Feynman had a story about trying to read somebody’s paper before a grand interdisciplinary symposium. As he told it, he couldn’t get through the jargon, until he stopped and tried to translate just one sentence. He landed on a line like, “The individual member of the social community often receives information through visual, symbolic channels.” And after a lot of crossing-out, he reduced that to “People read.”

Yud, who idolizes Feynman above all others:

I also remark that the human equivalent of a utility function, not that we actually have one, often revolves around desires whose frustration produces pain.

Ah. People don’t like to hurt.