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by NoRelToEmber 1064 days ago
> a world that is set up for people like me

The anglosphere, not the world. I assure you there are many parts of the world not set up for people like you. I live in one of them. We don't feel guilty about building our corner of the world for our own benefit. But we also don't see our home country as a mere economic platform open for everyone.
1 comments
JadeNB 1064 days ago
> > a world that is set up for people like me

> The anglosphere, not the world. I assure you there are many parts of the world not set up for people like you.

My phrasing was sloppy. I meant the scientific world in which I operate, not the entire scientific world, and certainly not the literal entire globe.

> I live in one of them. We don't feel guilty about building our corner of the world for our own benefit. But we also don't see our home country as a mere economic platform open for everyone.

I'm not sure if that's a general statement of fact or a response to something I said, but, if I appeared to imply that you should feel guilty or that your home country should be a mere economic platform, then I did not mean to do so, and I apologize.

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NoRelToEmber 1064 days ago
You have nothing to apologize for, at least not to me. I just wanted to highlight what usually gets forgotten in these self-flagellating discussions - people like me who learn English as a second language to participate in the anglosphere have countries of our own, where our culture and language is the norm. English grants us access to an additional world.

That we have to do the bare minimum and learn English to access the anglosphere (or global scientific publishing, where if it wasn't English then it would be French or Latin or some other common language, and the issues would be the same) is not something you should spend an ounce of guilt, or even limited awareness, on.

And it is downright perverse that the fantastic scientific accomplishments, that drew the global scientific community to learn English to access them, get re-cast as "the world built for you", as some kind of unearned privilege.

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