This week I finished:
Plastic Inc.: The Secret History and Shocking Future of Big Oil’s Biggest Bet, by Beth Gardiner: I read this book for the book club of alumni of my workshop. I watched and listened to several interviews before reading the book. In the interviews, she did the usual liberal/progressive environmentalist bending over backward to say that individuals aren’t responsible, only the corporations are.
I don’t see the logic that you being responsible for your actions makes someone else not responsible for theirs. Yes, Exxon and its peers are responsible for what they did. So is everyone who funds them by buying their products, at least when they don’t have to.
I also expected I’d know most of what they book covered—at least the gist if not the details. I knew a lot of the big picture and many of the details weren’t that important, but there were many revelations and perspectives that I found made the book more than worth reading. I recommend it, just not the philosophy that people who pollute, deplete, and fund more polluting and depleting are not responsible for their actions.
She also wrote that there’s no reason to get rid of plastics. I consider that view shortsighted. I can imagine a world in which no fossil fuels are extracted, thereby liberating markets that are currently coercive, not free, so that innovators and entrepreneurs figure out ways to achieve what we currently achieve with plastic but without it.
Free to Be You and Me, by Marlo Thomas: In my upcoming book, I was describing parts of my childhood and Free to Be You and Me came up. I remember the record at my dad’s house. I forget if my mom’s house had a copy, but I sure remember several songs. I remember the title song, of course, It’s Alright to Cry, and a few memorable lines like “Ladies first, ladies first” and “Bald. Bald as a ping pong ball.”
I didn’t know that It’s Alright to Cry was sung by a big NFL star. As a child, I didn’t know about the huge stars in it.
I don’t think I saw the TV show. I try to imagine the cultural situation that prompted Thomas to create the record and all the stars to participate. I suspect that the cultural heirs to the records creators would consider some of it offensive for being backward. For example, it says that babies can tell what gender or sex they are by their anatomy, which I think people at the forefront of questioning gender roles would have problems with.
Anyway, my parents promoted not being bound by traditional gender roles. I did learn to knit and sew, and to question some elements of traditional masculinity, several of which I later found not just imposed on me but intrinsic.
Psychedelics Don’t Distort Reality—They Reveal How Your Brain Constructs It, produced by Sam Harris: I listen to Sam Harris’s podcast, have used his meditation app, and organize a group that meets in person in New York City about meditation. People in that group mentioned this documentary so I watched it.
I see a lot of attention toward researching and promoting psychedelics. I don’t have a strong opinion on whether psychedelics should be legalized for various reasons. Podcast guest Albert Garcia-Romeu researches them at Johns Hopkins. I try to keep someone current on it.
This video promotes how psychedelics enable people to learn by loosening neural pathways. I see two main other ways to do so that I think a responsible video would include. One is immersion in nature, or solitude in nature. For nearly all of human existence, anyone could walk a short distance and be surrounded by nature. I suspect that having evolved in such a context, that its absence causes problems. I’d probably have to walk several days just to get away from where I don’t hear cars or see planes.
The other is the personal leadership I teach in Leadership Step by Step, my leadership courses, and my coaching. It’s close to cognitive behavioral therapy, but more accessible. In any case, we can increase self-awareness, learn how our minds model the world not just seeing it as it is, and that we can change those models without drugs.
I think this video makes these other things less accessible. I think most people could use more time in nature and experience developing self-awareness.
I decided to give Alice Friedemann’s work its own post yesterday, Do you still believe in an “energy transition”? Learn Alice Friedemann’s research, but I’ll mention it here too.
