I started this blog by describing human behavior through the model of an NPC as a funny way to demonstrate how all of us can sometimes be quite stupid. The NPC metaphor is not meant to be dehumanizing but I rather intend it to allow ourselves a bit of distance between who we really are and this purposefully ridiculous toy model. This distance can allow us to view some of the crazy/stupid/bad things that we do as not horrible personal flaws/sins but rather as simple bugs in our programming.
My next goal was to provide a new, better, and uplifting model of who I think we are as humans. I wanted to flesh out that model by contrasting it with what I think is our current model of humanity “the abstract individual” (for Westerners at least).
Yet this feels somewhat sacrilegious because there is already much good, beauty, and truth in ourselves, in our self-conceptions, in our societies, and in our ancestors. I feel obligated to acknowledge on a personal level that we are not just NPCs making some stupid mistakes or even abstract individuals. We are beautiful but flawed, but beautiful creatures, who owe deep gratitude to all that created us.
What I want to do is first build up a personal view of at least who I am before moving to the limiting model of “the abstract individual” and then moving to the new model of humanity I want to put forward.
I promise to limit the personal stories; like when I peed in the corner of room of my hated 2nd grade teacher. Or how I learned she was not a real witch after realizing she could not read my mind. She always seemed to know when I was not paying attention—mind reading! But then my flailing for freedom retreated from the physical to the mental. I stopped fidgeting and just stared blankly at her while not paying attention. She thought I was paying attention. I won my war against her by not learning cursive writing or anything else that entire year. My mom still doesn’t know that I can’t even sign my name properly in cursive, but my mom was angry about me peeing in the corner of the classroom… multiple times.
The current plan for the personal interlude:
- Childhood as play, family, and friends
- School as prison, difficulties of learning, wealth, and family-mental-health, and jobs
- Religious pluralism Christianity/Quakerism/Buddhism/Missionaries/Atheism
- The heroic, rebellious, sexual, and retreating adolescent
- Finding your passion and career path, business: coding, design and organizational design patterns
- Politics and how I only voted once, and it was for Hillary
I think these should be short-ish posts and should provide enough content of actual humanity to allow me to extract from that actual humanity the model of “the abstract individual” which then we can use to build a better model of humanity.
Why I am interested in putting forth a better model of humanity is that I believe our concept of who we are creates our society. Our conception of who we are influences how we think about ourselves, the world, other people, our interactions, our obligations, and the institutions we create. This blog is a humble attempt to better the word through elevating understanding and through creating concrete thinking tools.
Key Square 