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: Twitter suspends @ElonJet after Musk promises not to ban it - The Verge'



This is petty and concerning.


🔗 linkblog: Twitter ditches Trust and Safety Council as Musk tweets fuel harassment | Ars Technica'



I think this headline captures one of the worst parts of all of this: Musk isn’t just dismissing concerns about behavior, he’s fueling that behavior.


🔗 linkblog: Goodbye, Twitter - by Ken White - The Popehat Report'



I haven’t been following Ken White as much as I used to, but this reminds me why I appreciate his perspective. This is someone who knows what free speech is and advocates for it, not someone who uses it as a buzzword justification for reprehensible behavior, à la Musk.


🔗 linkblog: TSA Quietly Deploying Facial Recognition Scanners At Major US Airports | Techdirt'



Oh please no.


🔗 linkblog: Before Musk Riled Everyone Up With Misleading Twitter Files About ‘Shadowbanning,’ Musk Used The Tool To Hide Account Tracking His Plane | Techdirt'



If I could pick one story to demonstrate that Musk’s Twitter tenure has been blundering and inconsistent…


🔗 linkblog: The Transparency Theater of the Twitter Files | WIRED'



I have deliberately not been following the Twitter Files stuff, but I did read this and found it helpful.


🔗 linkblog: Thanks to AI, it’s probably time to take your photos off the Internet | Ars Technica'



Good thing engineers really anticipated and considered these consequences before developing this software, right?


🔗 linkblog: ChatGPT, Galactica, and the Progress Trap | WIRED'



A helpful and thoughtful critique of how people are doing AI text generation.


🔗 linkblog: It’s Not Just You: Businesses Are Making Their Phone Numbers Hard to Find - WSJ'



What a crappy future we are heading toward.


🔗 linkblog: Mormons in Mexico and the Search for Truth, Pipe Wrench no. 8:'



Long read but a good read.


🔗 linkblog: Brave Sir Bentham, Utilitarian Knight - Existential Comics'



Only thing better than a critique of utilitarianism is a critique of utilitarianism in the form of a comic.


🔗 linkblog: The 4th Nephi Dystopia – Wheat & Tares'



I have to admit I was skeptical of the title, but this is a very interesting reading, and I’ll never read 4th Nephi the same again.




I’m about to set up a Graceland University login because I’m registering for (non-credit-bearing) courses at Community of Christ Seminary. I know I’m not the first person in history to enroll at both BYU and Graceland during my lifetime, but it still tickles me to think about.


🔗 linkblog: Lexington, Ky Mayor wants to expand license plate cameras | Lexington Herald Leader'



I have written council representatives about this more than anything else, and yet I suspect that it will go through again without a fuss. This isn’t the worst form of surveillance, but it is still surveillance, pure and simple.


🔗 linkblog: BYU-I instructors fired for failing ‘ecclesiastical clearance.’ They can’t find out why.'



This is such a frustrating story. I never wanted to work at a BYU, but as a Mormon earning a PhD, I often told myself I couldn’t afford to rule it out. This adds to the pile of reasons that I’m glad there weren’t jobs open for me to apply to.


📚 bookblog: Jesus Before Christianity (❤️❤️❤️🖤🖤)



This book took me far too long to read. I picked it up at a used book sale at the library because it looked really interesting. While it was a good, informative read, I had more trouble than expected getting into it, so I did a lot of stopping and starting and restarting and coming back to, etc… I felt like the book didn’t deliver on its promise of demonstrating the historical Jesus in the way I had hoped.




In recent years, my faith has become less literal, my marriage has become mixed-faith, and we’ve both committed to letting kiddo choose her own future as she gets older. This has meant revisiting family ritual and tradition for end of year holidays, but it’s kind of fun!


🔗 linkblog: They Wanted a Baby, Then Twitter Fired Them | WIRED'



Infertility sucks, and stories like this make me even more upset about Musk’s callous and chaotic Twitter takeover.


🔗 linkblog: Elon Admits His Content Moderation Council Was Always A Sham To Keep Advertisers On The Site | Techdirt'



I’m glad I began reading Techdirt before this whole mess started… Masnick’s persective has been a helpful guide.


🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk proposes letting nearly everyone Twitter banned back on the site - The Verge'



Is he serious? Does he really think this is a good idea? Also, I love the increasing sass that The Verge and other outlets are putting into their comments about Twitter no longer having a communications team to respond to requests for comment.


🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk tries to blame ‘activists’ for his Twitter moderation council lie - The Verge'



This seems petty, immature, and misguided.




Hearing Black Friday commercials on French radio reminds me that I’m totally fine with the secularization of religious holidays and that the real problem is the commercialization of our holidays, whether always secular or originally religious.


🔗 linkblog: 'Most Dangerous Person In the World' Is a Teacher Union Leader, Former CIA Director Says'



What a load of garbage.




Growing up, I was taught to graze at religious texts, focusing on anecdotes that supported what we already believed. One of the great pleasures of my adulthood has been learning to read them more critically: wrestling with their problems and learning deeper lessons.




I sometimes wonder how I’d react if I were put through a ‘Peggy Sue loop’: made to repeat an earlier part of my life with all my knowledge of how things turned out. I have major disagreements with my past self, but I also owe him a lot, so there would be difficult decisions.


🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk’s Twitter Teeters on the Edge After Another 1,200 Leave - The New York Times'



I didn’t expect 1,200 resignations!


🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk begins reinstating banned Twitter accounts, starting with Jordan Peterson and the Babylon Bee - The Verge'



Oh good, so on top of the unexpected chaos, the expected chaos is also still happening.




I’m a teetotaler, so some of my microbrewing grad school friends once declared that I would make a good “beer eunuch”—I could be trusted to hold onto a barrel (or whatever—I don’t know how this stuff works) without abusing that trust.


🔗 linkblog: The Far-Right Is Convinced Kari Lake Won: ‘Now Is the Time to Fight’'



The midterms could have been a lot worse, but this is a reminder that there’s still real danger lurking out there.


🔗 linkblog: Q is Dead, Long Live QAnon'



Helpful summary of the current state of QAnon.


🔗 linkblog: Elon Musk ignored Twitter’s internal warnings about paid verification - The Verge'



This doesn’t surprise me at all. So much of the current Twitter chaos is predictable.




Is to adopt a new religious identity necessarily to leave the old one behind? Many—justifiably and understandably—use that language, but it’s never quite fit my own experience. I feel like I’m nitpicking when I try to explain it, though.


🔗 linkblog: Twitter reactivated the new ‘Official’ gray checkmark for accounts that are actually verified - The Verge'



What an absolute mess this whole thing has been.


🔗 linkblog: Musk-led Twitter rolls out new “Official” tags, removes them hours later | Ars Technica'



Move fast and break things, indeed. Checks as verification and checks as business model are inherently at odds with each other, and I get the vibe that Musk (team business model) is unhappy with internal pushback from team verification.




I love that I got to vote early this year, but it also means I keep forgetting that today is Election Day.


🔗 linkblog: Meet the ‘Black Robe Regiment’ of Extremist Pastors Spreading Christian Nationalism'



This reminds me of all the pastors doing guest posts on the official Gab blog. Also, of course Glenn Beck was involved in this somehow.