Non-theist Christian and elder in Community of Christ. I have Mormon roots and aspirations to do better with justice and peacemaking—especially in the digital sphere but also in Lexington, Kentucky, the U.S., and the world more broadly.
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🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Bing has a testimony of the Book of Mormon! And other adventures with AI chatbots.'
- kudos:This is one of the most amazing things I’ve read on generative AI. link to ‘Bing has a testimony of the Book of Mormon! And other adventures with AI chatbots.’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Calls for action on gun violence meet silence from Kentucky's Republican legislative leaders - Kentucky Lantern'
- kudos:Local shame in response to local tragedy. link to ‘Calls for action on gun violence meet silence from Kentucky’s Republican legislative leaders - Kentucky Lantern’
a second World Conference experience?
- kudos:A week from tomorrow, I’m heading to Independence, Missouri to attend a few days of the 2023 World Conference of Community of Christ—and to act as a voting delegate in any of the legislative sessions that take place during my short time there. This is the first time since my confirmation into Community of Christ that a World Conference has taken place (the last one was in 2019), so I’ve been thinking about this for several months as “my first World Conference experience.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk tweets, then deletes DMs from Matt Taibbi over his Substack snit - The Verge'
- kudos:To paraphrase Mike Masnick, the defining motto of the Musk era seems to be ‘it can always get more stupid.’ link to ‘Elon Musk tweets, then deletes DMs from Matt Taibbi over his Substack snit - The Verge’
- kudos:
Made sure to take some CBD oil before leaving for Easter services, just as the good Lord intended.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Substack writers say Twitter’s newsletter ban is bad for business — and worse for Twitter - The Verge'
- kudos:How does this acquisition continue to get dumber and dumber? link to ‘Substack writers say Twitter’s newsletter ban is bad for business — and worse for Twitter - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'The dumb reason Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack | Ars Technica'
- kudos:The pettiness continues. link to ‘The dumb reason Twitter won’t allow retweeting tweets linking to Substack | Ars Technica’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Tesla employees reportedly passed around personal videos from owners’ cars - The Verge'
- kudos:I had never thought of a car as a creepy surveillance device, but this is horrifying. link to ‘Tesla employees reportedly passed around personal videos from owners’ cars - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Your Used Car May Soon Come With Subscription Fees | WIRED'
- kudos:A dumb future that no one is asking for. link to ‘Your Used Car May Soon Come With Subscription Fees | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'NPR Was Twitter’s Example Of What Should NOT Be Labeled ‘State-Affiliated Media.’ Then Musk Added The Label And Retconned The Policy | Techdirt'
- kudos:This is another dumb move by Musk. Masnick is excellent at calling him out on hypocrisy. link to ‘NPR Was Twitter’s Example Of What Should NOT Be Labeled ‘State-Affiliated Media.’ Then Musk Added The Label And Retconned The Policy | Techdirt’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Some political movements among us deserving of being opposed and rendered powerless'
- kudos:In my journey with Community of Christ, I’ve spent a fair amount of time thinking about what it means to pursue peace. I appreciate Pyle’s thoughts (and Star Trek references) here as he warns against allowing “peace and understanding” to neuter our opposition to evil. To be clear, that’s not what Community of Christ—or even maybe Nelson—is calling for, and I know my own opposition efforts risk denying the humanity and dignity of those I oppose.
on seeing the humanity in terrible people
- kudos:I want to start this post by saying that it’s more about me working out some thoughts than telling anyone else how to think—or even saying what I think about the subject. I’ve written a number of times already that I’m reading through Desmond and Mpho Tutu’s The Book of Forgiving as part of a non-credit bearing class on peace and justice that I’m taking through Community of Christ Seminary. In the reading I completed for last night’s class session, I was impressed by the following passage from the elder Tutu:
thoughts on Mormon mission dreams
- kudos:I’ve only read two Mormon missionary memoirs (plus one compilation of Mormon missionary comics), but both have been helpful for me in thinking about my own missionary experience. Brittany Long Olsen’s Dendo: One Year and One Half in Tokyo is a remarkable graphic novel memoir of her missionary service in Japan. The art is great, the ambition is fantastic, and it absolutely deserves the 2015 award it won from the Association of Mormon Letters.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Sen. Rand Paul becomes latest lawmaker opposing TikTok ban - The Verge'
- kudos:Rand Paul is very often wrong, but I always appreciate when he comes through. link to ‘Sen. Rand Paul becomes latest lawmaker opposing TikTok ban - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'In Sudden Alarm, Tech Doyens Call for a Pause on ChatGPT | WIRED'
- kudos:I am not an AI expert, and my concerns aren’t on the existential scale. However, I do think it’s important to avoid moving fast and breaking things with these powerful technologies. That isn’t necessarily to say that more powerful AI shouldn’t be released (though I’m already disinterested by the current stuff), just that racing to improve them for commercial benefit and as technological flourish doesn’t strike me as socially responsible. link to ‘In Sudden Alarm, Tech Doyens Call for a Pause on ChatGPT | WIRED’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Veto puts Kentucky in thick of fight over transgender rights | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:Even if the Kentucky GOP is right and this is what loses Beshear the election, it it was clearly the right thing to do. I want Beshear to stay in office, but I don’t know if I could vote for him if he didn’t resist the queerphobia coming out of the General Assembly. Shame on our legislature for passing this bill—and for so clearly acknowledging here that it’s to score political points at the expense of Kentucky children.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on '“The library is a safe place.” – WIL WHEATON dot NET'
- kudos:I’ve felt a lot of appreciation for Wil Wheaton recently, but for him to come to Kentucky to praise our libraries and speak against dumb laws passed by our legislature makes me just love the guy. link to ‘“The library is a safe place.” – WIL WHEATON dot NET’
reckoning and forgiveness
- kudos:I write a lot about Mormonism on this blog, and even though I’m not shy about being critical, I think I’ve also made clear that in relative terms, I’m on pretty good terms with The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. Not on such good terms that I’m still an active member of that church, of course, but I still feel a lot of fondness for it, and I don’t think I’ll ever consider myself an “ex-Mormon”—the great thing about the word “Mormon” no longer being officially approved is that it makes it all the more appropriate for describing my own religious identity.
how to understand 'Restoration'
- kudos:One of the lectionary readings for tomorrow’s service is Ezekiel 37:1-14, which I read in Robert Alter’s beautiful translation. In this passage, Ezekiel famously prophesies: “O dry bones, listen to the word of the LORD, Thus said the Master, the LORD, to the dry bones: I am about to bring breath into you and you shall live. And I will lay sinews over you and bring up flesh over you and stretch over you skin.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Kentucky governor vetoes sweeping GOP transgender measure | Lexington Herald Leader'
- kudos:Good for Andy. One thing I personally appreciate about Governor Beshear is that he so often invokes his faith as a Democrat. Granted, it’s probably a calculated decision in such a red state, and I’m still uncomfortable with how faith and politics are intertwined in the U.S., but it shows that faith doesn’t have to be queerphobic. link to ‘Kentucky governor vetoes sweeping GOP transgender measure | Lexington Herald Leader’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Biblical Literalists Don’t Exist - YouTube'
- kudos:Great point made by someone whose voice I’ve grown to appreciate over the past several months. link to ‘Biblical Literalists Don’t Exist - YouTube’
on reading scripture with an agenda
- kudos:I grew up in a faith tradition that put a huge amount of emphasis on the King James Version of the Bible. It was only four years ago (in the early phases of my faith transition), that I deliberately picked up another translation to read instead. Even then, I picked a relatively “safe” transition to venture into: Thomas Wayment’s The New Testament: A Translation for Latter-day Saints. Since it was co-published by Deseret Book and BYU, it had some tacit approval from Latter-day Saint institutions, even if The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints itself still identifies the KJV as its official English language text.
📚 bookblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️🖤 for La réinvention du nom de Dieu [Reinventing God's Name], by Gérard Siegwalt
- kudos:A few months ago, I began listening to the Radio Télévision Suisse show Babel again; I have an off and on relationship with the show and decided it was time for another on. I was impressed with an interview Siegwalt gave discussing this book and put it on my list. It turned out I could buy it from the Swiss publisher, which offered a flat 5€ shipping fee, even to have it sent here to Kentucky.
📺 tvblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for The Good Place (Season 1)
- kudos:My spouse and I watched all four seasons of this show more or less as they came out. The past few months have seen some pretty big changes to our family schedule, and we haven’t has as much time to watch TV together, so we recently decided to rewatch The Good Place (since episodes are short). It’s a very rewatchable show; you can get a lot out of it once you know what’s yet to come.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Musk apologizes for mocking and firing Twitter exec with muscular dystrophy | Ars Technica'
- kudos:Twitter just gets worse and worse. What a joke. link to ‘Musk apologizes for mocking and firing Twitter exec with muscular dystrophy | Ars Technica’
on the SEC and conflating a church with God
- kudos:On January 24, 2023, Elder Kevin S. Hamilton of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints gave a speech at BYU where he made the following comments: As I visit with members across the Church, I sometimes hear things like “I don’t support the Church’s policy on (you fill in the blank).” Or “I don’t agree with the way the Church does (this or that).” Could I suggest an alternative approach?
a nearly-forgotten memory of failing to stand up to Islamophobia
- kudos:[Mit einem Glasdach überdachter Vorplatz des Staßburger Bahnhofs, by Dr.-Ing. S.Wetzel, is licensed under CC BY-SA 3.0] I don’t remember exactly where we were, but I’m pretty sure it was near the Strasbourg train station. Maybe we were in the station, or maybe we were somewhere nearby. We must have come to Strasbourg from Colmar, where we spent most of our time. It was a shop of some kind: Were we buying breakfast?
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk Is Reportedly Building 'Based AI' Because ChatGPT Is Too Woke'
- kudos:This is dumb and worrying. The CEO of Gab has been promising to develop “based AI,” but he’s a bit player. Musk has the resources and influence to make this a bigger problem. link to ‘Elon Musk Is Reportedly Building ‘Based AI’ Because ChatGPT Is Too Woke’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'OpenAI Is Now Everything It Promised Not to Be: Corporate, Closed-Source, and For-Profit'
- kudos:I don’t know enough about OpenAI to evaluate these concerns, but I think these questions are important. The power of AI means that the companies that control them are also in a position of power, and it’s important that we treat them critically. That said, while I do think making LLM code open source is probably better in the aggregate, it isn’t without concerning drawbacks: The minute it was released under an open license, I’m sure Gab’s Andrew Torba would be considering how to make a homebrew version that can’t be content moderated.
a surprising (but ultimately damning) non-apology
- kudos:Earlier today, The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints released a statement announcing that: The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its affiliated investment manager, Ensign Peak Advisors, Inc., have settled a matter with the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Unsuprisingly, the Salt Lake Tribune describes the context surrounding the settlement in more detail: In a settlement announced Tuesday with U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission, the Utah-based faith and its investment arm, Ensign Peak Advisors, have agreed to pay $5 million in penalties for failing to properly disclose past stock holdings and going to “great lengths” to deliberately “obscure” the church’s investment portfolio.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'As conservatives criticize ‘woke AI,’ here are ChatGPT’s rules for answering culture war queries - The Verge'
- kudos:Content moderation is hard, and moderating AI content definitely seems harder to me. However, so long as OpenAI has control over ChatGPT (and benefits from others’ use of it), I do think it has a responsibility to shape what it can produce. That said, there remains a deeper, legitimate question about how much influence a single company should have over LLM output. link to ‘As conservatives criticize ‘woke AI,’ here are ChatGPT’s rules for answering culture war queries - The Verge’
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first - The Verge'
- kudos:This is just so petty. I don’t know how his leadership at Twitter is defensible anymore. link to ‘Elon Musk created a special system for showing you all his tweets first - The Verge’
prophetic clarity and prophetic uncertainty
- kudos:A few weeks ago, while walking through Julietta Market at Lexington’s Greyline Station, I stopped for a few minutes at a used bookstore at one of the stalls and walked away with a copy of Thomas Merton: Passion for Peace. I haven’t gotten far into it yet—later that week, a book by a French theologian that I’d ordered arrived in the mail, and that’s taken up most of my reading attention since.
- kudos:
If I were a better person, I’d be as rattled by any shooting as I am by the one on my alma mater’s campus. If we were a better country, that wouldn’t feel like such an overwhelming idea.
🔗 linkblog: my thoughts on 'Voice Actors Push Back Against Their Voices Being Used by AI'
- kudos:Interesting and important read. link to ‘Voice Actors Push Back Against Their Voices Being Used by AI’
🍿 movieblog: ❤️❤️❤️❤️❤️ for Everything Everywhere All At Once
- kudos:I put off watching this movie for a while, despite a number of recommendations. I think it’s fitting that I finally watched it so soon after listening to the audiobook of Walkaway, a very weird Cory Doctorow novel about finding hope despite things going very badly. This movie is far, far weirder than Walkaway, and yet it also does a much, much better job of getting that same message across. I feel like it spoke to many of my current anxieties, but in a healing and helpful way.