One of the most terrifying things that nobody ever seems to talk about, is how the cultural development and even communication of our whole species is almost entirely defined now by the capabilities of our digital systems in a way that I'm not sure can even be solved, because anything not explicitly supported by them can't 'exist' within their realm, on a very fundamental level.

No 'official' language code for your language? Too bad. Use a writing system that can't be represented within the constraints of eg. Unicode? Sucks to be you. Gesture-based communication? Well, that probably isn't happening. Have different cultural norms from the US? Well I guess you don't anymore, because the tech you're now dependent on is built by US companies to their norms. Sure, you can replace the US and Unicode but it doesn't change the fundamental dynamic.

Historically, cultural and linguistic development has always been permissionless to some degree; you have a whole reality to interact with and affect, anythingwithin the laws of physics so to say. Everything within that is possible as long as it hasn't been made impossible. Invent a whole new form of communication, or have it emerge organically or collaboratively? Why not!

But digital systems are the exact opposite; only those things that were explicitly designed can exist, there's no space of possibility outside of that, and the knowledge required to do the designing is so incredibly complex that I doubt it can ever be a 'universal skill' in society, the way that eg. touch or gesturing is.

And it terrifies me to think of the long-term consequences of this kind of constraint.