Posted: 2025-09-28

The Basics 101

Version: 1

Written: 2025-09-16

Written on: 10mg olanzapine since 2025-07-20, 7.5mg before that - likely causing severe cognitive impairment

Mental health was: very poor - estimate 10% brain

🔗 Introduction

I've learned a lot over the last few years, and I have some really important things to share. The top of the list is interpersonal ethics.

There are some pieces of information about the human condition which affect everyone but are poorly understood in general. These are things everyone should know: The Basics of interacting with others.

We need to understand the ways in which peoples' lives can go right and wrong; the virtues and the abuse behaviours which shape our society. By understanding these, we can guide our own actions to benefit more and harm less.

🔗 Treating Humans As Humans

The topic we're discussing with this series is broadly not social justice.

Social justice, as a concept, deals with the macro: it exists at the scale of societies and demographics. The term and concept has been thoroughly tribalised, and that's unfortunate, but it's also kind of irrelevant to what we're doing here.

Tribal dynamics will be a central topic, as they are one of the most impactful mechanisms that shape our behaviour.

The topic at hand is: what you and I as individuals can learn and do to treat others better. That's something everyone can benefit from, regardless of their political, ideological or tribal leanings.

🔗 I Am Not A Guru

I am new to this stuff. Most of it I have only been learning it actively for a couple of years. I am not even particularly knowledgeable about this topic, it's just something I'm sharing as I'm learning.

I do not necessarily know where this will lead or end up, because I'm still learning myself, but please join me along for the ride.

We will be speaking of honesty and kindness, of disadvantage and character assassination. We'll be talking about a bunch of different kinds of abuse and a bunch of different adaptations and solutions to those abuses. We will, in short, have a dialogue spanning a microcosm of the human condition.

🔗 These Are Concepts, Not A Code Of Behaviour

The objective here is not to tell people how to behave. It's to share a conceptual framework within which to understand and improve our behaviours. There is no ruleset here.

When you try to follow hard and fast rules, it becomes incredibly easy to end up complicit in abuse or engaging in it yourself. You need sufficient context and perspective to make the right choices, not to follow a plug-and-chug sequence.

This is a rich and nuanced topic which will require much further discussion.

I'm not trying to tell you what to do. I'm trying to give you the tools to understand what you're really looking at.

🔗 All Humans Are Works In Progress

There are a wide range of types of mistake, and all people make all of them at one point or another. Lying to ourselves about that fact doesn't help anyone. The question is how we collectively handle them.

If we cannot forgive mistakes, we often cannot acknowledge and correct them either. If acknowledging a mistake means unthinkable disaster, we will never set things right.

🔗 Good Faith Required

These concepts are designed to be applied in good faith to help us understand ourselves and each other better. They should never be used as a form of ammunition to "win"* arguments — using them adversarially is not in the spirit of this.

We need to think very carefully and critically about whether we're applying them fairly or whether our sentiment towards a person is creating bias. Compassion and nuance don't always come easily.

If someone is not acting in good faith, nothing else matters.

These concepts might be helpful as tools to you understand how and why they're doing what they're doing. But rubbing them in the person's face is not going to help anyone.

🔗 Format

I'm hoping to be able to post one of these every Sunday, and add more content on other topics in between. I have severe and complex mental illness, it's currently poorly controlled, and I can't guarantee I'll be able to keep it up. But there's a lot to talk about.

My health and antipsychotic dosage currently means my language output is impaired, so I will likely go back and improve essays later. As my health improves, my verbosity and precision will increase.

I want to help people be the best versions of themselves they possibly can.