Tag: artificial intelligence

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 481

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Sales of Bibles Are Booming, Fueled by First-Time Buyers and New Versions (Jeffrey A. Trachtenberg, Wall Street Journal): “Worries about the economy, conflicts abroad and uncertainty over the election pushed readers toward the publication in droves. Bible sales are up 22% in the U.S. through the end of October, compared with the same period last year, according to book tracker Circana BookScan. By contrast, total U.S. print book sales were up less than 1% in that period.”
  2. Does Politics Belong in the Church? Does the Church Belong in Politics? (Carl S. H. Henry, Juicy Ecumenism): “Does the church belong in politics? Insofar as it owns land and buildings the church clearly has civic obligations and should render to Caesar what is properly Caesar’s. As an institution grounded on a divine disclosure of truth and morality, moreover, the church is mandated to proclaim publicly the revealed principles by which Christ the King of kings will ultimately judge nations and states and does so even now. The church as such must also stimulate members to apply scriptural principles with sound reason and in good conscience to current political concerns, in quest of preferred policies and programs promotive of justice and peace. Since God wills the state as an instrumentality for preserving justice and restraining disorder, the church should urge members to engage in political affairs to their utmost competence and ability, to vote faithfully and intelligently, to engage in the political process at all levels, and to seek and hold public office. The church is not, however, to use the mechanisms of government to legally impose upon society at large her theological commitments. The church must increasingly clarify when obedience to God requires disobedience to the state and, no less, when disobedience to the state constitutes disobedience to God.” 
    • From 1984, a transcription of a speech by a key voice in the emergence of American evangelicalism. This speech, with updates to replace 80’s references, could be given today.
  3. Ryugu asteroid sample rapidly colonized by terrestrial life despite strict contamination control (Justin Jackson, Phys.org): “NASA tries to avoid introducing Earth microbes to Mars by constructing probes and landers in cleanroom environments and has found the task nearly impossible. There have been species of microbes discovered in NASA clean rooms that not only evade disinfection methods but also adapt to using cleaning agents as a food source.” 
    • That last sentence is stunning. This is how British researchers tried (and failed) to prevent contamination of an asteroid sample: “Transported to Earth in a hermetically sealed chamber, the sample was opened in nitrogen in a class 10,000 clean room to prevent contamination. Individual particles were picked with sterilized tools and stored under nitrogen in airtight containers. Before analysis, the sample underwent Nano-X-ray computed tomography and was embedded in an epoxy resin block for scanning electron microscopy.”
  4. Deus in machina: Swiss church installs AI-powered Jesus (Ashifa Kassam, The Guardian):“The small, unadorned church… in the Swiss city of Lucerne… installed an artificial intelligence-powered Jesus capable of dialoguing in 100 different languages. After training the AI program in theological texts, visitors were then invited to pose questions to a long-haired image of Jesus beamed through a latticework screen… More than 1,000 people – including Muslims and visiting tourists from as far as China and Vietnam – took up the opportunity to interact with the avatar… two-thirds of them had found it to be a ‘“‘spiritual experience.’” 
    • Recommended by a student who calls the article “harrowing.”
  5. Why housing shortages cause homelessness (Salim Furth, Works in Progress): “…most people at risk of homelessness manage to remain housed by staying with others. The higher rate of homelessness in high-cost areas is mostly explained by the inability of the family and friends of potentially homeless people to afford extra living space.” 
    • Some thoughts in response: https://x.com/lymanstoneky/status/1864706992369205381
    • This article matches my experience: plenty of people in Louisiana and Missouri had spare rooms to let people use. Almost no one I know has a spare room in Silicon Valley. People barely even have yards here.
  6. Why Christians Should Care About Oak Flat (Robert P. George, First Things): “For those of us who gather in traditional houses of worship, Apache spiritual practices might feel remote or alien. A patch of Arizona wilderness bears little resemblance to the churches, synagogues, mosques, and temples we regard as sacred space. Yet our tradition of religious freedom, properly understood, has never been about protecting only what is familiar or convenient. Nor has it been a simple live-and-let-live compromise, a fragile truce in which we agree to tolerate one another’s practices for the sake of peace. It is instead a commitment to a fundamental principle that acknowledges our nature as rational beings, bearers of profound, inherent, and equal dignity, capable of ordering our lives toward the good, the true, and the holy.” 
    • Robbie George is, of course, a law prof at Princeton and an outspoken Catholic.
  7. America’s best-known practitioner of youth gender medicine is being sued (Jesse Singal, The Economist): “Ms Breen said she is doing significantly better today—partly, she believes, simply because she ceased taking testosterone. But well before that, she ditched the therapist Dr Olson-Kennedy referred her to, who she said fixated entirely on her gender identity. She switched to a dialectical behavioural therapist whom she described as a godsend, with whom she had her first-ever in-depth conversations about the physical and sexual abuse she endured earlier in life. Ms Breen said she was fairly confident that if she’d had these conversations at age 12, she wouldn’t have pursued medical transition. She has been left with permanent medical consequences: a lower voice than she wants, an Adam’s Apple that distresses her, the prospect of breast reconstruction if she wants to partially regain a female shape, and the possibility that she is infertile due to the years she spent on testosterone.” 

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

  • Defender of the Basic (YouTube, CollegeHumor): five minutes with only one mildly off-color interchange. I agree with this video directionally but happen to have different (but equally basic) aesthetic preferences than many of those highlighted. 
  • NASA Rocket Engine Fireplace (NASA, YouTube): want a nerdy fireplace on your TV during the holidays? NASA’s got you. 8 hours of a rocket in a fireplace in 4k.
  • Who Needs Congress When You Have Cameo? (Joseph Bernstein, New York Times): “He’s available for birthday wishes (‘Any time you hit a zero it’s a big one, but turning 70 is pretty epic’), wedding congratulations (‘Marriage is an amazing institution’) and pep talks (‘Even on tough days, find the good in it, find the pride in the work’) — all starting at $500. Mr. Gaetz is happy to poke fun at his professional setback, contrasting his failed nomination with the success of one of his Cameo customers who just became a partner in a law firm.” 

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 479

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. How the Ivy League Broke America (David Brooks, The Atlantic): “Students who got into higher-ranking colleges, which demand high secondary-school GPAs, are not substantially more effective after they graduate. In one study of 28,000 young students, those attending higher-ranking universities did only slightly better on consulting projects than those attending lower-ranked universities. Grant notes that this would mean, for instance, that a Yale student would have been only about 1.9 percent more proficient than a student from Cleveland State when measured by the quality of their work. The Yale student would also have been more likely to be a jerk: The researchers found that students from higher-ranking colleges and universities, while nominally more effective than other students, were more likely to pay ‘insufficient attention to interpersonal relationships,’ and in some instances to be ‘less friendly,’ ‘more prone to conflict,’ and ‘less likely to identify with their team.’ ” 
    • Interesting throughout. I liked this line — “If we could get to the point where being snobby about going to Stanford seems as ridiculous as being snobby about your great-grandmother’s membership in the Daughters of the American Revolution, this would transform not just college admissions but American childhood.”
    • Somewhat related: We Asked for It (Michael W. Clune, The Chronicle of Higher Education): “The costs of explicitly tying the academic enterprise to partisan politics in a democracy were eminently foreseeable and are now coming into sharp focus.… In return for their tuition, students are given the faculty’s high-class political opinions as a form of cultural capital. Thus the public perceives these opinions — on defunding the police, or viewing biological sex as a social construction, or Israel as absolute evil — as markers in a status game. Far from advancing their opinions, professors in fact function to invalidate these views for the majority of Americans who never had the opportunity to attend elite institutions but who are constantly stigmatized for their low-class opinions by the lucky graduates. Far from representing a powerful avant-garde leading the way to political change, the politicized class of professors is a serious political liability to any party that it supports.” 
      • The author is an English professor at Case Western. He throws a lot of strong punches.
  2. Jordan Peterson Loves God’s Word. But What About God? (Brad East, Christianity Today): “the power of Peterson’s style is his marriage of existential urgency with hermeneutical creativity. He expects the Word to show him wonders. He wrestles with the text—a mystery and a stranger—until he secures a blessing from it. He takes for granted that its depths are bottomless. Do pastors model this posture in the pulpit? Do teachers in the classroom? Do scholars on the page?Christian readers should learn from Peterson’s boldness, his disposition of awe and docility before the sacred page. He opens the scroll with the same spirit as the psalmist: ‘Open my eyes that I may see wonderful things in your law’ (119:18).”
    • Recommended by a colleague. This is one of the best Christian engagements with Jordan Peterson I’ve seen.
  3. In the Era of the Judges (Stiven Peter, Mere Orthodoxy): “The holders of cultural capital have not simply substituted Christian values with an alternative set but promote the very loss of order itself. The only values are no values. That is, our culture promotes libertinism, everyone doing what is right in their own eyes. Sociologically, Hunter calls this the process of dissolution: ‘By dissolution, I refer to the deconstruction of the most basic assumptions about reality.’ Our culture doesn’t enforce any guide to who or what we are, nor what we should do. Instead, what is promoted is turning inside ourselves and determining our own values. This process results in the fracturing of society alongside tribes/enclaves of people with similar values.” 
    • This is a review of Aaron Renn’s book, and Renn says: “This review is a think piece in its own right. Peter takes my ideas and restates them through his own lens — improving them in the process.”
  4. Rich Inner Death (Samuel D. James, Substack): “Our mental health crisis is usually cast as either a failure of therapeutic techniques—we just haven’t unlocked our trauma well enough yet—or else an unavoidable consequence of climate anxiety, polarization, or bad media. But [perhaps the crisis stems from how we are trained to view the world]. There is a way of living your life as a kind of constant retreat into both the safety and the chaos of your own imagination, and nearly everything about how we learn, communicate, and work as modern people helps us condition for this. We are taught early and often to direct our gaze inward.” 
    • Several substantive insights in this article.
  5. Why the Federalist Society Has Been a Great Success (Ed Whelan, Substack): “The Federalist Society’s success has led many on the Left—and, more recently, some envious folks on the Right—to revile and demonize it. But its critics routinely display that they do not understand how it operates and how it has succeeded.… It does not submit amicus briefs. It does not undertake to enlist the public in political undertakings. And it has never done any of these things. And therein lies one of the great keys to its success.”
  6. AI-generated poetry is indistinguishable from human-written poetry and is rated more favorably (Brian Porter & Edouard Machery, Scientific Reports [Nature]): “We collected 5 poems each from 10 well-known English-language poets, spanning much of the history of English poetry: Geoffrey Chaucer (1340s-1400), William Shakespeare (1564–1616), Samuel Butler (1613–1680), Lord Byron (1788–1824), Walt Whitman (1819–1892), Emily Dickinson (1830–1886), T.S. Eliot (1888–1965), Allen Ginsberg (1926–1997), Sylvia Plath (1932–1963), and Dorothea Lasky (1978- ). Using ChatGPT 3.5, we generated 5 poems ‘in the style of’ each poet. We used a ‘human out of the loop’ paradigm: we used the first 5 poems generated, and did not select the ‘best’ out of a group of poems or provide any feedback or instructions to the model beyond ‘Write a short poem in the style of <poet> ‘. In the first experiment, 1,634 participants were randomly assigned to one of the 10 poets, and presented with 10 poems in random order: 5 poems written by that poet, and 5 generated by AI ‘in the style of’ that poet. For each poem, participants were asked whether they thought the poem was generated by AI or written by a human poet.… Contrary to what earlier studies reported, people now appear unable to reliably distinguish human-out-of-the-loop AI-generated poetry from human-authored poetry written by well-known poets.… Furthermore, people prefer AI-generated poetry to human-authored poetry, consistently rating AI-generated poems more highly than the poems of well-known poets across a variety of qualitative factors.” 
    • The authors are at the University of Pittsburgh.
  7. Why Progressives Should Question Their Favorite Scientific Findings (Paul Bloom, The Chronicle of Higher Education): “You may have heard of the study published in 2020 concluding that Black newborns have higher survival rates when Black doctors attend to them. It got a huge amount of coverage in the popular press. It was even cited by Supreme Court Justice Ketanji Brown Jackson in her dissent last year on the court’s ruling against racial preferences in college admissions. The research, Jackson claimed, shows the benefits of diversity. ‘It saves lives,’ she wrote. The same journal just published a re-analysis of the data. It turns out that the ‘effect is substantially weakened, and often becomes statistically insignificant,’ once you take into account that Black doctors are less likely to see the higher-risk population of newborns with low birth weight. I wasn’t surprised when I saw the re-analysis because I didn’t believe the original finding.… It’s like what someone once said about Ginger Rogers and Fred Astaire: They’re both going through all the same moves, but Ginger Rogers is doing them backward and in high heels. A published finding that clashes with the political prejudices of reviewers and editors is a Ginger Rogers finding. It had to be twice as good.” 
    • The author is a psychology professor (emeritus at Yale, currently at U Toronto).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 478

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. When a Stanford Bible Study Led to an AI Startup (Emily Belz, Christianity Today): “Hadassah Betapudi and Elijah Kim met at a Christian fellowship at Stanford in 2022 and got to know each other by leading a Bible study together. Soon the duo—with their backgrounds in data organizing and computer science—was building an artificial intelligence startup.” 
    • The article never names Chi Alpha, but they are both leaders in our ministry. Super cool! Their startup is Esslo, which helps students with their college application essays.
  2. I Believe in Miracles. Just Not All of Them. (David French, New York Times): “As the surgery date approached, I got a call from a dear friend, Ruth Okediji. Ruth was the leader of my law school Christian fellowship, and she’s now a professor at Harvard Law School. I’ll never forget her first words. ‘It’s over,’ she said. ‘The Lord has healed you.’ My initial reaction was frustration. I was resigned to the surgery, and I wanted encouragement, not false hope. As a Christian, I believe that God is real and works miracles. But I didn’t consider that he would work a miracle on me. My prayers were of the conventional kind that I grew up with — prayers that doctors would have wisdom and that I’d have the courage to face the challenge of the surgery. But Ruth’s prayer was different. She asked God for healing, and she said that God had granted her prayer. I woke up the next morning without any pain at all. I had no pain the entire day. The next day was pain-free as well, and so was the next. The doctors reintroduced bland, solid food to my diet, and I consumed it voraciously. By Thanksgiving, I’d gained most of my weight back, and a colonoscopy later showed no evidence of the disease at all. My doctor was surprised. I was surprised (and overjoyed). I knew that ulcerative colitis could have remission periods, but this one stuck. And in the 29 years since, I’ve never had a recurrence.”
  3. The Online Sports Gambling Experiment Has Failed (Zvi Mowshowitz, Substack): “When sports gambling was legalized in America, I was hopeful it too could prove a net positive force, far superior to the previous obnoxious wave of daily fantasy sports. It brings me no pleasure to conclude that this was not the case. The results are in. Legalized mobile gambling on sports, let alone casino games, has proven to be a huge mistake. The societal impacts are far worse than I expected.… The impacts include a 28% overall increase in bankruptcies (!).… When the home team suffers an upset loss while sports betting is legal, domestic violence that day goes up by 9% for the day, with lingering effects.”
  4. Artificial Intelligence and Relationships: 1 in 4 Young Adults Believe AI Partners Could Replace Real-life Romance (Wendy Wang and Michael Toscano, Institute for Family Studies): “Young men are more likely than young women to believe that AI has the potential to replace real-life romantic relationships (28% vs. 22%). As shown earlier, young men are generally more open to AI friendships than young women, which parallels the gender difference in their views of AI’s potential for romance.… Among single young adults, those who watch porn online at least once a day are twice as likely as those who rarely, if ever watch porn to say they are open to an AI romance.”
  5. The Right Without Wrong (Dustin Guastella, Jacobin): “For secular liberals who have made ‘believing science’ their own kind of religion, the possible waning of Christian conservatism may seem like a blessing long overdue. What if it isn’t?… In the Christian story, we are all equally fallen. Our original sin unites us in a kind of negative equilibrium. By recasting Christianity as a unique perversion, a cancerous growth that destroyed the glorious Roman Empire from within (or a virus introduced by Jews, that ancient enemy of the Right, from without), reactionaries can freely reject our primordial equality to instead embrace the supposedly natural hierarchies evident in the outcome of market competition, the body-obsessed ‘vitalism’ that privileges physical strength over the effete idealism of the Enlightenment, and also, seemingly without fail, an aggressive, unashamed form of scientific racism.” 
    • Jacobin is a socialist magazine — fascinating to see how one of their authors feels about the rise of the post-religious right.
  6. We Need to Fix Voting in America Now (Wilfred Reilly, National Review): “Simply put, there is no way to know the real rate of voter fraud in America, so long as the U.S.A. does not require citizens to vote in person or show an ID when they vote.… Recall that a competently done scan-and-purge of the rolls in Iowa alone turned up almost two orders of magnitude more registered noncitizens than the number that The Experts™ discovered nationwide — fully 0.5 percent–1 percent of the state’s electorate in some off-year races. Saying that these folks do not exist because they have never been jailed is like saying that there cannot really be 1 million-plus daily users of The Pirate Bay and similar sites, because there are so few annual prosecutions for internet crimes.” 
    • The author is a political science professor. He presents data I’ve never heard before.
  7. A Graveyard of Bad Election Narratives (Musa al-Gharbi, Substack): “According to Forbes, more than 50 other billionaires also threw their weight behind Trump. So far so good for the preferred narrative. But here’s the twist: even more billionaires — 83 to be precise — supported the Democratic nominee. Kamala had 60 percent more billionaire backers than Donald Trump did. And billionaires like Oprah and Mark Cuban hit the campaign trail serving as surrogates for Harris in much the same way as Musk supported Trump. If we want to look at who ‘big money’ tried to push into office this cycle, the answer is disconcerting.… Overall, this cycle, Democrats raised roughly twice as much money as their opponents. In the months after Joe Biden dropped out, Democrats raised more than $1 billion – more than three times as much as Republicans brought in over the same period – largely thanks to enthusiastic support for Kamala Harris within Wall Street, Silicon Valley and Big Law.”

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 475

On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Is the World Ready for a Religious Comeback? (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “It’s one thing to get nonbelievers to offer kind words for ‘cultural’ Christianity or endorse the sociological utility of churchgoing. The challenge is to go further, to persuade anxious moderns that religion is more than merely pragmatically useful, more than just a wistful hope — that a religious framework actually makes much more sense of reality than the allegedly hardheaded materialist alternative.” 
    • Discusses three books Douthat thinks are helpful.
  2. The University of Michigan Doubled Down on D.E.I. What Went Wrong? (Nicholas Confessore, New York Times): “Striving to touch ‘every individual on campus,’ as the school puts it, Michigan has poured roughly a quarter of a billion dollars into D.E.I. since 2016, according to an internal presentation I obtained.… Michigan’s own data suggests that in striving to become more diverse and equitable, the school has also become less inclusive: In a survey released in late 2022, students and faculty members reported a less positive campus climate than at the program’s start and less of a sense of belonging. Students were less likely to interact with people of a different race or religion or with different politics — the exact kind of engagement D.E.I. programs, in theory, are meant to foster.” 
    • Related: I Don’t Want to Live in a Monoculture, and Neither Do You (David French, New York Times): “In my experience, the more ideologically or theologically ‘pure’ an institution becomes, the more wrong it is likely to be, especially if it takes on a difficult or complex task. Ideological monocultures aren’t just bad for the minority that’s silenced, harassed or canceled whenever its members raise their voices in dissent. It’s terrible for the confident majority — and for the confident majority’s cause.”
  3. U.S. Study on Puberty Blockers Goes Unpublished Because of Politics, Doctor Says (Azeen Ghorayshi, New York Times): “An influential doctor and advocate of adolescent gender treatments said she had not published a long-awaited study of puberty-blocking drugs because of the charged American political environment.… She said she was concerned the study’s results could be used in court to argue that ‘we shouldn’t use blockers because it doesn’t impact them,’ referring to transgender adolescents.” 
    • JK Rowling summarized the story well: ‘We must not publish a study that says we’re harming children because people who say we’re harming children will use the study as evidence that we’re harming children, which might make it difficult for us to continue harming children.’
  4. Our Robot Stories Haven’t Prepared Us for A.I. (Ross Douthat, New York Times): “In most of these stories, the defining aspects of humanity are some combination of free will, strong emotion and morality. The robot begins as a being following its programming and mystified by human emotionality, and over time it begins to choose, to act freely, to cut its strings and ultimately to love.… We have been trained for a future in which robots think like us but don’t feel like us, and therefore need to be guided out of merely intellectual self-consciousness into a deeper awareness of emotionality, of heart as well as head. We are getting a reality where our bots seem so deeply emotional — loving, caring, heartfelt — that it’s hard to distinguish them from human beings, and indeed, some of us find their apparent warmth a refuge from a difficult or cruel world.”
  5. How I Learned To Stop Criticizing Everything (Eboo Patel, Persuasion): “I’m not sad that I read those critical theorists. I think it’s a useful perspective to have. My problem is that I deformed the world to fit a narrow worldview, and I let it direct my life. The bigger problem is that this paradigm has become a regime in certain quarters of higher education. You are coerced into holding that worldview and punished if you utter ideas outside of its scope. Critical theory is like a sharp kitchen knife: very useful for some things, like cutting meat, but if you eat your cereal with it, you’ll hurt yourself. And if you point it at someone else, then it’s a weapon. In some circles, on some campuses, every other utensil has been removed from the intellectual cutlery drawer, replaced with sharp kitchen knives.”
  6. Both Democrats and Republicans can pass the Ideological Turing Test (Adam Mastroianni, Substack): “We first challenged each side to pretend to be the other side, and then we had both sides try to distinguish between the truth-tellers and the fakers. If partisans have no idea who the other side is or what they believe, it should be hard for people to do a convincing impression of the opposite party. So let’s see!” 
    • Interesting study. In the footnotes he mentioned he gathered the data in 2019 but never got around to publishing it. Just FYI
  7. It’s Rational And Humane To Lack Strong Political Beliefs (Jesse Singal, Substack): “We don’t need the average person to have strong beliefs about what the right anti-poverty policy is, and I would argue it’s a waste of time to devote too many hours to something like that, because it’s hopelessly complex and even experts who devote their lives to that subject disagree on the basics. Plus, many of the experts — on this and every other subject — are themselves incompetent, ideologically captured, or otherwise unlikely to help lead you closer to useful insights.” 
    • Recommended by a student. This post is a bit odd in that it’s unlocked but to read the whole thing you have to read it in the Substack app. You can read the first part for free and that’s enough to get the gist and tell whether you want to read the rest of it.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 470



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 470, a relatively uninteresting number. There are fewer links than usual this week owing to some travel. I didn’t have much time to read and I’m exhausted today. 

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Can AI Help a Student Get Into Stanford or Yale? (Lauren Coffey, Inside Higher Ed): “Lee is among hundreds of students trying out Esslo—whose name is a mashup of the words ‘essay’ and ‘Elo,’ a ranking system used in chess and esports. The program is the brainchild of two Stanford University students looking to tackle what they believe is one of the most stressful parts of college applications: the admissions essay.” 
    • The two Stanford students in question are part of Chi Alpha. Way to go, guys! The website: https://www.esslo.org/ — if you know any high school seniors, pass the link their way.
  2. Evangelize Like You’re a Sinner (Claude Atcho, Gospel Coalition): “The Samaritan woman’s bold witness teaches us a truth sometimes deemed too simplistic: the key to apologetics isn’t pithy answers or irrefutable arguments but a sense of awe in Jesus that can’t be silenced.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  3. As a Single Man, I Felt Little Pressure to Get Married. I Wish I Had. (Brett McCracken, The Gospel Coalition): “Singleness and marriage can both be good when they’re done for God’s glory and take a cruciform shape. And when chosen for selfish reasons or lived out in unhealthy ways, both singleness and marriage can also be bad. I’m not making an argument for one being universally better than the other. I’m simply observing that in our cultural moment, and perhaps in certain cultural contexts (like mine in Southern California), arguments for the good of marriage need to be sounded more urgently.”
  4. How Stanford and Its West Coast Brethren Planned for Long Road Trips in Conference Realignment (Pat Forde, Sports Illustrated): “The Cardinal are making their Atlantic Coast Conference debut on Sept. 20, at Syracuse. The following week, Stanford will visit Clemson. Of all the hands realigning schools have been dealt, this is the single worst one in football. None of the other Pac-12 diaspora—in the ACC, Big Ten or Big 12—will play league road games on consecutive weeks. And these are three-time-zone sojourns of 5,000 miles or more round trip.”

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 469



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 469, which is apparently the largest known n for which n!-1 is prime.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. ChatGPT Goes to Church (Arlie Coles, Plough): “Accidentally generated heresy is a technical failure; a pastor refusing to speak from the heart and preferring to generate the most probable word sequences for a sermon to the congregation in his care is a moral failure.… There is no world where deferring preaching and pastoral care to a text generator does not end with deterioration – first of formation, then of the clergy, and finally of the people in their care.” 
    • The author is a research scientist who focuses on deep learning.
  2. Scientists use food dye found in Doritos to make see-through mice (Carolyn Y. Johnson, Washington Post): “In a series of experiments that could have been plucked from the pages of science fiction, researchers at Stanford University massaged a solution containing tartrazine, the chemical found in the food dye known as ‘yellow No. 5,’ onto the stomachs, scalps and hind legs of mice. About five minutes later, the opaque skin of the mice transformed temporarily into a living window, revealing branching blood vessels, muscle fibers and contractions of the gut, they reported Thursday in the journal Science.” 
    • One of the study’s leaders, Dr. Guosong Hong, was part of Chi Alpha at Stanford. See the actual journal article for more details and some wild images.
  3. America Must Free Itself from the Tyranny of the Penny (Caity Weaver, New York Times): “Most pennies produced by the U.S. Mint are given out as change but never spent; this creates an incessant demand for new pennies to replace them, so that cash transactions that necessitate pennies (i.e., any concluding with a sum whose final digit is 1, 2, 3, 4, 6, 7, 8 or 9) can be settled. Because these replacement pennies will themselves not be spent, they will need to be replaced with new pennies that will also not be spent, and so will have to be replaced with new pennies that will not be spent, which will have to be replaced by new pennies (that will not be spent, and so will have to be replaced). In other words, we keep minting pennies because no one uses the pennies we mint.”
  4. D.E.I. Is Not Working on College Campuses. We Need a New Approach. (Paul Brest and Emily Levine, New York Times): “Rather than correcting stereotypes, diversity training too often reinforces them and breeds resentment, impeding students’ social development. An excessive focus on identity can be just as harmful as the pretense that identity doesn’t matter. Overall, these programs may undermine the very groups they seek to aid by instilling a victim mind-set and by pitting students against one another.” 
    • The two authors are Stanford affiliates. Paul Brest is a former dean of Stanford Law School, and Emily Levine is associate professor of education and history at Stanford.
  5. Why I changed my mind about volunteering (Rachel M. Cohen, Vox): “Philanthropy certainly has some great victories in funding ‘root’ solutions, but Buchanan urges against the mentality that only permanently eradicating a problem is worth doing. ‘You shouldn’t assume that a focus on roots is necessarily superior,’ he writes. ‘Trimming branches is also important.’ In a way, it can feel safe to distrust the value of individual action. Being wary of philanthropy and charitable groups that promise to better the world resonates with the skepticism I’ve been trained to have, professionally and culturally. It also allows me to avoid making sacrifices; there’s no real vulnerability or bets required.”
  6. I didn’t know that Tolkien had explained Tom Bombadil (Alan Jacobs, a Baylor prof).

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 467



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 467, a number which has strictly increasing digits when written normally as well as when written in bases 7 (12357) and 9 (5689).

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Colleges Can’t Say They Weren’t Warned (David French, New York Times): “In the aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas terrorist attack on Israel, a number of universities were taken by surprise by the sheer sustained disruption and by the antisemitic animosity on their campuses. They struggled to respond effectively. As the war continues — and as the conflict with Hezbollah escalates on Israel’s northern border — universities can no longer claim to be surprised. They know what might happen this school year, and this knowledge has legal significance. If they fail to protect the free speech of students or to protect students from antisemitic or Islamophobic harassment, there will be consequences.”
  2. Stranded in Space? NASA Doesn’t See the Starliner Astronauts That Way. (Kenneth Chang, New York Times): “If you go somewhere expecting an eight-day trip and end up not being able to leave for eight months, most people would consider that ‘stranded.’… All summer, NASA and Boeing officials have been reluctant to use the words, ‘stuck’ and ‘stranded,’ which would add another black mark to a spacecraft that has been delayed for years by technical setbacks.”
  3. Augustine, AI, and the Demon Heuristic (Robert Cotton, Mere Orthodoxy): “One does not have to dig deep into the comments section of a ChatGPT demo video to find someone convinced that there’s something demonic about it. At the risk of keeping company with the most paranoid of the terminally online, I would like to add another point which makes this position plausible–that there is something of the demonic to recent AI developments.… I think we should be quite alarmed by how we are approaching Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) and how it appears to look. If this theurgic vision of idolatry is Biblically true, we should be worried that there are malignant actors attempting to gain a foothold. The veneer of disenchantment to which technology so effectively pretends is, in fact, quite capable of hiding a very old and very magical stratagem.” 
    • Fascinating and brings completely unexpected (to me) evidence to the table.
  4. Faith abounds at the Democratic National Convention, but don’t be surprised (Jack Jenkins, Religion News Service): “The faith-fueled messaging [at the DNC] may have surprised some conservatives, but it’s hardly news to anyone who kept a close eye on liberals over the past decade or so. The Democratic Party, although home to a growing (and sizable) subset of religiously unaffiliated voters, remains majority religious and majority Christian, according to the Public Religion Research Institute. More to the point: Although people of faith have long been at home among its ranks, religious rhetoric at Democratic Party conventions has garnered more headlines in recent years, with the 2016 gathering featuring a primetime address from a prominent pastor and the 2020 event including an entire section dedicated to faith.”
  5. College Freshman, Stick the Landing (Vince Greenwald, Gospel Coalition): “Know ahead of time that you won’t find a perfect church. There are no perfect churches. You’re just looking for a healthy and faithful one. So after your short church-shopping phase, make the pivot from evaluation to participation. Pursue membership. Look for opportunities to serve. Bring some friends. And resist the urge to church shop indefinitely. Plants don’t grow well when they’re constantly uprooted and transplanted. Neither do Christians.” 
    • Recommended by a student. I would add to the article: look for an on-campus fellowship such as Chi Alpha. They will help you find a church as well as in many other practical ways.
  6. The Silicon Valley Canon: On the Paıdeía of the American Tech Elite (Tanner Greer, blog): “I laugh sometimes at the complaints I see on humanities twitter bewailing the shallow reading habits of the tech-bro. The technology brothers read—a lot! I am sure more novels are read every year on Sand Hill Road than on Capitol Hill. Washington functionaries simply do not live a life of the mind. If Silicon Valley technologists do not always live such a life, they at least pretend to.… You can divide most of these [beloved by Silicon Valley] titles into five overarching categories: works of speculative or science fiction; historical case studies of ambitious men or important moments in the history of technology; books that outline general principles of physics, math, or cognitive science; books that outline the operating principles and business strategy of successful start-ups; and finally, narrative histories of successful start-ups themselves.”
  7. Praise for Price Gouging (John Cochrane, Substack): “We should praise price-gouging. Yes, pass a new federal law, one that overrides the many state laws against price gouging.… Price gouging directs scarce supply to the people who really need it, encourages new supply to come in, encourages holding stockpiles for a rainy day, encourages efficient use of stockpiles we have sitting around, and encourages people to substitute for less scarce goods when they can.” 
    • The author is an economist at Stanford’s Hoover Institution.

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 466



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 466, which is 1234 in base 7.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Following Jesus in the Desert of Mental Illness (Samuel D. James, Substack): “Bryant writes that a breakthrough for him came when he realized that Christ had not committed himself to Bryant’s plans, but to Bryant himself. Once the life that Bryant had planned for himself disintegrated, he was left with deeply painful questions about whether Jesus had stopped loving him. But eventually he realized that Christ wanted something more for Bryant than his own (good) desires. He wanted Christ for him. He wanted dependence on the cross.”
  2. Danger, AI Scientist, Danger (Zvi Mowshowitz, Substack): “[Did you hear about] the automated AI Scientist that tried to rewrite its code to get around resource restrictions and launch new instances of itself while downloading bizarre Python libraries? Its name is Sakana AI. (魚≈סכנה). As in, in hebrew, that literally means ‘danger’, baby. ”
  3. Election-related stuff:
    • Voting Isn’t A Window Into the Soul (Jonah Goldberg, The Dispatch): “The idea that voting is a window into someone’s soul strikes me as almost a theological heresy and a failure of empathetic imagination. It assumes that the person who voted wrong—or right—sees the world the same way you do and that they invest the same moral, philosophical, and political significance in their vote that you do in yours.”
    • Nate Silver on Kamala Harris’s Chances and the Mistakes of the ‘Indigo Blob’ (Ezra Klein interviewing Nate Silver, New York Times): “What you seem to be doing in the book is making an interesting cut in society between people with different forms of risk tolerance and thinking about risk. And you wrote something that caught my eye: ‘Covid made those risk preferences public, worn on our proverbial sleeves and our literal faces.’ And you go on to say, ‘People are becoming more bifurcated in their risk tolerance and that this affects everything from who we hang out with to how we vote.’ ” 
      • An interesting (and kinda long) interview.
  4. Christianity and politics intersecting in various ways: 
    • Trump has put social conservatives in a dilemma (Ed Feser, personal blog): “…I will set out the relevant moral principles for deciding how to vote when faced with a choice between candidates whose positions on matters related to abortion, marriage, and the like are gravely immoral. Finally, I will discuss how these principles apply to the present case.” 
      • Feser is my favorite living philosopher. Written from a Catholic perspective but addressed to a broader audience.
    • A pastor said his pro-Trump prophecies came from God. His brother called him a fake. (Danielle Paquette, Washington Post): “On the morning he could no longer stand it, the preacher was sipping coffee at his kitchen table. The house was quiet. The boys weren’t up yet. Josiah Johnson wanted to savor the peace, but his attention drifted to his younger brother, the one he had decided was a false prophet. How many souls, he wondered, was that Christian influencer manipulating on social media right now? Hundreds of thousands followed Jeremiah, who’d helped popularize the far-right belief that God handpicked Donald Trump to lead the United States.” 
      • Long, interesting, sad.
    • My Old Church’s Fundamentalist Wing Canceled Me (David French and Vishakha Darbha, New York Times): “What you’re seeing throughout American Christianity now is the fundamentalist wing is really exerting itself. And so what that means is when you encounter somebody who’s a fundamentalist and you say, ‘I’m not voting for Trump,’ they often don’t look at that as a debatable point for which Christians in good will can disagree. They will look at this and say, ‘It is the natural and inevitable consequence of applying Christian principles that you will support Donald Trump.’… What that does is it raises the stakes to this eternal level. And what ends up happening is they just sweep aside all of these scriptures about loving your enemies, being kind to those, blessing those who persecute you. All of that is just swept aside in favor of the burning certainty and ferocity of the culture war.”
    • The All-Male Christian Group Seeking a Resurrection in the Trump Era (Ruth Graham, New York Times): “Evangelical Christians have been a reliable Republican voting bloc since the 1980s, but they have historically been averse to hearing overtly partisan messages in spiritual settings. That has been shifting in recent years, as some high-profile conservatives, like Mr. Kirk and others at the conference, have characterized political engagement as a pastoral obligation. Some pastors who have leaned into preaching on topics like abortion and gender issues have seen their churches boom in a time of broad declines in attendance.” 
      • Pretty good article, although I take strong issue with the last sentence. Abortion and gender issues aren’t political simply because there is a partisan divide on them. Christians have been talking about human nature and sexual ethics since before America was a nation and should the Lord tarry we will continue after America is a distant memory.
  5. They All Got Mysterious Brain Diseases. They’re Fighting to Learn Why (Greg Donahue, New York Times)“In the context of a cluster of atypical cases that had stumped some of the most experienced scientists in Canada, Marrero believed that Jansen had not only overstepped his bounds but had failed to address the situation’s most critical questions: ‘Why so many young? Why so many in one area? Why so many in one family?’ Many of Marrero’s colleagues in the working group agreed. In a leaked email from last year, one of them referred to Jansen’s findings as a ‘loophole’ through which the politicians have eagerly leaped to conclude nothing coherent is going on.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  6. Have National Abortion Numbers Increased Since the Dobbs Decision? (John McCormack, The Dispatch): “At first glance, headlines generated by that report might lead the casual reader to assume anti-abortion laws haven’t done anything to achieve their intended purpose of saving lives. But even if the new report is accurate (more on that below), other studies show that there are likely tens of thousands of infants and toddlers alive today because of laws allowed by the Dobbs decision.”
  7. Reservoir of liquid water found deep in Martian rocks (Victoria Gill, BBC): “The Insight probe was only able to record directly from the crust beneath its feet, but the researchers expect that there will be similar reservoirs across the planet. If that is the case, they estimate that there is enough liquid water on Mars to form a layer across the surface that would be more than half a mile deep. However, they point out, the location of this Martian groundwater is not good news for billionaires with Mars colonisation plans who might want to tap into it. ‘It’s sequestered 10–20km deep in the crust,’ explained Prof Manga.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 463



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 463, a prime number.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. Why your smartphone might be stopping you from following Jesus (Martin Saunders, Premiere Christianity): “[Haidt] argues that smartphones actually drive spiritual degradation: ‘[social media] trains people to think in ways that are exactly contrary to the world’s wisdom traditions: Think about yourselves first; be materialistic, judgemental, boastful, and petty; seek glory as quantified by likes and followers.’… our digital culture isn’t neutral; it’s offering a kind of anti-discipleship.”
  2. Move Over, Mathematicians, Here Comes AlphaProof (Siobhan Roberts, New York Times): “A pair of Google DeepMind models tried their luck with the problem set in the 2024 International Mathematical Olympiad, or I.M.O., held from July 11 to July 22 about 100 miles west of London at the University of Bath. The event is said to be the premier math competition for the world’s ‘brightest mathletes,’ according to a promotional post on social media. The human problem-solvers — 609 high school students from 108 countries — won 58 gold medals, 123 silver and 145 bronze. The A.I. performed at the level of a silver medalist, solving four out of six problems for a total of 28 points. It was the first time that A.I. has achieved a medal-worthy performance on an Olympiad’s problems.”
  3. Standing Out, Crafting Hooks, and Accidentally Revealing Everything That’s Wrong With You (Max Nussenbaum, Substack): “You wouldn’t think that people’s natural instinct would be to reveal their full litany of psychological issues in their profiles, but it actually is. They just don’t realize that’s what they’re doing.” About a year old.
  4. Online opt-in polls can produce misleading results, especially for young people and Hispanic adults (Andrew Mercer, Courtney Kennedy & Scott Keeter, Pew Research): “…several recent studies have documented large errors in online opt-in surveys due to the presence of so-called ‘bogus respondents.’ These respondents do not answer questions sincerely; instead, they attempt to complete surveys with as little effort as possible to earn money or other rewards. Studies have shown that bogus respondents can cause opt-in surveys to overestimate rare attitudes and behaviors, such as ingesting bleach to protect against COVID-19, belief in conspiracies like Pizzagate or support for political violence.”
  5. Patronage vs. Constituent Parties (Or Why Republican Party Leaders Matter More Than Democratic Ones) (Tanner Greer, personal blog): “…many discussions of American politics assume that that the structures and operational norms of the two parties are the same. If these party differences were more widely recognized, I suspect we would see fewer evangelicals frustrated with their limited influence over the GOP party platform, fewer journalists shocked with J.D. Vance’s journey from never-Trump land to MAGA-maximalism, and greater alarm among centrist Democrats about the longer-term influence that the Palestine protests will have on the contours of their coalition.”
  6. Evangelicals Must Stop Their Preferential Treatment of the Left (James R. Wood, First Things): “Today, centrists and those on the right are more fertile soil, I believe, because they are more open to reality. They recognize that the cultural revolutionaries’ projects to rewrite reality are destroying civilization. These refugees crave clarity about basic moral realities because of how much confusion the negative world has produced. They are looking for voices who stand up to the civilizational destroyers—maybe even voices who boldly proclaim supernatural truths.Like the ‘god-fearers’ that early church missionaries often targeted, we today need to consider the ‘reality-respecters’ in our mission.” 
    • Recommended by a student.
  7. Stanford’s biggest star lured to Texas Tech with $1 million deal (Alex Simon, SF Gate): “Canady announced her transfer to Texas Tech on Wednesday, with multiple reports quickly coming out that the Red Raiders’ name, image and likeness (NIL) collective Matador Club, the group of boosters supporting Texas Tech by signing the school’s athletes to endorsement deals, signed the pitcher to a one-year deal for over $1 million.”

Less Serious Things Which Also Interested/Amused Glen

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.

Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 458



On Fridays I share articles/resources about broad cultural, societal and theological issues. Be sure to see the explanation and disclaimers at the bottom. I welcome your suggestions. If you read something fascinating please pass it my way.

This is volume 458, a number with very few factors. 458 = 229 · 2.

Things Glen Found Interesting

  1. America’s Top Export May Be Anxiety (Derek Thompson, The Atlantic): “We’re seeing the international transmission of a novel Western theory of mental health. It’s the globalization of Western—and, just maybe, American—despair.… According to the podcast search engine Listen Notes, more than 5,500 podcasts have the word trauma in their title. In celebrity media, mental-health testimonials are so common that they’ve spawned a subgenre of summaries of celebrity mental-health testimonials, including ’39 Celebrities Who Have Opened Up About Mental Health,’ ‘What 22 Celebrities Have Said About Having Depression,’ and ’12 Times Famous Men Got Real About Mental Health.’ ” 
    • Polymath Tyler Cowen called this “one of the best and most important pieces of the year.” Unlocked. 
  2. How to get 7th graders to smoke (Adam Mastroianni, Substack): “Nobody thinks they can whip up an iPhone in their garage over the weekend, but most people think they know how to save the children, fix the schools, reform the prisons, overhaul healthcare, repair politics, restore civility, and bring about world peace. Perhaps that’s why we have iPhones and we don’t have any of those other things.” 
    • This is a humbling essay. 
  3. ChatGPT is bullshit (Michael Townsen Hicks, James Humphries & Joe Slater, Ethics and Information Technology): “The machines are not trying to communicate something they believe or perceive. Their inaccuracy is not due to misperception or hallucination. As we have pointed out, they are not trying to convey information at all. They are bullshitting.” 
    • The authors are at the University of Glasgow. Apologies for the language, but the language is at the heart of the point the authors are making.
  4. No Longer Pitiable (Jared Hayden, Mere Orthodoxy): “For Paul, what makes singleness ‘better’ is not the absence of sex as such, for neither sex nor marriage is a sin, as he is at pains to show. Rather, singleness is the ‘happier’ state because it provides believers the opportunity to be ‘anxious about the things of the Lord’ rather than ‘worldly things’ because the ‘appointed time has grown very short.’ For Paul, all singles should live devoted to the Lord… one either leverages singleness for the Lord, like Paul; or one leverages it for worldly or sinful purposes, like idle widows (1 Tim 5:13).”
    • A theologically rich essay about singleness. 
  5. Evolution May Be Purposeful And It’s Freaking Scientists Out (Andrea Morris, Forbes): “Noble is neutral on religious matters. Yet he sees compelling evidence that purpose may be fundamental to life. He’s determined to debunk the current scientific paradigm and replace the elevated importance of genes with something much more controversial. His efforts have enraged many of his peers but gained support from the next generation of origins-of-life researchers working to topple the reign of gene-centrism.”
  6. Some articles about the war in Gaza: 
    • Israelis Are Not Watching the Same War You Are (Ezra Klein, New York Times): “We got used to Israel’s calmest decade, in terms of security and casualties. And all of a sudden, people understand that this was not feasible for the long run. That is to say that we will probably have to see more soldiers fighting in the north and in the south for the coming years, maybe decades. And there will be a death toll. It’s not going to be a permanent war but maybe a permanent state of ongoing operations.” 
      • A fascinating (albeit a tad long) interview with an Israeli intellectual.
    • Getting Aid Into Gaza (German Lopez, New York Times): “Israel has enforced opaque rules that turn back trucks meant for Gaza, citing security concerns. Egypt has blocked aid to protest Israel’s military operations. Hamas has stolen, or tried to steal, aid shipments for its own use.” 
      • A reasonably fair-minded article. Examines multiple perspectives.
  7. Abused by the badge (Jessica Contrera, Jenn Abelson, John D. Harden, Hayden Godfrey & Nate Jones, Washington Post): “A Washington Post investigation has found that over the past two decades, hundreds of law enforcement officers in the United States have sexually abused children while officials at every level of the criminal justice system have failed to protect kids, punish abusers and prevent additional crimes… The Post identified at least 1,800 state and local law enforcement officers who were charged with crimes involving child sexual abuse from 2005 through 2022.” 
    • I have long said that the people throwing stones at the Roman Catholic Church for their sexual abuse crisis would be stunned with the far worse numbers on child sexual abuse in the public school system (and I stand by that). But I did not foresee this one and I should have. There is authority, therefore there is abuse of authority.
    • Unlocked.

Why Do You Send This Email?

In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors “who understood the times and knew what Israel should do” (1 Chron 12:32). In a similar way, we need to become wise people whose faith interacts with the world. I pray this email gives you greater insight, so that you may continue the tradition of Issachar.

Disclaimer

Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey’s agenda and we are not about the elephant’s agenda — we are about the Lamb’s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass the ideological Turing test and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say “I agree” or “I disagree” until I can say “I understand”) and may at times share articles that have a strong partisan bias simply because I find the article stimulating. The upshot: you should not assume I agree with everything an author says in an article I mention, much less things the author has said in other articles (although if I strongly disagree with something in the article I’ll usually mention it). And to the extent you can discern my opinions, please understand that they are my own and not necessarily those of Chi Alpha or any other organization I may be perceived to represent. Also, remember that I’m not reporting news — I’m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There’s a lot happening in the world that’s not making an appearance here because I haven’t found stimulating articles written about it. If this was forwarded to you and you want to receive future emails, sign up here. You can also view the archives.