Good vs Evil Trails

I really enjoyed speaking to a group of academics at City University the other day.

Ideas were flying all over the place. One of the students thought the "emergent trail algorithm" (i.e., the Goat Trail Algorithm) might turn out to be inherently 'evil'! We then had a polite disagreement which boiled down to a difference in personal philosophy - are people inherently good? or inherently bad?

I personally believe people are inherently good and that we are not only 'wired' to make discoveries but also to share them with each other. Human language, for example, was a discovery to help us share discoveries.

Although we disagreed about good and evil we both agreed that humans are inherently lazy. That is, given a choice, the majority of us will take the path of least resistance.

So there we have it - my ideal trail algorithm brings out the good in people while taking the path of least resistance. Let's see if we can get there. Stay tuned ...