We humans live in a world we are ill-equipped for. We are “tooled” in terms of evolution for the Stone Age, but the modern environment we live in is more complex than a cave. Few examples - We crave sugar, salt, and fat because it was hard to obtain. We have cognitive biases that are survival-optimized to a danger-rich environment. We prefer spending as little energy as possible since finding more meant risk. Our language is one of these prehistoric tools - geared for transferring simple ideas from one human to another - in a time when the ideas formed in neighboring brains were similar in scope and shape. Today’s world makes these prehistoric tools not only ill-fitting but also taxing on the individual, group, and society in general. If we take the previous examples - Cravings cause health hazards in a society of abundance and economic gain from the manipulation of these cravings (i.e., by many companies in the food industry). People make poor financial and other statistically-based decisions (which are also being exploited by some profit-seeking organizations). People are bad at choosing what to spend time on and about physical activities (and too - are being exploited by entertainment - including social, gaming, news - and similar industries). Language is no different. We pay in efficiency - spend vast quantities of time on transferring ideas. We pay in results - intentions miscommunicated cause personal and sometimes national harm. We are manipulated by others - to buy, to conform, to support, to believe. We use “hacks” to work around some language limitations - adding analogies and metaphors to compress ideas, using non-verbal communication (gestures, visuals, sounds). But they are not perfect in results and have diminishing returns on the time spent conjuring them. This requires a solution. When one is found - its fruits will impact everything. It will transform what and how we do and who we are as a species. The research towards it must discuss the problem, the solution’s impact - humanistic and economic, draw inspiration from existing and historical types of communication, linguistics, look into arts, slang, humor, machine, technology and intelligence, brain operations, animal communication, non-animate data transfer (genes, atoms, particles), cultures and more. What it is not is researching communication channels. It is about content - data that is being transferred. It is also not research into finding a new “language” or improving on existing ones. This has been attempted and failed many times in the past 200 years (as an example - Ithkuil is a sort of “solution” using current tools). Ithkuil We do not need “a faster horse.” We need a Transporter Room.

The is an opinion piece based on the author’s POV and does not necessarily reflect the views of HackerNoon.

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