We Are Not Saved

Religion is often viewed as being completely different from technology, but in actuality religion is a technology, one of the oldest forms of it in fact. It's a particularly important form of technology one that we abandon at our peril.

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/the-ideas-of-nassim-nicholas-taleb-20d?sd=pf For many years this was the most listened to episode of my podcast. So it seemed logical to update it, but also it's one you might have already heard.

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/06/a-judgment-day-for-ais/ If AIs are going to act as independent agents then they should be praised for the virtues and judged for their sins just as we all are. And in fact this judgment is one of the few things that will ensure their morality.

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/the-politics-of-the-zombie-apocalypse-e4c Per Scott Alexander it's possible that the right optimizes for survival, while the left optimizes for thriving. If so would a society entirely optimized around thriving actually function?

Transcript: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/2023/06/morality-for-robots-and-ais/ AI risk has been in the news a lot lately. One way to reduce that risk is to make sure that AIs are moral. But what does morality even mean when you're talking about robots and AIs?

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/burning-man-dreamtime-and-dragons-8b8 Burning Man aspires to reinvent the culture of the Earth. I don't think it's going to, which is to say in 1,000 years I don't think that people will look back on this era as the Dawn of the Burners. But what will they think of us? That's the question we cover in this episode.

Artificial Intelligence has many attributes, which previously have been qualities we've only associated with the divine.  This is cross posted from my Patheos column which you can find here: https://www.patheos.com/blogs/dispatchesendofworld/

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/the-10-books-i-finished-in-may-and  I'm still figure out how to do anchor links. Also I really need to figure out how to write shorter reviews...

Religion and technology relate to each other in strange and subtle ways. Religion must, of necessity grapple with technology, but how to do that remains unclear. This is the first post of my new Patheos column. If you could subscribe that would be fantastic.  

Transcript: https://www.wearenotsaved.com/p/nukes-2023  A updating of one of my past posts. I actually changed a lot more than I thought would. Also since it's not appearing on Substack I went a little bit crazy with footnotes. Let me know what you think of how I handled them on audio.