Various books and experiences have shown me the power and joy of communicating with others. I don't mean that talking and writing with others always results in fun experiences. But in the long run, others add to life in a way that makes them the best part of living.
I have gotten good insights from "The 10,000 Year Explosion" and from Tom Wheeler's book "From Gutenberg to Google". Nothing new comes without some downsides and some fears. A couple of my friends are leery of "surveillance capitalism", the combination of internet use and big data that results in capture of my electronic data and its sale to buyers and manipulators.
I guess the recent revelation that the FBI used an app to see into criminal activity. I guess it was thought by criminals in many different countries to be a good tool to plan and carry out activities while it actually opened them up to scrutiny by law enforcement. I like to think I am clean and law-abiding but I suppose a good prosecutor could convict me of something. I have read of Cardinal Richilieu's saying that if a man will write but three lines, the Cardinal and his aides can find a way of using those words to convict the writer of treason.
From what I have experienced and read about the human mind and memory, we all have strong limits on what we can remember, how many details we can deal with at a time, and how accurately we can imagine some future action. It seems possible that in addition to memory limits, mental capacity limits and imagination limits, we are getting a little better at recognizing what our wiring and emotions push us into. I don't just mean rage or depression but also such "heuristics" or shortcuts and rules of thumb as discussed by writers such as Wray Herbert, Robert Ornstein and Adam Grant. Our wiring makes recent events more important whether or not they are, exciting events dominate our attention and habits, and feelings of routine affect our thinking.
