The Genius of Survival
Photo by Meldy Tameng (Wikimedia Commons).| Do the Math
I briefly review six books that improved my anthropological grounding and appreciation of rewilding over the summer of 2025 Continue reading →| Do the Math
As a nod to human supremacy, any time we hear the word “population,” it generally goes without saying that we mean human population, of course. Other such words include health, lifetime, prosperity, intelligence, wisdom, murder, pro-life, culture. To many in modernity, it makes no sense to discuss the murder of an animal, the wisdom in mushrooms, or a culture among crows. Such self-centered arrogance!| dothemath.ucsd.edu
A joke for Alex Leff; these don’t explicitly make the list (image from Wikimedia Commons).| dothemath.ucsd.edu
What do I consider to be our worst inventions? Don't let the image fool you. I offer two provisional candidates and five "for real." Continue reading →| Do the Math
Photo by Aminhadia72 (Wikimedia Commons)| Do the Math
Image by Victoria from Pixabay| Do the Math
Last week, I reported the surprising realization that official population projections from the United Nations adhere to a notion of future fertility that appears to be immediately at odds with present real trends. The recent rapid decline in population growth—even pre-COVID—suggests that a population peak prior to 2050 is not outlandish, provided that current drivers continue to apply. Recent declines in fertility rates, together with a flattening age distribution of young folks, combin...| Do the Math
As a nod to human supremacy, any time we hear the word “population,” it generally goes without saying that we mean human population, of course. Other such words include health, lifetime, prosperity, intelligence, wisdom, murder, pro-life, culture. To many in modernity, it makes no sense to discuss the murder of an animal, the wisdom in mushrooms, or a culture among crows. Such self-centered arrogance!| Do the Math
Maybe our own personal experiences tell us more about the state of death than we've appreciated. If so, maybe there's not much to it. Continue reading →| Do the Math
Identifying Life is child's play, but maybe the dividing line is not as real as we think, and Life is one of the amazing feats the universe CAN contrive when conditions permit. Continue reading →| Do the Math
I put my dunderheadedness on display as to how I repeatedly missed the net-negative impact written language has had on the living planet. Continue reading →| Do the Math
Monthly Archives: March 2025 | dothemath.ucsd.edu
Since I will discuss energy in many posts, it is worth spending a little time on units.| Do the Math
By BabelStone, from Wikimedia Commons.| dothemath.ucsd.edu
Our mental awareness operates on the slimmest of margins, yet we found a way to leverage these morsels into enormous power. Continue reading →| Do the Math
Proteins are made of party ribbon curled by scissors. Image by CAChamblee via Wikimedia Commons.| Do the Math
My apologies for such a dismal post topic, but modernity made me do it. I’ve borne witness to a number of the following tragedies first-hand. When exposed to similar atrocities in your own life, I recommend repeating the mantra that appears at the end of every point below. I think it helps in fighting human supremacism, validating other life and recognizing the pain we inflict—often unwittingly as we animate the maw of modernity. Evolution did not prepare the plants and animals of this pl...| dothemath.ucsd.edu
Image by Leo from Pixabay| Do the Math
From Boston Public Library via Wikimedia Commons.Daniel Quinn returned to the theme that “food makes babies” so often in his writings that it would seem he was continually dissatisfied either with the clarity of his case, or with objections people had, or both. I get it. I often return over and over to the same thorny themes, each time thinking I’ll finally nail it. The exercise is as much for improving internal clarity as anything.| Do the Math
The colors blue and red are used in the U.S. to represent political left and right, which at the extremes might be said to run from communism to fascism., Yet even that’s a tiny slice of the whole. (Image by Philip Ronan, Gringer; Wikimedia Commons)We are accustomed to a left–right political spectrum. But said spectrum is only a tiny corner of the whole space of possibilities, even though practically everyone you know is wedged into it. Similarly, we use the word “light” to implicitly...| Do the Math
Image from Wikimedia Commons.This is part of a series of posts representing ideas from the book, Ishmael, by Daniel Quinn. I view the ideas explored in Ishmael to be so important to the world that it seems everyone should have a chance to be exposed. I hope this treatment inspires you to read the original.| Do the Math
Have I mentioned how important I think Daniel Quinn’s Ishmael is? I reread it recently for the first time in a while, and was again impressed with how many important modernity-challenging ideas are packed into one novel.| Do the Math
[An updated treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 2 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, also mirrors a 2022 article in Nature Physics..]| Do the Math
Step 400 of the acorn methuselah. Gliders exit at 12:30 and 5:00.| Do the Math
Surfing YouTube, I came across an interview of Ezra Klein by Stephen Colbert. He was promoting a new book called Abundance, basically arguing that scarcity is politically-manufactured by “both sides,” and that if we get our political act together, everybody can have more. Planetary limits need not apply. I’ve often been impressed by Klein’s sharp insights on politics, yet can’t reconcile how someone so smart misses the big-picture perspectives that grab my attention.| Do the Math
Image by Sabrina Belle from Pixabay| Do the Math
Image by Kerstin Herrmann from Pixabay| Do the Math
This baby violet-green swallow faces the first big decision of her life: should I stay or should I go, now.| Do the Math
Most people are probably familiar with text substitution, in some form. It’s when a particular bit of text in a document is replaced throughout with an alternate. In many packages this is carried out via a Find/Replace dialog box. My main use has been in a Unix/vi environment, where the friendly and intuitive command :1,$s/old text/new text/g finds every instance of “old text” and replaces with “new text.” The true nerd will appreciate that the command is compatible with ‘regular ...| Do the Math
[An expanded treatment of some of this material appears in Chapter 4 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook.]| Do the Math
After inaugurating the Do the Math blog with two posts on the limits to physical and economic growth, I thought it was high time that I read the classic book The Limits to Growth describing the 1972 world computer model by MIT researchers Meadows, Meadows, Randers, and Behrens. I am deeply impressed by the work, and I am compelled to share the most salient features in this post.| Do the Math
[An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 2 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, and also forms the basis for a 2022 article in Nature Physics.]| Do the Math
Photo by author| Do the Math
Image by OpenClipart-Vectors from Pixabay| Do the Math
Image by Shelley Evans from Pixabay| Do the Math
Think about it first..| Do the Math
What if we ask a rough-skinned newt, assigning it greater importance than is customary?| Do the Math
Image by Daniel Borker from Pixabay| Do the Math
Courtesy Pixabay/fraugun| Do the Math
Image by 12019 from Pixabay| Do the Math
Nothing lasts forever.| Do the Math
Image by naturfreund_pics from Pixabay| Do the Math
Image by günter from Pixabay| Do the Math
I never thought it would happen to me, but I’ve had a divine revelation, of sorts. Have you heard the good news?| Do the Math
What success might look like? Image by Emma Farley from Pixabay.| Do the Math
Image by Edar from Pixabay| Do the Math
This is the TV poster for “David Attenborough: A Life on Our Planet.” (CNS photo/Netflix)| Do the Math
Courtesy Pixabay (PhotoMIX-Company)| Do the Math
This may come as a surprise, but people are capable of holding unsupported notions…unexamined beliefs and expectations. A common default assumption—often quite reasonable—is that conditions will continue in a fashion that is recognizably similar to the way they have been during one’s lifetime. Suggestions to the contrary tend to be met with suspicion—or even hostility in the case that the suggested outcome is less than rosy.| Do the Math
[Note: This post inspired a podcast interview that traces a similar path.]| Do the Math
Image by Ron van den Berg from Pixabay| Do the Math
This is the final installment in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. We have arrived at the part where people say: “yeah, but what can I do?” I hope that I can offer solid suggestions that are more satisfying than frustrating. But I’m just winging it, here. Shutting down modernity is not something any of us have experience doing, so w...| Do the Math
Image by Karen .t from Pixabay| Do the Math
From Pixabay/Activedia| Do the Math
This page serves to put the Metastatic Modernity video series (introduced here) in one convenient place, in chronological order. Each entry has a title, a one-line description of the content, the embedded video (can also click at lower left to watch on YouTube where comments and chapter navigation appear), and a link to the associated complementary write-up.| Do the Math
From Pixabay (Kranic17/535 images)| Do the Math
From Pixabay (Ramdlon)| Do the Math
This is the fourteenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. We have arrived at the episode whose concept inspired the name of the series. Though no metaphor can perfectly capture a complex reality, by comparing modernity to metastatic cancer I hope to provide a useful framework that counters the usual modernity-boosting...| Do the Math
This is the thirteenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode unpacks the great Wes Jackson aphorism that modern humans are a species out of context. Well, what’s the right context, and how are we out of it?| Do the Math
This is the twelfth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode confronts the thorny topic of human supremacy. My intention is not to rile folks up, but some of that may be unavoidable. It’s something we must face to understand modernity.| Do the Math
This is the eleventh of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode looks at various reasons why renewable energy and recycling are not our way out of the predicament modernity has set out for us. It’s just a doubling-down that can’t really work anyway.| Do the Math
This is the tenth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode confronts the bargaining plea: can’t we keep all the stuff we like about modernity and just get rid of the stuff we don’t like?| Do the Math
This is the eighth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode provides several ways to develop intuition about the brevity and temporary nature of modernity.| Do the Math
This is the seventh of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode will try (and probably fail) to convey the degree to which Earth’s biodiversity and ecological health are in peril.| Do the Math
This is the sixth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode makes the point that humans were not inevitable as a culmination of evolution. We are not the purpose or goal of the Earth or universe.| Do the Math
This is the fifth of 18 installments in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous disease afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode extends the point from Episode 3 that we owe almost everything to life that came before us. All our senses and capabilities are inherited. We would be nothing without our older brothers and sisters on this planet.| Do the Math
This is the fourth of about 17 in the Metastatic Modernity video series (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous episode afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode addresses the more subtle and under-appreciated aspects of evolution, which acts on the whole community of life in full ecological context.| Do the Math
This is the third in the Metastatic Modernity video series of about 17 installments (see launch announcement), putting the meta-crisis in perspective as a cancerous episode afflicting humanity and the greater community of life on Earth. This episode stresses that humans are nothing without the menagerie of single-celled pioneers whose many clever solutions to life we still utterly depend on today.| Do the Math
I am excited to announce a new effort that will attempt to provide a crucial set of perspectives on modernity. It is to be a series of video shorts (5–10 minutes is my target) called Metastatic Modernity.| Do the Math
Time for a new paint job on the house?| Do the Math
As we look toward the uncertain future, it may occur to some among us that we’ll need energy on Mars. How are we going to get it? Presumably Mars has no fossil fuels—although on the plus side its atmosphere is already 95% CO2, compared to Earth’s 0.04%, so they’re likely to be less uptight about carbon emissions on the red planet.| Do the Math
AI-generated stranger; I’m not so young/attractive| Do the Math
[An updated treatment of this material appears in Chapter 1 of the Energy and Human Ambitions on a Finite Planet (free) textbook, and also appears as part of an article in Nature Physics in 2022.]| Do the Math
For many years now, I have made efforts to live differently—initially motivated by a sense of resource limits and the recognition that scaling back could have a dramatic effect if adopted widely. I was able to cut my domestic energy demand by a factor of four or five. I changed my habits of diet, travel, heating/cooling, laundry, showering, consumer activity, and much else.| Do the Math
A post from last year titled The Ride of Our Lives explored the game theory aspect of modernity: those who adopted grain agriculture and new technologies had a competitive advantage over neighbors who didn’t. The “winners” were destined to be those who followed the path that we now call progress.| Do the Math
The numbers had already left impressionable marks on me, and as they swirled in my head for some months I certainly had a sense for the urgent warning they wanted me to hear. But it wasn’t until I rubbed the numbers together that the message really rang out. Then plotting the historical evolution shook me anew. I was staring at the ecological cliff we appear to be driving over.| Do the Math
