Impact

Ray Kurzweil (last Monday's and Tuesday's posts) co-founded Singularity University with Peter Diamandis, who has degrees in aerospace engineering and medicine just to name two.

Diamandis did a talk called "The best way to predict the future."  It inspires and excites people (just look at the comments).   Why?  Because he sees a fantastic future coming for humanity, and plays his part in it with passion.

He's looking for "breakthrough" everywhere and believes nothing is impossible.  . like his goal to positively impact a billion people within ten years.

Climate

"Climate Science is Not Settled" was written by a prestigious scientist who served in the U.S. Energy Department during the current administration.  Since the president promotes strong measures to combat the feared future catastrophe, it's a surprising article - because this scientist says that some of the claims are not warranted.

In a nutshell, here are his points:  the globe did warm 1.4 degrees in the last century, human activity has only slightly influenced that rise (by 1-2% of the 1.4 degrees), and science doesn't have the precise information that it needs to predict any future catastrophic model.

I like his civil tone (see "Civil Discourse").  He states the evidence and raises relevant questions . . all without name-calling attacks.

No atheism, by Design

It's been suggested by some scientists that a propensity to religious belief is actually in our genes.  Nearly all peoples in history have been religious.

Now there seems to be more conviction about that, as reported in the article, "Scientists discover that atheists might not exist, and that's not a joke," on website Science 2.0:

"In the US, only 20 per cent of people have no religious affiliation, but of these, only one in ten say they are atheists."

“A slew of cognitive traits predisposes us to faith,” writes Pascal Boyer in Nature, the science journal, adding that people “are only aware of some of their religious ideas”.

Philosophical materialists (who believe that only the material world exists, so there's no supernatural) view this as an evolutionary development because religiosity benefits society.

We who are super-naturalists and Christians have a different view.  We think that God designed us to seek and experience Him.

AI & Christians

Salon Magazine offers a unique article on artificial intelligence, especially for a secular publication.

Southern Evangelical Seminary in Charlotte N.C. has a robot which is handled by an assistant theology professor.  They use it to pursue questions "about what it means to be human; about how we should interact with the non-human entities in our lives; and about what a uniquely Christian response might be to a world in which humans start to seem more like computers, and computers start to seem more and more like human beings."

Very good questions.  The author says that the "robot’s biggest role may be in helping to thaw the long silence among evangelicals."

So . . we have here a secular thinker who is waiting for evangelical Christians to think through the place of artificial intelligence in the Christian worldview.  That's awesome.

FYI, the only other Christian organization doing this now (besides this seminary) that I know of is Reasons to Believe.  Vice president and biochemist Dr. Fazale Rana has written a book on it, and it's summarized here and other posts that week.

It's true - we really need to think through this before ethics and policies toward AI are set in concrete by materialist thinkers alone.

AI: "Deep Mind"

"Deep Mind [is] a British firm creating software that tries to help computers think like humans."   Google purchased the firm in 2012, one in a long list of acquisitions focused on the development of artificial intelligence.

Lots of people feel that AI could be a danger to humanity, in addition to the benefits we would gain by using intelligent machines.  One of those people is a founder of Deep Mind, Shane Legg, who said: 

"Eventually, I think human extinction will probably occur, and technology will likely play a part in this . . ."  Among all forms of technology that could wipe out the human species, he singled out artificial intelligence, or AI, as the 'number 1 risk for this century.'

So it's not surprising that, as part of the agreement, Google "will establish an ethics board to ensure the artificial intelligence technology isn't abused . . "

AI believer cont'd

Google wanted Kurzweil because of his undeniable expertise in artificial intelligence and his vision for where AI should go and how to get there.  

He invented the voice-to-print program and he's still focused on language.  He thinks language is the key to creating intelligent machines that go beyond pattern recognition and computation to meaning itself, predicting computers that can joke and flirt.

But public opinion generally has serious misgivings about machines evolving super intelligence and the consciousness to use it.  You could name the movies with this theme: "Terminator,"  "Transcendence," and more.

As AI develops there have been attempts to stay ahead of the curve, to anticipate problems, to limit the consequences to good results rather than the possible-and-all-too-obvious bad results that could also happen.  

A British attempt to keep ethics in the equation is the subject tomorrow.

AI believer

Ray Kurzweil, 66 years old, says that he just got his first job.  He's a director of engineering at Google (not bad for a first job).  But he has been busy all those other years as a computer scientist, entrepreneur, inventor, and author.

Some call him a futurist.  He predicted that a computer would win a chess game with a human by the year 2000, a prediction that came true in 1997.  One of his most famous predictions is that, by the year 2029, artificial intelligence will begin to surpass human intelligence.

Much of his work and his writing has been about artificial intelligence (AI), which just happens to be a focus of his new employer.  

"Google has gone on an unprecedented shopping spree and is in the throes of assembling what looks like the greatest artificial intelligence laboratory on Earth; a laboratory designed to feast upon a resource of a kind that the world has never seen before: truly massive data. Our data. From the minutiae of our lives."

Living to serve

Canon Andrew White heads up not only the Anglican St. George Church in Baghdad, but also the Foundation for Relief and Reconciliation in the Middle East (FRRME).  And while they try to hold things together in Baghdad, they take humanitarian aid to northern Iraq.

In his blog post of Sept. 8, he says, "There are still hundreds of thousands of Internally Displaced People who have been forced to move from Mosul and Nineveh. A large number of these people are Christians. Our work supporting these people providing relief has been huge. We have provided food, medical care, wheel chairs, baby’s cots and much more." 

A film has been made of the sort of life Canon Andrew is living:  running the church and  medical/dental clinic, chaplain to the embassy, and negotiating with Sunni and Shiite groups -  always in danger, always coping with MS and hepatitis.

Parts 1, 2, and 3 are here and go about 17 minutes each. 

"IS is coming"

As refugees run from Iraq and Syria, Lebanese Christians are arming to defend themselves in case the killing crosses their border.

photo: worldmag.com

“We all know that if they come, they will slit our throats for no reason,” said one villager as he drove through the streets of the border town Qaa, an assault rifle resting next to him.

"Some leftist and communist groups in Lebanon have supported the rearming of Christians, and black market weapons sales have climbed. Even Hezbollah, a Shiite group, has indirectly supported the effort, hoping the Christians would be a last defense for Shiite towns in eastern Lebanon. "

"“We are scared,” Umm Milad, a young Iraqi woman said while waiting to collect aid at a Chaldean church in Beirut. She came to Lebanon with her husband and children after someone painted an ‘N’ [Christian] on their home in Mosul in July. The terrorists gave them 24 hours to leave. “We don’t want to go back. We want to go anywhere else. Canada or America.”

School by ISIS

Since July, the "Islamic State" has butchered its way across Iraq while hundreds of thousands of minority believers left their homes and ran for their lives.  

Now that ISIS is in control of Mosul, the northern city where many Christians lived, things are not going back to normal.  Children are going to grow up differently under "Islamic Sharia law."

"[L]essons including history, geography and literature are off the timetable. . . and [ISIS] has issued a ban on most subjects except religious studies, according to a letter sent to the local education ministry office in Mosul."

In books they can still use, every reference to the Republic of Iraq or Syria must be replaced with "Islamic State."

An elementary teacher says, "It’s 2014 but I feel we went back 14 centuries.”

Civil discourse

Everyone of good heart would agree on this:  all our societies need more civil discourse.  Wikipedia describes it pretty well, I think, as "conversation intended to enhance understanding."

It requires "respect of the other participants," and "neither diminishes the other person's moral worth nor questions their good judgment."

It happens when you and another party talk about issues where you both seek to understand each other as well as the truth about the situation, and are willing to refrain from name-calling, insults, and rage.  A politician and I enjoyed just this kind of talk a week ago when she came knocking on doors in our neighborhood.

Here's a potent example on the national scale.  Two people on opposite sides of a red-hot issue were able to become friends - amazing.  Dan Cathy (Chic-fil-A) bravely started the conversation and Shane Windmeyer bravely entered into it.

More civil discourse, please.

Golden Texas

It's being called the Golden Age of Oil and Gas in Texas.  Oil and natural gas provide one-third of the whole economy of Texas.  If the state were a nation, it would be the 8th largest oil-producing nation in the world and 3rd largest natural gas producer.

Some might say that's just the rich getting richer.  Well, no - besides some rich people getting richer, there are lots of ways Texans in general are in on the golden age, that is, are richer.

Income in this industry:  "an average wage ($125,000) that is three times the state average."

Growth of other industries:   "Industries that use natural gas as a feedstock  – fertilizers, chemicals, clothing, plastics, steel, and many others – have begun to invest tens of billions in new plant and equipment here in the U.S., creating domestic jobs that had been sent overseas over the last quarter century."

Job creation:  " . .over the last year, Texas [added] more than 1,000 net new jobs every day, more than 390,000 for the most recent 12 month period . . . Texas has accounted for fully 35% of the nation’s job growth since the year 2000."  

Government:  the state has gone from billions in deficit (2007) to an anticipated surplus in 2015.

Computer car

Craig Venter is a scientist, one of the first to unlock the human genome.  He likes technology.  His favorite - among his many cars - is his Tesla Model S.  Yes, he's a Tesla enthusiast.

Reported by Bloomberg Businessweek:

"When the car suffers from glitches, like the time its 17-inch touchscreen panel died, nobody had to come to his . . home to repair it.

"While I slept that night, a software engineer logged on to the car, found the problem, and fixed it," Venter says.  "I mean, it changes everything about transportation.  It's a computer on wheels."

Warden's compassion

Warden Burl Cain (yesterday's post) says that the crime victim is not alone in his/her victimhood.  Children of the criminal are also victims because they mourn the loss of their father.  He says the laughter goes out of their home when that man goes to prison to pay for that crime.

To break the cycle of generational crime, he unites kids and fathers for some fun once a year so dads can mentor them in what not to do.

Angola also hosts a Rodeo where inmates can apply to participate or display and sell their creations.

Warden Cain

Warden Burl Cain of Louisiana State Penitentiary, also called Angola, is the longest-serving warden they've ever had.  "Under his leadership, the inmate population . . has gone from regular knife fights to Bible studies."  (Not the whole inmate population obviously.)

Terrible violence ruled, such that inmates would take turns guarding each other while they slept at night.  Cain didn't want the job at first, warden of the "bloodiest prison" in America.  But he began to pray for wisdom to change things. 


They lost their Pell grants for education.  Someone suggested that they bring the Bible college in to teach courses, and his response was, "have you lost your mind?  They will never come here."  But they did, and Cain says they changed the culture of the prison.  Taxpayers put no money into the program, but they have a safer, more humane penitentiary.

Cursing is close to fighting, Cain says, so he required staff to clean up their language - all part of the whole "moral rehabilitation" culture change.

Prison changes

Louisiana State Penitentiary, often just called Angola,  is located on the site of an old plantation by that name. Populated largely by "lifers," it used to be notorious for violence, murder, and hopelessness.

But there's been a "moral rehabilitation"  under warden Burl Cain.  When policeman Gary Hobbs visited, he said he didn't feel threatened, didn't hear foul language.

"In Mr. Cain’s view, the biggest change came in 1995 when, as he took over the prison and faced drastic cuts in school funds, he invited the New Orleans Baptist Theological Seminary to open a seminary. To his surprise, he said, the eminent seminary agreed, covering the costs with outside donations.

Important beauty

“You don’t have to be pretty.  . you don’t owe it to civilization in general. Prettiness is not a rent you pay for occupying a space marked ‘female.’”—Diana Vreeland

Right . . sort of.  Nobody should feel guilty for not having the face of a model.  On the other hand, there's another way of looking at it.  See if you like something about this other view from Lou Markos, "Advice to My Daughter:"

"[A] woman who spends time on her make-up and clothes, not solely for the sake of vanity, but so that she can look good for others performs an important social function. I do not speak in jest!  A well-appareled, well-coiffured woman is as much a challenge (and antidote) to the ugliness and brokenness around us as a Renaissance painting . . .

"Even more, when a woman sings or dances or plays music beautifully, she casts her feminine gauntlet down before the forces of decay, corruption, and fragmentation. Such beauty will not allow itself to be swallowed up by the horrors of war, the cruelties of disease, the machinations of governments, or the injustices of the marketplace. By offering up such beauty freely and without regard for what the world considers a practical end, women draw our attentions away from that which is ephemeral to that which is lasting. In fact, precisely by being impractical, feminine beauty shows itself to be as practical as the food we eat and the air we breathe."

"The Giver"

If people had order, cleanliness, no disease and no war, would that be enough?  All those things are good.  But the important something that is lacking in (movie) "The Giver" is liberty.

Today's Americans give lip service to personal liberty, but they haven't so far had to choose it above comfort and security - as many people all over the globe have had to do, as the American founders did.

"The Giver" brings up a good question: what if one group of people (the government) took away your right to make your own choices but at the same time equally gave you and everyone every physical comfort - would you be satisfied with that deal?  Some would.

What would justify some people (bureaucrats) making other people's choices?  Chief Elder played by Meryl Streep states it:  "When people have the freedom to choose, they choose wrong."  But she is people too, just as human . . so just as potentially wrong.  Her criticism of the people applies to her.  She may choose wrong.

Since I haven't read the book yet, I make no claim for that.  But I do recommend the movie.

Ugly art

Art used to aspire to the Profound and/or Inspiring and/or Beautiful.  The "art community" of museum heads, critics, and gallery owners now promote the standard of New/Different/Ugly.  Artistic standards have declined to the level of personal expression alone even if it is silly, pointless, or purely offensive.

Without aesthetic standards, we have no way to determine quality or inferiority.

"Why is modern art so bad?"  Artist Robert Florczak doesn't mince words as he explains what so many have noticed but often don't dare to voice.

Art should elevate.

Indifference?

"Genocide" is the intentional killing of a group of people, racial, ethnic, religious.  The intention of Nazi Germany to exterminate all Jews is one example.  But the world may be observing another one in Iraq where IS savagely targets religious minorities.

Remember the ultimatum IS gave to citizens of Mosul?  Become Muslim, pay us, or we kill you - those were the options.  Mosul was home to hundreds of thousands of Christians throughout the centuries since the Apostle Thomas started a church here.  Those who didn't care for the options have left everything and run for their lives.

Ronald Lauder, president of the World Jewish Congress, wants to know why we haven't seen outrage from the outspoken celebrities who speak out and demonstrate for other ethnicities. 

He says, "[T]he barbarous slaughter of thousands upon thousands of Christians is met with relative indifference."

Vicar's sorrow

Canon Andrew White, called Vicar of Baghdad, has stayed with "his people" through the historic bloodbath taking place in Iraq this summer.  Christians were threatened with death, and that's what some have received at the murderous hands of IS.

photo: openheaven.com

Representing the Anglicans at St. George Church of Baghdad, he does conflict mediation and gives humanitarian aid to refugees of every religion and minority.  His ministry has always been dangerous - but now they're living in fear and anguish.

He communicates through a blog and a facebook page, and he tells horrific stories of what they are going through.  See this BBC report on the crisis and an interview with Father  Andrew.

Good labor

During the Middle Ages (used to be incorrectly called Dark Ages) a new view of human work developed.  Though the Classics of ancient Rome and Greece considered work or labor to be the dirty duty of inferiors, the Bible demonstrates admiration and respect for human work.

Jesus tells this story of the "talents" (large sums of money in that day) in Matthew 25:   A wealthy man gave some employees 1-10 talents to invest.  The ones who used their talent to achieve something were praised.  The timid one who did nothing with his talent was scolded.

"The Parable of the Talents shows us we will be held accountable for what we do while we wait for the return of our King," says Hugh Whelchel.  "Thankfully, we are not held to some arbitrary standard.  What God expects from us is based on what he has given us."  Working and achieving are good things.

Think about what you are good at.  It probably gives you a great feeling to produce good results in your area of giftedness.  I think God is pleased with that.  He gave you the aptitude so you could work it, whatever it is.  All the rest of us are blessed that you do it well.

August break

This week my husband and I are taking some time off,  including a short break from writing.  I'll be back next week, so re-join me on Monday, September 1,  for America's "Labor Day" holiday.  Enjoy the rest of your summer :)

Buy nothing year

A couple of roommates, Geoffrey and Julie, decided to buy nothing for a whole year - just put money into savings.  They got a lot of attention for it, even became a "national news sensation."

What had to go?  Well, hair appointments.  Julie had been spending $1000/year on her hair, Geoffrey $150/month.  The other big thing was going out to restaurants and coffee shops.

Julie says, "I used to constantly want things — more, better, nicer and cheaper. I haven’t done that in a year, so my life is richer."

Geoff saved over $40k in his year, and he intends to keep on saving a lot of his paycheck.  "If I save enough, I can look at other career paths not focused on money because I have this huge buffer and I’ve learned how to live on a lot less, which is a skill that will serve me for the rest of my life."

Speak up

Michael Hyatt has built a life and business by speaking up about important things.  People value his messages - I say that with certainty because his blog has 421,000+ subscribers!

In "Why Wait for Permission?" he urges us to speak up at meetings:

"[N]ot speaking up, not acting, not leading cheats everyone in at least three ways:

1. It cheats your superiors. It’s a disappointment to the people who wanted you there to contribute. No one gets invited to suck up the room’s oxygen. 
2. It cheats the group. Important learning is on the line. If you speak up and your ideas are good, everyone benefits. If you speak up and you get corrected, there’s still a benefit for everyone. The truly humble are capable of serving the team regardless of the outcome.
3. It cheats you. Holding back might feel like a benefit to you, but it’s a cheap win: The only thing you buy is your comfort. No personal improvement. No esteem in the eyes of your colleagues. No contribution to the organization."

1st generation faith

(cont'd)

Author Rod Dreher (The Little Way of Ruthie Leming) as a teenager
rejected his parents' Christianity along with their small town point of view, but he chose genuine faith later - on his own, starting with an experience in the cathedral of Chartres, France.  

Chartres photo:  destination360.com

He sensed there that God was challenging his view of reality, the one overwhelming impression that stayed with him after that first trip to Europe.  It's not a common track to faith, but God doesn't shrink from using whatever you give Him to work with.   Rod eventually became Catholic.

So where does he stand today?  From his blog last week:  

"I pray that the choice is never put to me, but if I am ever forced to make that choice [between serving the state or God], I will always and everywhere choose God, without apology. I am a Christian first, and an American second."

It's been said that all Christians are first generation Christians (they didn't get faith in their genes).  Rod certainly is.

Small town, good life

(cont'd:  The Little Way of Ruthie Leming)

Author Rod Dreher contrasted his life with that of his sister Ruthie and saw, from the position of adulthood, things of value that he didn't notice as an awkward teenager.  Her friends, teaching colleagues, children she'd taught, all came to honor her life when she died.  News spread, and there was food, a cleaned house, her daughter's car fixed, all there when the family came home drained from the hospital.

He had to take note that Ruthie's family had a "deep bench" of meaningful connections.  In their big city life, his own family had friends but not deep roots.

That's where stories like this usually end.  Roots are better, the rebellious boy comes back home.  But it's not the end of this story.

Some of that discontentedness he felt as a boy was due to genuine failures among the hometown people, including Ruthie, and he doesn't flinch from telling that part of the story.

Hometown, USA

This week's re-posts tell the story of a teenager who fled from his hometown, his family, and his faith - only to gratefully come back as a professional adult.  Today's post was originally published August 27, 2013.

It sounded like a sentimental, mushy story line.  But Erik Metaxas strongly recommends the book.  That carries some weight for me, so I read The Little Way of Ruthie Leming and I'm glad I did.

Conflicted feelings abound because the author left his small Southern hometown young  - he rejected everything about it and couldn't wait to get away. He gladly left his family and the town, went to the Big City, and built a career.

His sister Ruthie loved the little hometown and its people, and they loved her.  She stayed and raised her own family close to them.   When cancer took her life at the age of 42, it drew her brother Rod (the author) back into the environment he abandoned and he saw goodness in the community that he'd never appreciated.  

He brought his family back to the small town.  He says:  "The familiar used to feel oppressive; now it feels comforting.

Market connecting

She wants to go home, that farmer from yesterday's post.  Why does she want to go back to her home village?  Because she invested time there building a life, making connections with other people in her village.

A market can help that happen.  Part of the appeal of farmers' markets is connecting with people in your community, getting to know them and what they have to offer.  Here's a story about one family who participates in their farmers' market.

mfma.org

Independence is so American, in the opinion of French aristocrat Alexis de Toqueville (in 1835 he published Democracy in America to explain us to France).  But he also observed Americans voluntarily organizing all sorts of joint efforts.

“Local freedom . . leads a great number of citizens to value the affection of their neighbors and of their kindred, perpetually brings men together . . "

Yup, Americans are independent but we love doing things together.  

Whether they want it or not

(cont'd)

Beyond the trillions of dollars that forced urbanization is going to cost, there's a human cost to tearing people from their homes and placing them where the government wants them to go.

“I have anxiety attacks because we have no income, no job, nothing,” said Feng Aiju, 40, a former farmer who moved to Huaming in 2008 against her will.  . “We never had a chance to speak; we were never asked anything. I want to go home.”

“Chinese culture has traditionally been rural-based,” says Feng Jicai, a well-known author and scholar. “Once the villages are gone, the culture is gone.”

"Over the past five years, at least 39 farmers have resorted to this drastic form of protest [suicide]. The figures, pieced together from Chinese news reports and human rights organizations, are a stark reminder of how China’s new wave of urbanization is at times a violent struggle between a powerful state and stubborn farmers."