Distributed systems are a fairly advanced field of computer science. As systems increase in scale, it's becoming increasingly more important. Furthermore, you could argue that our individual nodes themselves are increasingly becoming like distributed systems. Unfortunately, the field has some similarities to cryptography and information security. They're considered very difficult fields to be left primarily to experts; there's a plethora of papers available on subjects both theoretical and applied, and yet, we seem to do a poor job educating people. Most of us are left to self-educate, but the material is poorly organized for that purpose. This talk intends to give a very brief introduction to distributed systems theory and practice, a kind of selected reading list, rules of thumb, and a healthy dose of existential fear.