Great prose

Ben Casnocha is a great thinker and, surprisingly, only 22 years old. File this under sentences to ponder:

4. Sometimes when I am riding in a car as a
passenger I feel a bit chilly so I turn off the fan. In response, my friend who is driving will infer I am uncomfortable and take an action that he intends to help me. For example, if I turn off the fan and put on a sweatshirt he will assume I am chilly and, despite neither of us having talked about it, he will go turn on the heat. Yet when I turned off fan and put on sweatshirt I did so assuming all else would remain the same. I assumed static conditions. When the driver acted in response, it actually became too warm. In a system with multiple nodes anything you do will be interpreted and responded to by others. For every action there's a reaction. That's why it's so important to communicate your thoughts and narrate your actions. Otherwise, you end up in a car that's too hot.

Great stuff. Corollary: despite being single throughout college I always used to jokingly tell my friends that the cornerstone to a great relationship is communication. Coming from someone who seemingly lacked any experience in adult relationships whatsoever, they thought it was funny. Though I was probably being more sincere than I seemed at the time.