Opus 2025-300: The Pacemaker Plot

In recent discussion about the invasive nature of technology into our lives, we talked about how the government is able to invade our computers, phones, TVs and other technology and listen to us when we don’t think they have a right to butt in.

There was discussion about what we can do about it.  How can we keep this from happening?  How can we turn off my phone?  Is it enough to turn it off or must we remove the battery?  And ultimately we came down to the special sleeves that theoretically block the radio waves and such.  All of the discussion is lost on me.

I’m afraid I have to laugh and point to my chest and simply say, “Pacemaker”.  My pacemaker radiates a connection to a unit in my home so that it is constantly being monitored when I am in range.  Anyone with a brain would realize that means no matter where I go the government can trace me.  I am a walking GPS for them.  I don’t know if it has a microphone but I would not be surprised.

Now do conspiracy theories.  It seems like just about everybody you run into now has a pacemaker or some kind of built-in technology.  It could be an obvious broadcasting unit or it could be something else like an artificial knee.  Do people really need all these things or are they being pushed in such away that more people fall under the observation that the government.

It’s too late for me to do anything about it.  You might want to think about you.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-299: Trump or Follow Suit

You should be familiar with a statement of Jesus found in the Sermon on the Mount.

Matthew 6:33 (KJV) But seek ye first the kingdom of God, and his righteousness; and all these things shall be added unto you.

This is one of the key commands of Jesus.  How does that compare or contrast with one of Paul’s key statements,

Ephesians 2:8 (KJV) For by grace are ye saved through faith; and that not of yourselves: it is the gift of God:

Is Paul trumping Jesus?  I don’t know if you play cards, but in many card games, there is either one card that will take anything or one suit which will overpower all others.  Under certain circumstances, if hearts was played first, if you don’t have hearts, you can play a spade, which if it’s trump will defeat a higher card of hearts.  Is this what Paul does?  Or is he just taking the lead of Jesus and explaining it in greater detail?

One thing that we need to understand about this is that Jesus was speaking to a Jewish audience.  He was assuming that they were a part of the nation of Israel.  And that since they did not need to enter into the covenant, they should’ve already been there.  Leave aside the individual aspect of salvation that we emphasize and just look at this command.

This is a statement of obedience and action.  It is a statement of priorities.  It is a statement made to explain the responsibilities of being a part of the kingdom of God.  Paul’s statement on the other hand was about how you were to enter the kingdom.  Neither one rules the other out.  Both are scripture.  They give the two sides of the salvation coin which would be counterfeit if it only had one.

So believe and seek.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-298: Pest Control

The weather is warming up and that tends to mean the bugs get to be more of a nuisance.  In the dark of the morning when it gets above 75 or so mosquitoes tend to come out.  This afternoon I was sitting on the front porch.  It was around 90, and the flies were starting to make my acquaintance.  There must be something we can do about this.  There must be something besides chemicals and pesticides.

One thought I had was drawn from the world of nature.  I think we’ve all seen pictures of alligators with birds picking their teeth and other animals, which would normally feed on these birds, sitting there calmly, while the birds rid them of pests.  Why could we not train birds to sit beside us and nail the mosquitoes as they came around?  It seems doable.  If you can train a dog to bring in the paper, why can’t you train a bird to eat what it normally eats only doing so at your convenience.

Or perhaps there might be some useful application of AI.  What about having tiny little drones or robots, armed with low wattage lasers that would circle around us and zap anything that came close?  It certainly seems possible, and if AI is a smart as they say it is, it could do the job.  Of course that highlights the problem we would run into if the AI drones went rogue and decided that we were a pest to be eliminated.  I understand it already happened when a group tried to turn off a robot and it didn’t want to be turned off.  The Clickbait has it attacked the people trying to turn it off.  I’m sure there’s more to it than that but it makes for a good story.  If you add to that the fact that the green movement feels that human beings are a disease that infests the world and needs to be removed then perhaps the Sierra Club and whoever’s ahead in the AI race could get together and start dealing with the superfluous population under the guise of pest control.  They might recruit Gaia also.

If you believe in evolution, then you might also believe that the mosquitoes would find a way to attack the robots. Maybe that’s a fantasy too far.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-297: AI Dawn

This morning God blessed us with what I’m calling an AI Dawn.  It’s presented in pastel water colors.  The way in which the Grays slide into the pink and are highlighted by the surprise of blue is not natural.  At least it doesn’t look natural to my untrained eye and that is the mark of AI.

One way in which you know a production is AI is because there’s just something that doesn’t make sense.  There is a clash in our sensibilities.  I think this is probably one of the ways in which the programmers of AI have fallen into the trap of trying to be like God.  If you look deep enough, God’s creation makes sense, after all, it’s rooted in wisdom.  At the same time that sense is not obvious.

With God it makes sense because it is fulfilling.  It brings a satisfaction that we weren’t expecting.  With AI it brings a clash and a dissonance that is unsettling.  I’ll settle for God’s version.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-296: Michael and Zuby

I just finished listening to a podcast from about a year ago, where a man named Zuby interviewed Michael Shellenberger.  It was interesting and full of surprises.  It also contains some clarification.

I’ve never listened to one of the Zuby’s podcasts before.  I was very impressed with him.  He asked intelligent questions, questions that were not easy to answer, and had the potential of embarrassing his guest.  He still asked them.

With Shellenberger I have very mixed emotions.  I have listened to him before.  I think I read one of his books.  At times he seems to be just a left wing clone.  At other times he seemed to actually have his brain turned on.  It was interesting that Zuby noticed this, and at one point when Shellenberger had listed a bunch of positions that had drawn him to the left, Zuby pointed out they were actually positions of the right.  Shallenberger gave a somewhat embarrassed laughed and acknowledged the point.  All I could do a scratch my head.  Knowing he was being deceptive did not keep him from being deceptive.  For instance, he said that one of the things that drew him up to the left was their encouragement of free speech and rejection of censorship.  I know, I hear you screaming.  When it was pointed out that that is a position of the conservatives today he gave some mumbo-jumbo about how that used to be different.  Now I am older than he is and I don’t remember a time when it was different.  Since I was not raised in a liberal family maybe I was not paying attention.

It became clear that he lived in a mysterious La La Land that time had forgotten.  I came to the conclusion that Shellenberger was a liberal at heart but a conservative in the thinking part of his brain.  It left me, wondering whether reading his books would be worthwhile.  If he is so confused, how can I accept his logic or his principles.

It’s a good thing the world doesn’t depend on me and my ideas of right and wrong.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-295: Who Knows?

Did Abraham know that faith was counted as righteousness for himself?  I’m not sure that he ever was concerned about the theology involved in his conversations and obedience with God.  Unlike Moses and Jeremiah we do not see him arguing with God.  We see him packing up and going.

Faith in action or you might say faith was action.

I would suggest as a train of thought to investigate if perhaps faith is not really a conscious choice as much as it is a simple application of obedience.  When Peter stepped out of the boat we see no indication that he spent a lot of time debating the move.  He went.  He walked on water.  He only ran into trouble when he began to analyze what he was doing.  Did Paul realize his letters would be preserved as holy scripture or was he simply obeying the Spirit?  Have you ever wondered it Moses got wet when he struck that first rock?  Imagine the amount of water that would need to come out to supply a million people and their animals.  Did Moses swing from the side or stand right in front of the rock and go overhand?  God put him right in front.  Simple obedience.  No debate.

Did Moses discuss the nature of God with Yahweh?  I think he was too overcome with wonder and awe to even contemplate such a thing.  It’s possible that if we are in the presence of God, with the details of his character we get lost in the glory.

And yet we want to investigate every point of theology.  We don’t want to disconnect our reason and seeking truth but it might be a good habit to start out allowing our spiritual reflexes to get us started on a moment by moment basis.  Who knows, maybe someday something you do our say will be quoted as a great expression of truth.

homo unius libri

Opus 2025-294: Truth and Mirrors

I am noticing something in the thinking of people in the secular world.  The thought process applies whether it is in science, business, government, theology, anything.

It first jumped out at me when I was watching Joe Rogan interview Elon Musk, #2281.  It was a good interview but Rogan would not accept statements of Musk and kept pushing for a sudden breakthrough that would fit with his world view.  Instead of following the evidence he kept bringing up the “what if” of doubt.  He would say, “But I want to believe”, and so he just kept pushing.

I noticed it again watching Peter Robinson interview three men on Uncommon Knowledge about the progress science was making in looking for answers in the universe.

It was an interesting discussion.  Early on you realized that Robinson had assembled a panel that did not agree on things.  That often can lead to a more interesting exchange.

What struck me was the perspective of the odd-man-out.  At first I thought it was simply because he was a bit skeptical of the implications of the fine tuning of the universe.  It implies that there is a fine tuner.  He would not even approach that.  Eventually it became clear that he was a practicing Jew of the non-believing type.  He was a cultural Jew who was too sophisticated to actually believe the religious stuff.  Because of that I include him in the “secular” group I mentioned above.

His thinking followed the same pattern of Joe Rogan.  He kept asking, “What if?”  That is a good question to ask in science and needs to be followed up by the next steps of the scientific method:  Develop an hypothesis and test it.  Unfortunately he did not go there.  One reason he did not go there was because his “what if” was based on a refusal to recognize facts.  It was similar to the “Why?” of you five year old in the back seat of the car.

We are facing a culture that has its mind made up.  Science, sociology, psychology and even theology are not longer looking for truth.  They are looking for affirmation.  They want the approval of the universe.  If they can’t get that then they are quite content to achieve the approval of the mirror.

Don’t fall for it.  Don’t be afraid of the big questions.  Don’t be afraid of the big answers.  Remember that the science is never settled and in a sense we can also develop deeper understanding of the fundamental truths found in the Bible.

homo unius libri