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I’m glad Trump is playing so much golf

It always cheers me up, because I remember that Hitler shot himself in a bunker

Jeff Bezos just told the Washington Post staff that he has decided what the editorial page (and its writers) should think.

Ruh roh.

Hi, I’m Walt. I’m a songwriter and musician and I’ve been in the band The Walkmen in one form or another since I was 12. Literally. These days I make a lot of music under my own name and write songs for film and TV and commercials.

I’m also a record collector and music nerd so on my Substack I now host a weekly, hour-long radio show wher…

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The Weekend in Foolish Attention

Hello, I’m Donald Paul. I am husband, father, and former-seminarian who is obsessed with Catholic theology. On my substack In Defense of Theology you will find:

  • Faithful discussions on Catholic theology

  • Reflections to become a smarter Catholic

  • Really cool Catholic books you need to read

If you love Catholic theology and want to learn together, I’d love to connect!

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How to brainwash your mind in next 7 days:

  1. Wake up and don't look at your phone for 1 hour.

  2. Drink 3 litres of water every day.

  3. Do your most important task in the morning.

  4. Exercise at least 1 hour per day.

  5. Replace social media with knowledge books.

So the United States of America suddenly sides with the dictators of the world, against the democracies it has backed since 1948

Smart, eh ?

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Old man (likely in his late 80s) came up to me at work today.

Him, pointing at my cross: “Are you catholic?”

Me: “No sir, Orthodox.”

He got a huge grin and said “You guys are the closest to us!” and gave me a fist bump. Thank you old catholic man, much needed moral boost for the day.

The unity of the New Testament makes so much more sense when you realize that Paul doesn’t mean what the Reformers thought he meant

You made it, you own it

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I'm mortified.

A dating app but it's just one picture of someone's bookshelves, one of their usual grocery haul, one of their pets, and one their thermostat

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I’ll be hosting a trialogue conversation with Father Elias Carr and Michael Matheson Miller on Fr. Carr’s excellent book, “I Came to Cast Fire”, an introduction to René Girard—March 25 at 7pm at Catholic University of America in Washington, DC. A big thanks to the

for making this conversation possible. This event it free and it will be …

Substack is not competing with TikTok or Instagram or YouTube or whatever. We are competing with bad business models that have screwed writers and creators for generations.

Grow your publication on Substack

With recommendations, referrals, and a powerful growth network, Substack creators spend less time on marketing and more time on their craft.

A woman in a long term relationship who suddenly cuts her hair real short is like a check engine light going on right before your truck explodes

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When A Pope Dies: 7 Things That Happen

Me at San Vitale, Ravenna, being so exhausted I’d lost the capacity to stand up, but was still unable to tear my gaze away. If the pews hadn’t been there I’d have been quite happy just flat on the floor with my binoculars.

You made it, you own it

You always own your intellectual property, mailing list, and subscriber payments. With full editorial control and no gatekeepers, you can do the work you most believe in.

Having a big audience online is real weird. In the last 3 years, I've had:

- A guy tell me he'll name his horse after me

- A 61-year-old ask if he could move into my house

- A jarringly lewd proposition from a Delaware woman

- Offered a free summer home in northern Norway

- Invited to live with nomads in Mongolia

Listen, I think generative AI is going to be useful in a whole array of areas, but I’m scratching my head at the vision that big tech has for these tools. I’m just trying to understand who exactly is making these ads and what they are thinking.

One of the questions in the review process should definitely be something like “how is this new feature forming me?” To put a finer point on it you could ask, “what virtues or vices does this new tool enable?” Most of the advertisements we’re seeing lately seem to understand how these tools will form us but seem oblivious to the fact that the behaviors they’re highlighting are vices, not virtues. As just one of the most recent examples, consider this iOS 18 ad that Apple posted recently that shows you how you can use Apple Intelligence features to deceive a friend at lunch.

AI is powerful and can be useful, but most of the examples we’re seeing pitched at consumers sure don’t give me much hope that these companies get it. It seems that they are almost willingly marketing these new tools as ways to enable our worst impulses.

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Sep 21
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1:56 PM

Have we solved all the technical problems that we need to already?

What is AI doing that we can’t do? I know it does things faster, but I can read and summarize emails and I can do it without consuming vast amounts of energy and materials.

I don’t think AIs specious usefulness is worth the cost. Especially because I don’t get the time back from AI. Is this revolution going to mean less working hours for us? One can dream, but the answer is a hard no. Who benefits then, not the workers, it’s asse…

Reasonable people may disagree about the specifics, but I totally agree that we need to be having these conversations about the ultimate goals for these technologies with a clear view of the societal systems that surround them. The speed with which we can complete any given task is not a sufficient metric.

Their series of ads have been so distasteful.

Truly head scratching.

Growing up, I thought the Amish hated technology, and I was surprised to find out that they don’t avoid it outright. Instead, they carefully evaluate its use.

They don’t ask “does it have electricity” but “would the use of this technology undermine a worthy cultural value?” Definitely worth thinking about.

100%. I had a similar revelation about the Amish in the past few years. They’re really thoughtful. I wrote a short reflection on it a few years ago.

This recent essay from Brian Boyd in The New Atlantis is also well worth your time on this theme. He makes a case for why we need Amistics for AI. thenewatlantis.com/publ…

Teleology & Technology

Increasing propaganda to herd us into forgetting our humanity and rely on products for basic graces so we can ‘concentrate’ on the big “stuff,” like buying more stuff and staring into our devices.

Remember the “iPad ‘crush’ human creativity” ad?

youtube.com/watch?v=ntj…

I also, am unnerved by the Google advertisements highlighting the “‘ben…

Yep, exactly.

I don't think they get the actual use cases.

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I don't write with AI. Ever.

But here's the thing...

My students aren't me.

Nor should they be.

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My students don’t see classrooms as safe spaces.

They see them as places to prove their intelligence.

It’s a place for:

► Imitation

► Competition

► Being judged