From Wikipedia;

Maslow’s hierarchy of needs is a conceptualization of the needs (or goals) that motivate human behaviour, which was proposed in 1943 by the American psychologist Abraham Maslow.^[1][2]

According to Maslow’s original formulation, there are five sets of basic needs: physiological, safety, love, esteem and self-actualization. These needs are related to each other in a hierarchy of prepotency (or strength) beginning with the physiological needs that are the most prepotent of all.

If the physiological needs are fulfilled, a new set of safety needs emerges. If both the physiological and safety needs are fairly well gratified, the prepotent (‘higher’) need of love (both its giving and receiving) then emerges. The next need is esteem, and finally self-actualization. Maslow also coined the term “metamotivation” to describe the motivation of people who go beyond the scope of basic needs and strive for constant betterment.^[5]

The hierarchy suggests a rigid separation of needs, but Maslow stressed that a need does not require being satisfied 100% before the next need emerges. Instead, “a more realistic description of the hierarchy would be in terms of decreasing percentages of satisfaction as we go up the hierarchy of prepotency”.

Mojave Ranger School Hierarchy of Needs

Instructional Goals v Purpose of Instruction

The purpose of the Ranger Basic Course is to teach Rangers to have a safe meal and a safe place to sleep in a dangerous, opposed environment.

The goal of the ranger school instructors is to prevent students from experiencing a safe meal and safe place to sleep, because we hunt you, because it’s fun.

The Mojave Desert is an inherently dangerous environment, regardless of anything else. On any given day a trainee can get heat stroke and freeze to death, within a 6-hour period. It goes from freezing cold to very hot very quickly in the mornings.

Everything Eats Stupid

Every creature in the Mojave will eat some part of a trainee and the stupider the trainee acts the more likely they are to be on the menu at extreme levels.

‘Stupid’ in Mojave Ranger School terms, is the process of getting distracted by upper level Maslovian concepts when you don’t have a safe place to take a crap.

“Try to Be Not Stupid”

Being told to “try to be not stupid” at Mojave Ranger School is not a comment on your intelligence or lack thereof, it’s simply a relatively gentle reminder the the ‘real-world’ is filled with upper-level Maslovian distractions that have the potential to get you killed in this environment, or even worse, you might get someone else killed while trying to save you.

Non-gentle reminders of one’s inherent stupidity center around hyper/hypo-thermia, snake and scorpion bites, sleeping on ant hills or accidentally blowing yourself up while spraying canned athlete’s foot spray in a small tent lit by a candle (which actually happens).

Pronouns at Mojave Ranger School

Recently the word pronoun has taken a specific meaning that confuses a lot of people who don’t understand the specifics, so we’re going to avoid that. This is how pronouns work at Mojave Ranger School;

Rangers and Settlers: If you don’t know what to call someone then Rangers and Settlers are the 2 basic roles at Mojave Ranger School.

She, Her, etc. will be used for those who present as female. If that’s uncomfortable for you then change your presentation to match the meaning of the word as it applies in a Fallout-themed immersive world set in the late-1950’s where men had short hair and women looked like women.

He, Him, etc. will be applied to those who present as male.

People with beards will be addressed as males regardless of the size or type of breasts involved, unless you’re a dwarf, in which case we need to have a conversation about your potential selection for the Ostrich Cavalry Scout Platoon, which people seem to think I’m joking about.

(It has to be noted that properly-trained ostrich-mounted oompa-loompas with throwing spears will f*** you up, once you tick them off.)

You Can’t Be That Stupid Accidentally

Modern Americans are consistently indoctrinated into the most wasteful, unsustainable and mentally chaotic products, tools and methodologies, because they can be. It can be argued that the upper level Maslovian distractions are the root of most people’s unhappiness and self-dissatisfaction (the same way that marriage is the root of most people’s divorce).

The Mojave strips all that away. The need to find a safe meal and a safe place to sleep over-rides all of the social-media-inspired-and-tracked upper-level Maslovian functions, because if you’re sitting around the Mojave Desert discussing how to overcome biology with philosophy the way you would in an air-conditioned coffee shop, then something is going to eat you.

Try to be not stupid.