Thinspace

In a world where neural control has proven cheaper than metal machines, Isaac is being groomed to become a part of the AI that governs and shapes reality. As an operator, he’s training to remote control factory workers to support the war effort. But when he discovers his memories are being deleted, he realizes his personality has been constructed to serve the AI's economic machine.

#MeToo: Light in a Dark Social Media Cycle

This year saw social media bolster fake news and Trumpism. But what is salvaging social media, for me, is #MeToo. The stories I know are not mine to tell. But I have seen how resistant powerful men are to any sort of accountability, sexual or otherwise.

I know that a lot of people feel nervous that innocent men will be pilloried with false charges of sexual harassment. I believe all people, victimized and abuser, need due process.

Review: Autonomous by Annalee Newitz

In a world where patent companies control the world, Jack pirates drugs for the poor. In the course of cloning a productivity drug, she accidentally unleashes a wave of lethal addictions to banal tasks. But did she make a mistake cloning the drug? No. She learns that big-pharma company Zaxy is trying to expand their reach by addicting high-tech workers to a patented drug—and to their jobs. As Jack races to engineer a cure, Zaxy deploys a military bot and a human partner to hunt her down and keep their trade secrets secret.

Our Brains Need to Believe Trump Rigged the Election

Our brains associate neural regions that are architecturally close together. For many, the parts of our brain that give meaning to "Trump" are the same regions associated with Hitler, zombies, and evil capitalists like Lex Luthor. The more juice we put into those places, the more the currents try to leap across new synaptic gaps. To forge grand meanings and narratives.

Bernie Sanders: a Jewish Man With a Christian Politic

Bernie Sanders is clear-and-away the Christian choice for president. He began his political career organizing for civil rights and was arrested during a sit-in. That's prophetic. And when you listen to his speeches over the years, his words are likewise prophetic. Not in the sense of "predicting the future," but in the sense of speaking timeless truth to power--the Biblical meaning of the word. And why wouldn't he sound like a Hebrew prophet? He is a Jew, raised on the Hebrew Scriptures.

Trading the Arkenstone for the Ordinary: A Review of The Battle of Five Armies

I am often puzzled by our culture's need to supersize a story out of the realm where ordinary people can relate to it. Why must we make all things epic? When was the last time you faced an absolute evil that required you to don full chain mail? And so, I was again caught flat-footed by the Peter Jackson Hobbit franchise. Why inject a cosmic battle of good against evil into Tolkiens' humble tale of a hobbit far from home caught in forces beyond his reckoning?

White Dudes After Emma Watson’s Speech: A Guide to Being a Privileged Person Who Empathizes Without Claiming to be Oppressed

Emma Watson gave an excellent speech to the UN where she claimed that men suffer from gender stereotypes, too. She called men to join women struggling for feminism, and asked men to draw from experiences of being stereotyped because of their gender in order to join in the struggle for women’s rights. So I ask: how can a white man draw from his experience of gender stereotypes? Is a white man’s experience of gender stereotypes really comparable to a woman’s experience of patriarchy?

How I Healed from SIBO (Small Intestinal Bacterial Overgrowth) With (Mostly) Natural Foods using Gaps and SCD

Back in 2004, on our honeymoon in Central America, visiting the remote sites of US-inspired massacres, I caught giardia, an intestinal parasite, and I held onto it for five years despite multiple courses of antibiotics. I spent many Saturdays napping, barely holding it together from the week. I felt like my insides were falling apart.

When Faith Means Reciting a Social Script: What is a Christian? Part 2

We think we know what we believe. We think that we believe in life after death or the resurrection, or in the virginity of Mary. But mostly, belief is what we say we believe when we're being grilled by a fundamentalist or reciting the Nicene Creed. Belief is social performance. We believe we believe something when we tell others we believe it.

Noah, Magic, and Poetry: What is a Christian? Part 1

I have always believed in magic. Perhaps I believe in magic because I would be bored by a world limned by quadratic equations. But more than that, I don't think we'll ever be able to map the complexities that arise from the simplest of rules. There will always be room for the mystery that has propelled humanity since the inception of language.

In college, I wrote a program to describe the behavior of ants. When they found food, they laid down "pheromones" as they carried it back to the hive. Other ants would follow the pheromone trail to the food, laying down more pheromones. Based on these rules, I expected my ants to behave like flesh-drugged zombies. But what boggled my mind was when the ants appeared excited by the pheromone trail. Behavior emerged from this incredibly simple system that I couldn't explain, even though I'd coded it. I was ignorant to the complexities arising from even the simplest of rules. How much more ignorant are we in understanding the infinite complexity emerging from the human mind? Or complexities emerging from human language?

Thank You for Supporting Grow Your Own Farm-to-Table

Noble Friends,

The Grow Your Own Farm-to-Table campaign was a total success!!!! We raised $10,770, with another $1,000 and change pledged. That makes it possible to even build an iPhone application if grassroots folks want it!!! I'm overwhelmed with gratitude. So many of you responded with such generosity. So many of you helped by sharing and encouraging me. THANK YOU!!!

Lent: Falling in Love With the Ordinary

Definitely, I'm not one much given to joy. I'm far more likely to escape from normal with a fantasy novel than I am to delight in the cutting of vegetables and the washing of dishes.

I'm not so rare a bird as Brother Lawrence, who can practice the presence of God as easily as whistling. No, for me, practicing the presence of God in the midst of the ordinary is a thew-straining effort. Thews being what characters in fantasy novels strain when they're wielding a battle axe or rescuing a distressed maiden. Which we feminists no longer do.

A Call to Build Alternative Economies in Normal Times

Paper economy. The term reminds us that our economy was once literally based on pieces of paper. Economics is our society’s primary method of keeping track of value. The problem is that the economic system of value-keeping, the paper economy, is out of sync with the earth. We don’t need Wendell Berry to remind us that an ecological catastrophe has arrived. And yet the logic of paper, economic profit, is the primary decision matrix for states and multinational corporations.

Job's Poem: Victory is a Long Obedience in the Same Direction

Our scripture today sounds like a cacophony, does it not? All those voices. Job, scratching his sores in the ashes of his life with a shard of broken pottery. Elijah, splitting a bull into four blood-soaked pieces and calling down the fire of God to defeat the prophets of Baal. Sort of a my-God-is-bigger-than-yours. St. John of Patmos telling us that if we trust ourselves to the sword we will be slain by it. And then the Roman centurion. The boss. He recognizes power in Christ because he himself has power on earth. Heal my servant! he says My earthly power is profane next to yours. And Jesus does.

When the Wheels of God Become the Wheels of the State

Kurt Willems asks whether or not nonviolence helps or hinders evangelism. I believe that some of our metaphors for personal change and God, when read in the context of a violent state, are rendered utterly terrifying to late modern people in the United States. That is to say, the church must differentiate itself from the State through nonviolence, or our concepts of God will be read as totalitarian and frightening.

"Do you not know that you are God’s temple and that God’s Spirit dwells in you? If anyone destroys God’s temple, God will destroy that person. For God’s temple is holy, and you are that temple."
1 Corinthians 3:16-17 NRSV

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