Sep 23, 2026 · 1 hr 25 min · 8 segments
In this episode, I talk about how Paul theologically configures his apostleship in terms of his cosmic privileges set alongside the realities of his incarceration.
Tim GombosHost
I am, uh, really, really enjoying Jill Lepore's book, "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State." I talked about that in the previous episode, and, um, how interesting it is to read a historian's take on, um, this sort of, um, emergent, um, a shockingly emergent crisis of, uh, artificial intelligence technology.
Yeah, that's been sort of the mood in the popular press over the last couple of months.
And it's been really interesting to read Jill Lepore's sort of, uh, analysis of artificial intelligence in general, and then artificial intelligence in relation to governance.
She does a deep dive excavating the history of ideas behind the current um, technology, the history of ideas behind notions of, of, of basically why is there fear, uh, of what robots or what artificial intelligence will do to humans? Like, why are we afraid? And she has a very interesting discussion where she talks about the difference between conceptions of the future in non-Western thinkers, and they are not alarmists.
But like, like non-Western thinkers who think about the future and technology and automation and artificial intelligence, they are not alarmists.
I still need to get my head around this, but she goes into a long discussion of how it is that people in the West especially have regarded creation, specifically animals, how people in the West have treated animals and, like, for scientific research.
So she has a long discussion about vivisection, that is, you know, um, experimenting and pulling apart live animals, especially dogs, and the heartlessness, um, and the coldness and the cruelty, the, the, the profound cruelty, um, toward animals as-- that, and that's just one example of cruelty to animals that we find in the West, along with just a, a general disregard for creation.
And so there's a sense in which there's so much projection, there's so much cruelty, um, on the part of people in the West.
And so of course there's fear that powerful entities will be cruel to us because we are fundamentally cruel.
What, right when I'm done with it, I'm gonna read it over, mark it up, because I really wanna get her arguments.
Um, it's such a thrill to sort of track along with somebody's thoughts who, who has done a deep dive in things that you've never really thought about.
Uh, that's, it's a thrill, but it's, it's, um, it's mental work, and I wanna do that kind of work, so I really wanna get her argument because this is such a, an all sort of consuming reality.
Read a column by, uh, one of my favorite writers, Tressie McMillan Cottom, in The New York Times, and she had a piece on how she's just not among these alarmist people who is terribly worried about artificial intelligence wiping out the human race.
I am, uh, really, really enjoying Jill Lepore's book, "The Rise and Fall of the Artificial State." I talked about that in the previous episode, and, um, how interesting it is to read a historian's take on, um, this sort of, um, emergent, um, a shockingly emergent crisis of, uh, artificial intelligence technology.
Yeah, that's been sort of the mood in the popular press over the last couple of months.
And it's been really interesting to read Jill Lepore's sort of, uh, analysis of artificial intelligence in general, and then artificial intelligence in relation to governance.
She does a deep dive excavating the history of ideas behind the current um, technology, the history of ideas behind notions of, of, of basically why is there fear, uh, of what robots or what artificial intelligence will do to humans? Like, why are we afraid? And she has a very interesting discussion where she talks about the difference between conceptions of the future in non-Western thinkers, and they are not alarmists.
But like, like non-Western thinkers who think about the future and technology and automation and artificial intelligence, they are not alarmists.
I still need to get my head around this, but she goes into a long discussion of how it is that people in the West especially have regarded creation, specifically animals, how people in the West have treated animals and, like, for scientific research.
So she has a long discussion about vivisection, that is, you know, um, experimenting and pulling apart live animals, especially dogs, and the heartlessness, um, and the coldness and the cruelty, the, the, the profound cruelty, um, toward animals as-- that, and that's just one example of cruelty to animals that we find in the West, along with just a, a general disregard for creation.
And so there's a sense in which there's so much projection, there's so much cruelty, um, on the part of people in the West.
And so of course there's fear that powerful entities will be cruel to us because we are fundamentally cruel.
What, right when I'm done with it, I'm gonna read it over, mark it up, because I really wanna get her arguments.
Um, it's such a thrill to sort of track along with somebody's thoughts who, who has done a deep dive in things that you've never really thought about.
Uh, that's, it's a thrill, but it's, it's, um, it's mental work, and I wanna do that kind of work, so I really wanna get her argument because this is such a, an all sort of consuming reality.
Read a column by, uh, one of my favorite writers, Tressie McMillan Cottom, in The New York Times, and she had a piece on how she's just not among these alarmist people who is terribly worried about artificial intelligence wiping out the human race.
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