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How the two parties should now each move forward

I generally do not like politics. Although I don't consider myself uninformed, I am not a partisan. I take pride in being independent and convincible, and have in fact voted for Republican, Democratic, and neither candidates in recent election cycles. In other words, I am the quintessential swing voter. If either of the two parties […]

Lies, damned lies, and deeper levels of this hellish pit

I don't like politics. I've said before that if I ever get involved in it it'll mean that things have gone seriously wrong. Well, things are pretty bad now in the United States, and one of our problems is the rampant lying in our politics. There are, of course, other problems, but this is one […]

The unstated job requirements of being a data scientist

This is the Triforce. In the Legend of Zelda franchise, these three triangular artifacts represent the virtues of courage, wisdom, and power. They are the ultimate force in their in-game universe, as they represent the essence of the creator goddesses and can grant any wish to those who wield it. This is the threefold office: […]

Impressions from my trip to Ukraine during the war

(All the pictures in this post can be seen at their full resolution here, and my post about the whole trip in a larger context, including Norway and Moldova, can be found here.) So, how did I end up going to Ukraine during the war? I assure you this was initially not my own idea, […]

What do we want? Reflections on AI and morality

Essentially, these AIs solve all kinds of "how" problems for us. We now know how to play a good game of chess or go, how to reply to any text prompt, and how to create an image from just a text description. This leaves us with the "what" problem. What do we want? What do we value? This is a hard question. Can an AI answer it for us? No, I don't think so. At least not any of the AIs as we have them today. Remember, the fundamental function of all the AIs we've discussed is to take in data, and give us what we said we wanted. So it seems that there's some kind of bootstrapping step missing, in that we have to give the AI "what we want" as an input, but expect "what we REALLY want" as an output.

The justice of the reprobates' eternal punishment in hell

Hell does not necessarily impose an infinite punishment, and the sins of the reprobate are not necessarily finite. Biblical Christianity is perfectly flexible on both of these points. Either one of them, in isolation, is enough to fully answer the objection of "infinitely disproportionate punishment", and we have both. So we can say with confidence that the reprobate in hell will get exactly what they deserve - the exact right level of punishment commensurate with their sins.

A moral evaluation of abortion

Roe v. Wade was recently overturned. I think this is an opportune time to organize and express my thoughts on abortion. This is my honest attempt to understand the issue. I chose to tackle a controversial topic, take an unpopular position, then moderate it with nuance. I have no illusions about any benefits or harms I may acquire as a result. My only defense is that this is what I really think, after a genuine attempt to get as close as I can to the truth.

Love your enemies

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that. Hate multiplies hate, violence multiplies violence, and toughness multiplies toughness in a descending spiral of destruction. So when Jesus says "Love your enemies," he is setting forth a profound and ultimately inescapable admonition. Have we not come to such an impasse in the modern world that we must love our enemies - or else? The chain reaction of evil - hate begetting hate, wars producing more wars - must be broken or we shall be plunged in to the dark abyss of annihilation.

On becoming a good person

I don't care much about the recent terrorist attacks in Paris. I mean, it's hard to care, given some perspective. It happened half a world away. The death count at the moment stands at 136, according to Wikipedia. That's nothing. The world's mortality rate is about 0.8% per year - or about 100 persons per […]

The lifetime of evil (part 2)

In the last post, I introduced the idea that an act - an evil act in particular - has a characteristic time-scale over which its consequences become clear. This time-scale can be determined from the mechanics of the act in question. I was initially inclined to call this the "half-life of evil", but that phrasing […]
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