This week I finished: The Road to Serfdom, by Friedrich Hayek: I quote Milton Friedman in my book a lot and kept coming across Hayek’s name while reading him and about him so I finally read Road to Serfdom. I wish I had earlier. Hayek wrote this book in the early 1940s, watching Hitler, Stalin, and Mussolini rampaging across Europe, destroying freedom. He promoted freedom. If he were alive today[…] Keep reading →

I’ve written about Robert Carter III a bunch here. He figures in my book a lot, as someone who could have remained corrupted by slavery, as everyone around him did in Virginia after the American Revolution, but he freed his slaves. Thomas Jefferson didn’t, despite his brilliant words on freedom. Sustainability today is overloaded with Jeffersons: people who talk big on sustainability but act the opposite, undermining their credibility and[…] Keep reading →

I wouldn’t mention the folly of putting growth and efficiency before values if I didn’t have an alternative, which is to put values first—that is, to create a strategy based on values and honestly verifying results, then use efficiency when it helps. I verify results to avoid stepping on the gas, thinking it’s the brake, wanting congratulations. Amsterdam’s citizens organizing based on their values over those promoting razing its downtown[…] Keep reading →

One of the participants in one of the summer workshops emailed me the following, noting “Josh, you can use this with my name if you wish for announcements or upcoming workshops.” The next workshop begins in January, so if you’re interested in actively leading our culture away from collapse instead of sleepwalking into it, claiming you can’t make a difference, email me and join us in January. I should mention,[…] Keep reading →

Earlier this year I posted The Ruling Race: Quotes on those who improve their lives on the suffering of others, corrupting them, with quotes from podcast guest James Oakes’s book The Ruling Race, which describes the demographics, beliefs, and views of slaveholders in the U.S. south. They are no more or less human than you. That book reveals how being on the dominant side of a dominance hierarchy corrupts one’s[…] Keep reading →

We’re sisters Margaret—who goes by Mei—and Irene Li, and we’ve been running restaurants, writing cookbooks, and working toward a more sustainable food system for the past decade. We co-founded an award-winning food truck and restaurant that’s now a dumpling company in Boston, so we’re used to dealing with food waste on a large scale. Our restaurant, Mei Mei, was certified as a sustainable business and recognized for its efforts to[…] Keep reading →

I love people and I love technology. Nobody wants ten billion people enjoying all the technology they want as comfortably and conveniently as they want more than I do. If we do it, we must do it sustainably if we want to avoid collapse, and unfortunately, we are not on that path to do it. If such a future is possible, it’s tempting to keep living as we do and[…] Keep reading →