Good Conversations

Image provided by Alex Leff

It’s Tuesday morning and I didn’t prepare a new post, having been busy helping birds and bats. Maybe, though, the holidays have given you more free time than usual, so that you can afford to take in a podcast episode or two. If so, this post introduces two conversations I’ve had that do a decent job of capturing my recent perspectives. Below, I provide links and overviews of the content of each, in the form of the questions I was asked. Do you already know how I’ll answer each one?

Human Nature Odyssey: Astrophysics for a New Stone Age

About a year ago, I recommended a fantastic podcast called Human Nature Odyssey, by Alex Leff. If you haven’t listened to it, the previous link allows you to get up to speed on past episodes. Alex reluctantly read an assigned book at age 14 that changed his life, as the book has a tendency to do. That book is Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn, which I have touted in a number of posts. It was a key part of the Reading Journey I laid out a while back, further expounded in a dedicated post, and formed a large part of the inspiration behind my proposed Religion of Life.

Alex and I have had a few exchanges over the last year, and he honored me with a spot in his season 2 lineup of Human Nature Odyssey, titled Astrophysics for a New Stone Age. Alex edited the conversation into a tight dialog, adding his customary soundscapes to create a podcast having a higher-than-normal production quality. Paraphrasing Alex’s questions, here is how the flow went:

  • What initially drew you to astrophysics?
  • Why do you call yourself a “recovering” astrophysicist?
  • How do you view science, now from the outside?
  • What inspired you to start Do the Math?
  • Wait: we’re not going to colonize space?
  • How can you say that your “space laser” is far less impressive than a simple amoeba?
  • How were you influenced by Daniel Quinn’s writings?
  • Could you describe your cancer diagnosis for modernity?
  • Why use the vague term “modernity?”
  • The modernity cancer has perks: can’t we keep those?
  • Are you suggesting that we go back to the Stone Age?
  • Do you still lament losing astrophysics if modernity collapses?
  • Are you using a map and compass on your journey?
  • What aspects of science are valuable in a post-modernity world?

I like the conversation that emerged, and hope you do as well. It should be available through most podcast apps, including this Apple link, and also via YouTube (audio only).

Marriage Proposal (Teaser)

The second conversation was with Josh Kearns on Doomer Optimism (episode 246). And, yes, a marriage proposal pops up. This is a longer conversation than the previous one, happening to cover some similar ground (astrophysics, lunar ranging). But it also delves into religion, which I’m not sure I’ve discussed in other podcasts. It then touches on the fertility decline story and demographic modeling. Near the end, I think Josh implies that I’m fat, or will soon become so. Here is a paraphrased list of questions Josh put to me:

  • What does it mean to be a recovering astrophysicist?
  • How could you do lunar ranging if the landings were faked?
  • What’s at stake in the potential collapse of modernity?
  • What’s it like to shed the mythology of progress, and does that make you an outsider now?
  • You define modernity as starting with agriculture: is that going too far?
  • Could you summarize the Metastatic Modernity arc and messages?
  • What’s your plan? Can this be a curriculum? Who’s your audience? Youth salvation?
  • Are we preparing today’s students for yesterday’s world?
  • What are your triage priorities: institutional or individual?
  • Can you explain what human supremacy is and why you focus on it?
  • What is your religious background and journey?
  • You seem to have arrived at a new religion of sorts: can you describe this?
  • Are there inroads to transform religions by carrying forward their best parts?
  • Big shift: why is fertility rate falling rapidly and globally?
  • How many completely wrong predictions can experts make before they give up?
  • How can global energy use peak before global population peaks?
  • What is the economic impact of declining energy use?
  • If facing near-term demand-driven decline, should we start prepping now?
  • Is there anything people fret over that they really don’t need to worry about?

As it happens, I speak slowly enough that playback at 1.5x speed is well-tolerated.

Tangelic Talks

About a month after this post went live, Episode 3 of a new series came out, so I’m appending it here. Here is the page for the episode. Note that a short article accompanies the piece, and additional questions and responses that didn’t make the edited conversation appear in textual form lower on the page. It was AI-generated, so might have some errors. The hosts were somewhat new to my line of thinking, so that this episode might be appropriate for others who haven’t been exposed to such reflections before. For regular consumers of my content, it’s going to be pretty familiar material. The direct YouTube link is embedded below.

Resistance Radio

Also out after this initial posting (February 16, 2025) is a second conversation between myself and Derrick Jensen (the first is linked from this earlier post). You can find the conversation at Resistance Radio, or using this link to the episode. The conversation explores growth and its limits, as well as the impossibility of even holding steady at current levels. We also talk about why the obvious is obscure to mainstream culture, and what I would do if I were an energy czar. Derrick asks his guests to suggest sounds from nature for the intro and outro. For the first, I picked a chestnut-backed chickadee (whose chipper sounds make me want to laugh with them). For this, it’s a Douglas squirrel. I wish newts made noises I could use.

Views: 1540

Interlude Entertainment

My apologies for abandoning a regular posting cadence. I helped my mother move across the country and have been distracted by a number of other worthy activities, like building all manner of nest boxes from on-site materials. Several ideas for posts are brewing, so I am unlikely to remain silent for much longer.

In the meantime, some may be interested in checking out a few of my latest media appearances. The most recent is an interview by Derrick Jensen for Resistance Radio.

The second plug is an appearance on Nate Hagens’ The Great Simplification, in a joint discussion with DJ White—whose heterodox insights I have long appreciated.

I am doing another podcast interview later today, and will post it here (rather than making a new dedicated post) when it’s out. [Update: ended up making a dedicated post after all.] I’ll test the new subscribe feature to alert folks when it’s available. So, consider subscribing to get e-mail alerts about new Do the Math content (information absolutely not shared):

I would appreciate some feedback as to whether e-mails from the subscription service are working from this site (i.e., not blocked). Please use the comments to let me know if you did or did not receive an e-mail (by mid-day Tuesday). I will delete these housekeeping comments, once they serve their purpose. Thanks!

Views: 3802

Can't Spell Fail Without AI

Abstinence is a word that frequently applies to me. Alcohol, coffee, cigarettes, drugs, Facebook, Twitter, Insta, TikTok, Bitcoin, stocks, email on smart phone, and lots more: not for me, thanks. I also semi-abstain from various energy/resource-heavy activities. Part of this tendency may have been shaped by the Raiders of the Lost Ark movie, where characters Indiana Jones and Marion are tied to a post in the rear of a crowd waiting to see the marvels inside the Ark of the Covenant. Indy had the instinct to shut his eyes, and advised Marion to do the same, which spared them and only them. Just because everybody else is doing it is not reason enough.

In this light, I am practically ashamed to admit to using AI for image creation. It’s not like me. On the text-generation side (chat-bots), while I think it’s a pretty neat stunt they’ve pulled off, I am deeply unimpressed by the milquetoast blather that comes out of ChatGPT and its ilk when asked hard questions. When students tried to use AI to submit answers to questions, I could spot the style from across the room (based on simple formatting). It is not too surprising that nothing remarkable comes out, since the chat-bots are designed to construct sentences very much in the style of what it’s parsed in all its input data. They aren’t producing original thoughts, but function more as an averaging content generator.

But images: I’m more impressed—in that it’s more mysterious to me how it works. The parameter space is much larger than for regimented language. Even so, I think it’s actually somewhat similar to language in that images also have structure, and certain things tend to be close to certain other things, as is true for words as well.

When selecting a copyright-free header image for a Do the Math post, I usually have an idea for what I want it to show, and first look for pre-made content. If I can’t find something via a few channels, I now turn to AI, using the Bing interface to Dall-E. Admittedly, I’m no expert at speaking AI, but I still marvel at how inept it can be in forming an image that a 4-year-old would have little trouble picturing if using the same prompt language.

I was planning to do a post illustrating my failures over time, but was dismayed to learn that my past creations have disappeared on the Bing platform (not unique to me). What’s worse, I no longer have prompt language for the ones I kept. The EXIF information in the JPEG files lack any such prompt text. Why is it that the world is still being designed by unpaid interns?

So, this post isn’t all that I hoped it would be, given that loss. But, as with many things in life, I’ll work with what I have.

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Views: 2239

Recommended Podcasts

This is a short “bonus” posting about some worthwhile podcasts I have been following lately that might be appreciated by Do the Math readers. I’m not a particularly thorough podcast consumer, often having a spotty relationship even with the ones I enjoy. That said, I’ll start with the most recent, and the one that in fact inspired this posting.

Human Nature Odyssey

Alex Leff has created what I think is a masterpiece in his first “season” of Human Nature Odyssey. The series is an entertaining, engaging treatment of Daniel Quinn’s 1992 book, Ishmael. I read this book and its companions in 2022, finding powerful and important insights that have stuck with me and grown. I highlight these in an account of my reading journey, and later in a dedicated post. Alex brings humorous life to the story in a richly textured production.

I can’t say personally how well the series would work without first reading Ishmael, but I suspect it would still work quite well as a stand-alone experience (Alex intended it to be able to work). I can say that I enjoyed it enough to run through twice. I won’t rule out a third pass—which would be a personal first for any podcast series. So, it receives my highest recommendation. Give it a try, and tell friends and family about it if you enjoy it. No, I am not getting paid or compensated in any way!

Holding the Fire

Dahr Jamail followed his 2020 book The End of Ice with a palliative book together with coauthor Stan Rushworth called We are the Middle of Forever, which presents perspectives from a variety of Indigenous voices within North America (Turtle Island). Holding the Fire expands the effort, in audio form, to an international set of Indigenous people who have wisdom to share. I am struck by the common themes offered by people from such different environments and cultural histories. These commonalities can’t be coincidence, and might light the way for long term success: living on this planet as humble participants within a community of life.

The Great Simplification

I have referenced a few inspirations from this series, by Nate Hagens, in previous posts. Nate talks to leading scholars, thinkers, practitioners, and activists in the world who are engaging with the meta-crisis in various ways. Nate encourages systems thinking that is not ecologically blind, energy blind, materials blind, etc. It is rewarding to learn that others in the world are thinking about these topics, although the number of guests whose narrow focus appears to result in one or another “blindnesses” is its own sort of lesson as to how rare a broad perspective on the meta-crisis is—but Nate gracefully and gently probes some of the blind spots. Besides the regular series (featuring guests), Nate also creates a sidecar “Frankly” series of shorter installments addressing relevant pieces of the puzzle.

Crazy Town

Jason Bradford, Rob Dietz, and Asher Miller—in association with the Post Carbon Institute—gather (in the same room, no less!) to chew on topics and trends relevant to the meta-crisis.  These are fun conversations, with lots of good-humored jabs at each other.  All three are very insightful, compassionate, and well-informed.  Their episodes on mega-wankers like Elon Musk are entertaining, as part of a series on “Phalse Prophets.”

Doomer Optimism

Finally, I am less familiar with this series except that I was a guest on the recent episode 195. That’s right: they’re approaching 200 episodes. Among other guests, they have had Bill Rees, Daniel Schmachtenberger, John Michael Greer, Richard Heinberg and Kate Raworth. While I have not explored this one very thoroughly, I resonate with the title, as I am doomerish when it comes to modernity, while remaining oddly optimistic when it comes to humanity.

This statement brings me back to the Ishmael-based podcast (Human Nature Odyssey) mentioned at the top of this post: we can enact other stories going forward—stories of respect, awe, and reciprocity.

Views: 1603

Fusion Foolery

National Ignition Facility at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab

Great. The fusion hype is bad enough already. Now its resurgence is going to interrupt the series of posts I’m in the middle of publishing in order for this post to be “timely.”

The first (and much bigger) round of breathless excitement came in December 2022 when the National Ignition Facility (NIF) at the Lawrence Livermore National Lab (LLNL) announced a (legitimate) breakthrough in achieving fusion: more energy came out of the target than laser energy injected.

At the time, I brushed it off without even reading any articles because I already knew about the NIF’s purpose and limitations, and a few headlines told me everything I needed to know. Who cares how much laser energy went in: how much energy went into creating the laser energy? The laser I used for lunar ranging took 5 kW from the wall plug and delivered 2 W of laser power for a dismal 0.04% efficiency. Such is the cost for shaping ultra-brief pulses: lots of energy is thrown away. The headlines were clearly overblown.

Enough students in my energy class in Spring 2023 asked about the fusion breakthrough (doesn’t that mean we’re done?) that I dug into the details. Even so, I still deemed it unworthy of writing up as a post. But a few days ago, my friend asked me if I was excited about the recent fusion news. I hadn’t heard a peep, but after searching I found a new round of articles based on a second “net gain” laser shot and realized I probably ought to put out a quantitative post on the matter, reminiscent of my blogging origins.

In the end, the NIF fusion accomplishment might be called a stunt.  Stunts explore what we can do (often after an insane amount of preparation, practice, and failure), rather than what’s practical.  Stunts hide the pains and present an appearance of ease and grace, but it’s a show.

Quantitatively, it’s as if you spot a slot machine in a casino that looks very promising. You’re dying to play, because it just feels right—mysteriously appealing to your sense of self. It calls to you. You notice that it takes $2 tokens, but you have none. You go to the window to purchase a token, and are shocked to learn that one $2 token costs $400. Not wanting to look like an uninformed fool, you gulp and buy the token. This slot machine had better live up to its promise! You pull the lever, and surprise! You actually do win! You put in a $2 token and the machine makes very happy noises and flashes lots of lights as it spits out…$3 (and some neutrons, oddly). Queue the headlines! Want to play again?  Actually, this wasn’t your first shot: just the first success after years of trying (but hush!).

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Views: 55747

A Reading Journey

Image by G.C. from Pixabay

I intend to resume semi-regular postings in the near term, and am sitting on a couple dozen post ideas in various stages of development. In puzzling out what order I should put them in, I decided to start with something of a meta-post that lays some groundwork for a number of the future entries.

What I have in mind is to recapture my own journey over the last couple of years, which has resulted in an unexpected shift in my emphasis and awareness. By sharing key elements of my own journey, perhaps you can experience something similar. In any case, you might treat it as a belated (bloated?) summer reading list.

Let’s start just by capturing the chronological list, and then I’ll say a few things about the significance of each item.

  1. Energy and Human Ambitions textbook; especially Epilogue; Appendix D.5 and D.6
  2. Sapiens, by Yuval Noah Harari
  3. Human Exceptionalism (Do the Math post)
  4. Daniel Schmachtenberger on The Great Simplification
  5. Daniel Quinn’s books: Ishmael; The Story of B; My Ishmael; Beyond Civilization
  6. Post-Ishmael Do the Math posts (Sticks; Love; Cults and a Story)
  7. An Inconvenient Apocalypse, by Wes Jackson and Robert Jensen
  8. We Are the Middle of Forever by Dahr Jamail and Stan Rushworth
  9. Braiding Sweetgrass by Robin Wall Kimmerer
  10. The Myth of Human Supremacy by Derrick Jensen
  11. Bitter Harvest by Lisi Krall
  12. Hospicing Modernity by Vanessa Machado de Oliveira

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Views: 4267

Keeping Up On Appearances

Over the last year or so, a number of audio/video productions have accumulated in which I have had an opportunity to express my evolving thoughts. Being challenged in the art of self promotion (Do the Math is the closest I come to social media), I tend not to link to everything that comes along. Yet, I recognize that some readers may value pointers to these other formats. So this brief post is an aggregation of recent appearances, to put it all in one place, arranged by context. Still feels a little gross.

The first—and most recent—pair of links relates to the latest Do the Math post on The Simple Story of Civilization. This post started as one page on a bedside note pad, scribbled by coincidence the night before a scheduled podcast interview with Hart Hagan. Although I did not connect the two, I did mention the outline to Hart when we began the zoom session, in case he found it interesting. To my surprise, he launched the conversation with a rough run-through of the script. Here is the video chat:

Shortly after this recording, I wrote up and released the post—which inspired Nate Hagens to record a targeted “Frankly” that follows the thread of the post:

About a year prior to this, I dropped in on the Crazy Town podcast trio on a road trip, and recorded this episode with them (also can try this link). It was a fun discussion about physical limits and what features future success must have (I did link this previously on Do the Math). Update 2023.02.21: In the initial posting, I forgot to include this podcast episode (51) from Breaking Down: Collapse from September of 2021.

Early in 2022, Nate Hagens included me on his new podcast called The Great Simplification, as episode 18. I am pleased to be in such good company: the other guests on the podcast have been insightful and thought-provoking. In episode 18, Nate and I explore physical limits to growth—echoing some of the foundational posts of the Do the Math blog.

Update 2023.02.21: Hart Hagan recently did a second podcast interview with me:

The next video is a relatively high production-value interview by the UC San Diego Division of Physical Sciences about my free textbook. (I put this up before, but also include here for completeness.)

This next pair relates to my involvement in the formation of the Planetary Limits Academic Network (PLAN; see post about it here). First I’ll point to a radio interview of myself and PLAN co-founder Melody LeHew, in which we discuss the predicament, and what PLAN might do in this context. Next is a video interview for Scientists’ Warning along with PLAN instigator Ben McCall, in which we address the challenges associated with radical change in our academic trajectories:

So I think that’s all I want to point out here. Anyway, I hope at least some of these provide value.

Oh—here’s something else that came along after I made this posting: it’s a joint interview of myself and Ugo Bardi on the topic of collapse.

Views: 3239

Holiday Haikus

I’m no poet, preferring prose for its clarity and completeness. So please forgive this amateur attempt to capture two opposing views on planetary limits in haiku form. One gracefully respects constraints, while the other…well, you’ll see.

Just as in haiku
Earth imposes hard limits
We must live within

And in the red corner:

It’s preposterous
To think that human imagination is lim…

Buzzer. Disqualified. Nice try. And the winner is…

Wishing you peace and meaning this holiday season.

Views: 3331

A Random Fix to Polarization

From the New York Times; 2022-11-13

Following the midterm elections in the U.S. this week, the punditry is ablaze with stories about how voters have rejected the lies, spoken out about abortion, indicated that this inflation spike is not a primary concern, and that perhaps we are finally shaking off this fever-dream and turning a corner.

Really? By what margin? The mere fact that the balance of power has taken so long to determine (still not settled in the House, as of this writing) indicates to me that we are not collectively on the same page about these issues. The main story, to me, is that the deep polarization pattern continues to stymie our political system.

I have an idea that could make a huge difference. It’s an idea that has essentially no hope of gaining traction—especially since: who the hell am I? But I will put it out there all the same. Maybe others will see the logic.

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Views: 3712

Limits to Economic Growth

Readers of Do the Math will be familiar with my line of argument that economic growth as we know it is destined to end. It was the second post of the whole series, and the basis for one of the more popular posts recounting a conversation I had with an economist. I also adapted the same reasoning into Chapter 2 of my recent textbook. Already, I sound like a broken record. Yet I write this update to announce the publication of this idea in a “real” article in Nature Physics. Unfortunately, Nature Physics does not allow open access for Comments, but this Share link should allow you to read the content without a subscription. If the link does not work, here is a link to the PDF. Anyway, that’s all. Please share with anyone you think may be interested.

Views: 9549