Maybe someday our ML will be good enough (and alas, it is not currently) that a "fuzzy trope search engine" could be built. Enter a description of a situation, set of relationships, or condition, and up pops references to historical tropes that match and are related. Then I can short-circuit old ideas being pitched to me repackaged in new clothing passing off as genuinely new ideas, and send the pitcher the link.

The title of this post would perhaps pull up "Thoughtcrime" and other related tropes (religious heresy among them probably, wonder how far back this particular trope goes in recorded human history).

That would be an amazing service. You could even provide short advising narratives, similar situations from novels, films, etc. and their conclusions to help guide the user to act appropriately according to their goal. It would be like a friend relating a, "Yeah, that happened to me once, this is what I did," kind of story except the stories would be pulled from hundreds of sources.

This is actually very similar to what an I-Ching reading does :) Except of course, the ML part is replaced by a random number generator (coins or sticks).

Fortunately we have an extremely powerful fuzzy narrative pattern matcher in our heads and with a bit of effort and interpretation people would still get useful advice from the method.

This would be better than the "just-in-case" trope research I've been doing via piles and piles of books.

Our biological OS is not built for dealing with time.

1. We suck with memory. We re-write memory every time we recall.

2. We suck with delayed gratification. No other animal had to invest. We haven't evolved past that.

3. We suck with time estimates. The engineering trope of "3x the amount of time you think the project would take" illustrates this point. There is something in Pragmatic Programmer, too.

That is why we need calendars, planners, and timers. People who rely on their conception of time are ignoring the limits of their underlying OS.

Sometimes those who are most in need of this wisdom are least willing to accept it in its traditional forms.

Presenting mindfulness in a form that can reach the people who are not easily moved by the older forms of "evangelism" (e.g. monks living in poverty in a monastery, doing good works in their community) seems to me like a highly worthwhile pursuit.

[EDIT] ... yes, even if the concealed motive is to sell copies of yet another book about mindfulness.

That was hardly the only motive, even if the primary one. Easing the suffering in the world was also a primary driver, as were a pethora of other, just as, or much less, worthy goals.

The Egyptians spent thousands of years building pyramids, yet in a few thousand our society built the internet. There is no glory in complacency.

“Sooner or later, everything old is new again.” --S.King

What has been will be again, what has been done will be done again; there is nothing new under the sun. -- The Byrds.

FTFY

/not actually serious

"The Wheel of Time turns, and Ages come and pass, leaving memories that become legend. Legend fades to myth, and even myth is long forgotten when the Age that gave it birth comes again." -- R.Jordan

“To be is to do” —Socrates

“To do is to be” —Jean-Paul Sartre

“Do be do be do” —Frank Sinatra

Old bullshit, new package.