Christian, Conservative and a Nudist.

Stuck in a stressful job with long hours and an unreasonable boss, James wished he could quit. But he had a mortgage, a wife, and a young child to take care of. He was tempted to resign anyway, but his wife reminded him: “Let’s hang on and see what God will give us.”

Many months later, their prayers were answered. James found a new job that he enjoyed and gave him more time with the family. “Those months were long,” he told me, “but I’m glad I waited for God’s plan to unfold in His time.”

Waiting for God’s help in the midst of trouble is hard; it can be tempting to try to find our own solution first. The Israelites did just that: under threat from their enemies, they sought help from Egypt instead of turning to God (Isaiah 30:2). But God told them that if they would repent and put their trust in Him, they would find strength and salvation (v. 15). In fact, He added, “the Lord longs to be gracious to you” (v. 18).

Waiting for God takes faith and patience. But when we see His answer at the end of it all, we’ll realize it was worth it: “Blessed are all who wait for him!” (v. 18). And what’s even more amazing, God is waiting for us to come to Him!

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Published: Feb 22, 2021

It Bears a Striking Resemblance to Cognitive Distortions

This post was originally going to be another one about dangers of techno-utopian thinking, which is supposed to be the subject matter of my next book . That one is going slowly for the time being, but I described it a bit in a previous piece on transhumanism-as-religion here.

It was originally inspired by Tristan Greene’s “Why developing AI to defeat us may be humanity’s only hope” because at first glance I thought that was going to be another “AI will fix everything” piece along the lines of Fully Automated Luxury Communism (which is TL,DR: a full blown Marxist version of The Singularity is Near)

But as I read it I found myself unable to even parse out the rationale behind what the author was proposing.  The suggestion was that because “[t]he rational end game for humanity is self-wrought extinction” we should intentionally create an existentially threatening AI and then turn it loose against ourselves, in order to unite humanity…

“with concentrated redirection, maybe our passion for adversity could become a strength for our species.

Maybe we need an AI adversary to be our “Huckleberry” when it comes to the urge for competition. If we can’t make most humans non-violent, then perhaps we could direct that violence toward a tangible, non-human opponent we can all feel good about defeating.”

The singular premise upon which he scaffolded his logic is that “the entire history of humanity is evidence against [world peace] ever happening. We are violent and competitive”

That had been “proved” citing a single study out of which he had plucked flawed statistic:

Since World War II, homicide rates have actually increased rather than decreased in a number of industrialized countries, most notably the United States.

The US homicide rate did increase after the end of WWII until it peaked in 1980, it has been coming down ever since and has dipped below the end of WWII rates at 4.5 per 100,000. In fact it may surprise many that the US is toward the lower end of the spectrum at 0.7% when it comes to the national homicide rate. But when you listen to some people talk about this, you would think it’s murder and mayhem everywhere, perhaps at the level of their southern neighbour Mexico, where the homicide rate is a staggering 6.07%

It was understanding these statistics that interjected some reality over Greene’s underlying premise that apparently justified his over-the-top idea. It was so devoid of intellectual rigour as to be a non-sequitur (not to mention that even if humanity accepted and went ahead with this idea, there’s no recognition of the possibility that it might not work and we end up being exterminated by an AI we invented to unite us.  Unintended consequences abound.)

What the piece did do was make me think of one of the cue cards I carry around with me in my pocket journal at all times.

By: Mark E. Jeftovic

Published: Feb 22, 2021

It Bears a Striking Resemblance to Cognitive Distortions

This post was originally going to be another one about dangers of techno-utopian thinking, which is supposed to be the subject matter of my next book . That one is going slowly for the time being, but I described it a bit in a previous piece on transhumanism-as-religion here.

It was originally inspired by Tristan Greene’s “Why developing AI to defeat us may be humanity’s only hope” because at first glance I thought that was going to be another “AI will fix everything” piece along the lines of Fully Automated Luxury Communism (which is TL,DR: a full blown Marxist version of The Singularity is Near)

But as I read it I found myself unable to even parse out the rationale behind what the author was proposing.  The suggestion was that because “[t]he rational end game for humanity is self-wrought extinction” we should intentionally create an existentially threatening AI and then turn it loose against ourselves, in order to unite humanity…

“with concentrated redirection, maybe our passion for adversity could become a strength for our species.

Maybe we need an AI adversary to be our “Huckleberry” when it comes to the urge for competition. If we can’t make most humans non-violent, then perhaps we could direct that violence toward a tangible, non-human opponent we can all feel good about defeating.”

The singular premise upon which he scaffolded his logic is that “the entire history of humanity is evidence against [world peace] ever happening. We are violent and competitive”

That had been “proved” citing a single study out of which he had plucked flawed statistic:

Since World War II, homicide rates have actually increased rather than decreased in a number of industrialized countries, most notably the United States.

The US homicide rate did increase after the end of WWII until it peaked in 1980, it has been coming down ever since and has dipped below the end of WWII rates at 4.5 per 100,000. In fact it may surprise many that the US is toward the lower end of the spectrum at 0.7% when it comes to the national homicide rate. But when you listen to some people talk about this, you would think it’s murder and mayhem everywhere, perhaps at the level of their southern neighbour Mexico, where the homicide rate is a staggering 6.07%

It was understanding these statistics that interjected some reality over Greene’s underlying premise that apparently justified his over-the-top idea. It was so devoid of intellectual rigour as to be a non-sequitur (not to mention that even if humanity accepted and went ahead with this idea, there’s no recognition of the possibility that it might not work and we end up being exterminated by an AI we invented to unite us.  Unintended consequences abound.)

What the piece did do was make me think of one of the cue cards I carry around with me in my pocket journal at all times.