UsHumans.net: Overview
The Story of Us Humans explains what we are, how we got here, and where we are today by describing the origin, history, and current ways of our neighborhoods, religion, government, science, and business. It describes our world in a nutshell by explaining nature and the nature of a human, including the origins of our emotions, behavior, and morals: we are parenting mammals, social primates, and cultural humans. Understanding our own nature, along with something about the flow of civilization, helps us to together choose where next to take our civilization. What priorities and goals do you have for your own life and for your community, nation, and planet-wide civilization? Do the priorities and goals of governmental and corporate leaders match your own? Can we blend our individual priorities and goals into meaningful goals for human civilization? We can measure the success of our attempts to reach these goals. How do you gauge success in life? Ask every person on the planet what matters most to them and they will answer "Healthy and happy children and communities." Agreeing with what you have always known, this book concludes that human thoughts and actions involve little else besides love and children, spouse and family, friends, community and justice. We can arrange our mutual civilization such that it enables each of us to pursue the limits of our individual–and combined–talents, passions, and goals; we can spend our lifetimes using our personalities, characters, and talents to improve ourselves and our civilization. We all agree that each newborn child is equally deserving and capable of a happy and healthy life. Each of us simply wants to laugh and joke with our family and friends, pursue life, and raise children. We also strive to be valued and contributing members of our communities.
This is a self-contained, one volume explanation of human nature and human history. Written in plain language, it contains a general college education through summaries of twenty courses, explaining what astronomy, physics, geology, biology, chemistry, anthropology, history, religion, social science, and political science tell us about ourselves. This is a summary of everything in our world, including science, business, religion, government, and the history of civilization.
Have you ever wondered:
What is science?
What is the scientific method?
Is nature simple or complicated?
How and when did the universe begin?
How did the Earth form?
Where did we come from?
Where did our molecules come from?
Whats the difference between living and non-living matter?
What has been the evolution of animal types?
How did microscopic life evolve into worms, fish, amphibians, reptiles, mammals, primates, and humans?
How do human behaviors compare with those of other mammals or with other primates?
What's the difference between primates and the other mammals?
What does it mean that we are an animal?
What does it mean that we are a mammal?
What does it mean that we are a primate?
When did we first devlop our emotions and morals?
What does it mean to be a parenting and social species and what do these things have to do with our religion and government?
How did we learn to make tools, use fire, grow crops, build homes, and to find and prepare food?
How did we learn to perform the ceremonies and rituals for births, weddings, cures, and deaths?
What is the way of life of gatherer-hunters?
What was government and religion like when we were gatherer-hunters?
Was there social and economic inequality?
What was the quality of life and well-being for gatherer-hunters?
When and why did we first become farmers?
What was life like in the first farming villages of Ancient Mesopotamia?
When and why did our first cities occur?
Was there social and economic inequality?
What was the quality of life and well-being for the people of the first cities?
What was government and religion like in our first cities?
What are the Buddhist, Islamic, Jewish, Confucianist, and Hindu religions?
How did Ancient Athenian democracy differ from today's?
Why and when did we obtain rights and liberties?
How did life in a New England farming family of the year 1800 compare with life in today's big cities?
What did it mean for society as we switched from being farmers to factory workers?
How has the Industrial Revolution changed our lives? (Nothing about today's neighborhoods, business, or government makes any sense until we understand the social changes that occur as a people switch from working their own family farms to working in factories.)
When and why did we urbanize and commercialize?
When did our corporations first form?
When did they grow to cover entire states and nations?
What is global business and globalization?
What is an authoritarian government?
How do people choose their form of government?
Why do they sometimes change it?
What is democracy?
Which cultural elements make for long-term democracy?
What is all the politicking about in the daily news?
What is Big Government?
When did it first begin?
What is a computer?
What are they used for?
What is it like to live in poverty today?
How have our wages changed in recent decades?
What portion of our children live in poverty?
Is inequality increasing or decreasing?
Why is our average lifespan increasing?
What are the biggest "secrets" in the U.S. today?
What makes you happy?
What do you want out of life?
What does most every thought or action of a human invlove?
What are the most important things to a human?
What are the priorities and goals of our government and civilization?
Do they conincide with most important things to a human?
How do we make the goals of our government and civilization match every human's goal of having happy children?
How do you gauge success in life?
How do you measure your own well-being and the quality of your own life?
How do these compare for gatherer-hunters, the first farmers, and today's factory workers?
How does the infant mortality rate compare among these groups?
How do we measure the success of our attempts to govern ourselves?
How do we maximize the benefits of civilization for as many of us as possible?