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The task was opening a box.

The adult did something extraneous like waving a feather and then actually opened the latch and opened the box.

Recent scientific study showed that (after watching the adult) young chimps figure that waving the feather is irrelevant and just open the box. Young humans wave the feather and open the box.

To me, this means young humans are retarded, although the scientist tried to make the case that humans are more advanced in some way.

Opposites

Exercise (and other things):

Sometimes you have to feel bad to feel good.

It's nonintuitive.

In computer science, this is why the greedy algorithm is often not optimal.

Porn Compatibility

Porn for men (sex videos with little plot) and porn for women (romance novels) are incompatible* because each is tuned particularly to what men and women want (extremes). Actual relationships are a compromise that satisfy a man and a woman, at least partially.


* A novel won't work for a man and a video won't work for a woman.

Romance

When you're tired of something, you keep you have to stop. When you want something you have to take it. It doesn't interfere, it satiates, and then you move on.

analogy

i feel that pretty much any project with a deadline can be analogized as piece of fecal matter, sailing through the air, in slow motion. we watch the fecal matter, in the periphery of our vision, glancing occasionally, taking pudding breaks, generally unconcerned.

then there's that moment, when the shit actually hits the fan, blades turning in slow motion, particles just beginning to splatter - and that's really the moment of truth. that's when the pudding breaks have to be put aside. the thing has to be done.

practice

if i had to give a message to a student, a short message:

the kind of practice (that i care about) is not really so much memorization.

what you want to do is create a state in which your brain will build new structures that weren't there before. don't immediately panic when you see the black guy playing 40 notes a second - that's a structure that he took some time to build. don't expect to have that structure in your brain from the start.

and note that the brain is sort of building new organs, so it's going to take time. it's like a fetus growing - takes time. no way to force it really.

fast growing humans

humans pair bond for a long time because kids take about 15 years to raise. (compare penguins, which mate for 1 year only.) somebody needs to invent fast growing humans.