Category Archives: Advocacy

Jesus scrolled

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Mariner’s local church is having difficulty sustaining its congregation. This is a common phenomenon across the nation. But the inevitable has happened – Jesus, meet Chatbot. Mariner cries in his heart as the true faith fades from practice: Use God’s love to spread Grace throughout the world.

An unnamed church was meeting to decide how to disperse leftover money upon closing. It was suggested to give it to charity. The response was “absolutely not!”

See you somewhere in the universe, Jesus, but not on this planet.

Here is an excerpt from the Axios article:

1 big thing: Chatbot Jesus saves souls and time
By Russell Contreras and Isaac Avilucea
Photo illustration of Jesus holding a cell phone in the painting
Photo illustration: Lindsey Bailey/Axios. Photo: Wikimedia Commons
A new digital awakening is unfolding in churches, where pastors are turning to AI to reach worshipers, personalize sermons, and power chatbots that resemble God.

Why it matters: AI is helping some churches stay relevant in the face of shrinking staff, empty pews and growing online audiences. But the practice raises new questions about who, or what, is guiding the flock.

  • New AI-powered apps allow you to “text with Jesus” or “talk to the Bible,” giving the impression you are communicating with a deity or angel.
  • Other apps can create personalized prayers, let you confess your sins or offer religious advice on life’s decisions.
  • “What could go wrong?” Robert P. Jones, CEO of the nonpartisan Public Religion Research Institute, sarcastically asked.

State of play: The U.S. could see an unprecedented 15,000 churches shut their doors this year as a record number of Americans (29%) now are identifying as religiously unaffiliated.

  • Megachurches are consolidating the remaining faithful, but even the most charismatic pastors struggle to offer private counseling with such large congregations.

Zoom in: In recent months, churches have been deploying chatbots to answer frequently asked questions such as service times and event details, and even to share scripture.

For the full report, see:

https://www.axios.com/newsletters/axios-ai-plus-d22a8098-9105-4548-8975-1aeb376eb9f0.html?utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=newsletter_axioslogin&stream=top

Alexa, write a bedtime prayer for me for tonight.

Amen.

Ancient Mariner

A gift from Politico

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What an outstanding interview with Julia Angwin. Julia Angwin is a veteran investigative reporter and publisher known for groundbreaking, data-driven stories on the power of technology over our lives. She founded The Markup in 2018, and was recently appointed as the inaugural director of the Harvard Shorenstein Center’s initiative on independent media.

Mariner has edited the interview.
• • • •

What’s one underrated big idea?

The industry we call tech has transformed into media. Their political power comes largely from their role as information gatekeepers. They are the distributors of all content — entertainment, journalism, criticism — and we should start thinking of them in that light, rather than as some kind of technical wizards with magical powers.

This is probably everybody’s answer — but AI. Last year I wrote that the big question was whether AI was too stupid and unreliable to be useful. But I would add that the benefits of AI are even more questionable now that we know it’s stealing all our water and electricity.

What could the government be doing regarding technology that it isn’t?

The top of my list would be for Congress to pass comprehensive privacy legislation and amend the Federal Privacy Act to make it a meaningful bulwark against the DOGE data thefts that occurred with impunity this year.

What book most shaped your conception of the future?

David Brin’s “The Transparent Society: Will Technology Force us to Choose Between Privacy and Freedom?” was so prescient. Published in 1999, Brin foretold the exact dilemma posed by the prevalence of powerful cameras available to everyone. If we restrict the cameras to government control, he argued, we will live in a police state. If we allow everyone to have cameras, we will at least be able to counter-surveil the government and maintain an equilibrium of power.

For everyone wringing their hands about banning kids from using smartphones, I suggest reading this book and imagining what our lives would be like right now if we didn’t have the ability to film federal agents as they unleash weapons on our unarmed neighbors who have committed no crimes.

What has surprised you the most this year?

I honestly didn’t think AI was going to cause people to commit suicide. I did not understand the level to which it was creating psychosis. Kashmir Hill’s reporting on this has been so horrifying. I’ve been writing articles about tech and covering this industry for many decades, and I often have had the problem of: I’m writing about something bad, but no one’s dying, and so it’s hard to get the public to care. In this case, people are dying directly. It’s the first time that I’ve really seen a technology cause such immediate harm and it’s really, really terrifying. It should be keeping everyone awake at night.

• • • •

Mariner is envious of Ms Angwin’s ability to criticize without attitude. It is a fault of alter ego Amos.

Ancient Mariner

Did you catch this?

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The latest must-have accessory is a “stop-scrolling bag” — a tote packed with analog activities like watercolors and crossword puzzles.

Why it matters: We pick up our phones 100+ times a day and spend hours glued to our screens. “Analog bags,” as they’re also called, are one way millennials and Gen Zers are reclaiming that time, Axios’ Sami Sparber reports.

🧶 How it works: “I basically just put everything I could grab for instead of my phone into a bag,” including knitting, a scrapbook and a Polaroid camera, says Sierra Campbell, the Northern California content creator behind the trend. The 31-year-old keeps one such bag at home, carrying it from room to room, and another in her car.

Some parents are jumping on board, and loading kid-friendly versions with toys, crayons and coloring books.

Zoom out: The trend has quickly spread on social media, part of a bigger shift to unplug.

Excellent good news! Homo must prove it has the stamina and ethics to just not roll over and let AI tell it everything. Every news item about AI brags about how it replaces the brain and every external body function employed by that brain. Incidentally there are a few AI corporations with just that in mind – replace the mind!

Spend some time every day self-contained – well, maybe a coffee is okay.

Ancient Mariner

Remember liberal arts?

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As regular readers know, mariner spends a lot of time in Nosey Mole’s tunnels, thereby avoiding broadcast TV news. He spends his time reading and watching more cogent and thoughtful reports in professional journals, non-profit news organizations and has burned a candle short looking for interesting entertainment shows.

One of his sources is YouTube which he calls Junk University. Name a topic, a person, an ideology, a trade skill, health, comedians or any flower no matter how scarce, and Junk University has a series on it. Mariner is a lingering fan of boogie woogie. There are endless hours of boogie woogie clips.

But whence what we used to call ‘liberal arts’?

Colleges are abandoning liberal arts because it isn’t focused specifically on career preparation. It has been decades since public schools made a serious attempt to introduce academic classes on history, politics, sociology, language, philosophy, psychology or religion. Trump et al are wiping out any evidence that there was something erroneously called ‘slavery’ in the American past. If a student isn’t pursuing STEM, they are out of luck.

Guess what? There is a top class liberal arts university on television! It is a TV series on PBS called NOVA – 50 years of liberal arts episodes covering all the implied information one would want to learn in a liberal arts program. There are insightful episodes about society, ancient history, the future of education, the future of industry, all the Earth Sciences, even mariner’s oft quoted ‘Hacking your mind’ 4-part series.

So if your soul is shriveling in this tumultuous, unfocused world, refresh yourself browsing 50 years of NOVA; orderliness will return to your psyche.

And don’t forget to chip in as a member to offset one of the wonders of political history who certainly will have a place on future NOVA episodes: The Trumpeter has killed Federal support to PBS.

Ancient Mariner

Bits from home

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Mariner’s philologist friend and he have a special dictionary of stressed or highly truncated words that are intriguing. His friend’s latest contribution is ‘supwier’. Usually, mariner gives the reader time to deduce these aberrations for themselves but supwier may require immediate assistance:

SUPWIER (supp’ wi-err) — “What’s up with her?”

A view of mariner’s garden will observe that it has not rained in his town for more than two weeks so he has had to water his nine little gardens. The plants, however, have not been fooled by temperatures in the nineties and have begun to close shop for the season – only special autumn flowers and every known weed continue as usual. As all the garden catalogues suggest, now is a good time to plant the brassica family of green vegetables.

Since establishing four new toad ponds (trays), his garden looks more like a zoo. Coupled with the ripe pecan tree, squirrels abound. The countless crowds of sparrows and wrens have discovered every pond and have new neighborhood pubs to frequent. A new visitor is a feral Aegean house cat (grey with vague stripes).

Mariner calls on his religious friends to take up the slack and immoral behavior of our governments regarding the homeless and indigent; they who have been viciously and without cause cut off from food. One would think our destitute citizens understand that living in a Gaza world is normal. Remember that the word ‘convenient’ is not part of the process. Do something today!

Ancient Mariner

 

 

Education in an AI world

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Walton Family Foundation and Gallup’s latest Teaching for Tomorrow report finds that while most teachers engage in professional development, the most beneficial opportunities — like peer collaboration — are often engaged in at a lower rate. At the same time, many teachers lack the classroom resources and staffing support needed to do their jobs effectively.

This report from Walton Family Foundation is a common perspective about the future of education. Education, like medicine, community support for the indigent, and even the nation’s governments – all are subject to the fate of history, changing society and real world confrontation. It is true that education as a concept is under great stress; it is true that the the recent plague interrupted an entire generation’s sense of decorum in the classroom; it is true that internet communications have reshaped the center of informative social dialogue; it is true that a slowly decaying form of government is incompetent in its service to the nation’s educational need and other government-supported cultural need as well.

Mariner suspects the largest impact, especially in colleges, is books. Who needs them? He has written in past posts to the blog about why we need education, methods of education and even the management of education. In this post he focuses on how  humans must be educated in the future and even now as great shifts of the planet, technology and behavioral environments are bouncing about in the winds of change.

Education, in particular, is easily affected by culture and innovation. Note the following examples and how quickly and fully these examples modified ‘normal’ education practices.

֎  In 1910 only 79% of children enrolled in schools. Only 11 percent of all children between ages fourteen and seventeen were enrolled in high school, and only 8.8% graduated. By 1950, the age of fossil fuel emerged, two world wars occurred, and an economic restructuring changed the social structure of society. Education statistics immediately changed. In 1950 84% of children enrolled in school and high school graduation leaped to 59%. The GI benefit of a paid college education thrust colleges into the general public sphere and bachelor degrees were economically available.

֎  Ezra Stiles, a former president of Yale University, died nearly 230 years ago. It is Mr. Stiles that we owe the grading system that has prevailed since. His clear intention was to publicly rank and sort students according to their achievement, not to give them feedback on their learning or to suggest how they might improve before the next exam. This kind of class ranking was a mechanism for conveying status and privilege (or withholding them), oftentimes mirroring the social structures of the world beyond the ivy-covered university walls. (Some suggest this intent created the ‘woke’ class).

♦ ♦ ♦ ♦ ♦

Whether we accept it or not, Mother Nature outfits each and all her species with all the survival skills and behaviors needed to sustain a normal lifestyle for each specific species. In the case of mammals and many other branches of evolution as well, Mother outfitted them with ’emotion’. Emotion is the way humans integrate with one another, learn social values, develop compassion and reinforce safety. Emotion permits bonding not only to others but to the world around them.

Mariner looked back to our forefathers, the early Homo sapiens and the Neanderthals. No books. There was lots of art in caves, on stones and wood, even on pottery; perhaps art is a primitive form of writing, of documenting emotion.

Our forefathers learned through social bonding the need to build homes for shelter without the benefit of watching This Old House on PBS or the dozen books mariner bought in order to build his house. These primitives learned by watching, sharing and caring. – Call it peer collaboration.

Instructors of any subject no longer need to read a lot of books and be the only source of truth and knowledge. That form of respect is gone because students don’t need books any more. However, indeed very important, is the fact that today a student’s emotions are needed in order to build knowledge for survival. Instructors must use tools out of the emotions kit to build a world value system that is not available in today’s society.

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Who are the best replacements for a dead democratic party?

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Everyone is painfully aware of the republican party’s intentions regarding economics, fuel consumption, racial division, political domination using the military, etc. But where is another option? The democratic party is a silent shambles. The power democrats from the last half of the 20th century aren’t powerful anymore. Most of them are moving into retirement. What kind of representatives should we elect to replace them?

Bottom Up Government.  The last several decades have seen the demise of ‘one person, one vote’. Many states arrange political processes that favor one party over the other – the most common is gerrymandering state and local districts; a few states require gubernatorial approval of each Federal election representative. Obviously, it takes more funding to remain competitive even in one’s own state – that. means money replaces local voter influence.

We should select local leaders who would disavow gerrymandering, require rank voting and prevent dark money coming from outside the state. These steps would do a great deal to minimize the current plutocracy.

Economics   Since the Reagan administration in the 1980s, the flow of capital has increasingly become ‘trickle down’. It is easier to become richer for the rich and harder for the average citizen to catch a break even versus inflation. According to inflation, the minimum wage should be $22.80. Under today’s administration, all discretionary funding is at risk (discretionary funding is when the government helps citizens with their costs, covering everything from PBS to social security and helpful regulations controlling everything from tax rates to wildlife). Further, large corporations, especially those in computer technology, are not under the control of government regulation and slowly are changing the marketplace to a ‘middleman’ purchasing process where supply and demand do not set market price, e.g., Walmart, Amazon and Temu (online) among many more.

We should elect local leaders who advocate income ceilings for billionaires, restore and improve funding for large issues like medical care, public education and improve Federal Emergency Administration (FEMA) financial support to citizens as global warming threatens homes and communities. Insurance cannot maintain competitive pricing and slowly will back out of coverage due to hazards.

Artificial Intelligence (AI)   Tons of evidence exists from many sources – including tech managers who left the field for moral reasons – that the rule is “if you can do it, do it!”. There is no ethical control over artificial intelligence development. Already there are constant news reports about its effect on children and its hidden manipulations in the marketplace. Scamming grows more widespread. Most neutral scientists agree that there is an eminent confrontation between human politics and AI independence.

We should elect local leaders who understand the intrusion of AI, aka nonhuman influence, into a citizen’s daily life. Primarily, two issues require immediate government control: social ethics and corporate mergers. Generally, this requires a younger candidate who has been exposed to the new AI era and understands it influence.

International Unity   Much of the world is in disarray. Among the wealthiest nations, it is conflict over who will dominate the new age. In moderate nations, the issue is very similar to the retiree who depends heavily on Social Security: “If I lose the source of my primary income, there is nothing left”.  And certainly, in terms of body count, the poor nations are battling for survival at the citizen level. Add to this stress the pressure on religion, theocracies (Arab nations), the shifting weather patterns caused by global warming, the forced migrations of millions and there seems to be nothing in store except Armageddon.

We should elect local leaders who believe in economic integration as a solution to the trembling of world order. The prime example since the second world war is the European Union but the scope is not wide enough. China has a comprehensive strategy called ‘The Belt and Road Strategy’ which integrates trade across most of Asia and includes the eastern side of Europe. Could the U.S. forget racism and work to economically integrate the Caribbean and South America?

Civil Rights   Any constriction on how a citizen lives within the bounds of their humanness induces stress. The worst case is slavery. Today, the right to choose or not choose pregnancy is more a political battle than a medical one. Well rooted in the U.S. is racism – not just blacks but any shade other than Honky White. Add to this dozens of civil constrictions like the current reversal of the right for children born in the U.S. not to have birthright citizenship because their parents were not citizens. The treatment of our citizens is approaching the brutality of the early Persian Empire. Add to racism the severe treatment caused by very distinct and self-absorbed economic classes that is so severe that the poorer classes are bound to remain poor or otherwise short-sheeted for their entire life.

We should elect local leaders who respect humanness, that is, they show empathy and compassion in their speech and behavior. They should tend toward unanimity rather than classism. Their political arguments should never choose confrontation over unity.

Planet-Human Relations   As the current President seeks to further disrupt humanity’s relationship with the biosphere by cutting out solar and wind energy funding, Mother Nature is not amused. Stated briefly, humans have consumed about 70% of the land and imposed livestock grazing to the point that there are 27 cows, sheep, etc. for every displaced wild creature. Now that the weather patterns are causing agricultural hardship and global warming continues to accelerate to the point that New York has to pay attention to rising sea levels, the biosphere has become a political issue. Throw in a planetary overpopulation of 8 billion humans just since 1800, and Mother Nature clearly is taking issue with human behavior. Economic balance is at risk around the world.

We should elect local leaders who intellectually understand that humans have over used the planet’s resources. it must be clear in their rhetoric that everything from FEMA to solar power to water conservation, etc. are the way humans must placate Mother Earth.

YOU   The role of voting as an influence in a slowly changing national culture has changed. All of reality is leaping forward at light speed, forcing rapid adjustments to economics, society and future survivability. This means a casual vote for a familiar name or party every now and then doesn’t work anymore. Every citizen MUST take more interest in government.

Perhaps you should visit a council/state legislative hearing every couple of months. You may learn not only more about the issues but also more about your representatives. If a state or national campaigner stops in your home town, check them out at their event. Read decent, balanced political news in your local paper – even the odd-minded political columnists – maybe even write a letter to the editor about a personal issue. The point is, the job of saving the planet is in your hands.

* * * *

Mariner knows it would take a godlike creature to meet all the recommendations above but do the best you can. If ever there were a time, women may be a better choice than men. He recommends using age as a primary consideration. Finally, VOTE!!!

Ancient Mariner

 

 

 

Phew! Lent is over

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It’s Easter! Now we can get back to our jelly beans, Hershey bars, donuts, ice cream and wine! Jesus thanks you for your effort and wonders why he ever decided to rise again.

Don’t blame yourself for failing to understand the core values of your faith. Every religion erodes over time, subject to cultural shifts, personal conflicts and the state of the planet. One can imagine how strong one’s faith had to be when, as a mother, you left your baby behind to save it from being, as you will be, eaten by a lion. Then Alexander saw a cross in the sky made with a cloud and considered it to be the reason he had won his wars so he declared Christianity as the state religion. Since then Christianity, in whatever form, is society’s Department of Religious Affairs and even spends enough money on buildings and cultural politics that DOGE would love to get it’s hands on that department.

But things change. Today in the United States, two billionaire Christian ministers (a bureaucratic title) are trying to reinstall Alexander’s form of theocracy – similar to the Islamic theocracies in Iran and Afghanistan. Further, one’s approach to personal ritual, budget and life management does not seem to fit the needs of the wealthier nations. Consequently, overall attendance in Christian churches is shrinking.

The oversight in history is that Jesus was encouraging selflessness as a means of personal survival. Sharing isn’t only a physical act, it is a way to cope in difficult times. The theology of Jesus was personal – not to be dependent on worldly conditions that brought death, starvation, insecurity, inequality and abuse. Not only does sharing minimize hardship in others, it makes a person feel functional and useful – a healing act that may feel liberating, perhaps like sitting at the right hand of God who is above the fray of human reality.

There was only one religious organization in Jesus’ faith. There were three roles: God, as an unending source of love; Jesus himself as a human example (not a prophet); every human being who, by their spiritual commitment to ‘sharing’ brought God’s creative, gratifying love to a human’s sense of self. This religious ‘organization’ is called the Trinity. When humans engage in sharing, there is only one experience: the blessing of God’s love – a love that displaces all despair, insecurity and hardship.

Theologically, Lent and Easter aren’t about giving up gumdrops or promising to improve one’s own inadequacies, it’s about sharing with others who may need your help. In short, as a Christian, what is given for Lent is you giving yourself to the Trinity experience so that your faith and your self will expand God’s love in an imperfect world. Spiritually, one’s sacrifice is the power that lets Christ rise on Easter.

He has risen. Are you in?

Ancient Mariner

 

Social Security

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Mariner hasn’t commented on the Trump tornado, choosing to stay with Nosey Mole in his underground abode. But Social Security is an issue that must be openly talked about  by everyone. Time is short, perhaps so short that the current Trump-infested government must resolve the collapse of Social Security during his tenure. A recent post metaphor suggested that if change isn’t done on time, it will be more difficult to change. This is the case with Social Security. The Federal Government (and likely the electorate) have the attitude, “SS funds may come up short in 2033? Oh, well we have some time to deal with it later.” In fact, if Congress were capable of thought, they would have taken note of the population shifts that have been common knowledge for decades. Because the US is so late in managing Social Security, it is made more difficult as the economy enters the AI age where many professions are at risk (any white collared staff job) and many functions will become automated (truck driving for one).

THIS IS AN ISSUE THAT NEEDS THE ENERGY OF EVERYONE TALKING ABOUT IT FULL TIME AT WORK, IN PUBS, AT CHURCH, ON TELEVISION AND REQUIRES EACH OF US TO WRITE A LETTER TO ALL OUR REPRESENTATIVES AT COUNTY, CITY, STATE AND FEDERAL LEVELS.

67 million citizens receive Social Security. If 67 million citizens wrote these letters, Trump’s opinion would only mean something to himself.

If the reader doesn’t know how Social Security works, there is a good article on the process published by Motley Crew (financial magazine) at:

https://www.fool.com/retirement/2025/03/22/president-trumps-biggest-social-security-proposal/

WRITE YOUR LETTERS AND TALK ABOUT IT – A LOT.

Ancient Mariner

Our electronic Books of Knowledge

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Metaphorically, in the last post about the distant future, mariner borrowed a Musk tourist rocket. In this post, he takes a ride on the fact tractor, that heavily geared pursuit vehicle most of us need to delve into truth, reality and comprehension (TRC).

Today, the tractor goes by many names but two are prevalent and represent the only publicly handy sources for TRC: Wikipedia and the Public Broadcasting System (PBS).  There are many, many other TRC internet sites and publications but typically, they are known to fewer searchers and often have privacy procedures.

Only the two mentioned sites honor the factual standards of that time when TRC was available only in books. How many readers had a twenty-volume ‘Book of Knowledge’ reference when they were young? Mariner still has his, published in 1938, and the distance to the moon and stars was represented in an image of railroad trains setting off on trips to the Universe.

Both Wikipedia and PBS have fact-checking and nuance-rinsing requirements before broadcasting. PBS has a large library of insightful documentaries about every thought under the Sun – including the Sun. Further, PBS news editors do their best to represent today’s cacophony in a neutral manner. Wikipedia will print at the top of an article whether there needs to be some further editing by contributors.

Except for highly specialized subjects, jumping on the search engine or television to do some dependable research finds little to be confident about TRC beyond Wikipedia and PBS.

But today they need our help in a serious, continued survival way. They need subscribers to help pay the bills. Mariner subscribes to both, otherwise he would be embarrassed given the number of times each day he accesses each. As readers may know, all US governments are as happy as a bunch of three-year-olds being let into a playroom; anything is subject to abuse. At risk is Federal funding that contributes to PBS overhead. It is a specified target for the circus performers in Washington.

Wikipedia, just like all of us, has been overrun by social media. It requires a lot more staff and automated crosschecking to keep the dinner dishes clean, metaphorically speaking.

So here is a chance to help out. Become a subscriber.

You do not need to mark this post as ‘trash’. It is the only request for you to help out two TRC information sources that we use every day.

Ancient Mariner