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Correction:

> It has no connection whatsoever to 'data' in our sense.

This is wrong. There is an etymological connection, which means that 'data' in our sense is derived from the sense 'that which is given.' My point, badly stated, was that the word in this sense is no longer Latin. It doesn't translate directly back into Latin. You'd need to use a different work in order to capture the sense that the word takes in English.

Veritas used to represent abstract truth is not out of place. Obviously it assumes a different connotation in a Christian context ("Veritas vos liberabit" from the gospel of John being the obvious example), but it's not the only usage. See examples here: https://latinitium.com/latin-dictionaries/?t=lsn50557

Data is the past participle of the verb "do". It doesn't necessarily imply that usage.

I do agree that the construction is weird though, in particular the infinitive.

I think we're saying the same thing about "veritas." I'm saying, in essence, that if I ran into this absolutely bizarre expression in a manuscript or papyrus, and I wanted to publish an edition of the text, I might capitalize the "v."

(Edit: I just realized why. It's because the action "tueor" describes has a strongly physical connotation. It's as though the author wrote "clean/wash the truth." You don't watch (in tueor's sense) an abstract concept; you 'watch' (tueris) something physically manifest. Using tueor this way is how you'd talk or write about a god, not a concept.)

"Tuere" isn't an infinitive. It's the second person singular present imperative active of the deponent 'tueor.' As a deponent, it has only passive-voice forms, which have active-voice sense, so (edit: infinitival) 'tuere' isn't a valid form, because it's the present infinite active, a form that a deponent verb by definition can't have.

Edit: "data" in this usage would mean "gifts." That is the idiomatic meaning of the fourth principal part of the verb when it's used in the neuter plural. This isn't debatable. It's Latin 101 basics, almost certain to appear in the very first set of exercises and vocab lists that any beginning Latin student will encounter (and it's certain to be the answer to a question on your first vocab quiz). See here[0], esp: 'Part. perf. sometimes (mostly in poets) subst.: dăta , ōrum, n., gifts, presents.'

[0] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...

So you are suggesting the motto actually should translate, "Protect the user, did, and the truth"?

"do," pronounced with a long o, means "I give" in Latin. 'data' is the perfect-tense, passive participle -- "given" -- in the neuter gender, with plural number: literally "things given," but idiomatically "gifts."

But I prefer your version of the motto.

Watch over the user, the given and the truth.

What would be the proper translation of the moto, then ?

Beats me.

The very idea of a "user" is, in every phase of Latin that I know, gobbledygook. There's no translation for it. It makes as much sense as "haver" would make to us ("haver of what?"). Maybe "emptores" (buyers)? Sort of?

"Data," in our sense, too, sounds wrong to me as a concept in Classical Latin -- too disembodied for effective, accurate translation. Maybe 'cognoscenda,' "that which is to be known/understood," would come close to the intended sense and still be somewhat idiomatic.

"Vera" or "verita" sounds, to me, like the right language for the idea of "something true."

And like I said, "defendo" sounds like the right verb.

The omission of conjunctions sounds as abrupt, curt, and pompous in Latin as it does in English: "guard the user, the data, the truth." Only Sallust and Tacitus get to write this way.

So maybe we could correct it to something like "defende emptoresque cognoscendaque veraque?" No, actually, I take it back. That sounds deranged and wrong, kind of like the raving you might hear from one of the street-corner prophets in Life of Brian. Protecting those things makes no sense, and even the grouping of those three concepts in a single list makes no sense. It sounds like the product of a disordered, unhealthy mind.

On the other hand, maybe the original motto really is a perfect motto for programmers. It nicely exemplifies the inadvertantly silly results of the DIY, libertarian, anti-establishment spirit of so many programmers (Who needs experts, knowledge of history, or formal training when you have the internet??) who inexplicably start blogs in the apparent, equally inexplicable belief that the world needs to hear their thoughts on things they know nothing about.

That's quite the uncharitable view.

They explicitly put a humble disclaimer that they don't actually understand Latin.

What you see as "belief that the world needs to hear their thoughts" might be "willingness to share".

It's nice that people engage with the unknown (here, Latin). That's how one learns. There's also nothing wrong with sharing this process. The result is obviously wrong here, and I would have been too shy to put it in the title of a blog post, but this doesn't have dramatic consequences.

We are far from tech bros arrogantly imposing their shit tech to the world here.

It's entirely uncharitable. I don't care about the author's humility. I will spare not one iota of sympathy or empathy for spreaders of AI slop or for the embarrassing naivete of writing a motto in a language one doesn't know and sharing it publicly with the expectation that it's an idea/expression worth discussing. Both deserve to be labeled and treated uncharitably.

I wish Hacker News had policies that squash this kind of post before it can reach the front page. Nobody needs to read some guy's clueless thought diary, and the oxygen these submissions consume on HN are stolen from better pieces of writing that actually deserve attention.

I won't completely blame you, I guess the AI hype needs some deserved hard push back. If that's what will make people realize it's not actually cool.

Thanks for this. Yeah, it's partly that. But do I accomplish anything worthwhile by being a total jerk and making a humiliating example of someone who means well? Probably not. I don't feel good after I write a takedown, and when the target reads my comments, I doubt he does either.

Generally I try not to contribute to the web's tendency to stoke primitive, violent emotions, like anger, fear, and hate, but sometimes I care more about fighting the internet's ugly, dangerous tendency to 'democratize' by letting bad ideas and ignorance spread, choking out the fewer, smaller, less charismatic people who know what they're talking about (I'm not referring to myself). Unlike most programmers, I'm quite sure the world would largely be a better, more just place without the 'open' culture of the internet.

> I'm quite sure the world would largely be a better, more just place without the 'open' culture of the internet.

This intrigues me a bit. In particular, what do you mean by the 'open' culture of the internet? Is there more to that than the "dangerous tendency to 'democratize' by letting bad ideas and ignorance spread" you mention earlier?

That comment was an unclear allusion to ideas I've absorbed from Jaron Lanier, plus a bit of my own elitism.

Regarding the elitism: I'm not a free-speech absolutist; I don't prize individual, positive freedom over negative freedom (Most Americans do); and I'd prefer for gatekeepers largely to restrict and control the levers of cultural power. The internet, as a market-driven radical democracy, demostrates all of radical democracy's worst excesses and vulgarity, especially its tendency to vest power in charismatic charlatans skilled in stoking the primitive, violent emotions I mentioned above.

Regarding 'open' culture: Jaron Lanier, father of VR, has written extensively on this. He'd be a much better ambassador for his ideas than I can be, and I recommend his books, essays, and interviews in the strongest possible terms.

Lanier makes a strong case that the free-and-open culture of the internet ("information wants to be free") -- exemplified, for instance, in Napster, open source, and the practice of not putting up paywalls on news websites -- has been overwhelmingly negative and destructive. To take a few examples: it has largely destroyed music as a viable career; it has cheapened information, because somethings that's free has no value; it has led directly to the advertising-driven hellscape that the internet has become; and it has served only to augment the power of the already powerful, because only the rich are in a position to marshal the kinds of resources that one needs in order, quite literally, to mine data and find profit in it. Lanier has also been a major critic of the AI craze.

Related to both of these: I'm a strong believer that the interconnectedness of the internet is dangerous, unsustainable, and by itself causing the US to drift towards the cultural and political equivalent of a nuclear meltdown, in the form of something like a fascist takeover. Connecting everybody on the internet has produced, I think, something like a feeling of cultural and political claustrophobia. People are going crazy because they're sharing mental space with too many other people.

Anyhow, that's probably more than enough, and I'm not sure it's entirely cogent or coherent. Thanks for the interest!

Yes, I believe the Internet is destroying the intersubjectivity humans require for socialisation.

This thread has made me realize the serious mistake of using AI to translate into Latin, and I understand the frustration of those who have dedicated time and effort to studying it.

Honestly, that didn’t occur to me at the time; I just wanted to have a version of the motto in Latin because I loved how the phrase that inspired the article (which, of course, was not created with AI) sounded. Now I can see the problem and apologize for not having shown more respect for the language.

Please don't apologize. You seem like a wonderful chap -- generous, warm, caring, open -- and you did nothing wrong. I'm just some anonyhmous, cantankerous turd on the internet. People like me are a dime a dozen and not at all worth your effort or concern.

You didn't disrepect the language. You're nothing like this clueless vandal, who did disrespect it and should have known better.[0] :D

Really, I wasn't railing against you personally or anything you did. And I shouldn't have turned the conversation in that direction in my last comment or two. Correcting the Latin was actually a delightful, fun exercise, and I meant only to rail against AI itself, which is infecting everything (and always, it seems to me, to the detriment of the infected).

Latin doesn't need any more respect than it's already gotten. It has probably already received too much. And it's fine to play with words, share, and ask for feedback. My hypomanic agitation (no joke) isn't your fault or your responsibility, and your response to my unhinged screed shows a generosity, patience, and kindness that I think you should be proud of. If my mind weren't buzzing this way, my comments would have been more playful, less critical.

Cheers, friend.

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wjOfQfxmTLQ

Do you use -que like that? I thought you add it only to the last item of an enumeration?

Yep! See entry II of Lewis and Short's Latin Dictionary for the word:[0]

> II. Repeated, que . . . que.

> A. Both ... and (not in Cæs., once in Cic.; v. Zumpt, Gram. § 338), co-ordinating,

To my ear it sounds more emphatic, formal, and annunciatory than singular -que, so it feel appropriate in the context of a guiding dictum/apophthegm.

[0] https://www.perseus.tufts.edu/hopper/text?doc=Perseus%3Atext...