Visualization

How our society treats a building’s garden

Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

How our society treats a building’s garden

As always with posts showing litter and garbage, I'm posting about the beauty of nature and our ability to restore a culture that doesn't reward behaviors that require that nature needs protection, conservation, or restoration. Even if I post about garbage, pollution, and depletion that hurt people (and other life), my point is about the underlying beauty in nature and the liberty, freedom, equality, democracy, national security, and unity we are capable of. As for today's post, my building has a tiny garden in front: Notice how the planter on the right is missing green growth. It's hardly rare to find garbage like this, illustrating what is killing the plants. No one's life would be any worse if no one ever bought or sold these little…

October 2, 2026

Maps illustrating properties of dominance hierarchy

Models / Visualization

Maps illustrating properties of dominance hierarchy

My upcoming book treats dominance hierarchy as a core part of how our culture became the way it is. Dominance hierarchies form when there is a necessary resource that can be controlled with no alternative. The first most important such resources have been surplus grains, legumes, and animals that could be domesticated, which largely depend on arable land. Later, as states grew, other such resources were developed, such as education, justice, security, technology, and weapons. This model predicts that the appearance and durability of tyranny and slavery will depend on arable land. Thus, when I was listening to a podcast on slavery in the state of Arkansas and heard the host ask the guest, an author and professor on slavery, about differences of intensity of…

September 24, 2026

More of my park visit besides where they mugged me

Nature / Visualization

More of my park visit besides where they mugged me

Today I'm sharing a wonderful and beautiful post of Philadelphia where I grew up, near my the sledding hill of one of my TEDx talks, after two related serious posts about me visiting sites of violence and crime visiting on me from my childhood---One of the spots where I was mugged for a bike when I was a kid and Another spot where a bike was stolen from me when I was a kid. Here are pictures of the path along Wissahickon Creek near where I grew up. Something about paths in woods and bubbling creaks appeals to me. The slideshow below shows the pictures I took while walking about a mile or two. There are about 50 pictures and I recommend letting it show…

August 22, 2026

If we want an energy transition we don’t need more so-called “renewable”. We need less fossil fuels, which we aren’t doing.

Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

If we want an energy transition we don’t need more so-called “renewable”. We need less fossil fuels, which we aren’t doing.

I came across these graphs and had to share them because they reveal how counterproductive the plans of many environmentalists are, at least those who keep saying how percentages of so-called "clean," "green," or "renewable" energy sources are increasing. Wind, solar, and electric vehicles may pollute, deplete, and misappropriate less than fossil fuels, but less than fossil fuels doesn't mean zero. But for the sake of discussion, lets' imagine they were clean, green, and renewable. The plots below show that humans are using as much oil and fossil fuels as ever. Only using less fossil fuels uses less fossil fuels. Using more solar doesn't reduce the pollution, depletion, or misappropriation of oil. When we add back that they do pollute, deplete, and misappropriate, we gain…

August 5, 2026

How to Win: OG Anunoby, Game 4 Knicks

Leadership / Visualization

How to Win: OG Anunoby, Game 4 Knicks

Everyone in New York City knows that in game 4, the Knicks overcame the greatest deficit in NBA finals history to win. No one can get enough of seeing OG Anunoby tip the ball in with 2 seconds on the clock. Basketball is a team sport and every second of the game counted, but if you want to win in life, and I don't mean defeat others, I mean to reach your full potential, to help everyone around you, it's worth noting a few points about Anunoby on this play. Here's the video, if you haven't seen it enough. Then I'll show a few points we can learn from. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sOQKRjP3ZJk Moment 1: With 5.7 seconds on the clock Anunoby has the ball on the sideline,…

June 15, 2026

This week’s selected media, June 7, 2026: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Slavery–Summary on a Map,

Tips / Visualization

This week’s selected media, June 7, 2026: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, Slavery–Summary on a Map,

This week I finished: The Greatest Sentence Ever Written, by Walter Isaacson: Wow, the original content of this book is only 41 small pages, not counting empty pages at ends of chapter, with not many words per page, but packs a lot of meaning. It also includes important selections from Locke and Rousseau, as well as Jefferson's first draft of the Declaration and the full signed Declaration. Isaacson looks at the second sentence of the Declaration: We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. and elaborates on it word or phrase by word or phrase. He considers the…

June 7, 2026

The Timeline for Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People

Freedom / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The Timeline for Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People

This post follows The Scale and Pollution and Depletion's Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections. I suggest reading it first. The timeline is important. Before the atrocities above, things could seem like they might work out, then explode. I could treat any of them, but will pick US slavery since its timeline is long, so easiest to discern. Here is the increase in number of slaves in the US from 1610 (zero) to 1860 (4 million): US slavery in the years approaching 1860 involved a national culture of trade, torture, and killing. While any instance of slavery is cruel, that national culture didn't exist in 1619. Oxford-educated Trinidadian historian Eric Williams wrote, “A racial twist has thereby been given to what is basically…

June 2, 2026

The Scale and Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections

Awareness / Freedom / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The Scale and Pollution and Depletion’s Effects on People: Here, now, not future projections

I talk about the USSR gulag system, abolitionism, slavery, the Holocaust, and similar atrocities in the context of pollution and depletion. Most Americans know the horrors of slavery and the Holocaust. We know viscerally the images of slaves' welts and concentration camp survivors looking like skeletons. By comparison, images of pollution and depletion look like piles of garbage and graphs of CO2 concentration. Similarly, few images of the gulag exist because few were taken and few Americans register how many more suffered and died, nor how gruesome the conditions. Am I stupid, ignorant, or crazy to talk about these atrocities in the context of pollution and depletion? Context and Frame of Mind Before reading this post, it helps to clarify how you feel about some…

June 1, 2026

Should I fear posting concerns about artificial intelligence?

Artificial Intelligence / Freedom / Models / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Should I fear posting concerns about artificial intelligence?

I'm posting more about artificial intelligence, maybe enough to make a category for it. I posted that I hesitated to post my last one with this explanation: "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?" I doubt I have to worry, but reflecting on something thoughtfully and calmly isn't worrying. Besides AI, I also post a lot about dominance hierarchies. They form when there is a necessary resource that can be…

May 19, 2026

May Day / No Kings Garbage.

Nonjudgment / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

May Day / No Kings Garbage.

The other day I posted pictures of the needless garbage Democratic candidates send to my mailbox. They talk sustainability, but look at their action. You can see the pictures in Democrat Garbage: When Democrats Say They Value Sustainability, They Mean When It's Convenient For Themselves (Republicans Probably No Different). Am I unfairly judging them? On the contrary, the conflict is between their values and their actions. I didn't ask for them to send me garbage. I work to stop junk mail being sent to me. I hardly receive any now, but Democrats do it. Holding people accountable to their values helps them. It doesn't hurt them. Their garbage continued to arrive after the election. I put an image of more recent garbage of theirs at…

May 2, 2026

More Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined

Freedom / Visualization

More Americans died in the Civil War than all other wars combined

From the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA: "The number of war-related deaths in 1861-1865 is greater than the total number of American deaths in all other American wars." I've been stating that finding lately and wanted to cite my source for future reference. Estimates on deaths from wars are hard, as pages like How Many Died in the American Civil War? at History.com describe. Wikipedia's United States military casualties of war links many sources. You can define war deaths to include only people in the military or not, you can pick high estimates or low, and so on. I consider the Civil War Museum a credible source. Its gift shop had signed books from podcast guest David Blight (so far I've only finished the…

April 30, 2026

What we can learn from jarring images from the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA

Awareness / Freedom / Nonjudgment / Visualization

What we can learn from jarring images from the Civil War Museum in Harrisburg, PA

I gave a keynote and led a leadership workshop near Harrisburg, PA---a place halfway between where I grew up in Philadelphia and where my dad grew up, in Pittsburgh, so we passed through there many times growing up. I learned that the city hosts a Civil War Museum, so arranged to spend half a day there. I recommend it. A few items affected me beyond what I would have expected. Scroll down and you'll see the leg irons, collar with spikes, and whip with spiky metal spurs (the card implied that it wasn't known if this particular whip was actually used, but even if not, just that someone made it says a lot). First a few words. I'm not sure the pictures will hit you…

April 17, 2026

I’m not looking for them, but hours after my last post: more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees

I’m not looking for them, but hours after my last post: more trashed Christmas Pagan Trees

I'm not trying to make lots of headlines about this pattern, but I don't want to revise past posts. I'm not looking for these killed trees. On the contrary, that I can't avoid them suggests how many we kill, ostensibly to celebrate life and the birth of someone who promoted loving your neighbor as yourself. Hours after posting The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?, which wasn't my last post this season speculating I'd seen the last of trees we killed and trashed this season, I saw another one. Then today, before I could post about it, I saw yet another. Here's the one from today, about as scraggly, sad, and pathetic as I could imagine a Christian would allow something to represent the…

March 28, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the Season?

I've already written a few posts this year wondering if I've seen the last discarded trees, but we cut down so many, it takes this long to discard them all. We could have left them standing. It’s almost April and people pay to chop down so many trees, I’ve seen them thrown out this month. I think I’ve seen the last for the season so I’ll post the last images of them. I’ll copy text from previous posts so people see I’m defending, not attacking, tradition. It’s sad how garbage-y they look. This long after Christmas, I think people have lost interest in connecting the trees with life. Anyway, the text for context: Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I…

March 27, 2026

Another walk in the park with family Spodek Method commitment

Nature / Relationships / Stories / Visualization

Another walk in the park with family Spodek Method commitment

I posted last month about a Spodek Method commitment to walk in a park with my sister in Queens based on walking in the park with my dad. Yesterday, I walked in the same park I did with my dad, this time with my other sister, plus her husband and son, my brother-in-law and nephew. To refresh your memory, that post, Another Spodek Method commitment: a walk in the park with family, began: I’ve done a lot of Spodek Method commitments. I’ve loved them all, at least I don’t remember disliking any, but haven’t recorded many of them here, but liked posting My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay last month. I did another one over the weekend and…

March 16, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Tree of the season?

I just posted The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course, which showed how Americans celebrate spring: polluting and depleting, funding the production of garbage, and driving themselves to obesity. We also celebrate winter by killing trees. I hope the picture below is the last Christmas Pagan tree of the season. It goes to show you how many trees we kill in our pagan rituals that we now practice, merged with Christian ones. Then it was wrapped in plastic, gratuitously, as if pine trees were toxic or dangerous, but the car behind it or garbage below it are safe. It's sickening, literally and figuratively. It's also American in 2026.

March 10, 2026

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Doof / Fitness / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The first warm day of the year means overflowing doof garbage, of course

Sunday was the first warm day of the year. It was shorts weather. Do we celebrate the abundance of nature? No, that's not today's American values. What are today's American values? You can tell by our behavior. We buy doof, not food. We don't prepare it. We buy it pre-prepared, which means overloaded with salt, sugar, and fat, then packaged. We don't even eat fresh fruit on its own. We eat non-fresh fruit pre-chopped and assembled into plastic containers. Want proof? When I went to Washington Square Park for my sidcha to pick up at least three pieces of litter from the northwest corner, every trash can was beyond full. People weren't satisfied to fill the cans. They dumped doof packaging trash all around the…

March 10, 2026

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

The last Christmas Pagan Trees of the season?

It's March and people pay to chop down so many trees, I've seen them thrown out this month. I think I've seen the last for the season so I'll post the last images of them. I'll copy text from previous posts so people see I'm defending, not attacking, tradition. It's sad how garbage-y they look. This long after Christmas, I think people have lost interest in connecting the trees with life. Anyway, the text for context: Every year, I take pictures of how people trash their trees. I find the waste and death tragic and the images of something that was supposed to celebrate life become garbage. This season, I started seeing trees trashed before Christmas: Ten days before Christmas people are already throwing away…

March 6, 2026

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

SIDCHAs / Stories / Visualization

Today’s blizzard, February 2026

Everyone has a camera, so anyone can find wonderful pictures of anything online, but I couldn't help take some pictures of today's blizzard. It started yesterday and is forecast to run until this evening. Many places see more snow all the time, so I'm not saying we're experiencing a lot of snow. It also isn't that cold, slightly below freezing. I tried to take pictures that show the city before the beautiful snow turns to slush and reveals the larger accumulations of litter and garbage when the city pauses picking up the mess people leave. Recall that sanitation systems are socialist. Whether you like socialism or not, sanitation systems motivate more pollution and depletion. I'll start with the park across the street with my local…

February 23, 2026

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

Hands on Practical Experience / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

If you wait to solve all the challenges of zero pollution and depletion before starting, we’ll never start. If we start, we’ll solve the problems.

People dream that we'll figure out how to keep our world as it is, just without pollution and depletion. We'll just create new technology that does what existing technology does, but it will be "clean," "green," and "renewable." Well, shoot, why didn't people think of making technology that didn't hurt people in the first place? What jerks, not making things "clean," "green," and "renewable." Oh wait, maybe it's not possible to replicate the results of technology that violates the Constitution (by depriving people of life, liberty, and property without due process of law) with technology that doesn't. Maybe we're dreaming of an impossible fantasy. Even if it is possible to fly, drive, and ship thousands of shipping containers per load across oceans without violating the…

February 21, 2026

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

A rat and plastic in Washington Square Park, of the many due to garbage and litter

I don't have anything against rats, but they represent a loss of biodiversity and a failure of our society. They thrive on our waste. This island used to be covered with countless species of mammals, birds, and probably reptiles and amphibians, on top of plants and fungi. Now we have mostly rats. No beavers, coyotes, bears, egrets, swans, butterflies, and what used to live here, plus fish, mollusks, dolphins, and everything in the water and air. Walk through Washington Square Park on any night now and you'll see countless rats running around. Also mice, pigeons, and roaches. In the recent snow, you can see the holes they dig in the snow. I took the pictures and video below before the big recent snowfall. This rat…

February 11, 2026

See me on Korean TV!

Hands on Practical Experience / Visualization

See me on Korean TV!

Last fall a Korean production company asked to cover my off-grid living. As usual, I tried to clarify I work on leadership applied to sustainability and that covering my solar panels would be like covering Martin Luther King's shoe's during the bus boycott. Media is media the world over, so they covered my staircase and dark apartment as opposed to changing global culture. Still, without understanding what they say, I found parts funny. The guy who interviewed me, Ha Seok-jin, seems to be renowned in Korea. I had a good time with him and the crew. The title of the segment is 활기 넘치는 뉴욕에서 지속가능한 에너지 쓰는 이들의 이야기(feat.천국의계단) which seems to translate to Stories of Those Using Sustainable Energy in Vibrant New York…

February 10, 2026

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Nature / Pollution and Depletion / Visualization

Two months of Christmas pagan trees, hundreds of trees, thrown away

Here is a video showing a bunch of trees people bought to celebrate the birth of their lord and savior, in a tradition unrelated to that birth, borrowed from paganism. Instead of celebrating birth, they are actual death. Apparently people believe we have too many trees and forests. I love tradition. We don't keep alive every tradition ever. People used to practice infanticide. Should we keep practicing it for tradition? We can create new traditions or, for that matter, restore ones from before Christians borrowed pagan ones. They mulched all those trees before a second load formed. Here's what it looked like between. Here's a second load: Those trees were just the ones people took the time and effort to be mulched. Here are about…

February 6, 2026

The redlined neighborhood I grew up in

Education / Stories / Visualization

The redlined neighborhood I grew up in

I was curious if the neighborhoods where I got mugged, beat up, and learned to be a white boy meant being targeted for violence with impunity growing up were officially redlined. I didn't know where to find maps. They could be from insurance companies, government agencies, and who knows what other sources. I finally found one, though from 1937, decades before I was born and with a world war in between. It's from an insurance company. Here's all of Philadelphia. You can tell how much was rated differently by color. I grew up in three homes in northwest Philadelphia. I'll zoom in below. Zooming in on the legend, we see red is redlined, the lowest grade. It also shows it was made for the Home…

February 2, 2026

My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay

Creativity / Hands on Practical Experience / Nature / Stories / Visualization

My Spodek Method commitment to make water ice from snow: A photo essay

First, I grew up in Philadelphia, and in Philadelphia, we have something called "water ice." It's like cheese steaks in that it's local. I didn't know it wasn't universal until I moved away. Elsewhere they call something like it Italian ice, but we don't. Here's an article on it from USA Today: What is Philly-style water ice? We explain how it's made and where to get it. On to the matter at hand. I was recently led through the Spodek Method to a commitment that involved finding some clean snow, mixing it with fruit, and making something like water ice from scratch---that is, mixing fresh fruit with snow. I did it today. Here is my journey. First, I chose the fruit based on what I…

January 31, 2026

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