{"id":4803,"date":"2017-12-15T19:08:28","date_gmt":"2017-12-16T03:08:28","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=4803"},"modified":"2017-12-15T19:08:28","modified_gmt":"2017-12-16T03:08:28","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-131","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2017\/12\/15\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-131","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 131"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag\"><img data-recalc-dims=\"1\" loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-medium wp-image-4396\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&#038;ssl=1\" alt width=\"300\" height=\"300\" srcset=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=300%2C300&amp;ssl=1 300w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=150%2C150&amp;ssl=1 150w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=768%2C768&amp;ssl=1 768w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1024%2C1024&amp;ssl=1 1024w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?resize=1200%2C1200&amp;ssl=1 1200w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=2048&amp;ssl=1 2048w, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/02\/issachar-update-logo-wordswag.png?w=1680&amp;ssl=1 1680w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 300px) 85vw, 300px\"><\/a><\/p>\n<p>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&nbsp;way.<\/p>\n<h3>Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n<ol class=\"simple-list\">\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/americanaffairsjournal.org\/2017\/11\/western-elite-chinese-perspective\/\">The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective<\/a> (Puzhong Yao, American Affairs): \u201cCertain beliefs are as ubiquitous among the people I went to school with as smog was in Shijiazhuang. The doctrines that shape the worldviews and cultural assumptions at elite Western institutions like Cambridge, Stanford, and Goldman Sachs have become almost religious. Nevertheless, I hope that the perspective of a candid Chinese atheist can be of some instruction to them.\u201d This is quite funny in places, especially his experiences at the Stanford GSB.&nbsp;<ul>\n<li>From a sort-of-reverse perspective: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theatlantic.com\/health\/archive\/2017\/11\/safety-regulation-psychology\/544439\/\">How Trust Shapes Nations\u2019 Safety Rules<\/a> (Veronique Greenwood, The Atlantic): \u201cBy the end of my first year in China, I feel as if I am a one-person FDA.\u201d<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.foxnews.com\/us\/2017\/12\/12\/university-evicts-christian-club-over-leadership-faith-requirement.html\">University evicts Christian club over leadership faith requirement<\/a> (Caleb Parke, Fox News): \u201c\u2018The [University of Iowa] knows that what it is doing to BLinC is unfair, illegal, and unconstitutional,\u2019 the complaint prepared by the firm says, adding that, while BLinC only requires adherence to their beliefs for their leaders and not their members, university policy is that campus organizations can require members to believe a certain way.\u2019\u201d Read the <a href=\"http:\/\/s3.amazonaws.com\/becketnewsite\/BLinC-Complaint-FINAL-1.pdf\">actual legal complaint<\/a> \u2014 it\u2019s straight fire. I was especially tickled by paragraph 76.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.psychologytoday.com\/blog\/between-cultures\/201712\/how-culture-affects-depression\">How Culture Affects Depression<\/a> (Marianna Pogosyan, Psychology Today): \u201cHowever, teaching people that this very complex social, cultural, and biological phenomenon is entirely biological can backfire. It encourages people to ignore environmental factors, and instead, essentialize depression as a characteristic of themselves and their biology.\u201d An interview with a Georgetown psychology professor.<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.the-american-interest.com\/2017\/12\/06\/the-warlock-hunt\/\">The Warlock Hunt<\/a> (Claire Berlinski, The American Interest): \u201cGiven the events of recent weeks, we can be certain of this: From now on, men with any instinct for self-preservation will cease to speak of anything personal, anything sexual, in our presence. They will make no bawdy jokes when we are listening. They will adopt in our presence great deference to our exquisite sensitivity and frailty. Many women seem positively joyful at this prospect. The Revolution has at last been achieved! But how could this be the world we want? Isn\u2019t this the world we <i>escaped<\/i>?\u201d<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/www.christianitytoday.com\/ct\/2017\/december-web-only\/evangelicals-domestic-violence-christian-men-domestic-abuse.html\">Evangelicals and Domestic Violence: Are Christian Men More Abusive?<\/a> (Brad Wilcox, Christianity Today): &nbsp;\u201c\u2026churchgoing evangelical Protestant husbands were the least likely to be engaged in abusive behavior\u2026. Although the empirical story of religion and domestic violence looks good for practicing believers, it\u2019s much less rosy for others. My research suggests that the most violent husbands in America are nominal evangelical Protestants who attend church infrequently or not at all.\u201d Brings to mind Rev 3:15\u201316 \u2014 be hot or cold, not lukewarm. The author is a sociologist at&nbsp;UVA.<\/li>\n<li>I read many articles about the Alabama election \u2014 these stood&nbsp;out.&nbsp;<ul>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/www.newyorker.com\/news\/news-desk\/roy-moore-and-the-invisible-religious-right\">Roy Moore and the Invisible Religious Right<\/a> &nbsp;(Benjamin Wallace-Wells, The New Yorker): \u201c\u2026what was most notable about the pastors on Moore\u2019s list was their obscurity. I found a list of the pastors of the thirty-six largest churches in Alabama, assembled this summer by the Web site of the Birmingham News; no pastor on that list appeared on Moore\u2019s. I called leaders within the deeply conservative Southern Baptist Church\u2014the largest denomination in Alabama and, for decades, the core of the religious right\u2014and was told that not a single affiliated Southern Baptist pastor in the state was openly allied with&nbsp;Moore.\u201d<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/thefederalist.com\/2017\/12\/13\/roy-moore-lowest-white-evangelical-support-alabama-republican-21st-century\/\">Roy Moore Had Lowest White Evangelical Support Of Any Alabama Republican In The 21st Century<\/a> (Lyman Stone, The Federalist): \u201cExit polls from the Alabama Senate special election on Tuesday show that Roy Moore got 80 percent of the white evangelical vote, but nonetheless went down to defeat. This is shocking, because white evangelicals are a big share of Alabama\u2019s population\u2026. So if it\u2019s a big voting bloc and they\u2019re 80 percent for a candidate, shouldn\u2019t that candidate win?\u201d<\/li>\n<li>For a critical take on the above claim: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.washingtonpost.com\/news\/acts-of-faith\/wp\/2017\/12\/14\/is-it-possible-that-white-evangelicals-swung-the-alabama-election-against-roy-moore\/?tid=ss_tw&amp;utm_term=.b6e50454a560\">Is it possible that white evangelicals swung the Alabama election <i>against <\/i>Roy Moore?<\/a> (Scott Clement, Washington Post): \u201cMoore\u2019s support among white evangelicals is historically low for a Republican. At the same time, the drop-off in Moore\u2019s support among other white groups from previous elections (particularly non-evangelicals, white women and whites with college degrees) is far larger, indicating that evangelicals were far less likely than other typical Republican voters to alter their party support with Moore as a candidate.\u201d<\/li>\n<li>And more generally: <a href=\"http:\/\/michaelwear.com\/blog\/2017\/12\/14\/pro-life-voters-and-pro-choice-politicians\">Pro-life Voters and Pro-Choice Politicians<\/a> (Michael Wear, personal blog): \u201cThe way some invoke conscience in politics reflects an odd morality that puts one\u2019s conscience at risk for supporting a candidate who opposes Roe v. Wade, but rationalizes away moral responsibility for a candidate who intentionally seeks to disenfranchise African-Americans or restrict the right of worship for Muslims or wantonly breaks up families through deportation or mass incarceration. Perhaps abortion as a political issue carries greater moral weight than these other issues\u2014an idea some pro-lifers seem a bit too eager to accept, I have to say\u2014but is there no confluence of evil that can affect the voting calculation of the pro-life person who believes their conscience requires them to vote for whoever the pro-life candidate happens to be?\u201d Wear, an evangelical, was an Obama White House staffer.<\/li>\n<li>Also more generally: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/2017\/12\/09\/opinion\/sunday\/wehner-evangelical-republicans.html\">Why I Can No Longer Call Myself an Evangelical Republican<\/a> (Peter Wehner, New York Times): \u201cthe events of the past few years \u2014 and the past few weeks \u2014 have shown us that the Republican Party and the evangelical movement (or large parts of them, at least), have become what I once would have thought of as liberal caricatures. Assume you were a person of the left and an atheist, and you decided to create a couple of people in a laboratory to discredit the Republican Party and white evangelical Christianity. You could hardly choose two more perfect men than Donald Trump and Roy Moore.\u201d (this one came recommended by a student)<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@josecamachocollados\/is-alphazero-really-a-scientific-breakthrough-in-ai-bf66ae1c84f2\">Is AlphaZero really a scientific breakthrough in AI?<\/a> (Jose Camacho Collados, Medium): &nbsp;\u201cI am a researcher in the broad field of Artificial Intelligence (AI), specialized in Natural Language Processing. I am also a chess International Master, currently the top player in South Korea although practically inactive for the last few years due to my full-time research position\u2026. However, there are <b>reasonable doubts about the validity of the overarching claims<\/b> that arise from a careful reading of AlphaZero\u2019s paper.\u201d &nbsp;I was recently hyping this to someone and clearly did not know as much about it as I thought. Interesting pushback.<\/li>\n<li>And last but not least : <a href=\"https:\/\/medium.com\/@christos.a.makridis\/want-to-raise-employee-morale-treat-every-day-as-an-experiment-2e68285a86f3\">Want to raise employee morale? Treat every day as an experiment<\/a> (Christos Makridis, Medium): our very own Christos continues to put his work out into the public square. Go, Christos!<\/li>\n<\/ol>\n<h3>Things Glen Found Amusing<\/h3>\n<ul class=\"simple-list\">\n<li>Watching this gif makes me wonder <a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/gallery\/ZKAkeq3\">how cats survive in the wild<\/a> (imgur)<\/li>\n<li>I know Stanford students like As, so <a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/g7F20h0\">check this one out<\/a> (imgur)<\/li>\n<li>This may describe <a href=\"http:\/\/www.gocomics.com\/pearlsbeforeswine\/2017\/12\/13\">some of you during finals<\/a> (Pearls Before Swine)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"https:\/\/imgur.com\/kbYR4EB\">This is an amazing Christmas sweater<\/a> (imgur)<\/li>\n<li>If you ever played role-playing games you will think this site is super cool: <a href=\"http:\/\/donjon.bin.sh\/\">donjon.bin.sh<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<h3>Things Glen Found Interesting A While&nbsp;Ago<\/h3>\n<p>Every week I\u2019ll highlight an older link still worth your consideration. This week we have a provocative read: <a href=\"http:\/\/chronicle.com\/article\/In-Defense-of-Flogging\/127208\/?sid=at\">In Defense of Flogging<\/a> (Peter Moskos, Chronicle of Higher Education) \u2014 the author is a former police officer and now a criminologist at the City University of New York. This one was shared back before I started sending these emails in a blog post called <a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2011\/05\/05\/punishment\">Punishment<\/a>.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Why Do You Send This&nbsp;Email?<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>In the time of King David, the tribe of Issachar produced shrewd warriors \u201cwho understood the times and knew what Israel should do\u201d (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.<\/p>\n<h3><b>Disclaimer<\/b><\/h3>\n<p>Chi Alpha is not a partisan organization. To paraphrase another minister: we are not about the donkey\u2019s agenda and we are not about the elephant\u2019s agenda \u2014 we are about the Lamb\u2019s agenda. Having said that, I read widely (in part because I believe we should aspire to pass <a href=\"http:\/\/econlog.econlib.org\/archives\/2011\/06\/the_ideological.html\">the ideological Turing test<\/a> and in part because I do not believe I can fairly say \u201cI agree\u201d or \u201cI disagree\u201d until I can say \u201cI understand\u201d) 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\u2019ll usually mention it).<\/p>\n<p>Also, remember that I\u2019m not reporting news \u2014 I\u2019m giving you a selection of things I found interesting. There\u2019s a lot happening in the world that\u2019s not making an appearance here because I haven\u2019t found stimulating articles written about&nbsp;it.<\/p>\n<p>Archives at <a href=\"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links\">http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/category\/links<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>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&nbsp;way. Things Glen Found Interesting The Western Elite from a Chinese Perspective (Puzhong Yao, American Affairs): \u201cCertain beliefs are as \u2026 <a href=\"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2017\/12\/15\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-131\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading<span class=\"screen-reader-text\"> \u201cThings Glen Found Interesting, Volume 131\u201d<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"wp_typography_post_enhancements_disabled":false,"jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"A funny perspective on American values, a funny legal brief, and some not-so-funny thoughts about sexual harassment, domestic violence, and more.","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":true,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[16],"tags":[168,124,219,125,160,117,138,147,135],"class_list":["post-4803","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-links","tag-america","tag-apologetically-interesting","tag-artificial-intelligence","tag-china","tag-how-the-church-is-perceived","tag-politics","tag-religious-freedom","tag-sexual-assault","tag-stanford"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p6Ded-1ft","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4803"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4810,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4803\/revisions\/4810"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4803"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4803"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4803"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}