September 2017

Experience as interpretation

> Our own nature, in fact, is defined by the tiny fraction of possible interpretations [of the world] we can make, and the astronomical number we can’t.- [Hans Moravec](http://www.frc.ri.cmu.edu/~hpm/project.archive/general.articles/1998/SimConEx.98.html)

Consciousness as story

> Our consciousness may be primarily the continuous story we tell ourselves, from moment to moment, about what we did and why we did it. It is a thin, often inaccurate veneer rationalizing a mountain of unconscious processing… > On the one hand, our consciousness may be an evolutionary fluke, telling an unreliable story in…more

A list of human universals

Things that everybody does, in every culture worldwide: [Human Universals](https://condor.depaul.edu/mfiddler/hyphen/humunivers.htm) For example: > * Dance * Jokes * Language * Laws * Planning for future * “Snakes, wariness around” * Tickling * “Weather control (attempts to)” [via Alan Kay](https://www.fastcompany.com/40435064/what-alan-kay-thinks-about-the-iphone-and-technology-now), who says “Suppose you want to make a lot of money. Well, just take the top…more

Veto power and ranked choice voting

George Tsebelis on the connection between electoral structure and government structure: > The basic idea is that the more veto players you have, the more difficult it is to change the status quo. And the more ideological distance the veto players have from each other, the more difficult it is to change the status quo……more