Joshua, Author at Joshua Spodek - Page 4 of 247

Last week’s heat wave, air conditioning, and fragile, entitled people

Pollution and Depletion

Last week’s heat wave, air conditioning, and fragile, entitled people

Last week the temperature went above 100 F (38 C) for two days and close to it for a day or two before and after, plus it was humid. Everyone talked about the heat. I didn't try to bring it up, but my not using air conditioning led people to the same questions over and over: how did I make it, did I use a fan, etc. Everything always about me, never about the people hurt by my polluting and depleting. Then most comment on how they couldn't make it. Occasionally an old person will mention how they grew up without air conditioning and don't like it, though they use it when it gets hot enough. I point out that people have lived on this…

July 8, 2026

The replication crisis in science and religion

The replication crisis in science and religion

In Science I was watching a video by a conservative politician criticizing science for its "replication crisis." He implied that science was a search for truth and that this crisis implied it was failing. For background, here's the top of Wikipedia's Replication crisis page: The replication crisis, also known as the reproducibility or replicability crisis, refers to widespread failures to reproduce published scientific results. Because the reproducibility of empirical results is the cornerstone of the scientific method,[2] such failures undermine the credibility of theories and challenge substantial parts of scientific knowledge. Here's a quote from a prominent paper on the subject, Why Most Published Research Findings Are False by John Ioannidis: There is increasing concern that in modern research, false findings may be the majority or…

July 7, 2026

Recent peer-reviewed research that when people live as I do, they prefer it and don’t want to go back

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion

Recent peer-reviewed research that when people live as I do, they prefer it and don’t want to go back

A friend and workshop graduate sent me a news article that described and linked to primary research published last month in a journal called Communications Sustainability within the family of Nature journals. The journal article: The undervalued quality-of-life benefits of demand-side energy and climate strategies. The news article in plain language: Cutting energy use may improve quality of life more than cleaner technology. The news article described the main result of the journal article. It compared how people felt about acting on different strategies to reduce polluting and depleting. Some strategies reduced behaviors that polluted and depleted or otherwise used less (demand-side strategies). Others relied on new technologies, like heat pumps and electric vehicles (supply side strategies). When different strategies achieved similar environmental results, how did…

July 6, 2026

This week’s selected media, July 5, 2026: Four Horsemen, Daredevil: Born Again, Young Washington, Jackass: Best and Last

Tips

This week’s selected media, July 5, 2026: Four Horsemen, Daredevil: Born Again, Young Washington, Jackass: Best and Last

This week I finished: Four Horsemen, directed by Ross Ashcroft: I'm not sure how I hadn't heard about this documentary since it came out in 2012. Still, it's another documentary full of information, lacking a vision or plan how to get there. As I understand it, it lays our economic system at the root of our society's problems. It says we should be informed, but actual changes are things like changing the federal reserve system and global equivalents. What exactly should I do? I was pleased to see two people I've met and one whose book I'm in the middle of. I know Joseph Stiglitz because he teaches at Columbia Business School. I didn't take a course with him but attended at least one talk he…

July 5, 2026

Some notes on 1776

Some notes on 1776

For Independence Day, I thought I'd share some notes from my upcoming book on the huge historical significance of what happened around 1776 in the colonies that became the United States. For context, for most of the 250,000 years of human existence until the last Ice Age, when the current geological period began, called the Holocene, as far as we know, our ancestors lived in egalitarian groups. After the Holocene, agriculture began, which led to surpluses of food, animals, and other resources, which led to the formation of dominance hierarchies---also known as tyranny. People also began to deplete resources, which led to imperialism. From 12,000 years ago until 1492, the development of human society from those first necessary resources that could be controlled, when agriculture…

July 4, 2026

854: John Perkins, part 2: New Book Preview: The Art of the Steal (and restoring American ideals)

854: John Perkins, part 2: New Book Preview: The Art of the Steal (and restoring American ideals)

John returns to describe his upcoming book The Art of the Steal: Trump and the Economic Hit Man Presidency, described as his best book of the Economic Hit Man series. I'm honored that he came to this podcast first. Longtime listeners and readers know how much of an impression Confessions of an Economic Hit Man made on me. Regular blog readers know from my descriptions of my upcoming book how much imperialism factors into it. John's book couldn't have come at a better time. Listen to this whole conversation. He starts by describing the new book, then puts it in context of how what he wrote about decades ago is happening more than ever, and by the US government on its own citizens. I think you'll feel as…

July 3, 2026

Why I avoid polluting and depleting

Freedom / Leadership / My Favorite Posts / Pollution and Depletion

Why I avoid polluting and depleting

Media coverage on me mostly presents me as an environmentalist. When they report on my disconnecting my apartment from the electric grid, avoiding flying, and taking a decade to fill a load of household garbage, they post pictures of solar panels. They know what readers look for. I tell them that focusing on my solar panels and how I make do is like going to Martin Luther King during the Montgomery Bus Boycott and asking what shoes he wears, what routes he takes, and how exercise is healthy. They would miss that the point of the boycott wasn't shoes, walking, or exercise but liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security. Everyone misunderstands why I avoid polluting and depleting. Also liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, and national security.…

July 2, 2026

Beyond no electric bill: Money returned from allegedly fraudulent overbilling

Freedom / Pollution and Depletion

Beyond no electric bill: Money returned from allegedly fraudulent overbilling

This post is about my home being disconnected from the electric grid. Everyone misunderstands why I disconnected, so first a few words for context. I'm not an environmentalist. Environmentalists make my skin crawl. I disconnected for a few reasons. First, I don't want to hurt people without their consent. Polluting and depleting hurt people without their consent, therefore I try to avoid polluting and depleting. Second, polluting and depleting violate the Constitution by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law, as well as the Declaration, which says that for a government to be just requires the consent of the governed. This nation has a cancer alley, death mile, and other sacrifice zones, as well as many other ways people are…

July 1, 2026

Environmentalists fund pollution and depletion

Pollution and Depletion

Environmentalists fund pollution and depletion

I value the Washington Post's Climate Coach newsletter. It has featured me and my voice several times: Read my plucky quote in today’s Washington Post and See me in the Washington Post’s Climate Coach again, for example. I email with its author, Michael Coren. I also know the Post serves its customers. Last I checked, Jeff Bezos runs it and does so actively. I presume the publishers know their readers and deliver what they value, even if those readers don't include many past readers. The newsletter includes ads. That's business. I'm not complaining. I suspect Coren doesn't choose the newsletter's ads. I presume some tracking and profiling determine who reads it and what they spend their money on. With a name like Climate Coach, I suspect the readers consider…

June 30, 2026

Lifting: not always progress

Lifting: not always progress

I've posted a bunch on personal bests on lifting. I like that even as age limits my body's potential, I'm overall able to lift heavier weights. But it's not nonstop, monotonic progress. Yesterday was a lifting day. It was humid. My digestive tract felt woozy, I figure from something I ate the day or night before. I didn't sleep well. Also, I was fatigued and partly sore from the day before. I met some old college teammates from Ultimate Frisbee to toss in Prospect Park. I rode my bike there and back. These days, that much exercise counts as a lot, even though it wouldn't have counted as a warm-up in college. The net result: Where I recently was able to do 11 reps on…

June 29, 2026

This week’s selected media, June 28, 2026: Plastic Inc., Free to Be You and Me, Psychedelics, Friedemann

Tips

This week’s selected media, June 28, 2026: Plastic Inc., Free to Be You and Me, Psychedelics, Friedemann

This week I finished: Plastic Inc.: The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil's Biggest Bet, by Beth Gardiner: I read this book for the book club of alumni of my workshop. I watched and listened to several interviews before reading the book. In the interviews, she did the usual liberal/progressive environmentalist bending over backward to say that individuals aren't responsible, only the corporations are. I don't see the logic that you being responsible for your actions makes someone else not responsible for theirs. Yes, Exxon and its peers are responsible for what they did. So is everyone who funds them by buying their products, at least when they don't have to. I also expected I'd know most of what they book covered---at least…

June 28, 2026

Do you still believe in an “energy transition”? Learn Alice Friedemann’s research

Pollution and Depletion

Do you still believe in an “energy transition”? Learn Alice Friedemann’s research

Someone posted about Alice Friedemann in an online community I participate in. I found her book Life After Fossil Fuels and blog energyskeptic.com influential. The book may be expensive and the blog dense, but she cites all her sources and her publisher is Springer, which holds a high reputation for science publishing. I haven't yet read her book When Trucks Stop Running, but she's described a lot of it in her interviews and conversations. I've mentioned her in several posts: Reader question: Why do I say solar and wind aren’t clean, green, or renewable? Renewables are less renewable than we thought. That’s the starting point. Overwhelming research: “Green Growth” is a scam that accelerates lowering Earth’s ability to sustain life. Following or propagating it hurts us.…

June 27, 2026

Letter to the World, version 2

Hands on Practical Experience / Leadership

Letter to the World, version 2

Candidate text to go on on the landing page: joshuaspodek.com. It's shorter than version 1, but less detail. If you smoke or gamble, it's hard to help others stop. You haven't felt or overcome the emotional and social challenges. Stopping alone---that is, "leading by example"---doesn't motivate others, nor does lecturing facts, numbers, ten little things, or even answering "what's one thing someone can do today." Changing deep-rooted behavior and culture is possible, even deeply rewarding, but it requires long-term, deep work, including listening, empathy, understanding others, persistence, firm resolve, accountability, and other hard parts of leadership. That's what I do. I apply leadership to our culture to stop it from rewarding behaviors that pollute and deplete. Yes, I avoid polluting and depleting, but that's not…

June 26, 2026

A curse of mastering personal leadership

Awareness / Freedom / Leadership

A curse of mastering personal leadership

Talking to a friend yesterday who shares my vision and mission and agrees on the need for leadership, since it involves changing culture. Only he doesn't want to learn to lead. It's the mission's greatest need, but he doesn't like leadership. He says it makes him uncomfortable and that he'd rather follow. He says in various ways how following is his thing. Then comes the kicker, what I hear all the time, and should have long ago recognized as a legitimizing myth. He says, "You like doing those things." I can talk about psychologists' term "fundamental attribution error," thinking that what you see someone doing is what they want to do, but it doesn't capture how annoying this reaction is. I don't mean to single…

June 25, 2026

Do you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results?

Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion

Do you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results?

Do you believe Exxon and peers were wrong to sell and burn fossil fuels when they knew the results? I hope you do. Why? Because today, June 24, in 1988, the New York Times published those results on its front page news. Since then, you and everyone in the world have known at least enough to know the important part of what they knew. Actually before then, since the Times story was far from the first widespread publication about it, but it was a big one. It's tempting to say that they are different because they are bigger than you. Tempting but specious. If you do something that hurts people, who else but you is responsible for your actions? If you can't change the world, are…

June 24, 2026

A tragic comment the dean said about artificial intelligence at my 20 year business school reunion

Artificial Intelligence / Education / Leadership / Pollution and Depletion

A tragic comment the dean said about artificial intelligence at my 20 year business school reunion

Yesterday I wrote personal reflections about my business school reunion. Today I have to share a tragic comment from the Dean of the school. There was a town-hall type gathering where he spoke about the state of the school. One of the main topics was that the school was embracing artificial intelligence with enthusiasm. He spoke of how professors were being trained in it, students were encouraged to use it, and so on. At the end he acknowledged that using AI polluted and depleted. I think he acknowledged even that the scale was already huge, accelerating, and without any ways to curb it. His response to this acknowledgment: "We have to be cognizant of that." Be cognizant? What kind of cop-out is "be cognizant of that"?…

June 23, 2026

Reflections on my business school 20 year reunion

Education / Leadership

Reflections on my business school 20 year reunion

A couple weeks ago I attended the 20 year reunion for my earning an MBA at Columbia Business School. It's been decades since I applied. I can't help sharing posts from when I applied, since the period between when I considered applying and when I started was 23 days. Here are posts on that process: I started at an Ivy League business school 23 days after deciding to apply. Here's how. My background for getting into an Ivy League business school in 23 days My essays for getting into an Ivy League business school in 23 days Three things struck me at the reunion. Actually, more than three but I'll write about three. Business school was not what I feared Long before considering applying, I…

June 22, 2026

This week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: The Machinery of Freedom, Twilo

Tips

This week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: The Machinery of Freedom, Twilo

This week I finished: The Machinery of Freedom, by David Friedman: My friend and podcast guest at Cato, Travis Fisher, recommended this book. I've come across many of the ideas before, even the radical replacement of every vestige of government, from readings like The Individualists and Coase's paper The Problem of Social Cost, but not together, comprehensively. I'm glad to see it all put together. It's easy to dismiss views on privatizing everything as just seeking profit. A less thoughtful past me would have said it's not possible and misguided. Why bother even thinking about it. It would just turn into 1984 or some version of one corporation running everything, or a small number of them, all for profit, removing anything not commodifiable, like art, nature, and love. Such…

June 21, 2026

First we pave more land nearby and it’s no big deal…

Nature / Pollution and Depletion

First we pave more land nearby and it’s no big deal…

First we pave more land nearby and it's no big deal. In fact, the road or housing development boosts the economy. More people can reach places faster. Then we expand that paved area, again no big deal. The we have to travel to get away from it all. There is no local nature, no chance for solitude in nature. Then we pave over yet more to access more remote places, maybe build an airport, to facilitate getting away from it all. Then we acknowledge that we've wrecked or done away with nature nearby so we feel we have to get away and feel entitled to what we need to get away and to the remote nature we get away to. Then we build adorable little…

June 20, 2026

When did you last prepare a meal from scratch?

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion

When did you last prepare a meal from scratch?

Nearly everyone I tell that I don't use a fridge responds, "You must shop every day," or asks how often I shop, implying that they think it must be frequently. I've been answering by pointing out that apples and eggplants don't need refrigeration, nor do most whole fruits and vegetables. Most of the produce in this picture will stay edible for weeks without refrigeration. Several will keep months or longer if fermented. Meanwhile, look at the second picture below. Nearly all the produce in the picture below will start decomposing as soon as they aren't refrigerated. They're worse in nearly every way: less fresh, more polluting, more fragile, more depleting, etc. Notice that you can't directly see or touch produce or anything living. In the…

June 19, 2026

What do we do about past choices that ended up violating our values? Do we just give up? Wouldn’t you rather win?

Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

What do we do about past choices that ended up violating our values? Do we just give up? Wouldn’t you rather win?

The number one resistance I hear to flying is that people have family flying-distance away. For most people who fly a lot, the following is checkmate: "What do you expect, never to see their mother again?" Implication: the environment is important but family is more important, so for whatever its problems, flying is net worth it. Similar with plastic, big cars, etc. Context Before getting to the heart of this view, first let's note that it is specious, deceptive, and self-serving. Flying made them flying-distance away in the first place. They don't hesitate to fly away from their family. People who fly spend less time with family, not more. Then they start talking about how they need to live where they do for work, or…

June 17, 2026

Letter to the World, version 1

Freedom / My Favorite Posts

Letter to the World, version 1

How I live, my work, my mission, and my vision are more conservative than today's conservatives, liberal than today's liberals, libertarian than today's libertarians, progressive than today's progressives. How? By doing what no world leader believes possible. They haven't even tried, hence their lack of credibility, integrity, vision, or remotely practical plan to address today's greatest problems. The stakes are higher but solutions more practical and achievable than they know. Most of us can't make it through breakfast without violating: Do unto others as you would have them do unto you. Love your neighbor as yourself. Live and let live. Leave it better than you found it. We are restoring these values, enabling us to look people in the eye and say “we're doing our…

June 16, 2026

How to Win: OG Anunoby, Game 4 Knicks

Leadership / Visualization

How to Win: OG Anunoby, Game 4 Knicks

Everyone in New York City knows that in game 4, the Knicks overcame the greatest deficit in NBA finals history to win. No one can get enough of seeing OG Anunoby tip the ball in with 2 seconds on the clock. Basketball is a team sport and every second of the game counted, but if you want to win in life, and I don't mean defeat others, I mean to reach your full potential, to help everyone around you, it's worth noting a few points about Anunoby on this play. Here's the video, if you haven't seen it enough. Then I'll show a few points we can learn from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOQKRjP3ZJk Moment 1: With 5.7 seconds on the clock Anunoby has the ball on the sideline,…

June 15, 2026

This week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: Progress, History of the World (semester 1)

Tips

This week’s selected media, June 14, 2026: Progress, History of the World (semester 1)

This week I finished: Progress : Ten Reasons to Look Forward to the Future, by Johan Norberg: I met Johan at a Cato event in midtown last month. I'd watched videos of his before. He spoke last month about his latest book, Peak Human, which I expect to read, but started with this book. I thought it would read like Steven Pinker's books Enlightenment Now and Better Angels of Our Nature. I didn't expect as much Julian Simon, but Norberg recalled all of them. As with Pinker's books, I was pleasantly surprised myself to find many of his points compelling. Despite how much inequality, poverty, injustice, and war exists, much of it is less than before and decreasing and, while there are innumerable factors, some reasons are…

June 14, 2026

The 5 greatest flaws I see in environmentalism

Education / Hands on Practical Experience / Leadership / Pollution and Depletion

The 5 greatest flaws I see in environmentalism

I see environmentalism increasingly causing environmental degradation because the core of its practice is misguided. I started this post to write about the two greatest flaws I see in environmentalism, but three more came to me while writing. My goal is not to be comprehensive or authoritative but to provoke thought and behavior change. [EDIT: I came up with more since posting, so now more than 5. I may keep updating.] To believe that suing more solar, wind, or any energy source, including nuclear or, should it ever work, fusion, will lower use of fossil fuels or uranium, or their resulting pollution and depletion. Corollary: To believe that calling solar, wind, or any energy source as implemented today "clean," "green," or "renewable" means that it…

June 13, 2026

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