Tell a Braver Story

I like and follow from @thewatercolours. The stories are true: “The glory of God is a man fully alive, and the life of man is the vision of God.” - St Irenaeus

[screambirdscreaming]

On the subject of knowledge systems, I'm also always wanting to pull apart "science" as it is talked about into several aspects that need seperate treatment.

There's Science as an ideal: a way of approaching the world and learning about it. The idealization of observation and questioning, of coming up with theories but being willing to change them as you observe more.

There is Science as a practice: a way of implementing the ideal. Methodologies for observation, theory-building, and testing. The discussion of these methodologies which also seeks to analyze which are effective, how they can be improved, what their limitations are.

There is Science as a body of work. The accumulation of science-as-practiced, where many generations of work have built on each other and continue to analyze and relate to earlier work.

And there is Science as an institution, as an arm of the Academy. Who decides which approaches and perspectives are legitimate? Who does the observation, who pays for it? The academic project has historical roots deeply tied in imperialism: a philosophy of Knowing the world as part of the project of Owning the world.

Science as a body of work is deeply tied up in science as an institution - not because this fundamentally follows from the accumulated practice of science as an ideal, but as a matter of historical fact. This is the body of work we have.

All of these aspects are in conversation with each other - and with realms of life and society outside of "science" specifically. How exactly the ideal of science should be defined, has varied over history. The iterative effects of changes in methodology and philosophy accumulate in the body of work. The changing body of work changes the goals and outlooks of the academy. These aspects of science are not separable. But neither are they synonymous.

Very often, I see critiques of science-as-practiced rebutted with appeals to the legacy and legitimacy of science-as-institution. Meanwhile, critiques of science-as-institution are brushed off with appeals to science-as-ideal.

To understand the body of knowledge we have constructed, where it comes from and how it operates, we have to be able to address these aspects as distinct, and to build language of analysis for them individually, and for how they interact.

[creekfiend]

thing I am proud of: when the doctor started going on a weird rant about long covid not being real I paused and listened to his nonsense for a bit and then very calmly said, in a polite and curious tone, "you don't believe in post-viral illness?" and he like. stammered a bunch and was like OH WELL I'M NOT SAYING -- I DON'T...I just think ..! and backpedaled awkwardly while I just sat there like :3c interesting :3c thank you so much for clarifying your stance on this :3c

[creekfiend]

an important skill for chronically ill people to develop is the ability to treat the doctor as though they are simply a person you are interviewing to find out how much they know about your condition.

[nightmare-from-heaven]

Holy shit op this is LITERALLY in the book 'Never Split The Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depends On It'. Written by a guy who did hostage negotiation and then tried doing business negotiation, and mopped the floor with industry experts.

I'm fortunate enough to have a primary care doctor who knows about hEDS, but it's occurring to me that the skills in this book could be medically life changing for chronically ill folks of all kinds. Like. Literally a matter of life and death, especially for BIPOC and/or fat and/or young people who are having their issues dismissed.

[creekfiend]

HMMM interesting!! will have to check this out

[peartreetheft-deactivated202407]

I still have agonizing periods where I wonder whether I actually believe or if I'm just going through the motions. But I always try to snap myself out of them by saying "Why would I bother going through the motions if I didn't believe?"

[physicsgoblin]

"Our cause is never more in danger than when a human, no longer desiring, but still intending, to do our Enemy's will, looks round upon a universe from which every trace of Him seems to have vanished, and asks why he has been forsaken, and still obeys."

-C.S. Lewis, The Screwtape Letters (Screwtape, a demon, calling God "The Enemy")

[that-catholic-shinobi]

As someone who has experienced some dark nights this is very comforting

[domina-honoribila]

When I don't feel much or anything from God (which is most of the time, tbh) I just think/pray the word "serviam."

"I will serve."

It's the opposite and inverse of what Satan said, "non serviam," "I will not serve."

Some days that's all I got, but that's all God needs some days.

[herbofgraceandpeace]

Previous tags!

[queer-as-used-by-tolkien]

very little of what God expects from us is emotion. He repeatedly defines love as an action. From Christ on the cross to "if you love me you will keep my commandments"

If I'm keeping the commandments I'm loving him.

If I'm reading the Bible and "not feeling it" well I'm still reading aren't I?

If my prayers are selfish, at least I'm making my requests known to God, I'm showing that I trust him enough to let him know, to expect help or comfort, etc.

If I'm singing along to worship music but not really paying attention - well, I decided that is what I'd play. I am singing it with my lips.

Even if I'm only doing it because of some habit or commitment - I still put in the work to build the habit, I still cared enough to make the commitment. This worship, this prayer, this chapter I'm reading - it's an expression of myself and who I have become through Jesus Christ.

[rawstrap]

"!!" is its own word to me

[siena-sevenwits]

*sends round a couple of my loyal henchmen to remind you to write your goodness list. They could use the exercise and should be difficult to miss or ignore

;)

Sure thing, boss! (I am a henchman too, seemingly.)

Goodness

- I pushed through the groggy “How can I go to work? I am so exhausted!” stage of waking up, and an actually having quite a cheery workday.

- It’s hot, but it’s hot enough that we are allowed to wear the cooler versions of our historic costume - I am mostly comfy in my short sleeves and straw hat, though alas, the bloomers, and slips, and itchy stockings must stay. :-)

- I met up for supper with my mom last night.

- I got to talk to my little niece on the phone. She is most articulate, and will be three before a cat can wink its eye.

- I have an idea for a poem. I have the meter and rhyme scheme figured out, and the repeated phrase that will function as the poem’s heartbeat, and a general idea of direction. We’ll see how it goes. (It’s also Worst Journey related, so possibly something to submit to that zine if it turns out?)

- Nice connections with friends lately.

- I found a huge carton of blueberries for very cheap yesterday. They taste so good!

- I opened that black cherry ginger ale with the proper tool when I got home, and it too tasted so good!

- … I needed to buy bandages, and realized I had a whimsical urge to buy the kids’ kind with characters on them (which we never used growing up.) I now have Anna and Elsa on my ankle.

- Three college age girls came into my building together and loved it- they said it felt welcoming!

- A man with a very strong East Anglian accent came in and told me he’s lived in Canada since 1965, but when he revisits England in wintertime, the accent suddenly comes back. I cannot imagine how pronounced it must be in winter, if this is how he sounds in summer.

[mala-taste]

[favfemfits]

Pleading Dress

Éowyn — The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers

Éowyn has the peak medieval fantasy wardrobe to me... Just look at this gownnnnnn

[songbirds-in-the-fields]

“But no living man am I! You look upon a woman. Éowyn I am, Éomund's daughter. You stand between me and my lord and kin. Begone, if you be not deathless! For living or dark undead, I will smite you, if you touch him.”

- JRR Tolkien

[faroffsong]

oh the sound of multiple horse feet clipclopping down the road. My favourite sound

[faroffsong]

@two-microscopes now owns this post.

[sailorotter]

Pilot writes 'I'm bored' in sky during flight from Liverpool

The pilot's mischievous flight path was noticed by plane spotters on the flightradar24 tracking app

If that doesn't scream "Douglas Richardson"...

[raptorific]

[poprocksromance]

A cautionary tale about the growing literacy crisis

[siena-sevenwits]

Begone, foul dwimmerlaik. Skedaddle.

[wardengrill]

The Mysterious Affair at Styles (1990)

[amanitaphalloides]

I worry a little bit that people who refuse to learn about ai as a part of their anti ai position are going to be extremely unprepared to understand what’s actually scary about it and already have their digital literacy at risk tbh

[amanitaphalloides]

not that I am some genius in this regard but if you follow ai developments even slightly you might change the things you are most worried about. do people know the extent to which ai is already eating itself and how meaningless this is making swaths of the internet. do people know that there are plenty of random mid-sized companies today buying their employees’ likenesses to create digital clones and using these to make hundreds of videos. I am so much more worried about labor and surveillance and abuse than people becoming lazy about writing emails. and idk man I sort of like and respect people who are willfully ignorant about it as a way of minimizing its force in their lives and I am in some ways jealous but also when I see posts that basically still boil down to “chatgpt will never fool me” I am like 😭😭😭 for one thing not the only thing to be concerned about, for another thing I am really sorry but I don’t think you’re right

[wakor]

Exactly. I think about this a lot when I see "ChatGPT is always confidently wrong" arguments, not because genAI is often right, but because the argument doesn't work on people who actually use it regularly.

It isn't always wrong. It's often correct enough for the average person's day to day usage. If you say, "it always gives misinformation", they're going to ignore you because just that morning it gave a perfectly functional summary of their meeting's notes. It correctly identified some vegan restaurants in their area. It accurately calculated some math for them.

If it was always wrong, no one would use it. The danger is that you can never tell when it's going to be wrong, and when it's right enough that people start to trust it and not double check anything (automation bias), the things it gets wrong become catastrophic. Sometimes automation bias is so bad that mistakes compound and proliferate for ages before anyone catches it (ie: the company who were making financial decisions based off of hallucinated forecasting).

[bliss-bliss-bliss-bliss]

See, my particular bugaboo about AI is the overwhelming mountain of evidence that it LITERALLY CAUSES BRAIN DAMAGE:

MIT Study Finds Artificial Intelligence Use Reprograms the Brain, Leading to Cognitive Decline

Cognitive Atrophy Paradox of AI–Human Interaction: From Cognitive Growth and Atrophy to Balance

The Silent Erosion: Global Generational Cognitive Decline in the Age of AI and the Future of Human Intellectual Agency

How AI is rewiring the human brain: the generational transformation of cognition and knowing

AI-overdependence and human cognitive decline: Hazards, evidence, and mitigation strategies

Is AI dulling our minds? — Harvard Gazette

Your Brain on AI: Cognitive Offloading, Debt, and Atrophy

Is Generative AI Rewiring Our Brains? Here's How It Happens

I think this is an easier argument to make with the people in your life who use AI. "It's wrong enough of the time that you shouldn't trust it" is easy to refute with "but it's right just enough of the time to be worth it". Add to that the good old Dunning-Kruger effect, and it's easy to give AI way too much credit. And way too much power.

Instead of asking them to vet AI's accuracy (especially about things they don't understand themselves), ask them about what effect AI has had on their own brain. Have they noticed changes in their memory, their attention span, their ability to focus?

Ask them what they use AI for. Ask them how they did those things before they had AI - and now ask them if they could do that now.

Ask them to consider what it would be like if they didn't use AI for a month, or a week, or even a day.

If the thought makes them uncomfortable, beg them to consider why.

I work in memory care, so believe me, I know what the process of dementia often looks like, and I'm seeing the telltale signs in more and more people who are younger and younger than ever. The scariest part is that the average diagnosis usually comes several years after the first symptoms present. It worries me.

And, as others in this thread have mentioned, there are even signs of cognitive decline in the AI itself as llm models inevitably begin to eat their own tails:

Almost all leading AI chatbots show signs of cognitive decline

Older AI models show signs of cognitive decline, study shows

Digital Dementia? AI Shows Surprising Signs of Cognitive Decline

Oh, so we're all getting less and less functional. Cool. Cool.

[beginnerblueglass]

The Gospel of Thomas has become a topic of interest for me, not by choice really. Here's my thought of the day: By the second century, Christianity was made up of such a huge percentage of women that Celcus described Christianity as a religion for the "foolish, dishonourable and stupid, only slaves, women, and children." Women followed Jesus' teachings in droves. He and His church were very attractive to them. Women in the first and second centuries were not stupid, believe it or not.

The Christian Gospels tell of the life of a Man who said of Mary, who sat at His feet (shorthand for a posture of learning as a disciple), among the male disciples that the portion she had chosen would not be taken away from her, even though it went against the grain of her day's gender roles. He honoured Mary for honouring Him by anointing His feet. He healed men and women alike without discrimination. He healed a disabled woman on the Sabbath, drawing the ire of the Pharisees. He accepted the worship of a woman of ill repute, forgave her and treated her with respect, as a person, not as an object. He accepted the material provisions of women, and was accompanied by them in His travels. He called the woman who dared touch Him while she was bleeding "daughter," and was not angry or offended, as she was expecting Him to be. He revealed that He was the Messiah to a woman who was living in sin and rejected by society, asked her to give Him a drink of water from her jar. He never used "women" as a general pejorative in His parables or teachings; there may be foolish women who forget to light their lamps, but there are just as many foolish men who disobey their master, and there are also wise women who find the coin they were looking for. If a man is tempted to lust at the sight of a woman, he should gouge his eyes out rather than blame her. The widow who gave two coins to God touched Jesus' heart more than all the wealthy men giving their fortunes. The women were the first to see His empty tomb, the first to see Him risen, the first to share the message of His resurrection. The Holy Spirit was poured out on all flesh, men and women.

In the Gospel of Thomas, Jesus says, “Look, I will draw her in so as to make her male, so that she too may become a living male spirit, similar to you. But I say to you, every woman who makes herself male will enter the kingdom of heaven.”

I can tell you which Jesus I think would attract legions of female followers.

[pearlescentiris]

This is exactly what I mean when I tell my friends that theology is a science and, on a more humorous note, why the Theologian to Unhinged Linguist Pipeline is a very real thing (just ask Tolkien). I'm just studying for a bachelor's at the moment, not even pursuing a doctorate (yet, it's very tempting right now but the priority is getting a job once I'm done with this last semester), and if there's one thing I've learned, it's that theology isn't just a study that requires knowing your Bible (even if, trust me, you very much do), it requires studying a lot of history, linguistics, Hebrew culture from both broader and long-lasting traditions to anecdotes that are no longer being practiced, and deep textual analysis. The other thing I've learned is that heresies and heretical-linked apocrypha are freaking hydras and they make me want to jump out a window, even moreso when people treat these heretical-linked apocrypha as some "dirty little secret" that the Church buried when. No. It was disregarded because people who study Scripture all the time read over the text and said "yeah no this is baloney that was concocted as heretical propaganda during a time where we're still trying to figure out our Creed and heretics are trying to put their foot in the door". For people reading this who aren't as savvy on this, basically The Gospel of Thomas and other gnostic (or arian or others) texts are to us as, say, "lemmings are suicidal and mosquitoes have no ecological significance so we should have them go extinct" are to the zoological community. Zero basis in reality to anyone who knows anything about the actual subject matter and sounds downright ridiculous but gets parroted all the time anyway.

[siena-sevenwits]

“This is why the Enemy wants you to think you have no song to write, no story to tell, no painting to paint. He wants to quiet you. So sing. Let the Word by which the Creator made you fill your imagination, guide your pen, lead you from note to note until a melody is strung together like a glimmering constellation in the clear sky. Love the Lord your God, and love your neighbor, too, by making worlds and works of beauty that blanket the earth like flowers. Let your homesickness keep you always from spiritual slumber. Remember that it is in the fellowship of saints, of friends and family, that your gift will grow best, and will find its best expression. And until the Kingdom comes in its fullness, bend your will to the joyful, tearful telling of its coming. Write about that. Write about that, and never stop.” ― Andrew Peterson, Adorning the Dark: Thoughts on Community, Calling, and the Mystery of Making

[nevermindtheblizzard]

ARTISTS AND WRITERS WANTED for HAZARDOUS JOURNEY on JOINT CREATIVE VENTURE

Never Mind the Blizzard is an upcoming zine dedicated to the Heroic Age of Antarctic exploration, and we now invite all artists and writers interested in this colourful period of polar history to submit work to us!

So, grab your sledging pencil or polar paint kit—we’re looking for:

Anything under the umbrella of visual arts, including paintings, illustrations, comics, collage, diagrams, printmaking, and more.

Creative writing: short pieces of fiction, vignettes, creative nonfiction, poetry, etc.

Any combination of these.

In other words: if it (1) relates to an Antarctic expedition taking place between 1897 and 1922 and (2) can be put to (digital) paper, send it our way! Playfulness and formal experimentation is encouraged, and everyone is invited to contribute regardless of skill level. Please see the submission guidelines on our website for a few more details.

Submit your finished work HERE by August 15th (23:59 GMT).