hacking
The definition of hacking I got from a friend was, “Using what things actually are, rather than what they are supposed to do, to accomplish goals.”
Proposed: The human is the only animal that hacks itself.
What I want to locate are those primate levers which can be hacked to get us through this. I originally started thinking about this from beginning to read about behavioral economics. But then I heard about a Bank of America program which hacks a primate behavior maximizing short term pleasure (“A latte! A candy bar! A latte! A candy bar!”) to create a long-term benefit.
The problem with long-lag problems is not so much that we cannot predict them using our intellect; it’s that intellect never drives behavior. Not even for clever blogging monkeys. But intellect can hack the primate wiring.
And it better.
