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To: Mary Cluney who wrote (53192)	7/7/2004 11:27:10 AM
From: Lane3	Respond to of 793903

The Chinese are really handicapped by their language. Their language is a kludge. It is an ancient language. They are stuck with it. It is not amenable to modern society. They have to do a lot just to keep up. There is enormous overhead in maintaining languages that do not use an alphabet. I've often wondered if Japan has ever studied the productivity losses inherent in having two syllable-based alphabets plus all those pictograms. I studied Japanese just long enough to find out that they teach kids Japanese using the Roman alphabet just like they use it to teach foreigners. Seems to me that sooner or later they will have to reject the overhead of their other written symbols. I'm not suggesting that they switch to English, only that they stick to the Roman alphabet in the interest of productivity. Kids have enough to learn in this world without wasting their time drawing zillions of arcane symbols.

To: Mary Cluney who wrote (53192)	7/7/2004 11:27:15 AM
From: LindyBill	Read Replies (1) \| Respond to of 793903

We (all of civilization) have used up 33.3% of all the oil that is on earth. The next 66.7% of oil (2000 billion barrels) will be used up much faster. In historic terms, that is the blink of an eye (50-100 years). There are a lot of numbers like the ones above that are tossed around. The truth is nobody knows. But the trend is that there is one hell of a lot more than we think. In any case, we will never "run out." The rising price will stop that from happening. History also indicates that we don't have a clue as to what we will do for transportation in the future. Things change faster and in different ways than we can even imagine.