Addiction

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…

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…

May 12, 2026

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

Addiction / 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…

May 6, 2026

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

Addiction / 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…

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,…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

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…

January 25, 2026

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

Addiction / 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…

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…

December 1, 2025

Top 2025 Christmas Gifts … or landfill within a week?

Addiction / Tips

Top 2025 Christmas Gifts … or landfill within a week?

Below shows the results if you search Amazon for "Top 2025 Christmas gifts." I will bet over 95 percent of them will be in landfills, bottoms of drawers never to be used again, or some equivalent by the end of January. I'm pretty live-and-let-live about what makes people happy (though not when it hurts someone else without consent), but I couldn't find one item there whose existence made the world better compared to replacing the gift in the image with a non-material friendly thoughtful gift. Economists talk about economic growth making people's lives better. Two considerations: First, addiction fueled by Amazon's armies of people trained to control your rewards system more effectively than you can undermines the premise that free markets based on voluntary trade…

November 26, 2025

My first time doing a NY Times crossword puzzle

Addiction / Habits

My first time doing a NY Times crossword puzzle

Last week I was working at the library. I ran out of scrap paper. They have a bunch. On the other side of a sheet was something they provide every day: the New York Times crossword puzzle. It was a couple days old when I got it, hence it being scrap. I was about to use the back side, which was the side I wanted. I scanned a few clues and a couple seemed obvious. I don't think I ever tried to do a New York Times crossword before. I noticed it was a Monday puzzle, which I understand is the easiest day. I probably should have worked on my book, which is why I was there, but kept working at the puzzle. Next thing…

November 22, 2025

My short conversation with a guy injecting heroin into his neck in broad daylight, steps from my front door

Addiction / Relationships / Stories

My short conversation with a guy injecting heroin into his neck in broad daylight, steps from my front door

I walked past this fire truck the other day. It was bright daylight, not nighttime, like when I took this picture. I saw a guy standing about where the "18" is on the truck's bumper, facing toward the truck, doing something with some stuff on the bumper, keeping it hidden, looking at himself in the reflection on the chrome on the grill. He was focused on what he was doing so didn't notice that I stopped to look more carefully at what he was doing. You know from the subject of this post what he was doing, but it was pretty obvious he was doing something secretive with the stuff and, given that we're in the United States in 2025, it was likely drugs. In…

November 20, 2025

Today’s business models: Why we fight to keep what makes us miserable

Addiction / Freedom

Today’s business models: Why we fight to keep what makes us miserable

People have figured out business models to lock people in: Find what people want, deliver it, then become the intermediary. That is, cut them off from it without you. The results Now people think Facebook and American Airlines connect them with family even though they cut us off from them. They we Instagram brings us friends even though it cuts us off from them. We think restaurants bring food but they cut us off from it. We think McDonald's and Starbucks save time when they deprive us of it. We think Google connects us to knowledge when it cuts us off from it. We think cars and planes transport us to new places when they actually make everywhere the same. We think the news brings…

November 19, 2025

The average American spends 5 hours per day on social media but claims not to have time to cook. Yeah, right.

Addiction / Relationships

The average American spends 5 hours per day on social media but claims not to have time to cook. Yeah, right.

The title says it all. Anyone who spends more than an hour a day on Instagram or Facebook is lying to themselves and others if they claim they don't have time to cook. It's the addiction speaking. Claims you're spending time with family are lies too. I'll be happy if you correct me if I'm wrong, but history, anthropology, and personal experience tell me that f your children are older than five---that is, older than children in hunter-gatherer cultures hunt animals with bows and arrows---they can shop for food and cook it. Again, correct me if I'm wrong, but it seems to me that if you don't let them, you're retarding their development and holding back love and support. Did I miss anything?

November 12, 2025

More drugs: a woman pooping in the park in broad daylight and more junkies shooting up in my neighborhood

Addiction / Doof / Nonjudgment

More drugs: a woman pooping in the park in broad daylight and more junkies shooting up in my neighborhood

As always: I post about junkies not to criticize or condemn them as individuals, though I consider adults responsible for their actions. I post about them to illustrate our culture. Their addiction and its harms to others and communities is more acute than most of ours, but it is generally more benign than people with dependencies on flying, driving, doof, takeout, screens, and other things nearly everyone does that hurt innocent people, violate the consent of the governed, and deprive people of life, liberty, and property. I post these images for us to see ourselves. Flying wrecks nature and tears families apart. Not flying connects us. If you chose to live flying-distance from family, you chose to hurt people. You can stop. Yes, withdrawal is…

October 30, 2025

Everyone says that raising kids means you can’t avoid polluting and depleting. That’s colonialism.

Addiction / Freedom

Everyone says that raising kids means you can’t avoid polluting and depleting. That’s colonialism.

I've already written how polluting and depleting appropriate other people's lives, liberty, and property without their consent. Societies used to take other society's land---also known as colonialism---by invading or settling. Nowadays they avoid the risk of violence by addicting people. The opium wars were fought over incapacitating a population with opium. Now we do it with cell phones and hydroelectric dams. A new way of appropriating others' land is by sticking them with our poisonous waste, especially plastic. We can see piles of it from space and if we look at the details, we'll see that the shareholders profiting from it are people like you and me. We drink Coke, they live in our plastic waste. Raising kids, pollution, and depletion Everyone says that raising…

October 17, 2025

I missed a sidcha yesterday: picking up litter in Washington Square Park

Addiction / Doof / Habits / SIDCHAs

I missed a sidcha yesterday: picking up litter in Washington Square Park

Regular readers know my sidcha to pick up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner of Washington Square Park. While most of my sidchas I haven't missed, that one I've missed, maybe one or two times per year. The park could use more people picking up litter. No, the point of picking up litter isn't just the temporary removal of litter. Picking up litter makes not buying packaged food and doof easy. People act like avoiding packaged food and doof is hard. Partly they're addicted. Even if not, they still like that stuff and their jolt of a reward. Picking up litter daily leads you to feel repugnance and disgust toward those things. It's not hard to avoid things I find repugnant…

October 16, 2025

How environmentalists are like smokers who tell others not to smoke … while smoking

Addiction / Habits

How environmentalists are like smokers who tell others not to smoke … while smoking

Below is an idea for the new book that I probably won't use so figured I'd share it here. I'm sure I'll use it in conversations with the media. I may develop it more. I like the idea. I should probably specify the behaviors of environmentalists whose counterparts I show in the smokers', though I hope it's obvious. For example, vaping represents all the technologies and efficiencies that people want to reduce pollution and depletion but augment it, like carbon capture, electric vehicles, and lighter packaging for doof. I see many environmentalists like cigarette smokers who tell others not to smoke while smoking themselves. They do the equivalent of the following: They get angry at Big Tobacco while not acknowledging that they themselves are funding…

October 14, 2025

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