Vestitor:

Christa627:...Why should I care about international communication? I can get my social experience chatting with the neighbors and friends, why should I care if I can talk to people from Brazil, Poland, China, and all those other places I've never been and probably will never have any need to go?...

A very typical regionalist and self-serving approach to the question of international communication, no? Consider perhaps that the wider question concerns how other large groups of people might be able to communicate across a large divide on an equal footing, without having to defer to English-speaking dominance.

Maybe you won't have to ever visit China, but that has no bearing upon the best and perhaps fairest way of China being able to easily communicate with other countries without having to defer to English.

This is reminiscent of those people who think they shouldn't pay taxes because theyclaim to use no services or can pay for them themselves. It speaks of a lack of wider social awareness.

No, actually it was not a slur, it was the truth. Only a troll would question my sanity instead of explain why my ideas would be wrong. It looks like he really is having a meltdown. What is so hard about 40 hours of making suits per week and maybe a little bit of repairing bicycles that could take the respect out of someone? Also, taxes are an appropriate topic for a different thread, but until then we should not bring it up. I'd ask him what "wider social awareness" is, but he'd probably just ask me if I've tried lithium or if I'm "taking the m*ck", which he believes means "taking psychiatric drugs", but actually means something completely different. He never actually debates anything, he just says that he doesn't respect or agree with something, and if it's not clear from context what he's complaining about, he says what he's complaining about, but rarely if ever why he's complaining about it. He would do well to have the respect that he asked for when he said:

I'd have assumed that the last dressing down you received from the admin for spreading this slur might have deterred you. Clearly not. It's best to let people know that rather than me being a troll, what really happened is I said something that you didn't like. So basically you are just miffed.

I suggest that, having made a gargantuan effort to address something that has nothing at all to do with you, it is you who has the axe to grind.
I recall that once or twice I may have pointed out your tendency to go on incoherent flights of fancy, as failed intellectuals are wont to do, and it got you irate enough to persist in making little digs at every opportunity. Sometimes cloaked as replies to other people.

The mention of 'wider social awareness' I gave so is so obvious in that sentence that you'd have to be completely dense to not understand it. Before having the temerity to refer to me as a troll, think about what that appellation involves and then consider your provocative post above.

btw, I know perfectly well what 'taking the mick' means. The fact you've placed an asterisk in there, suggests you have no idea.

Vestitor:'Just for the fun of it' seems to me like an enormous waste of time and effort. Time that could be devoted to Esperanto, in many ways. Not least in non-cultish promotion. Probably also time that could be spent on so much else in this time-scarce life.

But the same can be said of any pursuit. There's always something better or more productive, useful, worthwhile, fun etc. How does that mean the thing you're doing is a waste of time?

You could just as well claim that spending 15 minutes eating breakfast each morning is a waste because you could get it done in 5 and spend the accumulated minutes and hours on some other more fruitful activity, whatever that might be. I doubt however you would bother to make such a strange claim, though it is no different from the idea that conlanging is a distraction from more "worthy" pursuits.

Vestitor:I'm saying that Esperanto has little hope of ever becoming a contender as a major language when a large share of its users are doodling about with so-called 'languages' created for imaginary alien races.

Are a large share of Esperantists doing that? I wasn't aware of it. Or perhaps we have a different notion of "large share". What kind of size of share (percentage?) did you have in mind?

And how exactly do you reason that having a large share of conlangers renders so unpromising the prospects of Esperanto's mainstream acceptance? There are all kinds of things we might identify as impediments to Esperanto's success but a contingent of conlang enthusiasts wouldn't exactly be the first thing to spring to my mind, I must admit.

Vestitor:I don't hide the fact that I find it ridiculous and it that upsets people so much then there's probably a grain of truth in it.

I'm somewhat baffled as to your reasoning here. You seem to be saying "if you don't like what I say then what I say is probably true". This might be valid logic in some contexts (I struggle to think of any), but I don't see how it's valid here. There are all kinds of reasons someone might take issue with the claim that conlanging is the ridiculous waste of time you say it is - it could contradict personal experience, or known objective evidence, it could be taken as an insult - in which case a negative response is to be expected, etc. I don't see how any of that confirms the ridiculousness of conlanging itself. Could you explain?

I will indeed explain.

To the first response. Spending time eating breakfast is not really an appropriate comparison. You take as long as you need or want. It's essentially a necessity not a hobby. I've had five-minute breakfasts in the past yet also stretched it out to an hour at the weekend because other people have been present. What can I say, you don't have to learn breakfast, there's no real time loss. The social benefit can be great.

The second. You are right. Admittedly I cannot accurately declare who does or who doesn't pursue Klingon-type pointlessness in the Esperanto community. For all I know it could be a vocal 0.1% or perhaps a lot of people drawn to Esperanto are also those drawn to artificial languages in general; and it's no secret that people now like to fill up their basket rather than take one thing and concentrate on it. You only have to look at Duolingo where so many people have started multiple language courses, sometimes 8 or more all languishing at level 1-4.

As to how that might affect Esperanto. I think it ends up getting too closely associated with the umpteenth quack language project (often an Esperanto derivative) and sci-fi babble. It's all very well to wave a hand and declare: 'well if people are so small-minded as to not look beyond that..' but first impressions and perceived associations do play an important role. It's why headline-writers exist and people have a wash and put on a suit for a job interview.
Elsewhere on the internet I've come across people asking:'Am I the only politically conservative person learning Esperanto?' The question is then met with responses which point to the general internationalism, brotherhood, toleration, aspects of Esperanto and how these might sit easier alongside left-leaning ideas, but also other conservatives reassuring the questioner that there he is not alone.
Now would you agree that Esperanto has the image of being generally leftist (whether that is true or not)? If the answer is yes, then it's worth wondering how many non-leftist people reject it out of hand. In the same vein if there is an association with Klingon-style fantasy languages and the like, will it not have a similar effect? Esperanto is already lumped together with conlangs that only exist on paper.

I don't want to spoil anyone's private fun, anyone can pursue conlangs and tell me to go and whistle. It's madness to imagine that you can control what other people think and do, but there's also no point pretending that it doesn't have an effect.

To the third reaction: It's not so much the languages themselves, but the endless rehashing and spreading concentration so thinly. For all I know someone may devise a better, simple language that will trample over Esperanto and be taken up by the millions. Maybe.
It's true what you say. It may be that people react negatively because I am dead wrong and don't understand the value of 'conlanging'. However it does remind me of myself endlessly playing Sega video games and trying to convince my mother that it wasn't time-wasting, but lateral thinking and motor skill development. It still never helped me get my homework done.