Show HN: Lexiconomy – Decentralized and Economized Dictionary | Hacker News Reader

Show HN: Lexiconomy – Decentralized and Economized Dictionary

lexiconomy.org

30 pointssixfour26 comments

Totalitarian regimes take note, you can buy up all the words in every language and change their meanings as you wish. Get in while the prices are low. Flip the dictionary for a profit to the dictator next door the next time you have lunch.

And look out for our next product, colornomics, where you can buy and sell combinations of light, create your own unique color and license it to others to use.

Very accurate:

    scam
    You've discovered an undefined word!   
    
    place the highest bid for scam to be the first to invent it.

Honestly, I find this horrifying. Why take one of the few decently commons-producible information goods and enclose it with a pay-for-play economy? What is the possible benefit to society?

But think of that sweet ICO profit!

A very amusing piece of performance art. :)

Urban Dictionary but you have to pay.

How is disambiguation handled? Many words can mean several things:

Cabinet (storage or govt body)

Keyboard (for typing, or music instrument)

Remote (controller device or distant/far away)

Also any word that can be used as e.g. either a noun or a verb

Etc...

And could words across languages be linked to the same definition? Seems like there are a lot of edge cases that make this type of application more complex than the site indicates

It's decided by the owner of the word

IMO that's a really poor strategy. Assuming people use this product, it will alienate anyone who comes later on after all common words have been bought up (or even the owner of a word who would like to use it for two different meanings).

More generally, it's an inaccurate model of language, because it assumes that every word has a single definition - categorically false.

I'm all for people building dapps, but like you I fail to see the utility in this.

I think there could be great utility for a dapp like this, if it was architected differently under more generalized assumptions.

I know this was a few days ago, but I'm curious, what utility do you see for this dapp? I'm trying to wrap my head around the economics. Will properly defined words be more valuable?

Personally, I could see the words being used as building blocks for semantic programs, eg public APIs or smart contracts, or maybe even formal documents (real estate, law, etc). But that kinda only works when you can properly disambiguate words.

It's hard to be sure wether language like the used on this site is a joke or not. But the one thing I really hope is that people will not overwhelming use this product.

Doesn't seem to work for me. Just infinitely stuck on a spinner after typing a word ('travel' in this example)

Lots of error'd requests to 'mainnet.infura.io'

Maybe you need metamask to connect?

Same

As of right now, the Lexiconomy's is backed entirely by Ethereum, so it's limited by the speed of Web3.

https://lexiconomy.org/tips#web3-issues

You're blaming the impatience of the end-user, rather than getting your act together and fixing technical issues?

We need a word for that.

"lexiconomyistic"

Swearconomy - economized dictionary of swear words and dirty language. Words and their meanings are auctioned. I expect to make a lot of money on Santorum.

"Decentralized".

Goes on to make a thousand XHR calls to infura.io

April fools?

Why? What is the point of owning language?

If you own the language to communicate, you can change meaning to suit your own needs at the time.

Consider rebranding, common in the business world. Once upon a time, there was Blackwater, a company of mercenaries who committed acts of questionable ethics/morality. Several name changes later, the same company exists under a new name, disassociated from those acts, but generally appearing to be a new entity.

They are now named Academi, and were briefly called Xe Services after renaming from Blackwater.

The talk page is amusing: the current owners of Academi are trying to get their history rewritten on Wikipedia, because “Academi (ACADEMI), which is a Constellis company, was formed by a group of investors in 2010, who purchased certain assets from Blackwater”.

I think they were active in Yemen the past few years.

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