{"id":5089,"date":"2018-07-27T08:24:29","date_gmt":"2018-07-27T16:24:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/?p=5089"},"modified":"2018-07-27T08:24:29","modified_gmt":"2018-07-27T16:24:29","slug":"things-glen-found-interesting-volume-162","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/glenandpaula.com\/wordpress\/archives\/2018\/07\/27\/things-glen-found-interesting-volume-162","title":{"rendered":"Things Glen Found Interesting, Volume 162"},"content":{"rendered":"

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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.<\/p>\n

Things Glen Found Interesting<\/h3>\n
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  1. How to Witness to a Distracted World<\/a> (O. Alan Noble, Christianity Today): \u201cLet me give you a scenario. I believe it\u2019s entirely possible today to sit down with a non-believing friend and have a passionate, lengthy conversation about the gospel and never plant a seed deeply. Because as soon as you both rise from the table, he pulls out his phone and checks Facebook or responds to a text from his wife\u2026. It was all a kind of rhetorical dance or game that we play. And the primary purpose of the dance is not to win over the other person but to define your identity. The game is called expressive individualism. And most of us play it.\u201d<\/li>\n
  2. A Global Guide To State-Sponsored Trolling<\/a> (Michael Riley, Lauren Etter, and Bibhudatta Pradhan, Bloomberg): \u201c\u2018People sometimes worry that Azerbaijan will shut down Facebook,\u2019 said Katy Pearce, a communications professor at the University of Washington who has studied the platform\u2019s use in that country. \u2018Why would it? Facebook is the most effective tool of control the government has.\u2019\u201d<\/li>\n
  3. Housing Costs Reduce The Returns To Education<\/a> (Tyler Cowen, Marginal Revolution): \u201cThe return to education, for example, has increased in the United States but it\u2019s less well appreciated that in order to earn high wages college educated workers must increasingly live in expensive cities. One consequence is that the net college wage premium is not as large as it appears and inequality has been over-estimated.\u201d<\/li>\n
  4. The many deaths of liberalism<\/a> (Daniel Cole and Aurelian Craiutu, Aeon): \u201cThe problem for anyone declaring the death of liberalism is that it has not one but several pillars and dimensions: legal, political, economic and moral (or religious). The weakening or disappearance of one or two liberal pillars or tenets would not be enough to declare liberalism as a whole dead.\u201d<\/li>\n
  5. Epistocracy: a political theorist\u2019s case for letting only the informed vote<\/a> (Sean Illing interviewing Jason Brennan, Vox): \u201cI like to say I\u2019m a fan of democracy, and I\u2019m also a fan of Iron Maiden, but I think Iron Maiden has quite a few albums that are terrible \u2014 and I think democracy is kind of like this. It\u2019s great, it\u2019s the best system we have so far, but we shouldn\u2019t accept that it can\u2019t be improved.\u201d The title is inaccurate \u2014 Brennan goes so far as to favor extending the right to vote to children.<\/li>\n
  6. The Trump Administration Convenes the \u2018Super Bowl\u2019 of Religious Freedom<\/a> (Emma Green, The Atlantic): \u201cThis ministerial, which is really just a fancy word for \u2018big meeting,\u2019 could be interpreted as the unveiling of an element of the Trump administration\u2019s foreign-policy strategy. For the last three days, delegations from around the world have gathered to hear victims of religious persecution share their stories. American officials have declared in no uncertain terms that they believe the United States should evangelize religious liberty around the world, and that democracy is built on a foundation of freedom in faith.\u201d