Category Archives: Nature

What AI does for you it will do more and better for people richer than you

on September 11, 2024 in Addiction, Nature

People are asking a lot: will artificial intelligence help or hurt us more. In nearly every answer I hear, the person starts thinking of ways they can use AI to help them achieve their goals. They sometimes temper the desirable results they come up with concerns that it may take away jobs. But the biggest problems in the world aren’t lack of jobs. The biggest problems are caused by humans—things[…] Keep reading →

“You take care of things you found in the trash more than others take care of things they bought.”

on August 21, 2024 in Habits, Nature, Stories

A friend who visited broke a couple things of mine. They were fixable, but when he damaged one things by treating it cavalierly I said, “treat everything like it’s valuable.” He was taken aback since I had told him I had found this thing—a laundry drying rack. Some neighbor was throwing it out. It worked so I kept and used it. On last Fridays of the month, if I walk[…] Keep reading →

Do you value consent?

on August 16, 2024 in Nature

Do you value getting consent for actions one person does that affect another? When you use plastic, fill up a tank of gas, buy an airplane ticket, did you get consent from the people whose air, land, and water your actions pollute and deplete? Do you think you should? Do you wish people who polluted and depleted your world had tried to get your consent?

It’s not climate anxiety. *People* are causing that anxiety, destroying life, liberty, and property with impunity.

on August 15, 2024 in Creativity, Leadership, Nature

It’s natural to think of our environmental problems as issues of science, technology, or markets. We learned of them from scientists. Technologists and business people said they could solve them, but they’re social. The environment isn’t changing on its own. We’re changing it. Pollution destroys life, liberty, and property, mentioned throughout the US Constitution. We feel anxiety not from an effectively abstract “climate,” but because people can unilaterally destroy our[…] Keep reading →

The end of plastics

on August 12, 2024 in Nature

People seem concerned about microplastics. They’re in all our bloodstreams. The endocrine disrupting chemicals they leech out probably contribute to globally rising birth defects and globally falling sperm counts. You’ve probably read about it all. Since plastic doesn’t change to non-plastic when it breaks down, but it all breaks down, all plastic will become microplastic. I guess we might burn some and it becomes other pollution, but nearly all of[…] Keep reading →

Are more people always better?

on August 10, 2024 in Freedom, Nature

People freak out when talking about population. Many seem unable to talk about deliberately choosing smaller populations from the litany of hating humanity, thinking humanity is like cancer or a virus, eugenics, Nazism, fascism, racism, or sexism. Did I forget any? Steven Pinker wrote that people who talk about population control “repudiate technology and economic growth, and to revert to a simpler and more natural way of life” and are[…] Keep reading →

If your solution to our environmental problems is your solution to problems before them, you’re probably tribal, not thoughtful, and exacerbating them.

on August 5, 2024 in Nature

A lot of people on the left and right seem to want to solve our environmental problems with the solutions they promote for all problems. People on the left want to fight environmental problems with government regulation, to end systemic racism, and to smash the patriarchy. On the right they want to liberalize markets and decrease regulation. Does it seem odd to anyone else that their solutions to these new[…] Keep reading →

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