In complex systems, physical technologies are ways we organize matter for a purpose, while social technologies are ways we organize ourselves. They co-evolve with each other, and we co-evolve with them.

The concept of the normal/average person is the foundation of our healthcare, education, psychology, and of how we think of ourselves. It is wrong. I summarize the blindingly bad math behind it and some of T.Rose's "The End of Average", a very readable account its eugenics pedigree.

All technologies need an interface to the human. Interfaces work on a trade-off between truth and control, essential for us to navigate our world. In exchange, our technologies shape our reality.

Eva Illouz' analysis of how our private joys and sorrows are shared economic and political stamps on our lives is essential for understanding emotions in their context.

"Western scientists have created an artifact: in our efforts to study emotions in an elemental way, we have created an experimental method that has strong but hidden context effects. It produces a psychological model that is intellectually pleasing but it has little to do with reality." - Feldman Barret et al.

“Our minds, brains, and indeed our biology are substantially shaped by social norms, values, institutions, beliefs, and languages. By setting the incentives and defining the constraints, our culturally-constructed world shapes how we think, feel, and perceive—it tinkers with and calibrates the machinery of our minds." - J. Henrich