What you do if you have or have not.

Tim Knowles
2 min readSep 1, 2024

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Photo by Eugene Tkachenko on Unsplash

The Pyramid of Needs

Stolen from First World Problems. Recognizing Our Power and Privilege in… | by Seconde Nimenya | Fourth Wave | Medium

But I would replace human perception with human actions.

“The best way I could understand the difference in our human perception (human actions) can be found in Abraham Maslow’s Hierarchy of Needs. From Maslow’s hierarchy or pyramid of needs, we learn that humans have three major categories of needs:

1. Basic Needs: This category includes our physiological needs, such as food, water, warmth, rest (including sleep), and safety.

2. Psychological Needs: This category includes belonging and love needs, such as intimate relationships and friendships, and esteem needs like having prestige and feelings of accomplishment.

3. Self-Fulfillment Needs: This category includes what Maslow called “self-actualization,” in which one fulfills one’s full potential, including creative endeavors.”

I say human actions because beyond how we feel and what we think is, more importantly, how we act.

1: Basic Needs. People whose basic needs are not met are much more likely to take violent action against others. I think this is well understood and beside genuine compassion, is a major reason for aid being given to the poor. Seeing people’s basic need met is one of the most effective ways to reduce crime.

2: Psychological Needs. People whose basic needs are met but are still have not had the need for love, belonging, or status met are not as likely to commit violent crimes or crimes at all but will still cause harm to society by joining fringe groups or consuming things that they don’t need to try and show some status. If people in this category’s needs are not only not met but are in great deficit it can lead to violence most commonly in the form of suicide. Sadly, social media seems to highlight the failures of society to meet these psychological needs when one of the early promises of the internet was to bring us together.

3: Self-Fulfillment Needs. Of tyrants and populists, we need to talk. Many people can be fulfilled without the need to control others. They do it in so many ways that I will not try to list them. Others, the evil others, seem to only be fulfilled if they can control others or surrounded by a cadre of sycophants. I have no clue how to reform those in this group, a way must be found to control the harm they cause.

TEK

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Tim Knowles

Worked in our nations space programs for more than 40 years