Addiction

They’re not promoting sexism that hurts women. They’re promoting addiction that hurts men.
Addiction

They’re not promoting sexism that hurts women. They’re promoting addiction that hurts men.

I read a piece in The Onion recently that pointed me to an apparent controversy that hides a problem everyone seems to be missing, playing into the hands of some people profiting at the cost of people's health, or at least appear so to me. I'll share the Onion piece first, then the distracting false controversy of people being played by PR and marketing people, then the actual tragedy. Since the piece and controversy cover breasts and men's attraction to them, the impatient among you or those prone to stereotype may jump to conclude I'm being prurient or fall into a preconception. I hope you'll overcome such tendencies and read to the end. The Onion headline is ‘Now My Breasts Are Over Here,’ Announces Sydney Sweeney Peeking Out…

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October 29, 2026
If you carry your cell phone 24/7 “just in case” or “for emergencies”, why not fentanyl?
Addiction / Freedom / Habits

If you carry your cell phone 24/7 “just in case” or “for emergencies”, why not fentanyl?

I hope you'll allow me to be bold and direct about a delusion people keep spouting. People have lost the ability to spend time without their phones. Actually, I'm writing this post about apps on the phone that have addicted people to them. Apps include the big addictive ones like Instagram, LinkedIn, Tictok, Tinder, and such, as well as ones to monitor children, to access artificial intelligence, and I don't know what else since all my apps don't even fill one screen. People insist they can't do without these apps. If you carry your cell phone and use apps to monitor your children 24/7 "just in case" or "for emergencies", why not carry some fentanyl everywhere you go too? It could also be useful in…

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September 22, 2026
Fiji Water or Piss?
Addiction / Pollution and Depletion

Fiji Water or Piss?

Do you drink bottled water? What do you consider more unhealthy in the picture below: the plastic, the yellow liquid contained in it, or the water that was in it that was shipped around the world. I wish I could convey how disgusting the plastic and shipped water are to me. I don't want to touch urine, but the plastic and shipped water hurt people more. Bottled water is the cause of polluted water, not deliverance from it, just like gambling causes gamblers to lose, amphetamines cause users to have less energy. That is, dependence and addiction lead those who depend on something to live with less than what they get that jolt of, but the rest of the time crave. Over three years ago…

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September 1, 2026
Might I Be Wrong About Artificial Intelligence? How Wrong Could I Be?
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Pollution and Depletion

Might I Be Wrong About Artificial Intelligence? How Wrong Could I Be?

I've written about AI, mainly problems. In Extreme Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence I explored the idea that AI offers no benefit, only the jolt of the feeling of accomplishment like the jolt of euphoria of opiates and solving problems created by the system and philosophy that created it. Let's say I'm wrong. Let's say AI offers many benefits I'm missing. How wrong might I be? What difference to us would we see if we stopped using AI compared to if we kept using it? Would we miss it? Would we think, "Darn, my life suffers for lack of AI"? If we stopped using eyeglasses or pressure cookers, I'd miss them. They represent technologies that seem to benefit people without harming others. You could argue that…

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August 28, 2026
Extreme Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Awareness

Extreme Thoughts on Artificial Intelligence

I'd been working on a post about how it may be that AI has no benefit, or negligible enough to round off to zero. I wasn't sure if I'd post it, but some recent statistics in Harper's Index prompted me to. I'll give some context, then the statistics, then the extreme views. Context Most people I've asked about AI who view it positively, by no means a representative sample, describe some use that they say helps them or would, like making slides for a presentation or write emails for them. They never mention people whose values they oppose using AI to help themselves. To be blunt, consider an issue you feel strongly about---possibly abortion or human rights abuses. Now consider that people who oppose your…

4 Comments
August 18, 2026
Heartbreaking: A seventh grade teacher on parents supporting students cheating with artificial intelligence
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Relationships

Heartbreaking: A seventh grade teacher on parents supporting students cheating with artificial intelligence

A friend teaches seventh grade English. I'd read about teachers struggling with students cheating with artificial intelligence, so I asked her about her classes. She teaches at a prestigious Manhattan private school. For context, here are some articles on a publicized case: From Inside Higher Ed: Brown Professor Suspects Majority of His Class Used AI to Cheat From CBC: A U.S. prof suspects most of his students used AI to cheat. It's a growing concern here, too From Fortune: 'Humanity has chosen to become idiots': This Brown professor switched to take-home exams after a mass shooting and discovered mass cheating From El Pais: Professor denounces mass AI fraud on an exam at Brown University: ‘Academic integrity is at risk’ She said the students cheat like it's normal. She…

2 Comments
August 10, 2026
Syringes on a Sunday afternoon, following doof on a Sunday morning
Addiction / Doof / Pollution and Depletion

Syringes on a Sunday afternoon, following doof on a Sunday morning

I haven't posted about finding syringes and people shooting up in a while. Last fall or winter the city decided to increase the police coverage of Washington Square Park and the neighborhood. Nobody thinks it decreases the use of fentanyl and other drugs of despair, but they moved it away from this particular park. Yesterday afternoon, while picking up litter in the park, I saw a couple syringes, the first I saw in that park in several months. This tree happens to be close to the temporary police office, sort of a mobile home parked by the northwest corner of the park. The park is like my neighborhood's back yard. Who wants discarded used syringes in their back yard? Yesterday morning started with other addiction,…

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August 3, 2026
Doof: when you bought it you consumed it
Enjoy Coca-cola!
Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Doof / Fitness

Doof: when you bought it you consumed it

I used to find it hard not to consume ice cream and chips no matter how much willpower I conjured up, actually impossible. I'd give in, open the freezer or cupboard, start putting it in my mouth, and inevitably consume more than I meant to. Now that I haven't bought any in years, I hear with clarity the excuses in others that I used to say to myself. A friend remarked how she knew when she bought the stuff that she'd put it in her mouth, but somehow while shopping told herself that she would only consume it rarely. I played that trick: when I bought it, I'd say I'm not really consuming it now. I'll just not consume it for a while. Then when…

4 Comments
July 18, 2026
If you can’t walk away, you aren’t free. Freedom requires not depleting nonrenewable resources.
Addiction / Freedom / Pollution and Depletion

If you can’t walk away, you aren’t free. Freedom requires not depleting nonrenewable resources.

If someone orders you to do something but you can walk away without risk or loss and they can't coerce or force you to do what they order, you're free and their orders are just words. Freedom means you can walk away. What if your life depends on resources others control, so that the only way you can access them is if they let you? Then you can't walk away. Are you then free? It doesn't look like it to me. What if a nation depends on resources others control, so that the only way it can access them is if those other let it? Then it can't walk away. Is it then free? It doesn't look like it to me. A post What We…

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May 15, 2026
Wounded warriors, by Clint Eastwood, and us
Addiction / Art / Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion

Wounded warriors, by Clint Eastwood, and us

Yesterday I posted a passage from Steven Pressfield's new book The Arcadian about how being induced to act against our values---being corrupted from our values---affects us, in Wounded Warriors, by Steven Pressfield, and Ourselves. Yesterday I quoted a scene from Steven's book where three warriors share the effects on their minds of their heroism. It began with what happened to their bodies, which seems the visible counterpart of what happens to their minds, not counting those who were killed and aren’t there to be seen or heard. The passage built up to the last paragraph, which described pissing, pickling, and kicking corpses to try to diminish what they'd done. The actions show what people do when we are corrupted from our values. Steven describes warriors…

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May 12, 2026
Artificial Intelligence isn’t improving people’s lives. It’s helping them fulfill their roles, which rarely improves their lives.
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Relationships

Artificial Intelligence isn’t improving people’s lives. It’s helping them fulfill their roles, which rarely improves their lives.

[Note: I wrote the post below before last week's post Artificial Intelligence and atrophy of mental ability like intelligence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and expression, which it overlaps. I held back on posting it because of the question in the last paragraph. I'm finishing the third volume of The Gulag Archipelago and studying the effects of dominance hierarchy, which artificial intelligence is forming. People who criticized Stalin didn't fare well. Should we worry about criticizing the people and machines who may be at the top of a steepening dominance hierarchy?] There may be some people who can't talk to other humans, maybe because of a birth defect, that artificial intelligence can help directly. Then again, it may not actually help in the long run, but even…

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May 6, 2026
Artificial Intelligence and atrophy of mental ability like intelligence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and expression
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Creativity / Doof / Fitness / Nature / Relationships

Artificial Intelligence and atrophy of mental ability like intelligence, self-awareness, emotional regulation, and expression

I see more and more ads for artificial intelligence. This evening on the subway one ad promoted how AI could turn the workplace task of creating a slide deck from two weeks of many sub-tasks like compiling data and designing slides into one prompt followed by a complete slide deck. The task would take minutes now. I've heard a lot of uses for artificial intelligence. I haven't heard of one that improves people's lives. I'm sure they exist, but I haven't seen them. Most are like the one above. It's tempting to point out that it saves time and likely improves the quality of output, that it enables the person to focus on what they want to, not low-level mundane work like making sure the…

2 Comments
May 1, 2026
Clarifying what people get when they pollute and deplete less
A6FY1C Brent Delta North Sea
Addiction / Awareness / Doof / Freedom / Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion

Clarifying what people get when they pollute and deplete less

What people get from polluting and depleting less: I used to tell people that they'd save money and time because they will. Nobody believes me. Nobody. They see buying coffee at Starbucks to go and ordering takeout as saving time, missing that those who do those things have the least time. Knowing your values so you can prioritize them and dismiss less valuable things (like takeout coffee and takeout) restores time and money. I first thought stopping things that cause pollution and depletion---particularly those that fund extraction of fossil fuels, uranium, and other nonrenewable resources---would bring deprivation and sacrifice. Now I see that many things I once thought necessary or unavoidable are unnecessary. In time and with hands-on practical experience they become repugnant and disgusting,…

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April 27, 2026
Environmentalists rarely try to solve the problem
Addiction / Doof / Leadership / Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Environmentalists rarely try to solve the problem

Fixing the results of a problem is not the same as stopping it from recurring and you rarely can undo all the problems, especially if you do it persistently. For example, exercising doesn't make up for an addiction to doof. Even if you burn off the calories, it doesn't fix the health problems or make back the wasted money. More importantly, since you keep consuming doof, you'll likely miss exercising sometimes. Relevant to polluting and depleting: plant all the trees you want. If our culture values affordable houses and food, when they want to chop your trees back down, they'll find a way to. I distinguish mopping up the mess from not causing it because I'm getting flooded with requests for people promoting stuff for…

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April 21, 2026
Year 11, day 1 no flying
Addiction / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Pollution and Depletion

Year 11, day 1 no flying

I attended an event in midtown by Trump Plaza in midtown over the weekend. A friend who is very liberal said how uncomfortable the space made her feel. She also mentioned how she just got back from Mexico and planned to return there, as well as New Orleans, in the next few months. I didn't point out to her how much of the cost of her plane tickets is funding the lobbyists and industries that are driving the US government she is so uncomfortable with. I did start to speculate if there were places that made me uncomfortable. I thought about airports. It hit me that I've only been inside an airport once in the past ten years. A few years ago I met a…

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March 24, 2026
TYMCALM: Common and Advanced Legitimizing Myths around polluting and depleting
Addiction / Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

TYMCALM: Common and Advanced Legitimizing Myths around polluting and depleting

This post shares a long series of legitimizing myths. Why cover these beliefs so comprehensively? Recall the response of a wise person who was asked, “If you had one hour to save the world, how would you spend it?” The reply: "I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and 5 minutes solving it.” Another wise person said, “If I had 4 hours to chop down a tree, I’d spend the first 3 hours sharpening the ax.” This post is about understanding the problem and sharpening the ax. If you've thought any of the following, the thoughts may have felt personal, but they likely resulted from your having been induced to act against your values—that is, from being corrupted. You don't have to create legitimizing…

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March 18, 2026
That’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)
Addiction / Awareness / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

That’s Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth (TYMCALM)

I may update the acronym, but I've created one for my upcoming book that I've found relevant to many people's views on pollution, depletion, and the prospect of life and culture without either. I've found useful the acronym TYMCALM (pronounced: Tim-calm, for “That's Your Mind Creating A Legitimizing Myth”) useful for when people respond reflexively to rationalize or justify a behavior that violates their values. For example, when I say that I haven't flown since 2016, people often respond that I must not have family flying-distance away, or (outrageously) that I must not love them, or that must not have had to fly for my income. Now I think, “TYMCALM.” I don't begrudge them for their minds working the way human minds work. That the…

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March 17, 2026
More heartbreaking garbage
Addiction / Doof / Habits / Nature / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

More heartbreaking garbage

In Monday's post, Today's blizzard, February 2026, I wrote how the blizzard led to another day when I could find no litter in Washington Square Park. As usual, even with over a foot of snow, I found plenty of litter and garbage elsewhere, but at least not in the park, which is like my back yard. That post shows several beautiful pictures of my neighborhood covered in virginal snow. In that post, I also wrote something that breaks my heart that a lifetime of experience prompts me to express, and with confidence: I didn't see any litter in the park this morning so I'm one day into a potential release, but tomorrow is forecast to be sunny and Tuesday is forecast to be warm, so…

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February 25, 2026
How cute and adorable the garbage from doof dealers
Addiction / Doof

How cute and adorable the garbage from doof dealers

I used to be unable to resist craving for sweets and savory treats. Now I'm free from the doof industry's deliberate strategy to addict people, or at least mostly so. Walking along Seventh Avenue, I saw this revolting sight: a trash can overflowing with pink boxes designed to look adorable and appealing. They say the name of the store creating this garbage: "Crumbl". I see the store around. They make doof: sweet, sugary doof. To clarify, I don't look for this revolting stuff. It's everywhere. I just can't help taking pictures when I feel vomit forming, to show how twisted we've made our world. As much as I couldn't resist such products before, today, I would pick apples over any sweet doof. They grow locally…

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February 20, 2026
On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative
Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Pollution and Depletion

On open email on Scott Galloway’s “Resist and Unsubscribe” initiative

A friend of mine who is also friends with Scott Galloway emailed me about Galloway's initiative to influence politics by changing consumer behavior. The initiative aims to lead people to stop doing business with companies that influence politics he and his followers disagree with. Context Galloway calls it "Resist and Unsubscribe." Our mutual friend's email included screen shots of his cancelling his accounts with Amazon, X, and ChatGPT. He included his strongly-worded statements for why: their support for actions he despised. Years ago, I spoke to this mutual friend about reducing support for pollution and depletion. He flies a lot. He responded that flying only contributes a few percent to global carbon emissions. I left it there, since I felt like I was in Monticello…

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February 7, 2026
Another time garbage nearly brought me to tears
Addiction / Doof / Habits / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

Another time garbage nearly brought me to tears

Two days ago I posted My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it. Since I committed to picking up at least three pieces per day until three days pass when I can't find three pieces to pick up, I wondered if the snow would make it possible. I also offered to take any bets that people would litter. Nearly everyone is addicted to doof. Few Americans can eat breakfast without depriving others of life, liberty, and property based on plastic, shipping, etc that pollute and deplete. Then yesterday I happened to go early in the morning. It was still snowing and I saw no litter again. Two days. Maybe I shouldn't have offered…

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January 27, 2026
My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it.
Addiction / Doof / Habits / Pollution and Depletion / SIDCHAs

My first time since starting not finding litter in Washington Square Park, because over six inches of snow covered it.

I've committed to picking up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park since it became overrun with fentanyl, meth, and all that results from it during the pandemic. I decided I'd keep up the sidcha until three days passed in which I couldn't trivially find three pieces of litter, as I wrote three years ago in On when I should stop picking up litter in Washington Square Park. I wish I could believe that outcome should be easy. No litter is necessary. Yet in about five years, I've never been unable to find three pieces trivially. We should collectively cry. Today, over six inches of snow have fallen, covering the ground and making the benches not places anyone…

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January 25, 2026
There will always be something just beyond our grasp we crave. Or we can learn to stop craving.
Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Choosing/Decision-Making / Freedom

There will always be something just beyond our grasp we crave. Or we can learn to stop craving.

Artificial intelligence is just the latest instance of a technology that, by polluting and depleting, deprive people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law. People think of the perks it might bring them despite violating the Constitution. So they convince themselves that it will actually benefit those it hurts. They can't say exactly how, but they think if we just use more of it, it will somehow harm less than if we use less of it or not use it. I'm a fan of technology and innovation. I'm a bigger fan of liberty, freedom, equality, and democracy, which I don't see working if we don't enforce the Constitution. If we have to choose between a technology that violates the Constitution and honoring…

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January 20, 2026
How do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?
Addiction / Awareness / Freedom

How do we know the people living here when Europeans arrived were indigenous?

First I have to make as clear as possible: I oppose imperialism, colonialism, and outcomes they produce such as slavery, racism, genocide, and the coercive, often violent and deadly destruction of cultures, including indigenous ones. That opposition contributes significantly to my work, since living unsustainably drives all those results. In light of that connection, since I know no one even trying to live sustainably, which is necessary to lead others to oppose imperialism and all downstream, I don't know anyone who opposes them as much as I do. That said, environmentalists and people who claim to support indigenous cultures and people tend to attach to indigeneity properties it doesn't merit. For example, environmentalists will fly someone from a south sea island to the United Nations…

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December 1, 2025

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