Human Nature

When a system is imposed on humans that is not understandable, they do one of two things: They either invent it as a religion, or they fight it with guns.

  • Henry Kissinger

The Two Sides of You

There are 2 sides to everyone. The side that wants to maintain the status quo: this is the part of you that gets angry when others challenge you and your ego causes the emotion (someone says something, not intending to hurt you, but you find offensive because it's close to the truth and you are insecure about it).

The other side wants to get better and improve. This is commonly called the "ideal self" (what I want to be). The negative force of the first side prevents this side from being dominant

The more people are present the more cold they are. Conversely when there are fewer people around people are much more warm. However just because you're born in the city doesn't mean you're incapable of warmth. In fact, if a New Yorker goes just outside the city and goes for a walk in nature and they encounter somebody they will look at them and greet them

Stubborn minority

A "stubborn minority" can impose its will on the relatively disinterested majority.

  • ex. A halal eater will never eat non-halal food, but a non-halal eater isn't banned from eating halal. Thus, a catering company switches to serving halal meat despite its being preferred only by a tiny minority of its customers. The price difference reveals itself to be negligible, so over time it becomes the preferred available option.

  • Humans are fractals, since we ourselves are organisms, hosting many systems, which in turn host other systems (and so on, down to germs). Looking from the other side, humans are part of their local societies, followed by varying levels of society until we get to ourselves as part of the society of our nations, or even as part of Earth.

The way we define ourself is all relative to our surroundings. However we differ from the people in our home town is how we define ourself. That’s where we shape our self-identity, growing up. Those are our defining traits. But when we go to a different place, the relative comparisons collapse. Traits like speed, ambition, independence, bravery, and humor — they’re all relative.


Humans tend to take less care of things that they share in common, rather than things they own outright

  • ex. think of the things we share. The air, the ocean, the roads... you don't put as much care into these things as we do our own goods

what is common to many is taken least care of, for all men have greater regard for what is their own than for what they possess in common with others -Aristotle


we diminish the value of things we dont understand

  • ex. sports, WoW