As I wrote earlier, I recently appeared on the Salt Lake Tribune’s Mormon Land podcast to discuss a recent publication in which I discuss the history of official Latter-day Saint domain names. Near the end of the interview, David Noyce (managing editor of the Tribune and one of the podcast hosts) asked me the “so what” question—sure, this history is interesting, but what’s the takeaway? Here’s (part of) how I answered:

I recently wrote about a new article of mine in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought where I trace the history of the official domain names of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. This past week, I was lucky enough for the fine folks at the Salt Lake Tribune to take interest in the article. Peggy Fletcher Stack wrote a summary of my findings in this (unfortunately paywalled) article, which appeared on Sunday.

I’m very excited to share that I’ve just had an article published in Dialogue: A Journal of Mormon Thought, a historically and culturally important journal in Mormonism. My article is entitled “The correct [domain] name of the Church: Technology, naming, and legitimacy in the Latter-day Saint tradition.” The title is a riff on Russell Nelson’s use of the phrase “The Correct Name of the Church” when leading a renewed emphasis on the full name of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints early in his ministry as President of the same church.

I’m sure that I’ve read this before, and I expected to really enjoy a reread, so it was kind of a disappointment to, well, be so disappointed by it. The book is interesting for its interrogation of whether new technologies are less rich than old ones—an argument that has clear relevance today, as perhaps illustrated by Bradbury’s alleged reluctance to allow for an ebook version in the early 21st century. I’m not opposed to this kind of argument, but I think it’s easy for this kind of claim to get tied up in hand-wringing about civilizational decline and old/high culture being better than new/pop culture—and I feel like Bradbury ultimately has more to say about the latter than about the former.

Interesting reflection here. link to ‘Everything is hackable. That’s not always a bad thing.’

Petite preuve que la technologie n’existe pas hors culture : Quand un site web américain n’acceptera pas un numéro de téléphone comme « valide » si les chiffres sont séparés par des points, comme j’ai pris l’habitude de faire. Faut des tirets, comme un vrai Étatsunisien.

Gun violence can’t be solved with educational technology—and make no mistake, all of this is edtech. link to ‘Schools Are Spending Billions on High-Tech Defense for Mass Shootings - The New York Times’

This is unbelievably dumb. School shootings can’t be solved by technology—it’s a social and political problem. Shame on Axon. link to ‘Firm proposes Taser-armed drones to stop school shootings : NPR’

But is it ed tech? link to ‘Tech Leaders Justify Project To Create Army Of AI-Controlled Bulletproof Grizzly Bears As Inevitable Part Of Progress’

I think concerns about being dependent on technology are valuable, but I also note that no one is ever talking about technologies like, say, language or agriculture.

Very interesting piece on the relationship between technology and writing. link to ‘We Used to Write. How to keep writing human in a world of… | by Colin Horgan | Aug, 2021 | OneZero’

Proposing a new syllabus on department’s class on fundamentals of hardware and software, and I’m adding reflections on equity, society, culture as they relate to ICT. Tech isn’t just technical.

Sapiens is a challenging book, but that’s also why it’s a must-read. As much as its focus is on science & technology, I ultimately read it as a reminder that we need to ask ?s from the humanities to safely navigate our present and future.