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I'm fascinated by this kind of cultural technology. I think we ought to be experimenting with notation of all kinds—numerals, alphabets, languages, measurement systems, calendars and so on. We need to make it easier to learn new systems of thought so that we can actually adopt better ones!

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This comment reminded me of an episode of Radiolab that I recently listened to. It's about a man named Charles Bliss who attempted to create a set of symbols that would let us think and communicate in a pure way across cultures and languages.

If you want to give it a listen: http://www.radiolab.org/2012/dec/17/man-became-bliss/

Interesting, thanks.

I tend to be a little skeptical of attempts to make "pure" forms of communication, because I think there are bound to be trade-offs, as in any engineering endeavour. I'd rather see schemes that are optimized for a particular purpose. What would a language oriented toward scientific and technical communication be like? How would currencies designed for ecommerce work? How would a calendar for global organizations work?

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