I had an interesting thought regarding Farscape

[Gingerbread Demon]

I did a rewatch near the end of last year early into this new year. One small bit that made me think "wouldn't that be cool" was their visit to Earth. One aspect of that I was thinking of as a kind of side story is what would life on Earth be like if the translator microbes had gotten loose amongst Earth's population, then everyone began to understand each others languages.

Would life on earth change that much?

 

[Forbin]

I'd finally be able to talk to the contractors I hire when I get things fixed!
We have a polyglot population here in NJ! I brush up on some basic Spanish (which I'm terrible at) , then I got one group that spoke Portuguese! I had an Arab plumber for a while and, well, thank Allah he was fluent in English. I got a retaining wall put in a couple years ago, and those guys were from Albania! I googled up a few words so I could be polite. The foreman (who spoke perfect English thankfully) was amused, and the workmen rolled their eyes at me. Sadly I picked French as a language in high school, and have not encountered a single French contractor.

I have real hard time learning other languages. I'm damn glad the contractors are smarter than me.

Yes, translator microbes would be a huge boon to the world. But I bet there'd be protestors and deniers who say it's a conspiracy to control our minds.

 

[Set Harth]

Don't smartphones do that now?

 

[Gingerbread Demon]

Don't smartphones do that now?

Only if you have a translation app installed

 

[Forbin]

Don't smartphones do that now?

I'm 67, I don't know WHAT the hell my smart phone does.

 

[Set Harth]

I don't even know how to turn my dad's phone off.

 

[JD]

Yeah, translator microbes getting lose would be a huge change for the world, things would be very different if everyone could suddenly understand each other.

 

[Colonel Midnight]

Probably be a bit like what happened with the Babel Fish…

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication between different races and cultures, has caused more and bloodier wars than anything else in the history of creation."

And people think the world is frucked up now??

Cheers,
-CM-

 

[JD]

Thinking about it more, we've had both human translators and now translation apps, so I'm not sure if it really would make that big of a difference.