I will Get That Nobel Peace Prize Yet!

Before you say “Someone already did your idea,” I should point out that no one has done it quite the way I’m describing it.

What I’d like to see is a pen pal web site designed to end war. The idea would be to connect citizens in different countries at such a high rate it would be politically impossible for the two countries to start a war.

You might support your government in a war against a country full of people you don’t know. But would you support a war that has a good chance of killing your e-mail friend Phlubanakawahaha and his entire family? There is some theoretical level of citizen-to-citizen contact that makes war between two countries virtually impossible.

And think how much you could learn if you had a pen pal in Iran or Syria or China. It would be hugely interesting, especially for senior citizens and students who have extra time on their hands.

The Internet forces most users to learn English. I don’t know the percentage of English-speaking Internet users in other countries, but it is probably fairly high. Still, you’d need your pen pal service to translate automatically. I could send my e-mail in English and have it translated automatically into Spanish or whatever.

Internet penetration isn’t as high as it needs to be worldwide for this idea to work yet, but we’re getting there. This would be about the right time to get the system going. Maybe it’s a good project for the U.N., funded by the Gates Foundation.

The $100 laptops we keep hearing about will eventually give Internet access to even small villages. Imagine having a pen pal in some tiny African village. You learn that all they need is one of those foot-operated water pumps for irrigating fields and a bag of seeds and they can build a decent life. For a few hundred dollars you could save an entire village and get to see the results in real time. Who could resist?

While we wait for all of that to happen, I will clear a place above the TV for my Nobel Peace Prize.

Comments

[George Porter]

In regard to a Nobel Peace Prize and the inability of people who like each other to fight, you need only look at the U.S. Civil War, and numerous other civil wars, to debunk the idea of friends not fighting.

[Steven McDaniel]

Scott, I am constantly amazed at how you 'atheist' types (as implied on your presidential election manifesto previously) fatuously insist on conferring the solution to world evil upon technological advances. It hasn't happened yet. The internet can start a war as easily as prevent one. Your friend Phlubanakabwahahahaha could just as easily say 'Die, infidel!' in his e-mail to you, as, 'Hello my good western friend who has brought our sweet little village these $100 laptops so we can all go virtually skipping off hand in hand into a humanist millenium, singing, "It's a Small World After All!" ' The internet is simply an amoral facilitator that takes on the character of those that use it. And, Scott, there's some nasty people out there. Keep your day job, Ghandi.

[t]

I love your idea. I also read the first comment about Skype for free calls and about adding internet to those places where it's still a LUXURY.
I just want to say, about Skype, YES, that's the way to do it, and I hope you do it and get the Nobel Peace Prize; and about internet - I'm African and the internet-starvedness bothers me a great deal, and let's build the bandwidth!

[Cavpollo]

yeah, its a nice idea... but I cant help but be negative and think... teh skepticals will say it will not work and somewhere under the rainbow it will disappear (like those other revolutionary ideas)... hahahaha

[tenelus]

Unfortunately, Sean Sutton has a good point... i even had the good idea buzz for a while there... such is life.

[Carl]

I like the idea.. With respect to the Internet not being present in all the little African villages, I think we can come up with a workable solution to that also.

Skype is a fantastic way for getting free calls to other users of the service, as we know. What happens with Skype is that you can also call land line numbers in another country and the call is routed on the Internet for as much of this route as possible, e.g. to a server within the local area of the land line. After this the call is transferred onto the normal telephone system to complete the connection (I think that's how it works anyway), this means that effectively you've turned an international call into a local call, thus reducing the cost.

If we adopt a similar approach for your pen pal service, users that both have a connection to the Internet get along fine with the direct email connection. What happens in the case of a remote village is that the email is sent as far as possible until it comes out in some 'exchange' in a local(ish) area to the recipient. The email gets printed out in this exchange and then physically posted - the result of this would be the same as if the sender had posted an actual real-life letter (remember those???), apart from that you wouldn't be able to include any seeds for them to build a farm from.

Job done.

[Sean Sutton]

I would wholeheartedly disagree with you that expanded communication would decrease the opportunities for war. On the contrary, I fully believe that the more we see the horrors inflicted upon our fellow man, the less likely we are to ignore the dictators and genocides by grabbing a $4 limited-release micro brew and settling down to an evening of watching Project Runway.

Right now, warlords and dictators are actually doing everything that the most extreme left in this country accuses our own government of doing, plus much worse. People are justifiably worried about war killing civilians but according to UNICEF, the sanctions in Iraq before the war killed over a million civilians at a staggering rate of over 10,000 a month. Currently, the war has lowered this to less than 600 a month. Is this an acceptable number? It's certainly about 600 a month more than I would like. However, it's undeniably better than 10,000 a month.

War is a horrible, terrible thing. The question, though, is why are we aren't appalled by things even worse? By interconnecting people throughout the world, we're going to see up close and first-hand all those things which are much worse: the child soldiers in the Congo, the rape squads in Darfur, the militant tribes in Indonesia, the violent dictators in dozens of countries throughout the world. When we see people we have come to know, have come to care for be abducted in the middle of the night and hacked to pieces by machetes in order for some petty dictator to live in unabashed luxury while his people starve, our first thought isn't going to be grabbing that StarBucks and having a latte. It's going to be a thought of justice and of revenge.

[Roby Bang]

Besides all the conditions of online translators, lack of citizen influence on the government, and human apathy and anti-social tendencies, one thing still needs to be pointed out. The fact you rely on ideal conditions and behaviors to make the perfect world. If ideal conditions existed, then there wouldn't be a problem, would there?
If everybody was exactly the same, there would be no source of conflict, because everyone would understand each other. If everyone in the world was a pickpocket, we'd be fine. I would steal Bob's money, Bob would steal Steve's money, and everything would just circulate until everyone found a way to prevent being robbed or an equilibrium occured where no one lost anything. But not everyone steals and not everyone cares, so don't hold your breath.

[Louie LeDurchi]

Global Pen Pals to ensure world peace?
Yes sir, and here's how to start:
1) Match everyone up with a pen pal from another country and force them to write daily - and if they do not write daily, kill them.
2) Scratch number 1. Match everyone up with a pen pal from another country and let them write of their own free will - and if they refuse to write, kill them.
3) Scratch number 2. Change human nature. Yea, that's the ticket.

[SRR]

Homeland security will of course be monitoring your emails (no warrant required).
"Perhaps you could explain to us why you're writing to a Sayeed Abdahollian in Bryzigistan."
"He's my pen pal. He's 11 years old. I'm helping his father equip a well, so that their village can have water. Sayeed translates because his father only speaks Urdu."
"Are you aware, that we can hold you for questioning without charge indefinitely?"
"Am I being charged with something?"
"That's classified information."

[Etherplain]

Better hope that the translation engine that allows the pen pals to actually communicate to eachother in their native language works pretty damn well! Could start a war if you inadvertantly call someones mother a dog.

[Reinhardt Smit]

Hey Scott,

I love the idea, and would like to draw your attention to this website, which is a project run by a Youth Organisation affiliated with the UN. http://www.chattheplanet.com. I don't know how far they've gotten and all, but it's a step towards your ideas...

Maybe the Gates Foundation can give them some much needed money...

[Indian]

Surprisingly enough maybe you gave substance to a thought I came across today by an author Bhishma Sahni who has written a novel about the India-Pak partition which happened back in 1947.

"If people knew each other, they would find it hard to hate."

[Tyler Holmes]

Let them eat nothing healthy
And act irresponsibly
They learn nothing morally
But YOU pretend that they DO
Claiming learning business is more important than how to live
They soon become the next generation to give
Rise to the vicious circle..
Grown children having more
The cunning make them into their whores
Even turning on their families for:
The poison now in every part of their automated bods
Pills, pills, pills and more pills make their brain stay calm,
Add to that the belief of a very distant god
Keep them treating the symptom
Not the cause.

_*_ DuXionZ.com _*_ DuXionZ.com _*_

[Tyler Holmes]

Let them eat nothing healthy
And act irresponsibly
They learn nothing morally
But YOU pretend that they DO
Claiming learning business is more important than how to live
They soon become the next generation to give
Rise to the vicious circle..
Grown children having more
The cunning make them into their whores
Even turning on their families for:
The poison now in every part of their automated bods
Pills, pills, pills and more pills make their brain stay calm,
Add to that the belief of a very distant god
Keep them treating the symptom
Not the cause.

_*_ DuXionZ.com _*_ DuXionZ.com _*_

[Adarsh Bhat]

Yeah, it's going to work until they cut off Internet connections during the war.

[ABTechie]

Great idea!

[Bill Tkach]

I'm not sure about that "The Internet forces people to use English" bit. That's quite a Western outlook.

I'm sure if you go to China, or India, and try to find a computer to use, it doesn't use English, unless it is geared to tourists.
The push to add languages to computers is as great as the push to segregate computer communications between countries. Although the Internet used to be a wild west, with little visible control, the lines between countries are becoming more visible, even between Canada and the US. Where we once could access everything US, now a lot of the sites poll for where you are coming from, and either redirect you to a Canadian site, or give you a page saying the website is inaccessible.
Maybe one day you will be required to give your passport number to access sites outside of your country.

But back to languages. Even if we don't talk in the same language, you can still communicate using various translation programs found on the Internet. This might make it more dangerous, though, especially if something is translated incorrectly, or "evil forces" take over translation services, and translate incorrectly what you are trying to say, causing tension between two countries.

But who wants to email people 9000km away? Me emails to friends locally are usually as brief as I can make them; I can't imagine how short they'd be if the person is in Botswana!

[knjendu]

Human interaction creates the opportunity for conflict. you would inevitable end up arguing with Phlubanakawahaha about politics, religion or ideology and want to e-nuke him. People just can't help pissing off each other, be it your next door neighbor or Phlubanakawahaha from Elbonia.

[Tomas Liubinas]

DEFINITE YES!! I think this is the most efective way to stop various conflicts. The reasons starting all wars basically consists of the idea of fighting aliens + media booster. And when you have a chance to communicate more or less directly or to have a glimse in your "enemies" daily life, it does not seem so alien at all. Remember when you thought about why the hell you are in cold war against Soviets? The only reason why you will not get the Nobel prize is that you do not need any special penpal site for this. The INTERNET itself in its various protocols and forms is perfect media for this kind of communication. And this is what I told long time ago that the founders of the Internet should get the Noble peace prize.. (plus you have to hold the fighting before you read all your RSSs)

Greetings from Lithuania
http://tomas.liubinas.com/

[vishalrix]

It would be so funny if some Dane were to take this as an opportunity the expand the mind of his pen-pal by sending the pen-pal some of those Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

They will take back your Nobel prize before you'd have blogged(bragged) about it here - and just because they would know where you'd have kept it, above the TV.

[vishalrix]

It would be so funny if some Dane were to take this as an opportunity the expand the mind of his pen-pal by sending the pen-pal some of those Prophet Mohammed cartoons.

They will take back your Nobel prize before you'd have blogged(bragged) about it here - and just because they would know where you'd have kept it, above the TV.

[Will]

2 millions people in London marched AGAINST the last war we got ourselves into - it had zero effect on our government.

So nice idea, but only if everyone in the government has to have a penpal.

[A. Guy]

I'm a translator, so if and when automatic translators become really good I'll be out of a job. I'm not worrying too much though. That level of automatic translation will emerge only when there is real kick-ass AI capable of truly human-like thought. Of course, that day may come sooner than we think.

[Calle b]

Hey man I hate to be the one to tell you this but most people in the world dont like each other that much (thats one of the reasons theres war in the first place) and as mutch as Id like to do my part to help the world Id rather not have to talk to people will im doing it

[caviarnt]

Idiots are a dime a dozen. What matters is what you do with them.

[Steve]

HISTORY LESSON.
19th Century Europe.
Constant wars between countries.
All the Eurpoean Royal families were related (Most 1st cousins) - didn't stop them slaughtering each other.

WW1 - Xmas day western front - fighting halted by agreement of all sides, and an impromptu soccer match played, xmas dinner shared, heads of the armies found out and broke up all the troops involved, prosecuted the leaders, and threatened everyone involved with execution for treason.

Nice Idea but not mouch chance of getting up.
We are all far too sheep like.
Just look at your own election processes for further proof.

[Steve]

Our Cousin Willie will never declare war on us.

Queen Victoria. Just before WW I.

[biepmaz]

good good

[rita mae]

MICHAEL CASEY sez: [Everyone keeps telling you that your ideas aren't going to work, Scott, but I don't see *them* posting anything about how to end world peace. None of these folks are nationally syndicated cartoonists, either, and yet they also advise you on matters of that as well. Quit commenting and start your own Dilbert Blog, ya whiners!]

How to end world peace? I guess maybe he meant war? I'm not a whiner. I'm a proof reader. BWAHAHAHAHAHA

Rita Mae

[pax]

Quoting a friend of mine here, Dragoska says:
Yeah... Automatic translation. That sounds like a surefire method to START a war!
:)

[Me]

Mmmm... I think the biggest problem is that you cannot find internet coverage everywhere. Even in rich countries, people living in their semi-deserted areas are lucky if they can get connected.

Then, about the translators. I have sometimes had problems, rating from not too important to huge, with people who misunderstood an email. I was assuming that both my English and his/hers were good. It turned out not to be the case. I can only imagine what misinterpretations provoked by automatic translators could lead to...

Sorry, guess I'm in a pesimistic mood...

[GH]

Scott,

The UK went to war in Iraq despite the majority of the British public being opposed to it. I don't think that any government is going to listen to its people if it believes that it has an overwhelming requirement to go to war.

GH

[RML]

But then the US find an excuse (any excuse) to bomb the entire infrastructure of the poor sod of a country to oblivion because the US suspect terrorists find a safe haven in that country. Or maybe that country doesn't want the US to get to the oil there. Or maybe the US need to field test some new weapons and pharmaceuticals.

Hey, I didn't invent history!

[NaturalBornKieler]

Cool idea, but you will hit some snags yet. The language barrier is still a barrier. And please don't mention online translators or other software translation engines. The results of software translation are so utterly idiotic that such correspondence probably will rather cause a war than prevent one. And software translation will not improve until computers are able to understand natural language ... which will be some time in the far future, if ever.
Therefore, for translation you would need the services of humans. Which would cause further problems, like capacity or privacy.

[John C]

I like the idea, as long as the translators don't turn the positive comments into negative comments and the pen-pals indirectly start their own wars.

[Dis]

I think you're giving people too much credit. Open-minded intellectual types might embrace the opportunity to meet people from another country. However for every one of those, there are more that would not care to try, or would embrace the differences and enter into hostile communications. Nobel war price FTW.

[David]

I think your best shot at a Nobel Prize is to lobby the Nobel Foundation to include comedy as an achievement worthy of recognition.

I'll vouch for you if your lobbying efforts are succesful. Hell, I'm still laughing about Sunday's comic.

[Mason]

time for a new post

[Guillermo]

Mr. Adams, the idea is good, also travelling heals the hate against other people, knowing them in real or internet is the key, of course. But a capital flaw comes to all this, if you check the visits map of any successful web, as this one, you can probably see how those countries without democracy or a good level of security, have few visits.
So that internet community rarely know iran, cuban, chinese or north corean people, or at least those living in their home countries.
Also those countries making cheap laptops sell them capped without internet access, and even if they get it, some countries have restringed access too.
So you have to think about selling free-internet-cheap-laptops to sell that prize, sorry.

[jerry w.]

Your title for this posting:

"I will Get That Nobel Peace Prize Yet!"

I wonder why all the words except "will" are in upper case, something to do with free will?

But wait, I thought that doesn't exist. Hmmmm?

http://boskolives.wordpress.com/

[Pantera]

This could work, but there's quite a few cases of countries fighting that had very close ties to each other. America had a huge number of german immigrants in WWI, and yet we still fought them.

Also, internet people don't tend to get along very well.

[Drew]

I love the fact that you are such a humanist, Scott. It is so hard to find people these days who are willing to say "I really think we could get along... if we tried." That kind of thinking is refreshing and different. Keep getting ideas, maybe one will hit home even harder.

[Dave]

I have a pen pal in Africa. I'm helping him transfer funds from a recently deceased businessman out of the country before they get snatched up by his oppressive regime. The internet really does bring us all together!

[Dom]

Tarus has the right idea!!!

Don't just send Americans out to see the world (I can just see them walking about confused in the sun wondering where the nearest Crispy Creme place was...

No, go a step further, be bold, just swap all the people of Africa for the Americans, then they'll really get the message!

[Bertram]

Great - after decades of ignorance we will at last find out what dangerous and crazy people inhabit foreign countries. I will happily discuss visiting a topless beach with my Taliban friend, but my friendly invitation to consider our view of the world will be turned into a most unacceptable insult by that automatic translation system.
Not only our governments will have enemies - we all will have pen-enemies. And we will be watching CNN like mad to watch Phlubanakawahaha and his entire family die, after we slipped his IP address to some government organization.

[Angel]

I thought they were joking when people said Americans know nothing about other countries - they were right. You really don't know sh*t about life outside your borders.

[Dom]

I like it and I would do it.

I think it is a brilliant idea that could work.

The way to do it would be through schools and universities where kids/students wrote to penpals and vice-versa but stayed in touch as they grew up. Of course the schools should make it mandatory as part of their world education.

I scanned the page hoping for someone to post a link of someone already doing this idea but I couldn't find anything? Did I miss something?

Thanks!

[caviar]

Ideas are a dime a dozen. What matters is what you do with them.

[gusset]

"There is some theoretical level of citizen-to-citizen contact that makes war between two countries virtually impossible."
Is this true or is it your hypothesis? Surely that figure would have to be pretty high or there would never be a civil war?

[Anfauglir]

If the idea that "we do not fight the people we know" was the truth, then there would never have been any Civil Wars.

[fredericko]

Brad, i agree 100%

[D1N0]

I'm not so sure about the automatic translation; we all know how bad the computerised language translations are (at the moment). It's entirely possible that it could translate your "Howdy, dude" into a "Die, Infidel!!".

By the way, my favourite bad translation is from Japanese and was the motto of a company (Vic Tokai). It read "Vic Tokai, be big and happy and if you like then work for company".

[Greg]

Here is what I think is a bigger issue: either mass democratization of the mind, or its mass slavery. One would mean peace, the other 1984. To which end do you think we are heading?

[Tibor]

Come on. I can't even get enough motivation to e-mail my MOTHER as often as I should. How am I going to e-mail some unpronouncable bastard I don't even care about on the other side of the planet? Easier to nuke them.

[Jeorme]

Scott, this one is for you:
http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,25197,23233369-12377,00.html

a 15 year old kills her family because she is insane and they denied her medication because they were Scientologists. Truth is funnier than fiction, however tragic. The moral is pretty obvious....

[Yves]

Hi,

Actually, this is EXACTLY what we are trying to do at WorldFriends, including the Nobel Peace Prize focus part.

Thanks for the unofficial validation :)
Yves

[gyrofx]

I live in the most developed country on the African continent, namely South Africa... there are a few problems with your idea.

1. Less than on percent of South African's have continuous access to the internet.
2. As a rule the internet is hellishly slow... by the time you have made your friend your government would have killed him.
3. The friend you will make will be encouraging you to kill people in his own country as tribalism exists this is a problem throughout Africa. Think Ethnic cleansing (actually slaughter of anyone who is not from the same tribe as you)
4. A lot of governments own the telecoms in their lands and therefor control internet usage...

I could go on but someone is here to disable my inter.....

[Loz]

It's not you and me and little Achmed the pen pal who start these wars, it's governments and world banks who see huge money opportunities. And the willingness of citizens to stand behind their leaders in the face of manufactured fear is just amazing.

[Tim]

Your idea is already happening:

http://www.livemocha.com/

[Charcoal4 - Tony, Hong Kong]

This is a very good idea!

How come we haven't heard of it before?

You're one of the greatest influencers who have impacted me in a profound way.

I have recently re-read The Dilbert Future and applied the Affirmation techniques you wrote and surprisingly good benefits seem to be coming.

Do you still do affirmations?

[Xofis]

There already are McDonald's in Mumbai:

http://www.mcdonaldsindia.com/rlocator/index.html

[Sally Sweet Sally]

I like the idea but am wondering if we could get someone better than blubbering Sally Struthers to do it this time around?!

[RealityCheck]

Nothing stops Americans killing people...especially other Americans. You think a rip-off version of Facebook is going to stop Haliburtons gunning down schoolchildren in Iraq?

[Vincent]

I think it already has been invented. It's called the Internet.

[Edwin]

I like the idea. For it is another dream that will be shattered upon the rocks of reality. Somewhere in the past you wrote a post about what you called "natural allies". I don't remember pen pals was in your list of prerequisites. As some other readers have already mentioned, several wars were fought by people who were family related or had been living next to each other peacefully for years. Some minor nothing happenened and they started shooting each other. American civil war. World War 1 & 2, Ruanda (Hutu's and Tutsies), Yugoslavia, the larger part of Africa is fighting each other. Your idea starts of from the idea that man is naturally good. Know who had that idea as well? Yep, Karl Marx. I think you may influence the world more by drawing funny cartoons.

[Andrei]

Hi Scott. I've started to work on this idea, with few twists for the sake of feasibility, few months ago. Shooting you an email w/ details.

[JW Poteet]

I think to win the Nobel prize you have to actually make the idea go all the way to reality stage. So my question is, why don't you? Seems like something a fairly wealthy person with some connections, tech saavy, and time could make happen. I say go for it.

[Michael Casey]

Everyone keeps telling you that your ideas aren't going to work, Scott, but I don't see *them* posting anything about how to end world peace. None of these folks are nationally syndicated cartoonists, either, and yet they also advise you on matters of that as well. Quit commenting and start your own Dilbert Blog, ya whiners!

[q]

"I realize that this is an insult to folks like Mohandas Gandhi, who unquestionably deserved their prizes, but that's not my fault."

Actually he never was awarded the peace prize - one of the few guys to show peace could deliver results - go figure!

See this article for weasly justifications as to why not:
http://nobelprize.org/nobel_prizes/peace/articles/gandhi/index.html

[Karl H.]

"My hovercraft is full of eels."

Seriously, any idea that relies on efficient computer translation is a pipe dream, at best. I'm guessing Scott Adams knows only English and doesn't understand the magnitude of the problem.

Sometimes the language structure itself sets obstacles that not even an experienced human translator can overcome. I had a Taiwanese pen pal who worked at a publishing company. She was given the hopeless task of translating Terry Pratchett's "The Wee Free Men" into Mandarin Chinese. The problem wasn't just how to translate a Scottish accent, but how to translate a Scottish accent into a language that doesn't have phonetic spelling. In the end it couldn't be done and the book suffered terribly as a result. Half the jokes became incomprehensible.

[quantum_flux]

Boss Cigarettes

http://www.halfbakery.com/idea/Boss_20Cigarrettes#1203267896

[Jasmine]

I think the main flaw is that people cooperating in it are doing it in a perfunctory fashion -- adhering to the idea and taking part without any REAL GENUINE INTEREST -- which is the thing to sustain this idea, really.

[Bryan]

I think the author Arthur C. Clarke already covered this in one of his 2001 sequels (2010, 2061, 3001, I forget which) but in his prediction, it was more than just sending notes to people in foreign countries. In his vision of the future, the global economy was so intertwined that you routinely had hundreds or even thousands of your fellow countrymen in a foreign country doing business there, so a military attack on that land would be ruled out because of all the "peace hostages" (as Clarke called them) that were living there.

[Spike]

Dude,

Haven't you been paying attention? The Nobel Peace Prize has NOTHING to do with actually doing anything to promote "peace."

You're chances would be better if you could figure out how to get a McDonald's franchise in Mumbai.....of course, I don't think the Pakistani's give a rat's ass about what Indians eat.....

Hey, here's a thought.....why don't you just wait ten or twenty years when we all get on the global cooling bandwagon, and make a movie about how the last Nobel Peace Prize winner was full of hot air? That might work....yea, I'm sure it would.....

[Ryan]

I normally enjoy reading your somewhat offbeat ideas. This one doesn't come close to passing the sniff test. Sorry?

[SIGH]

When Amway went international, one of their "taglines" went something like "Sponser someone in another country and we will do away with war - why would you want to kill someone who is making you money as a downline?"

That didnt work either...

[quantum_flux]

The stupid boss said something right today. Gaaahhh!

[Kevin Kunreuther]

How about an e-mail account that gives you a pen pal when you sign up? To keep the account active, you must write and read at least one e-mail a week from your pen pal. I'll be happy to share the Peace Prize with you, Scott.

[oqbo]

I think you actually have to do it, rather than thinking up the idea.

[Andy]

Scott,

This is an ingenious idea. I must now quote Robert Greenwald, and what he says at the end of each of his mini-videos..."Psst...do something." If you think you have the power and will to make such a website, I'm sure you will have many supporters, myself included.

Love for all.

[Harry Buttle]

I suspect that, by allowing a free exchange of ideas and easy communication between different cultures, you would trigger more and larger wars than ever before.

Do you really believe that letting our nutters abuse them and their nutters abuse us on a daily basis is a GOOD idea?

[DWH]

Let's take it one step further and make that Indian or Chinese family pay the american family a tax or fine for having their job.Then the whole US can be dependant on a 'you took my job' tax system from around the world, and would therefore make declaring war economic suicide.

[jrbiel]

Scott. I agree that creating personal links with other countries reduces the chance of war. Other ideas along these same lines are

- International adoption -- it is harder to think of going to war with a country that gave you a beautiful adopted son or daughter.

- International marriage -- if your spouse was born in another country you have a special relationship with it.

I would think that government incentives of some sort to encourage these kind of international connections would be a good thing.

[Sluggo]

A friend of mine helps run a nonprofit organization that does something very similar to what Scott is asking for.

http://www.soliya.net

Excerpting a bit from their "What we do" blurb:

Soliya [...] uses the latest web-conferencing technology to bridge the gap between university students in the Middle East, North Africa, Europe and the United States.

[quantum_flux]

What the heck is a trouble ticket?

[Captain Awesome]

On the contrary, such a plan would make war a certainty.

Have you ever been on the internet? There is a phenomena called a 'flame war' which is final result of all online conversations. Usually, one participant is likened to Hitler during this 'flame war'.

PS the post before mine was very stupid.

[Andy Watt]

why mr a, you're mellowing out you old hippy. who plucked your heartstrings today? have you been sniffing babies' heads again? ;)

lovely idea about the african village thing, one of my major problems with modern charities is that someone gets salaried working for them. i want all my cash (or as much as possible without giving another fat lazy westerner like myself a job) to do something truly inspirational for someone. your idea is a stroke of genius, i think with the right safeguards it's exactly the kind of 121 interaction that the internet should be fostering.

however, pen friends across the ocean is definitely your tiedye thought for the day. like jack said... why can't we all just.; get along?

[Danial]

I went searching for, and met a guy on Skype from Iraq. He didn't know any English so I used one of those mechanical (read: poor) translators on the web to translate his Arabic into English as we IMd. It was fascinating. After a couple monnths, unfortunately, the communications stopped abruptly.

[Shashwat]

I have a better idea to get a nobel prize. India and China push their kids to study 10-15 hours in school in High School, up to 20 hours during exams. This is a form of child labor cause they have no lifes. Lobby with the UN to lower the rigourous curriculum and make a few powerpoints, and voila, Resoulation something something is passed which establishes a committee to make sure countries do commit child abuse through their educational network. I have the price and Indian freinds will all worship me. Kids will have their lives back again.

[CodyC]

Machine translation just isn't there yet. Not only are there problems with words that have multiple meanings and cultural nuances that don't survive machine translation, there's then a whole language of idioms that we use day-to-day that sound like gibberish when translated literally.

In the meantime, we can all use Esperanto as an easy way to chat with our international pen pals. Samideanoj unuighu! :D

[Pender]

Just out of curiousity, why do you post optimistic questions to people, who being fans of Dilbert, are probably just as jaded as you are? :)

[Tim c]

Dr Greg Mortenson. 'Three cups of tea'.

[aahhrrgg]

With my luck, I'd end up with an American evangelical Christian penpal who wouldn't be interested in any point of view except their own and I'd go back to to playing Risk online.

[ZF]

Balls to you Scott.

I mean the nobel prize shaped like a ball. Ain't it? No? Balls to you.

[Robert Hamilton]

Scott, Here's the info on getting nominated http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobel_Peace_Prize you could actually be nominated by the end of the week if you really push it. I would rate your chances of actually winning it as fair at best. Good Luck

[Carl]

Um, Scott, not to give a serious answer or anything, but you do realize that real wars are often fought between neighbors?

Croats, Bosnian Muslims, and Serbs lived next door for decades, then suddenly massacred each other. Hutu and Tutsi lived in peace for over a century--the distinction hardly even existed any more until the Belgians forced everyone to identify themselves as one or the other. Then Hutu murdered Tutsi by the thousands with machetes.

Heck, look at Baghdad right now, where neighbors kill each other over the question of who should have been Muhammed's successor after his death.

Familiarity breeds particularly brutal war.

[Chris]

I'm not convinced. How attached would people really feel to someone that far removed? And wouldn't the people likely to subscribe be those with more outward looking anti-war tendencies anyway?

I'd like to see what effect a "kill 'em with kindness" approach would have. Anywhere where there's deep anti-west feelings being fomented, our troops rush in and build hospitals, schools mosques, water treatment plants, etc.
No kicking in doors looking for bad guys, no involvement in the local politics, just "we're here to build this, deal with it"

At the very least you think they'd hold off with the killing till the infidels had finished the building.

I'd like to think it's good economics too - jump-starting their economy, employing all those locals, building trading links with the west. And the human cost would be so much cheaper all round.

Of course it would never work. Human nature is such that our tendency is to think about destroying our (potential) enemy rather than working to make him a friend.

[xianxian]

our chinese are very good
yes,we should learn english,but,there are mang foreign person learn Chinese,i am pride to be a Chinese~~~~

[syn]

Just an add to my first comment about how American TV protrays people.

Which one of these TRUE facts did you see on CBS?

1. Some assholes in the middle east cheered when the WTC fell.

2. 20,000 people held a candle prayer meeting for the dead. This happened in Iran.

[syn]

After reading these comments i have to say you Americans have a pretty fucked up view of the world..

You do realise that apart from the loonies (Iran,Iraq etc)Muslim countries are fairly similar to the US.

Im always amazed that an American will stand there and blather on and on about "Bu$h" but then sit there and never once question the nightly news.

Do try to remember that normal peacful countries dont make interesting news storys. For every one of you that hears nothing except how violent Muslims are theres one of us hearing how the US is "attacking Islam" Except strangly we dont just believe it because its on tv, if we did no Muslims would ever move to the US.

[Euan Smith]

Give a man a fish and he can eat for a day.

Teach a man to fish and he can destroy his local ecosystem leaving him and his family dependant on external aid for generations to come, providing a powerful political lever and a ready source of cheap labour.

[Thomas]

It's time to go back to the Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy (by Douglas Adams). You could cause a war by saying something that is not offensive in your own language, but in someone else's. "I'm having tremendous troubles with my lifestyle" was Adam's example. You would need to have some kind of international lingo (not english, since that causes some difficulties for us non-native speakers). Some kind of newspeak, only without the bad connotation. But then, how emotional would communication get? Would that help? Or would it just estrange us further?

[Marvin]

Scott Adams, Idealist, meet Douglas Adams, Realist; specifically, The novelization of the "Hitchhikers' Guide to the Galaxy" first radio series, Chapter 6, page 2:

"Meanwhile, the poor Babel fish, by effectively removing all barriers to communication ..."

[REL]

I hope that auto-translate doesn't come too soon, otherwise I've spent 3+years jerkin my self around learning 'foreign' languages for fun!

[John]

It's already been said, but Britain and Germany were very close right up to WW1. The King and the Kaiser were cousins or something...

[T.I.M.]

How would love hate or indifference contribute to starting or stopping a war? Nothing could be less relevant to war than what peasants feel, talk or write.

All modern war, with no exception, is strictly a function of specific loans made to assemble armies and weapons at the battleground. Without loans there can be no war.

All wars since 1914 (starting with WW1) are primarily caused by the New York Federal Reserve Bank ("B").

The power of the Federal Reserve bank to tax/enslave the American population and liquidate the American natural resources provided the basis for an average of 40 simultaneous hot wars since the end of WW2.

All war can be ended by simply destroying the blood lines who rule the parasitic central banks. Regicide is the only answer. Have nice Nobel prize. (Named for the man who made western gunpowder a popular commodity)

However pretending to attempt to end war with a pen pal project might have a viable advertising model in there somewhere. Pen Pals may prove to be high click thru rate kind of people. (unlike your near worthless blog readers)

[cMAD]

My grandparents' generation had neighbors and good friends whom they sent on a one-way trip to Poland.

Nothing about your idea can't be undone with the proper application of People's Enlightenment and Propaganda.

[Muppet]

Well, my question to you is: What makes you think that anyone wants to be a pen pal to an American?

As stated before, I'm an expat in Germany and I live among 'foreigners'. They couldn't care less that I'm American. All they know about America is from Hollywood and the Jerry Springer shows that air here. This is the 'way America is portrayed' and translated into their german tv. They think we are all a bunch of SUV driving lazy, fat, bible thumpers that hate Bush and can't wait to see who we pick for our next invasion.

This neighbor kid that met me wanted to show off his knowledge of english. This 10 yr old just cussed his head off and I had to pick my jaw up off the floor before I could ask him to stop.

Sure, we helped rebuild Germany after WW2, BUT, and this is a big BUT, they don't want us to live here. Like the Turks that worked along side of Americans to rebuild their country, they want us all to go back home. They don't want to integrate us or share ideas. They are BETTER than the stupid lazy Americans.

I think we need to change our image to the rest of the world first. And God forbid any natural disaster happen, like the tsunami, because they would still expect us to fund their disaster recovery.

Dream on Scott.

[fatmantheinvincible]

Whatever happened to your regular, controversial, contrarian, hot-button, poke-the-hornet's-nest, drive-your-readers-batshit-insane, blog?

HOW AM I SUPPOSED TO GET THROUGH MY DAY WITHOUT BEING DRIVEN BATSHIT INSANE??!!?!?!

(Yes, I'm shouting. Get over it)

[Marie]

I was just reading a firsthand account from Rwanda by a Hutu woman. She was raised in a village of mixed Hutu and Tutsi tribes. She had Tutsi teachers, neighbors, and classmates. Then, one day, the Tutsi rose up and almost as one killed all Hutu they knew.

She was kept safe in a tiny bathroom, hidden actually by a Tutsi pastor. All to say, not ALL the Tutsi were killing, nor ALL the Hutu. Just most of them, it appears.

In any event these folks were a lot closer than internet buddies.

People are really wicked a lot of the time. I am sorry to say I don't think your idea would prevent war.

Think also of all the solitary murders that occur, no war necessary. We are usually killed by people who are very close to us.

[Lupus]

I'm all for increased citizen contact between countries, though many of the countries we're most likely to go to war with are more totalitarian than democratic, and may not give 2 figs what their more moderate citizens think.

I honestly think trade/commerce does the same thing, perhaps even better here, because the "big" political donations come from corps and people who get rich running corps. Despite the size of the military-establishment, it still pales in comparison the rest of the private sector that wants nice stable peace-time conditions.

Also, those treadle pumps not only make one too tired to even have sex (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20080124/od_uk_nm/oukoe_uk_malawi_pumps_sex;_ylt=AqhzqlqSme6q1Kg3IceE6LSs0NUE)
they were also banned from British prisons as "too cruel". Sounds like a great gift! How about giving them some modern conveniences that we have come to love, and help them get a wired up power grid?

[quantum_flux]

Keep trying. Richard Feynman will tell you to cram it up your ass because that is all it really is good for!

[Peter]

Wouldn't the bond between the countries if instead of just pen pals the site offered cross-country dating or match-making services? This could be used not as a replacement for the pen pal, but as an added service. Perhaps Iran or Syria or China could be the new Russia and you'd start a new trend! The Russian mail-order brides mafia might be upset about it, though...

[D. Mented]

I don't care what your political affiliation (or lack of one) is, if you haven't been living under a rock the past seven years (some say fourty) the news should have proven to you that governments don't need their citizens' support for a war.
D. Mented

[HCG]

This would only work if all foreigners were wonderful people that couldn't help but win our admiration and friendship. The truth is that getting to know most people better just gives you concrete reasons to dislike them, and vice versa. This could easily give foreigners more reason to hate Americans.

Keep trying. You are just one brilliant idea away from your goal.

[stylus]

When I have a blind date, I like the man to pull my chair out for me. I like him to open my car door, and that sort of thing. I know it's old fashioned, but it makes eating with a stranger so much easier to face.

I'd hire a butler to do it for me but the last one tried to pick my wallet!!

[Hardy Har har]

You're missing the point -- Americans WANT to start wars in other countries. They want to drop bombs and shoot people vicariously, it makes them feel powerful. So why would they support or join a program which would inhibit that?

[N]

Have you heard of mob culture? People are reasonable till they are an individual dealing with another individual; until peer pressure happens....

People killed their own neighbours with whom they had been together for generations when Pakistan and India partitioned...

I know I am simplifying but you really need to read history a bit... It would be far more interesting reading your posts. Creativity with a bit of hard work is a wonderful combination! (as you would know)

Btw, here is a "oh !@#$!" headline - http://news.theage.com.au/bush-to-bring-american-compassion-to-africa/20080216-1sl9.html

[Silas]

Translated *automatically*? Um ... forget the website, Scott. Solving the problem of automatic translation by itself will get you the Peace Prize ... and a few hundred other prizes.

Now, for a while, I've tried developing a "semi-automatic" translation system, where you assist the automatic translator by labeling the meanings so there's less room for error, but even that is quite difficult.

Then, of course, the program no longer becomes cheap or private when you need a professional translator.

Were you not aware of this little hurdle?

[WCE]

You mean, people could use the internet to recruit friends in foreign nations the same way that al Qaida is already using it to recruit terrorists in foreign nations?

Gee, it's working for them, maybe it'll work for us, too.

The approach to preclude countries from going to war with each other has already been worked out. The one king kidnaps the sons/daughters of the other kings and holds them hostage in his court, with the threat of killing them first if there's a war. That approach actually worked pretty well. Too bad it's already been documented, I'd have liked a Nobel Peace Prize myself.

[John Reedy]

Everyone who criticized Scott's idea, make a place for your "It's easy to come up with a million ways something won't work, everybody in the world can do that, I'm too brainless to try to find the way it CAN work" award.

hmm...the title is a little long, that would have to be a huge award, so...buy bigger T.V's damnit!

http://awritersblock.com

[Jaime Bakulic]

Soo... you're saying that something like.. facebook... can achieve world peace. So in one hand we have human atomization, and the end of society as we know it (that's what facebook is doing right now, taking time away from actual human contact and putting it into fake friendships) and on the other we have peace.

I made up my mind already.

[KRKR8M]

This idea assumes that people in all other countries have control over their government. Totalitarian governments are more apt to kill someone in their own country who does not obey than someone from another country. Totalitarian governments are all about gaining and maintaining power by force. Improved communication can start a rebelion to overthrow such countries, yet in the end it is up to the people.

[Gabriel]

A few things come to mind which might complicate matters..

In many of the war torn countries like Iraq, Afganistan, Palestine, etc, internet penetration is low. And it's not sufficient to just give them hand crank laptops if no network infrastructure is built, right?

Most importantly, I kind of feel that decisions to start a war are usually made by people who are so detached from initiatives like this.

Do you think President Bush will sign up for an account if he knew about such an initiative that existed? Would be interesting to see what he writes to his pen pal in Iraq!

[Alsadius]

There's several flaws with this. Firstly, I don't have enough time in the day to make 200 new pen pals, which is the number that would be necessary to have even one in each country. Secondly, most of the countries that mine(Canada) would conceivably go to war with are the type that wouldn't allow their population to engage in this sort of open interaction with the rest of the world - if we could have online North Korean pen pals by the million, the problems that would lead to war would already have disappeared. Third, automated translation is terrible - far too inadequate for this job, certainly. Fourth, wars don't actually kill all that many people - even assuming the worst numbers around about Iraq, it's only a couple percent of the population dead, and that's after several years of civil unrest and the worst statistics incompetent researchers can manage to use. That's hardly "a good chance of Pen Pal X and his/her entire family winding up dead". Fifth, plenty of wars happen for reasons other than a lack of sympathy for the civilians in the opposing nation - look at something like Somalia, where that sympathy was the exact reason why the war happened.

Look on the bright side though - you won't have to clean off your TV for a long, long time yet. It might be a bit sooner if that literature prize I keep submitting you for ever comes through, but I'm not holding my breath.

[the man in the trout mask]

How about if we all hold hands and chant - "No more war! - give peace a chance!" We can have sit ins and protest marches - we can meet the fascist police with love in our hearts and flowers in our hands - we can .... oh,wait a minute,I think that's been done already. O.K. - let's try your way then.

[SlowMovingTarget]

And the more you converse with your significant other the less you argue, right?

[j.thorn]

Let's ask MLKjr & John Lennon how promoting peace worked out for them. oh, yeah, right, never mind.

[ephes]

Your idea reminds me of a story that happened a few weeks
ago in Iraq. An US soldier, who also was a blogger, was
killed by a sniper. His last blog entry, he left in case
he would have been killed, was published then by a friend
of him:

http://obsidianwings.blogs.com/obsidian_wings/2008/01/andy-olmsted.html

Let's assume the sniper had read this last blog post, which
is not too unrealistic, given all the buzz this story created.
How does he feel now? Does it still seem to be a great
victory or more like "darn, that day, i really should have
been staying at home, petting my dog"?

If such mind-changing events are possible, there's hope.
We only need some kind of "small world phenomenon" voodoo
technology, that let you know, which part of your social
network you're about to take apart _before_ pulling the
trigger.

[Dan]

... so sorry to hear about the food shortages your having. ... so sorry to hear about the food shortages your having. I myself had a similar situation yesterday with my online character; she almost died due to not having some food with her.

.. in other news I managed to get all the work i needed to get done this week done - so i can have a stress free weekend. I plan on going skiing? do you ski or snowboard?

Anyway, Better luck with food next week,

Sincerely,

[brian]

Your idea has some merit but would the people you wish to communicate with be allowed to talk to you? I cannot imagine that the people in Iran, Pakistan, china or for that matter Saudi Arabia would be allowed free and open access to the internet and people who live in a village that does not have its own water pump probably do not have any electricty.

the internet makes it very easy to monitor people. If some paranoid official decides that you have been corrupted by the evil/subversive pig dog westerner it could get ugly.

[draagonfly]

I love your theory Scott! (Really.) Don't clear the top of the tv just yet though. The fly in the ointment is that members of small African villages (or any place that might appear on the cover of National Geographic) are too busy surviving to care much about what goes on with the internet, even if they're handed a computer with connectivity for free. Plus, I have to agree with the comment above that says we're not at war with the average citizen, we're at war with the fundamentalist zealots. Zealots of ANY religion (and I do mean ANY) are convinced they are right/good and you are wrong/evil and I doubt there would be any changing their mind as they are, by definition, unconscionable. So that means your idea would have to work at the root of the problem, which is a good thing, but would take a couple generations to accomplish (just like civil rights). If we make enough computers and things to connect them for that many people that quickly, my bet is that we kill ourselves off the planet before your goal has time to be realized. It's just a guess, but since you're the Econ major, I'll let you do the math.

[BillF]

How about "Mothers Withholding Sex."

I propose that mothers across the globe simply tell their husbands/partner that there will be no sex if the country ever goes to war.

Men will fight hard for peace if it may mean getting sex.

[DarkBert]

Your idea's good.

But...

it's not gonna work, especially if Barack Osama wins as president this year.

Prez Osama will just end up snubbing anyone who offers an idea that didn't come from him...and the troops will never be able to go home from Iraq.

[BillF]

How about "Mothers Withholding Sex."

I propose that mothers across the globe simply tell their husbands/partner that there will be no sex if the country ever goes to war.

Men will fight hard for peace if it may mean getting sex.

[Michael Casey]

Scott, your intention of vindicating your selfishness by employing it to achieve world peace is utterly transparent. Yet it's the best idea I've heard so far for stopping war, so I'm forced to lay down my self-imposed mores and give you my blessing.

May the Nine Squirral Gods of Osmosis spit gardens on your arguably pragmatic soul.

[o2bnobx]

Doubtful that this would make a difference. Before WW1, the prevailing opinion was that a general European war could not happen because of the strong financial and personal ties that existed, particularly among the elites, between most important nations. And don’t forget that there were thousands of Americans with close family ties in the Old World, yet this didn’t prevent the vast majority of Americans from enthusiastically supporting American involvement (fighting either Germans or Italians) in both world wars. And certainly the American Civil War, where frequently brother literally fought brother, shows that personal ties usually don’t make much difference.

[Pik]

"You learn that all they need is one of those foot-operated water pumps for irrigating fields and a bag of seeds and they can build a decent life"

Not to mention, some good old fashioned Nigerian spam suggesting a "Business Proposal". Anything to help a pen-friend!

[Linzoy]

Like others have said, maybe the world would be a better place if you implemented one of your ideas. You could make a facebook app for this purpose.

There are internet things like this, but they usually connect you to people in the military.

[squigs]

I actually had a thought about an international pidgin language a while ago. My initial idea was to have it based on graphical icons, which I still think is a good idea but that bit isn't essential.

I think it would be possible to create a dictionary of a few hundred words that would be able to express most concepts and that can be translated into all languages. You could type a sentence in natural English. The system would offer some suggestions for translations through the pidgin, and you pick the one that fits best.

[Linzoy]

Like others have said, maybe the world would be a better place if you implemented one of your ideas.

There are internet things like this, but they usually connect you to people in the military. I think it would be easy to make a facebook app for this purpose.

[sel]

oh, yeah. Because places like China are going to allow open communication between their citizens and the citizens of other countries without any influence, censorship or control. They're well known for valuing of free speech.

Aside from that, you have your "pals" who are predators, sexual and otherwise. The pen pal system could be used for terrorist recruitment, cults, and other crazies.

Who's going to monitor the system? Who gets sued when something bad happens?

I think you need to try again for that Nobel Prize idea.

[Felix]

I think that there is already a pattern out there.
Since global communications have improved a lot we all have a better understanding of other cultures which means that a conflict between two countries that understand each other is less likely ina big part because their citizens wouldn't support it.
If you see recent war events, it has been with countries with a highly uneducated population, or with completely alienated countries. I believe that the main reason for that to happen is because there is no communication flowing.

But I agree with Scott 100%. I would think that internet as an all and global communications are a means to peace.

[Josh P.]

As much as I'd like it to work...do you know how many civil wars there have been (including ours) where people killed friends, family, members of same race, religion, etc.

I don't think a few pen pals is going to stop war - but keep hoping Scott. I'm encouraged by your optimism. And humor.

[dipy911]

Not having to talk to other people, especially in other evil countries, is a constitutional right. Isn't it?

[LaGrainge]

I would put my Nobel Peace Prize between my pictures of Jimmy Carter and Yasser Arafat.

[E]

Disembodied Consciousness wrote:

[Message 1
[Automatic Translation by MicroHoo!]
Dear Scott Adams

How you do today? I'm very good. It hot and sunny here. How you? Today I spent time at the
==junior high school learning about America. They are teaching us to use a long knife to prepare America for serving as food. Must go now

There is no god but Allah
Jihadi Mujahadee
[end translation] ]

Dude, two points. That was awesome.

[Brad K.]

I see several problems. Most people work. They don't take time for the people in their day-to-day lives, let alone pen pals.

Note that letter writing as a means of communication is more effective than ever today, with the ever higher standards of writing. Yet letter writing has been horribly ignored as a means of communication. Look at the greeting card industry. We can't even write 'Happy Birthday' - we have to have a 'skilled artist' take care of that chore.

Let's see now, 1) People aren't interested in maintaining pen pal relationships, no patience, no interest, no discipline, and unlikely to allot a time slot for the activity; 2) People aren't interested in communicating person to person. We have no skills for the closed, interactive exchange of missives. Look at email exchanges - they usually degenerate quickly to 'thanks for the information' and an end to the exchange.

Then there is the 'Not Invented Here' or 'Not In My Back Yard' (NIMBY) sydrome. Both the Judeo-Christian teachings and the Muslim teachings stress keeping to your own kind, associate only with the believers in your own church, shun the unbeliever (J-C) or kill them (M). Seems a fragile foundation for peace.

What you overlook are the historical bindings that bring peoples together - trade. People will build weapons to kill 'The Other Guy'. But they will learn his language to buy his foodstuffs, his gewgaws, his fabrics and luxuries and commodities. People lament Americans only know their own language - but look how many Americans are living and interacting with Japanese, Chinese, and even Canadians, often in their native tongue.

Forget the citizen-level, grass roots path to peace. Look instead to General Mills, General Motors, Ford, Honda, Toyota, and Toys "R" Us. And get a plastic horse for the space over the TV, maybe a Breyer Shire filly like the world's current tallest horse.

[friskybeaver]

I don't know how much South Park you watch, but they tried the pen pal thing. It just ends up with the kids realizing that all muslims, not just the terrorists, are America hating butt holes. Go Broncos.

[TJ]

I'm friends with people from other countries on Facebook.

Your translator idea is a bit flawed, and could cause some misunderstandings that might cause a war.

The problem is semantics.

For instance, a simple word like "run" comes up with the following meanings:

sprint (v), flow (v), proceed (v), manage (v), operate (v), move (v), continue (v), complete (v), jog (n), course (n), sequence (n), enclosure (n) & outing (n)

Since the foreign language will most likely not have a word that has all these definitions, now the translator (or operator) will have to