This essay originated as a reply to David Boles in the comments section of Saugstad’s first guest article, “Postmodernism and Christianity.” It is published here as a standalone essay with the author’s permission.
Continue reading → Outline of an Approach to Christian Apologetics
In July 2009, Amazon reached into the Kindle devices of thousands of customers and deleted copies of George Orwell’s 1984 and Animal Farm. The company had discovered that the third-party publisher selling those editions lacked the rights to distribute them in the United States. Amazon issued refunds. Then it erased the books. A high school student in Michigan lost his annotated copy mid-assignment. A class-action lawsuit followed. Amazon’s CEO called the decision “stupid, thoughtless, and painfully out of line with our principles.” The company settled and promised not to do it again, unless a court ordered it, or unless the company determined it was necessary to protect consumers from malicious code, or unless the consumer failed to keep paying.
Continue reading → The Rental Life: What Happens When You Own Nothing and They Own You
There is something seductive about the promise of digital money. It arrives dressed in the language of progress, efficiency, inclusion, and modernization, as though the ability to hold a coin in your hand were a primitive embarrassment that civilization ought to outgrow. Cryptocurrency evangelists speak of decentralization and freedom from institutional control. Central bankers speak of reduced transaction costs and expanded access to financial services. What neither camp mentions with sufficient urgency is that the digitization of money is, at its operational core, the digitization of permission. And once your ability to buy bread requires permission, you no longer live in a free society. You live in an administered one.
When I returned to North Loup, Nebraska this summer to bury my mother, I realized I hadn’t been back to that beautiful village for 40 years! It seemed impossible that I’d been away from the braided prairie for two generations! I discovered the last time I visited North Loup was in 1984 when I published a photo memory. Today, 14,600 days later, I present a new photo memory of the North Loup that raised me, and that lifted all the hopes of my curious childhood in far away in Lincoln, Nebraska.
Continue reading → Return to the Braided Prairie: A 2024 North Loup Photo Memory
In the ever-evolving landscape of technology, Artificial Intelligence (AI) has emerged as a transformative force, shaping the way we live, work, and interact with the world around us. While AI’s influence permeates across all generations, its implications for different age groups present unique challenges and opportunities. To fully grasp the impact of AI, it’s essential to examine the distinct relationships that different generations forge with this revolutionary technology.
Continue reading → Wisdom in the Age of AI: A Tale of Two Generations
Clones are not coming, they’re already here — because, the Clone, is you! Yes, the call is coming from inside your head! I now have an AI Voice clone of my voice trained on over 30 hours of my Human Meme podcast. I trained my AI voice on my Human Meme podcast so the source material was clean, and well-edited – and because of that early care in podcast recording, and production, my new AI voice is shockingly, and incredibly real and, frankly, Uncannily Fantastic! Plus, there is probably a little tinge of terror tossed in there too — because now my voice can live on without me. Let’s hope it behaves! From this moment on, I have touched true immortality. Would you ever want it any other way?
When Joe Biden picked Merrick Garland — Obama’s previous transitory, Republican-appeasing, milquetoast nominee for the Supreme Court — as his Attorney General, the virtue signalling rang a false note of “gotcha revenge” to try to show Democrats that he, Big Joe Biden, was finishing the job Obama started while also attempting to poke Mitch McConnell in the glassy eye. Unfortunately for the United States, Merrick Garland as Attorney General, is turning out to be as popular as a turd in a fish bowl. Here’s why.
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