Guide to my future reincarnated self on how to be a good person

Hello you (which from this point will refer to my future reincarnated self),

Here is a guide of things to learn that can help you be a good person. If you are anything like me (and you will be, I assume) you will really get off on biology and science and facts. Because of this, I'm providing you a list of media that may or may not exist in your present (my future) that can help you ground yourself in tangible and true facts about your origin as a human and how that knowledge can help you become your best self.
First, you need to understand where our species came from to best place yourself in the world. There are many resources in my present that I've used to draw some conclusions about why the world is the way it is and what can be changed to improve your future.

Print Material

My Ishmael - Daniel Quinn

This book could be called hopelessly optimistic and was revelatory to me the first time I read it, causing me to sob uncontrollably for hours at the mere implications presented by the book. This is something I may go into later, but it involves my brother's drug overdose being linked to multiple failures in bureaucracy. In it, a young girl is tutored on the history and ways of man as interpreted by a telepathic gorilla. A strange concept for sure, but intriguing enough for a framing device to hook you and leave you enthralled until the end. This book contains many poignant lines and musings on life and what could be someday. A short read, and honestly fun, but deadly serious with the important message being "this way is broken, invent a new way." I could gush about aspects of this book for hours. How it expertly explains in simple terms how colonialism works, or how "totalitarian agriculture" (a term invented by Quinn) was implemented to allowed a tribe or tribes to cultivate year round food supply allowing their population to boom allowing them to completely overwhelm their neighbors, thus overtaking that land and growing the population larger still, the first examples of colonizers.

Mutual Aid: A Factor of Evolution - Peter Kropotkin

I don't think I'll ever read Kropotkin's more famous book, The Conquest of Bread, because this one lays out the important details conveniently left out by Darwin, notably that human nature was never and still is not inherently competitive on an individual by individual basis. Rather, we only were able to survive and evolve into these creatures due to our cooperation. We have no natural defenses to speak of other than our brains and the imagination that comes along with them but because we cooperated by communicating our thoughts we were able to dominate the world as a species. Kropotkin references writings by notable anthropologists of his time who ingratiated themselves with different tribes and recorded what they observed. He cites dozens of examples from tribes all over the world, in pursuit of proving that the way we do things is unsustainable. This book definitely inspired Daniel Quinn when writing My Ishmael, the difference being this book is a much more scientific look into the concept of mutual aid.

Archived Websites

Dunbar's Number - Robin Dunbar

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This experiment inspired David Wong to write What is the Monkeysphere based on thought experiments concocted from the implications of Dunbar's research. At my present time humans have evolved to hold on average the ability to maintain close relationships with 150 people. Out of billions in the world, only around 150. This is very important to understanding the behavior of those outside your usual crowd and why they may react in unfriendly ways. It also is important to understanding hardwired human cognitive biases and coming up with ways to combat these.

What is the Monkeysphere? - David Wong

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In the beginning, shortly after graduating college, I joined the workforce as a professional. I now had a career and boy howdy, I dove straight into that capitalism without a second thought. I had never seen so much money as I made the first year working at my job. I was totally enamored with it and what it gave me access to with the paycheck I got. For awhile it kept me content but things changed shortly afterwards. My siblings (whom I am unsure will reincarnate with you at some point) became addicted to heroin and it made me feel angry, sad, depressed, helpless, the list goes on. During that time, I started viewing the possessions I got a bit differently. I distinctly remember a moment where I wanted to take the brand new TV I had bought and throw it over the apartment balcony railing. I didn't, but I started really considering why I felt the way I did in that moment. Why I wanted to destroy one of my possessions I used most. Why this job success wasn't making me feel happy. I stumbled upon this article at some point during this time. It is equal parts funny, educational, and scientific. It was one of the first articles I've read that help explains why I was feeling unfulfilled.

Possibly Archived Internet Media

Philosophy Tube (Abigail Thorn): Charles Darwin Vs Karl Marx 7/1/2020

This would be a fantastic find to help you understand the inherent struggle good science has against a man-made force such as capitalism. Even when all the evidence pointed that humans evolved literally the exact way all other animals, which importantly, proves all humans are equal, Darwin could not say it due to the conflict it would put him in with peers in his wealthy social group. He was cowardly in this way, but his Origin of Species still laid the foundation for the study of evolution by scientists across the world. To my present day, the science holds up and evolution has been observed on small scales in short time. This video also does a great job at sticking a stake in the heart of that old vampire Thomas Malthus.

This is a list of resources that hopefully will give the context needed to understand TRUE human nature. The one of cooperation and compassion and empathy. The one that got our species past the savannahs in central Africa to every inch of the globe.

Now you should have a better understanding of our origin. From here, it is important to keep gist of these media in mind when interacting with the outside world. They can be used to understand everything from advertising to why the government works the way it does. your mind has hard-wired biases that you must remain aware of. you must remember that if you are aware of these you can combat them to an extent. Not always, and the awareness of them may wane during periods of depression, but as often as possible. The important thing is you now have concrete evidence that proves humans are for the most part cooperative with each other.

Return Someday!