[caymanjim]

I think it'll greatly increase cultural learning, by increasing the opportunity to interact with people. I've traveled to a lot of countries, and never learned more than a handful of words in each, primarily related to basic service interactions. I enjoyed talking to locals when they spoke English. I couldn't interact in any meaningful way with the vast majority of people, though.

Learning languages is great. If you can become fluent in two that's impressive. Even simple conversational ability in a few languages is impressive. But it's a big world.

[nisa]

Thanks. Wonderful take and optimistic. You are correct I think.

[nottorp]

He's not, because those locals will stop being able to speak English in a few generations. Either you'll have battery and signal or you'll point at things and make monkey noises.

[caymanjim]

What do we care what happens in a few generations? We'll all be dead, and the people alive will probably have universal translators implanted in their brains at birth. We absolutely won't need a "signal" to translate on a device anymore (that'll happen in just a few years, forget about generations), and there won't be anyplace on the entire planet that doesn't have network connectivity (that will also happen in just a few years; it's already reality with Starlink cellular).