What is the general feel on "Esperanto vs English as a world language" there?
I haven't met many esperantists who don't speak English at all or even at a pretty decent level.
It seems for most the new goal is to participate in esperanto culture, which is definitely its own thing: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Raumism
But it is true that the current purpose of Esperanto is more ideal than practical. I study Esperanto because I really like its internal ideals. I study English because I want to eat.
Yeah, but neither does Esperanto; it's kind of unlikely that a language designed by a human without a strict, mechanical methodology to assure neutrality would, and even then it would need to be isolated from the normal forces that affect natural languages for it to retain that neutrality.
English is probably, in some senses, more neutral than Esperanto; for one thing, English probably has a far greater share of speakers (even first-language speakers) that aren't middle-class-and-above natives of developed countries in Europe or dominated by populations of European descent.
English is currently the international language, even at the esperanto congress. But it makes me appreciate having english as a native language, because I have to watch two non-native speakers struggle (like a polish guy ordering coffee from a korean barista).
Esperanto isn't "neutral". It's entirely a european language which copied tons from latin/german/russian.
The next question I suppose is: is esperanto culture worth being a part of?
It took me 3 months to learn esperanto (with duolingo), but there are a lot of benefits. Generally people are friendly and inviting, partly due to it's non-mainstream nature (consider behavior during the early days of the internet vs youtube comments now)
* It's a foreign language, and there are studies which link language acquisition with mental health (though I'm not sure how solid they are)
* It's an excuse to travel to cities worldwide where you might not go by yourself otherwise. I've found that solo travel at esperanto conferences is great.