LATEST BLOG POSTS

I have a PhD in physics, the most advanced degree in the most fundamental science. It was my priority for most of a decade. I loved and still love the field. I believe if you want to understand our situation, you must understand science or at least its findings. I also consider nature among the most beautiful thing to learn about. Scientists found out about our environmental situation. They project[…] Keep reading →

Dr. Bob worked in the heart of the US Civil Rights movement in the 1960s. He shares stories of his interactions with Stokely Carmichael (later Kwame Ture), John Lewis, and more. In earlier conversations with him, I shared what brought me to him. I had been telling people who acted as if acting on sustainability was a burden. I pointed out that people who acted in the Civil Rights movement[…] Keep reading →

Environmentalists constantly point out BP promoting personal carbon footprints and bizarrely use it as an excuse not to act. It would seem counterproductive except when you remember that people are less rational than rationalizing. Whatever their words, if they pollute and deplete without meaningful attempt to change, their deeds oppose their words. Environmentalists rarely have hands-on practical experience trying to live sustainably. Do you know any who are trying to[…] Keep reading →

I can’t help but call Glenn “Dean Hubbard” since I met him as a student at Columbia Business School. That was 2005, making him one of the guests I’ve known the longest. I invited him to the podcast after seeing a talk he gave on the 300th birthday of Adam Smith. My recent learning more about Smith and other Enlightenment thinkers led me to find relevance between their thinking about[…] Keep reading →

This week I finished: Propaganda, by Edward Bernays: Bernays wrote this book before WWII and shared views on propaganda with Hitler, whose Mein Kampf, volume 1 I just finished. Both share views on influencing public views with modern practice. Bernays points out that the world works this way. You can deny it and still be swayed by it but be helpless to act on it, or accept it, embrace it,[…] Keep reading →

Context: The United States has a region called Cancer Alley. Flint, Michigan is known nationwide, maybe globally, as a place where water is poisoned. We’re “solving” that problem with bottled water, which poisons others, so it’s more like kicking the can down the road. Actually, by accelerating a cultural distrust in municipal water, it accelerates bottling, so it’s more like accelerating a snowball or avalanche. Nobody consents to cancer, birth[…] Keep reading →

When I started doing Turkish Get Ups, I struggled with a 25-pound kettle bell. Over the years, I worked up to where I comfortably do them with a 28-kilogram one, which is 61.6 pounds. My next heavier kettle bell is 70 pounds, which is a big jump. I wondered if I would ever be able to do it. I dented my floor when I lost control of a kettle bell[…] Keep reading →

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[…] Keep reading →

I read an article by podcast guest Elizabeth Kolbert about running out of food. Like nearly everyone, she takes for granted that our population will keep growing and we have to feed them. Like nearly everyone, she figures we have to keep producing more food. She quoted Norman Borlaug’s Nobel acceptance speech. He won the Nobel Prize for the Green Revolution so is a reasonable person to learn from. She[…] Keep reading →