Addiction

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

Artificial Intelligence pollutes and depletes. Using it won’t help sustainability.

Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Doof / Nature

Artificial Intelligence pollutes and depletes. Using it won’t help sustainability.

I read an article, The Costs of the Cloud, by Ashley Dawson in the New York Review of Books and wanted to note for future reference how much artificial intelligence pollutes and depletes. When asked how they think AI will affect the environment, most people seem to respond to a different question: "Can you think of ways AI can help with the environment?" They're doing what I wrote about in my post Nearly everyone misses the danger of artificial intelligence we’re sleepwalking into. They don't ask if people extracting fossil fuels are using AI to further their goals, or their advertisers, lobbyists, scientists, engineers, and politicians. Or people who sell things that lead to more pollution and depletion, like fast fashion, travel, doof, and online…

October 9, 2025

Their motivation to make doof: to drive your emotional system to buy more

Addiction / Choosing/Decision-Making / Doof / Fitness / Freedom

Their motivation to make doof: to drive your emotional system to buy more

I was thinking about the people who manufacture addictive things like doof. If you believe that someone choosing to buy something means they valued what they bought more than what they paid for it, then you think that the more they buy, the more they've improved their lives. Then the more addictive you make the product, the more you sell. You can tell yourself that your profit means their life improvement. The way it looks to me is that science has figured out how to control the human emotional system more effectively than the person with that system, at least in some cases. They've learned to use short-term motivation to override long-term reward and ability to regulate oneself. Then it's a stretch to say that…

October 8, 2025

When not to worry about stranded assets, even to prefer them

Oil refinery

When not to worry about stranded assets, even to prefer them

People worry about properties that lose value if we move toward sustainability. For example, if demand for fossil fuels drops then things whose value depend on the price of fossil fuels like factories, refineries, and companies will lose value. If their values drop more than they're worth to use, they become worthless. Finance people call them stranded assets. If enough people stop flying and driving, the stuff in this image could become a worthless stranded asset. People worry about shocks to the economy, but what about values, especially basic human values? Imagine someone found a way to end fentanyl addiction so that all current addicts stopped buying it. Then all illegal fentanyl-producing facilities would become stranded assets. Would we delay ending addiction because those assets…

September 19, 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

Artificial Intelligence: The Biggest Result People Miss

Addiction / Artificial Intelligence

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

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

I love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3b: More drugs

Addiction / Doof / Nonjudgment

I love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3b: More drugs

My posts about addiction aren't about the addicts in the pictures or videos. They're about our culture. I see the person in the video below as the inevitable outcome of our culture. He is a more extreme example in one direction, but only a few steps ahead of many users of McDonald's, Instagram, Delta Airlines, and Netflix. Context: I was walking home, saw this guy, and decided to get my phone out and record. Did I worry about making his identity public? Yes, but his face isn't visible and he's already in public. I didn't look for the guy. I didn't suggest he do anything. He was there. I may not have even broken stride. I'd been looking up the fentanyl fold and nodding out.…

August 1, 2025

I love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3a: More drugs

Addiction / Doof

I love where I live but it’s being destroyed, part 3a: More drugs

Following up a recent post I love where I live. How it’s being destroyed, part 3: Drugs, here are a few more pictures and videos of addicts in my neighborhood. To clarify, I'm not going out of my way or looking for these images. As a New Yorker, I'm usually in a hurry. Most scenes like the ones below I pass by without taking pictures or videos. These images are about our culture, not the individuals in the images. If you use social media, fly, buy doof, or own shares in companies whose business models depend on addiction, THESE PICTURES ARE OF YOUR CREATION. I see little difference between these scenes and McDonald's or Instagram. Here's a video version of the couple: Here's a video…

July 24, 2025

I love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1

Addiction / Artificial Intelligence / Awareness / Creativity / Freedom / Hands on Practical Experience / Perception

I love developing resilience and strength: AI version, part 1

A recent article on artificial intelligence in the New Yorker wrote about how people who are suffering from loneliness are finding help from artificial intelligence. Some people can't help loneliness, not out of character defect but circumstance. It gets the reader thinking about the elderly, for example, who outlive everyone they've been close to, or it describes as worse, if those who remain are senile. Sorry to give away the ending but it suggests that for however it helps people who can't escape, it will create dependence in far more. The article is A.I. Is About to Solve Loneliness. That’s a Problem: The discomfort of loneliness shapes us in ways we don’t recognize—and we may not like what we become without it. by academic psychologist…

July 15, 2025

I love where I live. How it’s being destroyed, part 3: Drugs

I love where I live. How it’s being destroyed, part 3: Drugs

I've posted plenty on the heavy drug use in my neighborhood. The police and parks department recently cleaned the northwest corner of Washington Square Park, but, as they predict, the junkies move to other nearby places. I believe the effort is worth it. I talk to neighbors about forming local groups to occupy spaces the junkies would go to before they get there and make it hard for them to set up. In the language of Jane Jacobs, to put more eyes on the street. So far, it seems like my neighbors prefer to retreat. When I walked out of my front door the other day, half a block from my home, a junkie was urinating on an empty storefront. Next to him were three…

July 12, 2025

I don’t love needless, gluttonous waste

Addiction / Visualization

I don’t love needless, gluttonous waste

I was walking home from the food coop past NYU and saw this truck. They're all over Manhattan, basically limousines. Rich people travel by giant truck, I guess as some luxury. It was sitting there not moving. The passengers weren't in it but it wasn't empty. A guy in a suit---the driver---was sitting in it, engine idling, I presume with the air conditioning on because it was around 90 F (32 C) and humid. Yes, people who aren't even there are paying for a guy to dress inappropriately for the weather to run the motor of a vehicle weighing maybe ten times more than the people it might transport to run air conditioning. I presume the people were visiting the NYU building the truck was…

July 3, 2025

More junkies shooting up in broad daylight in the park

Addiction / Doof / Nonjudgment

More junkies shooting up in broad daylight in the park

The title says it all. Here are pictures of more junkies shooting up in broad daylight in the park. Sorry the exposure isn't brighter for the people but I was trying not to draw attention to myself. I was in the park charging and trying to work. There were half a dozen people in the group shortly before I took these pictures. If you magnify the second image you can see the syringe going into his arm. For the record, as far as I can tell, people who fly, drive, buy doof, order takeout, buy fast fashion they dispose of soon after, or shop a lot online hurt other people and communities more than these junkies. A lot more. It's just less visible, or rather…

June 21, 2025

How can anyone imaging this self-indulgence a better life?

Addiction / Doof / Hands on Practical Experience

How can anyone imaging this self-indulgence a better life?

My building neighbors often have deliveries to their doors, which I presume happens all over New York City. Here are some recent deliveries, first, I think, coffee, pastry, and other doof: Next, unnecessary sundries: I know plenty of people who marvel at how convenient modernity has made life. I wouldn't be surprised if I looked enough into my past if I found I liked the prospect of not having to leave my apartment, talk to a person, or even interact in any way with a human or challenges of life to get luxury, polluting, inessentials. I don't remember the last time I bought paper towels. Probably before I started avoiding packaged food, which would be over ten years ago. Meanwhile, I have more sponges than…

June 20, 2025

I wrote a poem: The Poem of the High-Fiber Diet (trigger warning: juvenile humor)

Addiction / Creativity / Humor / SIDCHAs

I wrote a poem: The Poem of the High-Fiber Diet (trigger warning: juvenile humor)

Am I going to get in trouble for a puerile post? Will it distract from my sustainability leadership focus? I hope not. I had a blast making the poem. Regular readers know my sidchas and standard operating procedures mean that I meditate as one of my first morning activities. Before meditating I go to the bathroom. Between my routine being so consistent and my diet containing so much fiber, I poop every morning around the same time. This morning I woke up about fifteen minutes before the alarm. As I sat on the toilet, my digestive tract wasn't ready to send the poop out, being fifteen minutes ahead of time. The situation brought to my mind the classic poem that people used to write on…

June 13, 2025

When they say “transition fuel,” they mean “more polluting and depleting,” not less pollution or depletion

A6FY1C Brent Delta North Sea

Addiction / Nature / Podcast

When they say “transition fuel,” they mean “more polluting and depleting,” not less pollution or depletion

If "transition" means we stop using the old fuel then there has never been an energy transition. You can hear more details when I post my next episode with Mark Mills, but it deserves more publicity. I recorded with him again after reading his recent piece We’ll Never Have an Energy Transition, in City Journal from the Manhattan Institute. I find his results compelling, as always. Every fuel we've ever used, we still use, and more than ever. If you think that by ramping up solar and wind that in any way that new energy availability will decrease our use of old energy, you're dreaming. More likely you're lying to yourself. By contrast, I believe we can choose to use an energy source less deliberately…

June 7, 2025

Nature’s discipline missing in today’s world

Addiction / Nonjudgment

Nature’s discipline missing in today’s world

Walking across the Manhattan Bridge, I saw a lot of graffiti. It looked to me like it was painted by boys or young men, likely making a statement vaguely like lashing out. I'm not sure, but it didn't look like it was designed to make the place feel safer or more secure. I thought about how many boys and young men feel motivated to show their independence and probably have since before our ancestors became human hundreds of thousands of years ago. Back then they couldn't spray toxic chemicals. They probably would have done things to show their independence without some equivalent of defacing public property. It got me thinking how we've created a world where behaviors resulting from our natural motivations become antisocial despite…

June 3, 2025

Hear me on WNYC: “Meet the NYC environmentalists going off the grid and eating discarded food”

Addiction / Audio / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature

Hear me on WNYC: “Meet the NYC environmentalists going off the grid and eating discarded food”

Listen to this story about me on WNYC: The text introducing it says: As President Donald Trump pursues a deregulation agenda, New York’s ambitious clean energy goals appear further out of reach. So what’s a climate conscious New Yorker to do? WNYC’s Rosemary Misdary reports on some New York City residents taking an extreme approach to eliminating their carbon footprints. I won't split hairs, but I would describe what I do as traditional and conservative, not extreme, since nobody connected to an electric grid or used plastic more than about a century ago. If you've read Sustainability Simplified, you know I consider many polluting and depleting activities as addictive, and from the perspective of, say, a heroin addict, using zero looks extreme, but it doesn't…

May 2, 2025

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