This part - “ Horwich says Wittgenstein imagined everyone sketching individual faces to convey meaning, rather than relying on standardized faces as we do today. “I don’t think we get the variety and the flexibility unless you’re drawing them yourself,” says Horwich. “You’re shoveling ‘sad’ into one particular face. [Wittgenstein’s] idea was different degrees and shades of sadness come from ways of drawing it.” ” - made me wonder if we could do with parametric smileys.

edit - just thought, making parametric smileys is somewhat linked to the fictional technology for expression that Juanita worked on in Snowcrash.