People who don’t understand systems love small efficiency gains. They say how it benefits all to make technology available to everyone. When your system produces outcomes you don’t want, improving and growing it get you more unwanted outcomes. You may then try that strategy again, accelerating creating unwanted outcomes. We’re making things available to the poor that impoverish them. Then we do it more. The diagram below is an early[…] Keep reading →

You’ve heard my conversations with award-winning authors, scholars, and other experts on slavery. With a couple I’ve talked about the connection between that system and ours. Most of the time, I’ve thought of the connection as an analogy. For a while, I’ve seen the connection as closer. Andrew Hoffman, University of Michigan professor in its business school and its School of Natural Resources and Environment, wrote of his discovering the[…] Keep reading →

I prefer writing my own posts, but some material is so valuable but not what the internet will spread enough, and I post them. The material in question is a series called Not Just Bikes, by a guy born in Canada who moved to Holland, preferred how the Dutch designed their cities, and makes videos describing what they do that works. I love the videos. I probably refer more people[…] Keep reading →

Many people try to follow “have dominion over the fish of the sea, and over the fowl of the air, and over every living thing that moveth upon the earth,” interpreting ‘have dominion’ to mean steward nature to at least not degrade it; to keep it neutral or improve it. I don’t know what people imagine, but what can a person do? Nearly not one person on Earth is living[…] Keep reading →

Here’s an illustration I’ve meant to create for a while. Population growth when most of the Earth is unpopulated is different than when we’ve populated nearly every place we can. I think it tells a story, and an important one: growing our population today, even a small amount, affects the world very differently than when humans comprised a small fraction of life on Earth. Illustrations that prompted it Maybe you’ve[…] Keep reading →

Sorry to get grim, but remember as you read this post that I’m talking about abandoned property in public space. I didn’t ask for it. I just found it. In my daily picking up litter, I picked up a brown paper bag sitting on a picnic table in Washington Square Park, amid some garbage from finished takeout (likely doof, but I didn’t look close enough to tell) left by someone[…] Keep reading →

I was scared of fermentation when I first learned of it, and that people fermented things in their kitchens. I thought it was rare, required specialized knowledge or skills, and could go wrong. I thought breeding organisms could easily lead to breeding the wrong ones so could be dangerous. I was ignorant. The first time I made sauerkraut, which means fermenting cabbage, I learned it was easy. Each time since[…] Keep reading →