Blogaround

Links not related to the antichrist:

1. Mark Zuckerberg Demos New Facebook AI And It Couldn’t Have Gone Worse (September 18, via) "You’ve already combined the base ingredients, so now grate a pear to add to the sauce."

And here's another one about AI: California issues historic fine over lawyer’s ChatGPT fabrications (September 22) "The fine appears to be the largest issued over AI fabrications by a California court and came with a blistering opinion stating that 21 of 23 quotes from cases cited in the attorney’s opening brief were made up."

2. Giving people money helped less than I thought it would (August 19) "Many of the studies are still ongoing, but, at this point, the results aren’t “uncertain.” They’re pretty consistent and very weird."

3. Your Review: Participation in Phase I Clinical Pharmaceutical Research (September 5) "This phrase, 'better safe than sorry,' overwhelmingly characterizes the protocols of research clinics at every level, except the level where they start to ask whether participants might become more likely to pass through their filters by lying than meeting all their criteria."

4. Groundbreaking Analysis Upends Our Understanding of Psychiatric Holds (July 23) "Why would an intervention intended to help end up doing harm? The researchers offer and investigate several plausible explanations. Involuntary hospitalization can be a deeply disruptive experience. Patients are often forcibly taken by police, held for days, and sometimes medicated without consent. Such experiences might isolate individuals from their support networks, including family and existing mental health providers. Furthermore, hospitalizations can disrupt employment and increase homelessness, causing a spiral of instability that exacerbates rather than alleviates mental distress."

5. Did Amazon trick people into paying for Prime? Federal case goes to trial (September 23) "One example regulators offered showed a large yellow button 'Get FREE Two-Day Shipping' as a swift way to sign up without much detail about recurring membership costs, while a small blue hyperlink 'No thanks, I do not want fast, free shipping' would avoid signing up for Prime."

Yeah, that aspect of the Amazon checkout process is one of the best examples of a company being dishonest and trying to trick you into signing up for something. You literally have to click "I do not want fast, free shipping" to get past that page.

And an update on that: Amazon to pay $2.5 billion to settle U.S. lawsuit that it 'tricked' people into Prime (September 25)

6. Beastly Christianity (September 24) "It was a powerful, compelling argument and it prevailed in the World Alliance of Reformed Churches. This was theology from “the global south” contributing to and reforming the dominant theology from Europe and America. It changed the way white Reformed Christians around the world understood a key passage from the book of Romans, an epistle that is one of the most-studied texts in all of the Bible for Reformed Christians."

7. China’s ‘Worst Handwriting Group in History’ Rewrites Grief (September 25) "The turning point came in October, when one user shared her father’s nearly illegible scrawl from an ICU bed."

Oh man, I am so bad at reading Chinese handwriting. Yes, I can read Chinese- by which I mean, on a computer screen. In a book. On a sign. Printed on a label. You know, Chinese in a standard font. But people's handwriting, that's totally different. You see, each Chinese character, if written correctly, has certain strokes that go in certain places- but when people are writing by hand, they often collapse a bunch of strokes into some kind of scribble, in order to write faster. I very much do not have the skill of figuring out what strokes a scribble was originally supposed to be.

8. On Thought Experiments (September 24) "Everywhere I go people are proposing thought experiments that involve people-seeds landing on the carpet or filling the observable universe with tightly packed shrimps or something wacky about pills and then getting very angry at each other about the results."

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Links related to the antichrist:

1. Jimmy Kimmel's show is returning to ABC on Tuesday, but not all stations will air it (September 23, via) 

Jimmy Kimmel is Back! (September 24) 

"Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can't take a joke."

2. 3 thoughts from an autism researcher on Trump's acetaminophen and vaccine claims (September 23) That felon is out here saying that pregnant people shouldn't take Tylenol, or their baby will end up autistic. (And no, this is very much NOT what the scientific evidence says.)

This annoys me so much, because even though it's not true, it's going to get added to "the pregnancy rules." Yeah, when you're pregnant, random people feel entitled to judge you for what you're eating/doing/etc, and tell you that you are harming your baby. And there are SO MANY pregnancy rules. Don't eat deli meat. Don't eat pre-cut fruit. Don't eat sushi. Don't eat fish that are high in mercury. Everyone is so paranoid- including the pregnant people themselves- and there's this huge burden placed on pregnant people, all these things you're not allowed to do. And you have to follow these rules because you'd do anything for your baby, right? You wouldn't want to be selfish and put your baby at risk, right?

(I wrote about "the pregnancy rules" here: "Expecting Better": Asking the Right Questions About Pregnancy)

Any kind of medicine at all, pregnant people are already paranoid about taking it, and feel like they should just tough it out and take no medicine because it might put their baby at risk. Any kind of medicine, regardless of what evidence there is about its safety. This is not logical- there's also a risk to the unborn baby if the pregnant person has an actual medical problem and it goes untreated. Why isn't anybody talking about that? Anyway, now Tylenol is gonna be one of those things that brings random busybodies into pregnant people's lives. One of those things which feels so emotionally high-stakes when you're pregnant because "how could you put your baby at risk????" but the evidence doesn't say that at all.

And another link: Trump admin 'seems to care very little about autistic people,' says advocate (September 24) "But it also just continues to ratchet up the stigma. They talk about autistic people, like our existence is some sort of plague."

3. Georgia senators demand answers on more than a dozen deaths in immigration detention (September 23)

4. Trans Patients File Groundbreaking Legal Complaint Against UPMC For Capitulation To Trump (September 24) "Now, plaintiffs are seeking reimbursement for medical expenses associated with the termination of care, emotional distress, and attorneys’ fees and costs; urging the Human Relations Commission to investigate UPMC for discriminatory practices; and pursuing immediate injunctive relief, so that all trans people and families devastated by the care stoppage can once again access evidence-based, life-saving treatment for gender dysphoria."

5. Deadly shooting at Dallas ICE detention facility may have been politically motivated (September 24)

Despite fear, migrants show up for ICE appointments in Dallas and are turned away (September 25) "Marcos, who asked to use his first name because he has a pending immigration case, says he is worried that ICE will not excuse his missed appointment, even though the building is closed and still an active crime scene."

6. A statue of Trump and Epstein holding hands in D.C. is removed as fast as it appeared (September 24) You guys have to see this statue, it's amazing.

4 Biblical Definitions We Need to Defend in the Culture Wars

Red dragon with seven heads. Image source.

Longtime readers may know that I find it endlessly entertaining the way people talk about "the biblical definition of marriage" as if such a thing exists. (Like, do they realize the bible is not a dictionary?) On that note, I'd like to call your attention to these other biblical definitions that Christians really need to defend in the face of an increasingly secular culture.

1. Dragons

Revelation 12:3 gives us the biblical definition of dragons: "an enormous red dragon with seven heads and ten horns and seven crowns on its heads." However, when I did a google image search for "dragon", not a single result matched this description. (I was able to get biblically-accurate dragons by searching "dragon revelation" though.) In our current society, most people are ignorant about what the bible says about dragons, and the images we see in popular movies only serve to reinforce this ignorance.

Bible-believing Christians need to boycott all movies, books, and other forms of media which include depictions of dragons that directly contradict the bible's clear teaching.

2. Racing

In 1 Corinthians 9:24, we find the biblical definiton of racing: "Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one gets the prize?" However, in our godless society, the bible's clear teaching on racing has been all but abandoned. It is incredibly rare to find a race where only one runner is awarded a prize. In the Olympics, for example, medals are awarded to the first, second, and third fastest participants- a blatant attack on the authority of Scripture.

Furthermore, even though the bible only speaks of races with runners, our culture has perverted the idea of racing so much that now there are so-called "races" which involve other types of transportation. We have lost sight of the biblical definition of racing and now have races for cars, bikes, horses, swimmers- where does this slippery slope end? If we don't take a stand for the biblical definition of racing, our culture will surely descend into moral chaos.

3. Doctors

Matthew 9:12 is perfectly clear: "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick." Yet many modern Christians have abandoned the authority of Scripture, and they go for annual check-ups even though they are not sick. They claim that preventative care is a new concept that Jesus didn't say anything about. Nothing could be further from the truth. Here in Matthew 9:12, we read Jesus' own words- the biblical definition of doctors.

Furthermore, there are many Christians who cite the health benefits of annual check-ups in order to justify their sin. They talk about serious health problems that are much easier to treat if detected early. They elevate their own experience and human emotions above God's word. God is the one who created our bodies. God knows what's best for us. The bible is clear: Only sick people should be making doctor's appointments.

4. Dishwashing

Jesus' teaching in Matthew 23:25-26 is very clear: "Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You clean the outside of the cup and dish, but inside they are full of greed and self-indulgence. Blind Pharisee! First clean the inside of the cup and dish, and then the outside also will be clean." But our secular culture has all but abandoned this principle. Instead of trusting Jesus' word when he said it is only necessary to wash the inside of a dish, people use soap and water to wash BOTH the inside AND outside. This behavior is widely practiced even by those who claim to be Christians!

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As our culture becomes more and more immoral and loses sight of God's word, we need to be the ones to take a stand. Our future is at stake. Our children's future is at stake.

Blogaround

Ash Wednesday church bulletin which says, "Remember that you are butt dust and into dust you shall return." Image source.

1. Privilege and Pandering (posted March 1) "The Doctor regenerates. The Doctor can look like anyone. And yet, repeatedly, we get a slender British white guy whose only real variations are height and age (even his style is broadly similar from incarnation to incarnation)."

2. #AroAceJugheadOrBust: An Ace/Aro Jughead in Riverdale (posted March 1) "Asexual and aromantic erasure is the norm, not the exception. ... Most asexual and aromantic people don’t even know that there are words for how they identify and often consider themselves – and are still often considered by others – “broken” despite nothing being wrong with them."

3. The Pearly Gates are never, ever closed (posted February 27) "First off, there’s not just the one gate with St. Peter sitting there at a receptionist’s desk. There are 12 gates."

4. Jeff Sessions Gump Cold Open - SNL (posted March 5)

5. No More Task Force Rogue Ones: A Tactical Analysis of the Raid on Scarif (posted February 27) [spoilers for Rogue One] "As it was, Task Force Rogue One met only five out of the ten performance measures that the U.S. Army uses to evaluate a successful raid."

6. What You Should Know If You Laughed at This Viral Photo of Me (posted February 15) "The reason I am sharing this is because people think it is funny to laugh at people with disabilities."

7. The Gaze of Dead Children Follows Me Today. (posted March 4) [content note: child death, child abuse] "The idea that nobody owns anybody is a completely foreign one to them. It’s not something they can relate to. They think it’s a liberal lie spawned by Satan to trick people."

8. Building Reality on Ancient Cosmology (posted March 7) "Rather than accept that the Ancient Israelites had a different cosmology than we do today, one that is not in line with a verifiable scientific understanding of the world, many young earth creationists have taken this ancient cosmology and built it into their understanding of the world. The result is a strange mish-mash of modern science (the earth and the other planets revolve around the sun) and ancient cosmology (there was a canopy of water around the earth which fell to the earth during the flood)."

9. Teach girls bravery, not perfection (February 2016)

10. Voting for Trump with Jesus in the Room (posted March 8) "Could you tear apart immigrant families with Jesus in the room?"