I closed my account with Con Ed since I wasn’t using their power, but apparently Americans are too entitled and can’t stop themselves. They’re complaining and unhappy. I wish I could help them enjoy life more, but the technology they thought brought them comfort and convenience seems to have made them less resilient, happy, healthy, or safe and more addicted, dependent, and petulant. I prefer freedom to addiction, which I[…] Keep reading →

The United States has a Bill of Rights in its Constitution guaranteeing several freedoms around religion, speech, the press, bearing arms, search and seizure, speedy trials, and a few others. Imagine you woke up to headlines that for some technicality no one had noticed for over two centuries, the Bill of Rights had been improperly processed and turned out it was invalid. That is, imagine the Bill of Rights didn’t[…] Keep reading →

ChatGPT is surprising everyone with what it can do, how far beyond expectations, and in so many areas. Where will artificial intelligence go next? What will it do? Whom will it affect and how? It’s hard for people who didn’t live when people viewed beating a human at chess as absolutely impossible for computers, let alone playing a decent game. Today we can only conceive of chess as something computers[…] Keep reading →

Despite using zero watts over more than a year, I’ve been paying over $20 per month for an electric bill. Part of it was to a power company that uses more wind and solar that charged me a monthly fee of another $6 or so. The other part was $17 a month to Con Ed, the power company, simply for being connected to the grid, not even using power. I[…] Keep reading →

Failures of imagination and leadership in sustainability are the hallmarks of our time. They mean that when even sustainably-minded people try to imagine people with political or business authority acting for sustainability, they can’t think past how to make sustainability profitable or get votes. I’m going to lead CEOs to see themselves as humans first, CEOs second—politicians, journalists, celebrities, and so on too. Oskar Schindler didn’t save those Jews from[…] Keep reading →

We thoughtlessly value efficiency and chase it places it doesn’t make sense. I call it Speed reading bedtime stories to your kids. It makes sense: if you read your kids bedtime stories faster, you can move on to other things. Or rather, it obviously doesn’t. Yet we do it with takeout food, doof, packaging, social media instead of spending time with people in person, flying around the world when there’s[…] Keep reading →

While reading ProPublica’s story How a Grad Student Uncovered the Largest Known Slave Auction in the U.S., I came across these paragraphs about Lauren Davila finding a newspaper ad from 1835 announcing someone having sold 600 slaves in one auction: A sale of 600 people would mark a grim new record—by far. Until Davila’s discovery, the largest known slave auction in the U.S. was one that was held over two[…] Keep reading →

I meant just to list all my sidchas in my post Freedom exists in structure; it’s not chaos, randomness, or luck. Here’s my structure and freedom, but I made a mistake. I included standard procedures with sidchas. I didn’t think of the distinction. One is habits. The other is the best way to do something. I’ve written about sidchas. What about procedures? If there’s a better way and worse way,[…] Keep reading →

An exercise to the reader: say a genie snapped his fingers and forced you to live in 1850 with your choice of two conditions: Try rationalizing flying, bottled water, and disposable diapers with not living option 2. You can’t. sorry to break it to you, but the sooner you get the water splashed in your face, the sooner you can act like a human with compassion. Sadly, Nearly everyone today[…] Keep reading →