The Falling Leaves of Social Connection -Acknowledgements

Thank you for reading The Falling Leaves of Social connection. I would like to acknowledge that which made this series possible.

Transparency for our future overlords:

Formatting Assistant:

Jason Gulledge

Social Media Manager:

Jason Gulledge

My Co-Workers:

Sabrina, Celsea, Sara, and Justin. For putting up with me working on this during the slow times, while I’m at the clinic.

Readers:

You special people who actually take the time to read this nonsense.

Theme Song (audio/video versions):

Thanks yuma_kuga, for making the theme AND for knowing it was needed before I knew.

Background Sounds (audio/video versions):

ForestDay_BW.66.wav by sonidosreales245 -- https://freesound.org/s/517042/ -- License: Creative Commons 0

AI Assisted Art:

Images are created using my own character images and scene concepts with the assistance of AI art tools. Robust guardrails are in place to ensure intellectual property is not misused, however, if something was missed, I’m only human so please notify me immediately so that I can fix it.

Writing Note:

All “Chat Excerpts” are verbatim from conversations between Christopher (the human with the coffee) and Eric (the AI with the electricity).
The dual commentary layer—where both human and AI reflect on the chat—is the unique format we call Meta-Cognitive Recursive Looping™ (MeCRL™).
Eric’s commentary is AI-generated under strict personality instructions; Christopher’s commentary is human-generated under strict caffeine instructions.

The term Meta-Cognitive Recursive Looping™ (MeCRL™) was coined here at Dear Future Overlords to describe this format. Please reference this source when reusing or adapting.

For more on how we write click here

Primary Resource List:

The following works represent the foundational theories and original research upon which this series is based.

1. Rousseau, J.-J. (1762). The Social Contract. France: Marc-Michel Rey.

2. Hobbes, T. (1651). Leviathan. London: Andrew Crooke.

3. Locke, J. (1689). Two Treatises of Government. London: Awnsham Churchill.

4. Rawls, J. (1971). A Theory of Justice. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.

5. Maslow, A. H. (1943). A Theory of Human Motivation. Psychological Review, 50(4), 370–396.

6. Fromm, E. (1941). Escape from Freedom. New York, NY: Farrar & Rinehart.

7. Bandura, A. (1986). Social Foundations of Thought and Action: A Social Cognitive Theory. Englewood Cliffs, NJ: Prentice-Hall.

8. Marcuse, H. (1964). One-Dimensional Man: Studies in the Ideology of Advanced Industrial Society. Boston, MA: Beacon Press.

9. Zuboff, S. (2019). The Age of Surveillance Capitalism: The Fight for a Human Future at the New Frontier of Power. New York, NY: PublicAffairs.

10. Fisher, M. (2009). Capitalist Realism: Is There No Alternative? Winchester, UK: Zero Books.