As programmers, we're used to systems that expect precision and don't like ambiguity.
As human beings, we've had centuries to build lots of ambiguities :)
For example:
* anything related to timezones / dates ("Oh you meant '3 in the afternoon in Paris' ? I though you meant '3 in the morning in London'. We'll have to reschedule the meeting.)
* anything related to units ("Oh you meant '3 meters per second' ? I though you meant '3 imperial miles per grain of sand'. We'll have to rebuild that Mars probe")
* anything related to glyphs ("Oh you meant 'delete data from b0b' ? I though you meant 'bob'. We'll have to recover that user's Gb of data from backups")
etc, etc, etc...
I'm curious if anyone is studying the toll that those kinds of mistake has on global GDP. Is there a branch of economics ? A well known book ? Or is it too quirky for academics ?
Just the first ten minutes will make the point, but the object displayed during minute five speaks to your point…and the fact that the quirks are largely invisible.
What he says about modern existence is even more true today,
Whole show, free to watch.
https://archive.org/details/ConnectionsByJamesBurke/Connecti...