Suzanne_Smith

Everyone who has read C.S. Lewis, knows about Aslan the lion. But he was concerned with the existence of a second lion, too. That lion was science, as I show in "The Two Lions: Political Theology and Science in C. S. Lewis." See below.

20-year-old acquaintance: At graduation they were booing some AI guy and I can't say that I'm surprised. Me: What do you see as the best way forward, given that AI is already integrated into the research process? 20-year-old acquaintance: Regulation for sure Me: Do you see any potential downside with that? Who will regulate the regulators? Him: Yeah, there is that.

“There are no solutions, only tradeoffs.”—Thomas Sowell. Relevant to any Current Thing discussions?

@Andrewnsnyder Me too.

I live in a nearly constant state of hiraeth.

@KlassicalKat_88 Particularly if they live on Glebe Road

people just shouldn’t be named gleb i’ve decided

@david_shane That is one sociable kitten!

Afternoon.

@JoshDaws The 90s stores felt like they were participating in the park aesthetic. Disney should buy up a movie chain and create new retail, dining, and viewing experiences.

I worked on the ShopDisney website and got to attend and give feedback on the mock redesign location in a warehouse in Glendale with the stated goal of looking more like an Apple Store. It was one of the most baffling decisions I ever witnessed at Disney. Disney stores should give you a little taste of the parks with excellent theming that makes you want to book your next trip.

@DemocritusSr Yes. It invites learning by heart.

@SuzanneSmith126 It seems a perfect poem to me, and being also (obviously) a prayer (and from a saint now!), makes it a good candidate for learning by heart.

St John Henry Newman, “The Pillar of the Cloud” #poetry “The night is dark, and I am far from home”

1) Admit that they have messed up badly, and alienated almost everyone, and commit to stop embarrassing themselves 2) Buy movie theaters and turn them into mini-park-like environments/stores 3) Invest in making non-woke movies of lesser known fairy tales from various traditions and classic novels 4) Invest in new writers 5) Fund research into the history of the animation and the parks and the Disney civic aesthetic and try to recover some sense of their own identity apart from craven acceptance-mongering.

If I were CEO of The Walt Disney Company, the top five things I’d do day one: 1. Bring back the Disney Look standards for cast members in the park. 2. Hire Lord & Miller to make the Timothy Zahn Thrawn trilogy. 3. Bring back heavily themed Disney Stores as a local taste of the parks in your home town. 4. Full back catalog on Disney+ including Song of the South 5. Give Spaceship Earth a proper ending without the touch screens. What about you?

@bradleybirzer The idea of receiving truth (or images pointing toward it) through dreams crops up repeatedly in his oeuvre.

God "sent the human race what I call good dreams: I mean those queer stories scattered all through the heathen religions about a god who dies and comes to life again and, by his death, has somehow given new life to men. "--C.S. Lewis, 1952

@TolkienWonder All I can think is that they didn't print enough of the third volume. I own the first two but sadly will never own the third at that price.

@SuzanneSmith126 Yikes! I'm confused why it's so high in price and so rare to find but the first two volumes are vastly cheaper.

Just snagged the first two volumes for $35 on ebay. Now I am on the hunt for the third volume...

@tolkienthoughts Good for you for having the patience to put up with them. They are generally heavily policed waste-lands. It's not worth messing with them, unless you absolutely must. My advice is to start a new journal.

@SuzanneSmith126 Yes. There have a few weird rejections lately. I just have rework and resubmit elsewhere

Reviewers: your article is too basic. You’re just summarizing text and highlighting details Me: oh so you were already aware of my conclusion based on those details? Reviewers: no your conclusion is groundbreaking, but we can’t publish you based only on the conclusion Me: 😑

Making sure that AI is truth seeking is the greatest protection against its potential weaponization. In 1984, even Party officials, despite belonging to a regime that depends upon deception, defer, at points, to truth. For example, O'Brien ostensibly is telling the truth when he admits (or brags) to Winston that: "the Party seeks power entirely for its own sake. We are not interested in the good of others; we are interested solely in power. Not wealth or luxury or long life or happiness: only power, pure power. ... We know that no one ever seizes power with the intention of relinquishing it. Power is not a means; it is an end. One does not establish a dictatorship in order to safeguard a revolution; one makes the revolution in order to establish the dictatorship. The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" But it would seem that perhaps O'Brien does not fully understand himself. If power for the sake of power is truly the motive of the Party, then how would it augment the power of one of its members to confide in a victim of torture? If it would not, in fact, make any difference one way or the other, it would seem that his motive is in truth-telling, not power. An AI programmed to seek the truth is arguably a better guardian of dignity than self-interested regulators who may themselves be seeking to cement their own power, and against whom there would be no recourse.

The Pope rightly warns that AI must serve human dignity, not become a tool of domination or exclusion. But if we hand governments sweeping power over AI development in the name of safety, how do we prevent it from being used to censor, surveil, and control citizens — as Orwell foretold in 1984? This is the real alignment problem. “Quis custodiet ipsos custodes.” Who will guard the guardians? “Power tends to corrupt, and absolute power corrupts absolutely.” The oldest questions of human nature and authority don’t disappear in the AI age. They become newly relevant.

He was trying to eliminate the basis for any potential war of religion in the future in the context of the 1797 Treaty of Tripoli: "As the government of the United States of America is not in any sense founded on the Christian Religion,—as it has in itself no character of enmity against the laws, religion or tranquility of Musselmen,—and as the said States never have entered into any war or act of hostility against any Mehomitan nation, it is declared by the parties that no pretext arising from religious opinions shall ever produce an interruption of the harmony existing between the two countries."

@CodyLibolt Did he mean the Christian church? Or did me mean Christian values?

We agree with the vision of John Adams, who wrote, and had Congress sign, the following: “The Government of the United States of America is not, in any sense, founded on the Christian religion.” ~From “Redeeming the West”

@pmarca anarcho-tyranny

How bad is it? Until just last year, in California, “proving theft from a vehicle required proving that all the doors were locked”. luecklaw.com/california-clo…

@david_shane When I see a book turned around like that, I always turn it back around.

Wonder sometimes who turns books around at the bookstore (so you can't read the cover). Today, both Reza Aslan's "Zealot" and Metaxas' biography of Luther were turned around.

@Fitzthewriter I have.

Who’s spent time with this one?

@plainrunner2 Hope that your break is a fruitful one.

Hey, friends. Wanted to let you know I will be taking a break from X this summer. I was hesitant to post this, because I've tried this sort of thing before and it has not stuck, however I really need to focus in on some things this season, both personally and creatively. For those of you whom I have backchannel conversations with, I will still be checking DMs, along with the normal communication lines. I want to say thank you again to everyone who has supported "Travel By Star." Your comments, reviews, and encouragements have truly helped me keep at this storytelling venture, and I'm excited about where things are headed. The second book is well underway, along with some pretty cool projects in the wings, which I hope to be able to share news on when I get back. Also, you may see me drop back in occasionally with a review. A number of books authored by my excellent mutuals have been staring at me from the TBR stack, and I will be trying to get through them in these next few months. I hope whatever plans you have for this summer include warm days with friends and family, making art, singing out loud, deep in a good book, or perhaps deeper in the woods of some other wonder. May the Lord bless you through whatever good or seemingly not so good that finds you; may all these moments reveal themselves as kindnesses we didn't know we needed. Blessings to you all.

@tolkienthoughts My pleasure--thank you for alerting us to it. Such a delight.

@SuzanneSmith126 Thanks so much for reading!

My new blog post (link in reply) explores Tolkien’s poetic imagination, and its connection to the Legendarium and to classical myths.