Joshua, Author at Joshua Spodek - Page 11 of 244

835: At last! I can access my roof to charge solar for the first time in 18 months.

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Podcast

835: At last! I can access my roof to charge solar for the first time in 18 months.

This week, I charged my solar panel and battery on my roof for the first time for over 18 months. My building had to do maintenance during which no residents could access the roof. They told us the job would take 5 months, but it took over 18. They also didn't say exactly when it would start until one day I got an email that said I couldn't access the roof until they finished the job. What a relief! This episode shares some of my experiences. Some I liked, like that it helped me develop resilience, it saved me more money, it led to my food being fresher, and it led me to connect with people ranging from local residents to indigenous people around the…

September 11, 2025

I reduced my social media use even more.

Addiction / Hands on Practical Experience / Tips

I reduced my social media use even more.

I avoid Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, and most other social media. I still used LinkedIn more than weekly. Still, I had come to think of it as a place of spam. I don't know what it's like for you, but as best I can tell, the words "coach" or "author" seem to invite people I've never heard of to promote "quality leads," book promotion services, and so on. I wondered if it was worth using. I don't read my feed. I rarely met people there. Yet logging on took time. Also, those tabs seemed to slow my browser most. I had to install a browser add-on to fix tab names. LinkedIn kept making them change as a notification, which distracted me from effective work. I knew…

September 10, 2025

If you claim to consent for someone else, you’re a tyrant

Freedom / Leadership

If you claim to consent for someone else, you’re a tyrant

This nation's government says it's just only if based on the consent of the governed. Consider Cancer Alley. Nobody consents to being given cancer. Nobody consents to being born with a birth defect. Yet Cancer Alley and other sacrifice zones are growing. I don't deny that people can benefit from perks that come from activities that pollute and deplete, but as long as they pollute and deplete, they violate what makes government just. You might like the perks, but you can't consent for other people. There is a word for people who "consent" for others. They are tyrants. If you claim to consent for someone else, you're a tyrant. I'm not saying you're good or bad. You have your values. I'm only saying something as…

September 9, 2025

What does it mean “to own” something?

What does it mean “to own” something?

What does it mean to own something physical, like a book or a plot of land? I grew up knowing people owned things. I owned my shoes. My parents owned their houses. Nobody owned the sky. I had a vague sense that Native Americans found colonists weird for claiming to own land. Other cultures didn't share the sense of ownership my culture did. People seemed to think their system was probably better, but too naive since it lost out. I heard that communists said "private property is theft," which sounded interesting but it didn't suggest what to do about it. What about my shoes? Did owning them imply they were stolen? After I wore them enough, who else would want them? What owning something doesn't…

September 8, 2025

This week’s selected media, September 7, 2025: Parasite

Tips

This week’s selected media, September 7, 2025: Parasite

This week I finished: Parasite, directed by Bong Joon-ho: I had heard people and critics liked this movie. I hadn't heard much detail about it. The title didn't sound appealing. While watching it, I didn't find it credible. Too many suspensions of disbelief caused me to pop out of being lost in the story to saying, "Okay, that part wasn't believable, but let's imagine it was and go with it" or "Is the movie trying to be believable or maybe commenting on other movies, because it's too far removed from life." At the end, I felt I understood what it was about, but didn't think much of it. It reminded me of the Christopher Nolan Batman movies the second times I watched them. The first…

September 7, 2025

What is a right?

What is a right?

When we say someone has a right to something like life, liberty, property, free speech, the pursuit of happiness, and so on, what does "having a right" mean? I grew up thinking the phrase implied something about the person or reality. On the contrary, as best I can tell, it says something about government. I can talk without the "right" to speak. Having the right means that if someone tries to stop me, agents from the government will prevent them from stopping me. Well, it depends where you are and how the place defines free speech. I guess in the US having the right means that agents of the government will not prevent you, and if they do try to prevent you, other agents from…

September 6, 2025

Data on the two carbon cycles: Not even close

Nature / Visualization

Data on the two carbon cycles: Not even close

Emissions of greenhouse gases are measured and reported as major indications of environmental problems. Emissions aren't the relevant measure. They distract us from what is relevant to human well-being. They lead people to say, "I exhale and poop. Life requires pollution," and conclude action won't work. To be more precise, they feel like they conclude, they actually just rationalize and justify the preconception they wanted. They miss that fossil fuels' effects are locked in from the moment they enter the biosphere, well before they are burned and emit greenhouse gases. The relevant measure for fossil fuels is extraction. There are two types of pollution and depletion. I've written about the difference between emissions from the two processes in Know the 2 carbon cycles and don’t…

September 5, 2025

Another summer without air conditioning. What’s the problem?

Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Perception

Another summer without air conditioning. What’s the problem?

I thought we'd have another day or two hitting 90 F (32 C), but the forecast for the next ten days shows the highest temperature will be 86 F, so I figure it won't hit 90 again this year. I didn't use air conditioning in my apartment for another summer. A few nights I woke up sweating in the middle of the night. I didn't write the number down, but I think it happened six times, maybe five, maybe seven. Whatever the number and however annoying in the moment, I didn't feel I suffered. I think many Americans consider sleeping in heat and humidity a fate worse than death, or nearly so, when the option to use an air conditioner exists. They know Oscar Schindler…

September 4, 2025

Artificial Intelligence: The Biggest Result People Miss

Artificial Intelligence: The Biggest Result People Miss

People ask what the effects of artificial intelligence will be. In most of the talk I come across, people tend to ask what AI will do for them. Will using it help them? Will others using it lead them to miss out? Sometimes they wonder if it will help them directly, as opposed to helping them do their jobs. They wonder if it help them in their loneliness like a friend or therapist. Sometimes people wonder abstractions like if AI is conscious or can be. I haven't written much about AI. Mostly this piece: I love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1. People often wonder about the side effects. What if a terrorist started using it? What if it were used to make…

September 3, 2025

Don’t only “teach children sustainability”. Here’s why and what to do instead.

Don’t only “teach children sustainability”. Here’s why and what to do instead.

When people become corrupted---that is, when they act against their values---they come up with what I call cockamamie schemes. They create elaborate plans that a moment's reflection would show are impossible. Before the Civil War, for example, people created schemes to colonize Liberia, Nova Scotia, and other places with freed slaves as a way to solve the problem of slavery. People then also came up with the "Diffusion Argument," which said that by extending slavery over more territory it would become diffuse and end. Is it obvious how self-serving and nonsensical they are? Today we come up with cockamamie schemes that if we use more solar and wind power we will use less fossil fuel power. We come up with schemes that recycling will clean…

September 2, 2025

Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

Exercises / Fitness / Habits / Hands on Practical Experience / SIDCHAs

Another 70-pound Turkish Get-Up, also more lifting personal bests

You may remember me posting about Two personal bests in a week: Freedom, in which I jumped 8.4 pounds (3.8 kilograms) in my Turkish get-up to 70 pounds, plus lifted more in my presses. I think I commented that part of why I tried it when I did was because it was the end of a month with 31 days. I do a six-day exercise cycle starting on the first of the month, so several times a year I have days to experiment. Well, last month had 31 days, so I tried my next 70-pound Turkish get-up. I had a few wobbly get-ups in August so even though I had done it before, I treated this attempt with respect. I concentrated on form. I was…

September 1, 2025

This week’s selected media, August 31, 2025: Getting to Yes, Getting to Yes With Yourself, The Mindful Body

Version 1.0.0

Tips

This week’s selected media, August 31, 2025: Getting to Yes, Getting to Yes With Yourself, The Mindful Body

This week I finished: Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In, by Roger Fisher, William Ury, and Bruce Patton: I'm sure I've written about this book before. I first read it when I was CEO of Submedia, so over twenty years ago. I've given away more copies of this book than any other that I didn't write. I reread it now because it's the choice for the book club of the alumni community of my workshop. I credit this book for transforming the concept of business in my mind from something mechanical where the goal is to win and if results like the Exxon Valdez happen then so be it to a relationship-based project that when done skillfully mutually benefits all. I took classes…

August 31, 2025

Why not compare trains to planes

Addiction / Nature

Why not compare trains to planes

I joined a group trying to find ways to fly less. One of the themes of the group was to show that "taking the train is just as good as flying." I found this approach counterproductive. It set flying as the norm and other ways of traveling as alternatives. I think some people saw flying as the best and other ways of traveling as trying to measure up as best they could though they could never measure up. Does anything tear family and communities apart more than flying? What meaning and value we think flying gives us, it takes away. Sure, it tends to take us farther distance, but does distance traveled deliver meaning and value? Many five-year-olds today have traveled more distance than Marco…

August 30, 2025

Heirloom tomatoes, a local pear tree, and a local fig tree

Nature / Visualization

Heirloom tomatoes, a local pear tree, and a local fig tree

I've written and recorded a bunch lately on the peaches and heirloom tomatoes I've been eating tons of lately because people don't take them. Here are those posts: Podcast episode: 834: Do Americans Know How to Prepare Food From Scratch? Blog post: When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product? Blog post: More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike I took a picture of the tomatoes so people could see how some are bruised and the skin broken. Maybe many people would find them unacceptable. In the picture below, the one in the upper left is pretty bruised, but didn't lose any flavor. The purple one…

August 29, 2025

The Metropolitan Museum of Art without crowds: glorious

Art

The Metropolitan Museum of Art without crowds: glorious

I wrote last month about how I love recognition for my work and friendships that others pay for, like going on the field for batting practice. This time I can't help sharing about access to another big New York City institution. A friend works at the Metropolitan Museum of Art. It turns out that since Wednesday is their maintenance day, it's closed to the public but open to staff and guests. She invited me and yesterday was my second time visiting. I wrote yesterday about the ups, downs, ins, and outs of writing a book. That post followed from this visit. The Met without crowds is incredible. I was there at least two hours yesterday and passed maybe ten people. It was quiet. I could…

August 28, 2025

Some ups, downs, ins, and outs of writing a book

Art / Creativity / Hands on Practical Experience

Some ups, downs, ins, and outs of writing a book

I'm deep into writing my next book. It takes a lot of work, and I don't just mean time and attention. As part of the process, I went to the Metropolitan Museum of Art today. I wanted to see finished great works of art to inspire me, but I also hoped to see something in particular, and I found some examples. I wanted to see sketches and studies. Sometimes a museum will show early practice attempts. I found some such examples today. One was Georges Seurat's A Sunday Afternoon on the Island of La Grande Jatte. The original is almost 7 feet high and over 10 feet wide, but the study I saw at the Met was a few feet tall. You've seen sketches da…

August 27, 2025

How much pet food comes from factory farms that brutalize animals?

Doof

How much pet food comes from factory farms that brutalize animals?

I'd been thinking about pets. When most people lived on farms or hunted, they played a functional role, at least I think. Today, they're more of a self-indulgence. Yes, we love them. We don't know if they have consciousness or can love, but we believe they love us back. They seem to enjoy life, which is an end to itself, even if they don't serve any function for us. Still, I think most people have pets to feel good themselves. Do they have costs beyond the cash we spend on them? I've written before about the countless (probably billions annually) of plastic bags people collect dog poop in. What about their food? Whether vegetarian or not, most people I've talked to about it find factory…

August 26, 2025

834: Do Americans Know How to Prepare Food From Scratch?

834: Do Americans Know How to Prepare Food From Scratch?

Late summer means produce at peak ripeness, especially peaches and heirloom tomatoes. Regular readers of my blog and subscribers to my newsletter have read of how my volunteering to bring overstock food from stores to places that give it to anyone for free has led to my getting for free amounts I can barely keep up eating that people turn down. This episode shares a saga of my confusion and exasperation at people throwing away and not accepting perfectly good food. I don't want to take it but the alternative is to throw it away. While it's tragic that poor people don't accept this bounty of nature and our broken food system, I'm concluding a bigger picture. I think a large fraction of Americans don't know…

August 25, 2025

This week’s selected media, August 24, 2025: The Problem of Social Cost; Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution

Tips

This week’s selected media, August 24, 2025: The Problem of Social Cost; Law, Property Rights, and Air Pollution

This week I finished: The Problem of Social Cost, by R. H. Coase: I heard about this paper months ago, or maybe years. I read it because it came up in the Cato Institute podcast I wrote about in Libertarians confused on pollution, sacrificing their core values. At the root: lack of hands-on practical experience. I believe I see Coase's starting point that conflicts don't necessarily mean one person harming the other so the person harming is wrong. Conflicts can go in both directions. The two or more sides can negotiate resolving the conflict. Still, I read the paper for seeing how it applies to pollution. I think this paper misunderstands pollution, maybe because it's from 1960 and people didn't have the experience with pollution…

August 24, 2025

The problem with sleeping in summer weather in cities

Hands on Practical Experience / Perception

The problem with sleeping in summer weather in cities

You'd think the problem with sleeping in summer weather would be the heat and humidity. I wake up sweating several nights per summer and it's annoying. I don't want to touch the sheets and it's hard to fall back asleep. Still, I think of many places that are hotter and more humid than here where people have lived for thousands of years. Also, after a few nights of it, I find I can tolerate the heat and humidity of regular days more after such nights, even though the days are hotter and more humid than the evenings. I think my overall summer misery ends up less that that of someone who sleeps in air conditioning every summer night. Which brings me to the most annoying…

August 23, 2025

When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product?

Hands on Practical Experience

When did you last prepare a full meal from scratch, not one packaged product?

I wrote last week about how people decline free produce in my post More fresh juicy local peaches and heirloom tomatoes than I can handle, saved from waste by rich and poor alike. The people declining them include from homeless, probably crazy maybe homeless people as well as volunteers who appear mainstream, likely without a worry about money or food. Here's an heirloom tomato I got for free that many others declined. Without its bruises, at the farmers market it probably would have cost 5 or 10 dollars. Actually, I have no idea since I don't buy them. They're too expensive and my CSA provides incredible tomatoes. But no way am I going to let them go to waste, especially when making gazpacho in a…

August 22, 2025

Does anything tear family and communities apart more than flying?

Does anything tear family and communities apart more than flying?

I value family. Extracting fuel and minerals leads to things that tear families apart, like making them refugees, child labor in dangerous mines, people living far from the homes they grew up in, causing people to die young, and more. Valuing family is one of the main reasons I don't fly. I don't want to tear families apart. Likewise with communities. I don't want to fund tearing communities apart. Can you think of activities that tear families and communities apart more than flying? I can't think of many activities and institutions that tear families and communities apart more than flying. War comes to mind, but war usually results from running out of resources or conflict over resources, which flying contributes to. Maybe I'm missing something.…

August 21, 2025

What you pay for when you buy gas, plane tickets, and plastic: lobbyists (also more extraction)

What you pay for when you buy gas, plane tickets, and plastic: lobbyists (also more extraction)

I was browsing OpenSecrets' page on lobbying by "the fossil fuel lobby." Who is OpenSecrets? They track who lobbies whom in the US. According to its site: "OpenSecrets is the nation's premier research group tracking money in U.S. politics and its effect on elections and public policy. We provide comprehensive and reliable data, analysis and tools for policymakers, storytellers and citizens." Their page on climate change lobbying is sobering. Here's one quote: The oil and gas industry spent around $2.8 billion on federal lobbying from 1998 to 2023, OpenSecrets’ analysis found. Since the early years of Exxon’s campaign to diminish concerns about the use of oil and gas, the fossil fuel lobby has expanded its influence to create obstructions to emissions-reducing measures at every step…

August 20, 2025

Read my plucky quote in today’s Washington Post

Hands on Practical Experience / Stories

Read my plucky quote in today’s Washington Post

The Washington Post's Climate Coach column by Michael Coren quoted me today. Here's the part with my quote, which responded to his column last week about people figuring out solar on their own when they can't install it on their buildings, which is my case. Did I let my coop board or the Department of Buildings stop me? No, because I live by values including Do Unto Others As You Would Have Them Do Unto You, Live and Let Live, Leave It Better Than You Found It, and Love Your Neighbor As Yourself. Here's the text of the quote, one my only times using the word pluck: Last week, I wrote about how I tried plug-in “balcony solar,” designed for those who can’t put panels…

August 19, 2025

Imagine the density of litter was birds and mammals. That’s what our world was like.

Imagine the density of litter was birds and mammals. That’s what our world was like.

I haven't posted about the book The Once and Future World by podcast guest J. B. MacKinnon lately, but it's one of the more eye-opening books I've found on the environment. He asked, researched, and answered how nature looked before modernity impinged on it. In case you worried, he qualified that nature didn't exist in a perfect state, let alone a static one. It changed all the time. Still, he pointed out how much more life there was: Sailing ships at sea remote from land got stuck because the density of fish was that great. Today we get excited to see a whale. Captains' logs described seeing whales as far as the eye could see, all day long. Fish swimming up the Hudson River to…

August 18, 2025

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