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, which covered modernity and the demographic fertility decline). 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: 1790

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: 3891

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: 1659

If you’ve enjoyed Do the Math even just a little bit over the years, you have Asher Miller to thank, in part. Asher is the Executive Director of the Post Carbon Institute, whose work I had been following for a few years when I reached out in 2011. I reported that I was going to be passing through their neighborhood, and asked if they would be up for a meeting. I spent a few hours with Asher, and he encouraged me to commit some of my ideas and analyses to writing, suggesting a blog format that could be re-posted to the Energy Bulletin, which is now Resilience.org.

So I took his advice. Within a month, I created Do the Math, and the Energy Bulletin promptly picked up my first post on Galactic Scale Energy, which then found its way to reddit. Thus, within a few days of publishing my first blog post, I had hit the 100,000 page view mark. That strong start—and even the fact that it started at all—is due in no small measure to Asher’s encouragement, suggestion, and the close connection between PCI and the Energy Bulletin.

Fast-forward a decade, and I again was set to pass through PCI’s (relocated) haunt. I again reached out to Asher, who suggested that I stop in for a podcast recording of Crazy Town, which he does with Jason Bradford (PCI Board President; on his farm) and Rob Dietz (PCI Program Director). We had a fun time together, and an enjoyable conversation, which you can listen to on your podcast app of choice by clicking this link, or you could try this semi-permanent link to the “bonus” episode in question.

Views: 3569