan has been posting them Also, if you're interested in becoming involved with the TV show or this radio show You can come to an ask meetup ret meeting or just talk to us about it. Go on Facebook Look for digital free thought radio hour and leave us a comment With us on the show. We have a wombat. Oh, I'm a wombat Joey. We have Boudreau and Dread Pirate Hicks I'm pick up the comments and let us know what you think Okay, so we were talking about Conspiracy theories no Yeah, like what do you do when your friend starts posting crazy stuff? Oh, yeah It's book and then how can you start that conversation with them to? Hopefully build the bridge for them to get back to the land of reason because you obviously like this person You care about them and you've never seen them post this way. So maybe it's better Easier to get them back to a more copa static state of mind the one that you know attracted you to the first thing I do is look it up in scopes and then give them the link. I'll look it up. Somehow give them information that The debunks it All you can do and it scopes superior to like say like Wikipedia or just like a you mean snopes, right? Snopes Snopes, right? Yeah. Ah, okay. Okay. Okay. Okay website Bunking what also depends on how well, you know, somebody and if they are amenable Maybe they're at there in any kind of mindset to have a civil discussion about anything or that particular topic So and I think the biggest thing is don't Don't add hominem.  It's stay calm Don't panic and proceed calmly right answer claims with facts. Yeah, so here So if I was I help me out here and I try not to get involved in internet arguments in the first place But I found that when I'm doing my se I never make a comment directly at the person who's holding the belief or a comment directly at the conclusion that they have I'm only interested in that thread that's connecting the two and I'll always always ask questions about How did you arrive at this conclusion? Because if it came there reasonably, I'll believe whatever the conclusion is So I don't care about the conclusion and I don't care who's given it to me I just care about that method and so if someone says something crazy I'll be like, how did you come to that conclusion? And if they say I read in a fortune cookie that gives me all the grounds I need to be like our fortune cookies reliable. Is this the best way to come to it? Is there a better way? What's a better way to come to this same conclusion than this one that you're using right now? And until then until we have that better way Why are we putting so much confidence in this one particular method? But I don't know if that works in a Facebook setting like I don't think a lot of people are willing to have that extended kind of conversation And that's the disadvantage that I've noted when I when I'm about to post on a comment thread because I know I don't have the time to invest and I know the way how I speak and like the Temporer and the syncopation that I'm using and the body language that I'm using won't translate Well when someone's reading my words in their head and and putting on them Maybe they make a nasal like Tyrone said this and I don't I can't respect this voice It's like no, don't say it like that put my put the base in baby put that what's that guy's name? Who's the guy very who's the guy who helped us set up the tent who is like the famous atheist dude? You know I'll Seth Andrews Yeah, that guy the guy who's always up on the mic whenever he's doing this podcast But when he's helping us and when he's helping us set up a ten is like hey guys you need some help This guy Hey, I'll help you guys out. Thanks. I hold my tape recorder. It looks like okay. Anyway, I'm back to being Seth Andrews Hopefully he doesn't follow us I would theorize that you know, sometimes the insertion of emojis helps to Relate some of the justiculations that might not be translated over by what you just simply write Hmm, just put a smiley face or a wink or a part you kind of triggered me now Because there are very few black emojis and I'm tired of being represented by a yellow Simpsons character Well, I want I want my emojis now. This this is beautiful. Ty doesn't have an iPhone and iPhones iOS app launched a long time ago the ability to pick yours your skin tone every You can be like you can be like light-skinned brown. Yeah, kind of brown really dark. Really? Yep. Oh, wow We need that's what we need I'm tired of like hey, that's not my thumbs up. Who's thumbs up is that that's that doesn't look like my hand Who's not my question Facebook are all blue. Oh, yeah, that's right Maybe it's been a while. I'm not blue either. I screw there are some blue people out there They're like hey in Kentucky there are yeah, it's true. Yeah, there's a whole family full of them. They're just sad They're blue in the last I guess So with that information like with the idea of like how can you really address an epistemology over the internet? Like what's the best way of doing that Larry? What do you think? I? just been doing it just you know a finding facts like googling it from good sources and I'll try to Approach him with a knowledgeable Orientation I guess I should say and just address the claims and and debunk them as best I can That's only publicly or do you like try to find one publicly? I mean because all of my stuff if I can do any of it I try to do publicly The reason being if you if you don't convince that person the other people reading it may Understand where you're coming from and be convinced Yeah, what do you think what's a good way to address epistemologies over the internet with some Well, I think pretty much in the same way that that daughter five was saying Again, I just try to proceed as calmly as possible and search as many links to reliable incredible sources of information and Just try to make a good argument What do you think is the likelihood of any of those links being clicked and then processed in the same way that someone who's biased against that information Will interpret but this is the and again to share Larry's point is that it's not necessarily that the person to whom I am Responding with these links is the person to click right the person who might otherwise be swayed by what these persons are saying I Have not yet been convinced of his His truth that yeah, that's a significant nuance point You're not trying to have a conversation with the person you're talking to you're really talking to an audience You're really debating you're not having a messy conversation. That's right So you're really not talking about the epistemology at all But the nature of the question that I'm asking is I found it to be ridiculously effective to talk about the epistemology rather than Throwing out kept back counter fact back counter fact back counter fact on a conclusion that may absolutely be completely Incongruous like that's not a true conclusion But if we're just fact counterfacting and allowing people to come in and cherry pick whatever they want to support their own biases Isn't there a more effective way to have these kinds of conversations that I felt like with SC there is It's about talking about the methodology, but how do you have a methodology conversation on the internet? Right and that's something I haven't been able to really nail down either. Here's what I'm hearing Ty Let me know if I think this is a way to approach it. All right, you engage with the the person making a claim that you disagree with Maybe you private message them and say hey, I I Don't agree with what you're saying and I have reasons, you know, or however you set it up But maybe you ask them Can we do a zoom call 15 minutes I love that just get on zoom the two of us hash this out and no recording Yeah, if we come up with something that we both agree on let's post it on Facebook. Oh, that's good. Oh, that's good That's excellent. That's a great idea. That's really good. Yeah now because now there's no audience You are talking to each other. There's some humanity there I know like we were over a screen, but I can't I can't spend more time looking up why you're wrong Then listening to you and hearing you right so and I hear you for what you're saying and I think yeah Pull it out of that ring pull it out of that arena and get it to more just on a personal level where you can talk to each other And then if they both agree post it back on the internet and be like, hey I just had this conversation with this guy who posted this stuff. This is what we came to as a result. Well, Boutreau Have you done this before several times or? Is something that you're thinking about doing? Have I done the zoom chat? Yeah, I got an idea. I have not yet that I'm just inspired by my ties wisdom to Figure that's inspiring. That's a really good idea. I like that It shows that you care, you know, like it's not it's a good idea.  They won't change in no matter what you think and then they start Coming down on you at homonyms. I was wondering how often that would happen face to face I don't know I think face to face would be a lot harder compared to just writing someone off in a world of cancel culture that we live in right now It's so much easier to just hit a race when you see a word you don't like but when you're engaged in a conversation with someone like I I'm invested in this conversation and Wherever it goes, I'm willing to get to its end and then after that will be after but I'm here now and I can't Just push a button and be like, well, I'm just gonna go. He's like, oh silly if I do that Yeah, plus it has a benefit of you're getting to know that particular person in case you see them online again You might be able to be more friendly. Yeah More inclusive, I guess and I like the idea of posting the video afterwards and being like, hey We had a really cool talk. Would you mind if we just share that with people? That could be your podcast dude Where's Chad why isn't he on here It's like, hey, just talking to people on Facebook about stuff and I just want to see can we hash this out?   We haven't come with the name Herb and Street, baby Yeah, yeah, it's right behind you Oh, yeah, yeah Yeah, that's a good name. Yeah, it would be good. Joey looks like he's wants to say something my bad my bad I was just well, I was just wondering if there's kind of like a a pre-se conversation to Kind of gauge where a person's mind and personality is to see number one, are they capable of grasping the tools that se can give them or And number two, are they willing to to use them at all? Um, because I was I'm thinking Could it just be it can be It can be very unproductive to to get into a conversation and especially an se conversation and with somebody who just Is just shut down and not willing so i'm just wondering if there's if there's like some some questions that we could ask or um A conversation a pre-conversation we can have with somebody to kind of engage where they're at Um cognitively and it's not closed minded. They are before we Even begin on a specific plane So just one one point Actually just two quick points when i'm doing se I always make sure that my perspective is not I'm here to teach this person someone something or prove to them why they're wrong my mindset's always I'm trying to understand how you're right and we and if we can have honest conversation Then we can work on that together And if we end up getting to the at conclusion of how I figured out how you're right then I'll believe whatever's there But if we can't get there working together that says way more By the virtue of us working together trying to figure out how you're right and we couldn't get anywhere Then me saying well, look you're wrong because we couldn't get to this conclusion And so when you have the mindset of i'm not trying to train you i'm not trying to teach you and i'm not trying To advocate for anything i'm just trying to have an honest conversation with you And i want to find out how you're right That is the mindset that you should have with for se my opinion And then all you need at that point is just someone who's willing to have an honest conversation with you And if you don't have that you can't do se but that also says something more about the person who's not willing to engage with you That's not your problem. That's a that person's problem sort of thing and I and in those kinds of situations There's only so much you can do often I've tried just giving them the board and the marker board and be like why you ask me questions And you can see what I was trying to do and if we just switch roles And you can feel like you're more in control this will you'll see exactly like the kind of Conversation that I want to have and you can ask me about anything you want and we can just build ourselves up to that Hey, why don't we switch that question just slightly to making it more focused on the methodology rather than just strictly targeting the conclusion And then at the end of it It's like you want to swap back or do you just want to go back and forth and Move to this new topic that I want to talk about at the beginning you could totally do that too Gary you look like you want to say something sorry for making those points extended But what do you think about that as a mindset for doing se since you've done it? I think I think it's awesome Um, it's building rapport, right? You know a big part of it and I was just actually typing out rap apports rules Are you familiar with that? Remember? Rap apports rules Uh, it's it's about how to best engage someone in a conversation with whom Rather than a you know a heated debate your remember I brought up this thing When you're saying rapport, do you mean rap port? Yeah, English word rap port you're saying with a french accent. I don't understand what you're saying Rap port you guys know what I'm talking about. I mean, I have a rapport name. This is someone's named Oh, I thought you were saying like I'm trying to have a rap port with someone who's like, oh, no That's no it's not a rapport a rap port Rappaport Yeah, that's how we say that there you go. Now. So I did say rapport building rapport There's my french Canadian coming out and then there's rap apports rules Which is about like steel manning a person's your interlocutor's argument Right and trying to you know present them to themselves and the best possible light possible So that they are more inclined to Have an you know Applescent conversation as a yeah, like here's the best case scenario if this was the case Do you still see chinks in the armor basically? Yeah, exactly. And it's actually like I said about steel manning It's about putting the other it's putting your interlocutor's argument In such a good way that they wish they could have presented it to you that way Yeah, yeah. Yeah, and that's and you build a lot of respect From your interlocutor that way. Yeah, it should demonstrates that you're really paying attention And you're trying to Give them As much benefit As possible before you destroy them, you know, who's really good at that by the way, right? Who's really good at steel manning matt del huntie. I don't know I fall asleep so Before we were talking about like how when you're having conversations, you're more like interested in just getting the posts and and throw them out there and then just Trying to persuade people who are watching the argument happen Have better counter a higher standard of counter arguments to deal with those guys Have you found other people responding to those links? And in a positive or productive way, like has that been a helpful way of resolving? Yeah, generally when I when I post like that, uh, somebody's got a erroneous view or false view of something and I and I bring over like a Snopes article or or google something and put it to them Usually what I see is like two or three people will come right behind me supporting what I just said Very few Well few anyway People will come up there and support the false view But I find that the people that do support the false view are take a real umbrage With me trying to correct it and will resort quickly to ad hominem attacks Which I can just ignore Larry have you had people throw the the business at you that oh snopes is, you know corrupt liberal media anyway, and I mean snopes doesn't matter because they'll You've heard that. How do you react to that? Oh, especially if you use like wikipedia and they come back with the conservapedia article I didn't know there was a thing like that. Oh, yeah, and there's there's a there's starting a new snopes thing Which supports the conservatives, which of course is false based Anybody who's a fact based like I would say media company You know, we just go to the the usual sites that support fact versus fiction But if you're a strong right wing conservative evangelical, that's not going to work for you because the facts Are definitely a lot liberal leaning As they say But what are you going to do? I mean this the facts around our side. Yeah, just work with what you got I just hate the idea of like a a conservative Fact world and a non conservative. Yes, I agree with you 100% like that Um, joey, where do you see this going say like five years from now? Like is this going to get better or is this going to get worse as new technology continues to you know come into our mindset and world being well, I think it um I think with as with most things it just it depends on us It depends on and how we adapt to it and how we choose to use it as long as people Well, guys continue to do what we do Which is focus on what we as individuals and we as the groups that we identify with Have power over and just do our best with whatever comes Including new technology. So that would be my response to that dread. How do you feel about this and any points in general? um No, no, you just posted something that's I just set up the perfect I just set up the perfect ball on the tee for you Well, I guess I I didn't quite get the question Do you have points in general for how to have a good uh means of communication with people? Okay, any tips that you would recommend That you may have recently posted. Yes or no, maybe Maybe I'm literally hallucinating Like that's the slowest I can throw the ball gary. It's going to fall to the ground It hit me right in the head. He did a pump. No Do you understand the question because I feel like my answer you got you got it joey We're waiting for dreads to like come to shore. Okay. So so I did I posted the uh, wrap the ports rules Uh, and it's about uh, you know attempting to re-express your target's position So clearly vividly and fairly that your target says thanks. I wish I had thought of putting it that way Secondly you should list any points of agreement Especially if they are not matters of general or widespread agreement So that way you're clear on what the points are I dig it And then you should mention anything you have learned from your target And then finally and this is after you've done all the other three That you are permitted Then to then introduce any word of rebuttal or criticism Cool Hey, I'm also going to throw another thing out too. I think things are constantly getting better And there's always going to be the growing pains of like Ah, man, I can't believe this is happening. I can't believe this is such a big problem I can't believe there's such a huge mess to fix Recognizing that mess being aware of the problem knowing that there's uh, uh an issue to be resolved is the first step to getting the problem resolved And we've spent maybe A lot of millennia thinking I only need to know what's going on in my own town I only need to go on know what's going on in my own village in my own family in my own house And now we have this world view that's opening up to the world where everyone's staying communicating with each other And we're seeing Things that we don't like and that's a good thing because now we know what we can fix And that's always going to be the growing pain of like man This is such a daunting problem But we fixed bigger problems before and now it's just the idea of like, okay What can we do now to resolve this? We're gonna we're gonna make some mistakes But we're gonna find out what works the best and just keep moving on from there. I think be really cool All right, uh closing out the show pretty soon. How about we do a roll call eric? Would you mind? posting me the link to your music video again and then also plugging it and uh podcast news What's going on with you in the future? What should we check out? Yeah, yeah, I'll post the link here here in a second, but made a fun little video with my daughter on A cover of an 80s song from men at work. Nice using covet 19 lyrics and it's very kentucky specific. I threw a couple good shout outs to our governor. Yeah And uh, yeah, it's fun and uh, joey I'm still I still want some feedback from you because you're the comedian. I want to know If I'm if I'm working as a lyricist or not, but All right. Are you talking about the the video that you did about the governor? Yeah, thank you. I very much enjoyed it. I think you did a great job. Cool. Nice. Nice. Hi grace He's post the link. I'll put the link on here in a minute. But yes, uh, I keep I keep threatening that we are Chad and I Chad the paler and I are gonna put our podcast together. I'm gonna take your advice Ty We're gonna we're gonna just take what we got Um, I think and get it gotta let the baby go. Yeah, just gotta gotta let it float. It's gonna be all right And then I also think a follow-up of doing those conversations with Facebook people would be really cool too. Yeah I gotta build up the courage for that. I don't know if I got the courage to start with your friends Do you already do with people in the summit? Just be like, hey summit guy. Do you want to? Yeah, I'll I'll volunteer I have crazy stuff. I think about all the time. So like, yeah, I That's what we're here for. Yeah good Dredd Where are you at? Where can we find you? Well, of course, you can find me on my youtube channel mind pirate P Y R A T E Nice, um, but I did want to mention that I uh, I connected with the executive director or The person that runs the show of at our local college And I've asked about the possibility of running a short course there on um, critical thinking and Skepticism She is all over it. Um So of course, there's a lot of resources over at skeptic dot skeptic dot org michael schermer skepticism 101 the baloney detection tool kit So I think I'm gonna put something together here So once college opens up We'll get something rolling and that using that as a means to sort of See what interest there is locally for people to you know Have these have these s e discussions as well I dig it's kind of like generating some uh, some interest to to s e through Something that other people pay to attend. I really love it. Nice. Yeah cool Joey, where you at? What can we find you? Um, uh for my music and comedy You just uh, you can follow me on twitter at um, jwk hates the news.  I don't need to one of those those channels those channels yet until you know Once everything starts lifting up and um, you know start getting into that also. I just recorded um a first podcast with um a guy named, uh, carl who um who does s e his his name for his s e channel is um Campfire combos and we've tried to get together and we're um, we Well, we don't know how how far this is going to go but um What it's called the channel is going to going to be called centrae theist And it's about um, we're basically just just too atheist that consider ourselves centrist when it comes to politics and it's basically our our perspective on things from You know not being not identifying with either the right or the left and you know our thoughts on Yeah, okay. Very cool. Cool. I would there say that if you're watching this video You probably already know about my channel So i'm going to make a recommendation that you check out an interview with a friend of mine named fanny and zai Uh, she just did a interview with a guy named laurence krauss who's apparently a person that's uh, eric respects a lot So that must mean he's a famous atheist dude and he supports. Oh, okay, an incredible physicist. Okay cool And you can check out that video on fanny and zai's channel. Her name is f a n n y last name A n z a i check out her stuff. It's really good. Good call Larry why don't you close this out? Okay, uh, my content is basically on digital free thought dot com Be sure to click on the blog a button Once you go to the blogging read articles you can listen to atheist themed music And uh, you can also find the archives of all of these radio shows that we have done on digital free thought radio hour If you have any questions for the show, you can send them to ask an atheist at noxvilleatheist.org and we'll answer my future shows and if you have Podcast players you can find their podcasts on itunes stitch your luminary podcasts. I heart et cetera et cetera Also, I have a book on, uh, amazon. It's called uh, atheism. What's it all about? What's the point of what's all about? That's right, uh, and it's basically uh articles from my facebook page But you can have them all on harb back if you like their soft back if you like Also, random reading The atheist community of asin has been reposting those blog posts in their newsletter in the se corner and they've been doing it all throughout 2019 and so if you are in austin area and you have the atheist community of asin book And there's se corner the two page book. That's this guy or wherever wherever this screen's at that's this dude This guy wrote that so good stuff, man. Well, thanks for the plug I also have a youtube channel under doubt or five with the contents for kind of all but of course it's still valuable It's all about atheism and as I like to Close out the show generally, uh, I remind everybody that everybody's going to somebody else's hell The time to worry about it is when they prove that heavens and hells and souls are real Until then don't sweat it. Enjoy your life, and we'll see you next week. Say bye y'all Bye