The moral implications of a telepathic computer

I saw a video on TED which was recorded in mid 2010 that shows a random volunteer from an audience donning a magic hat and giving basic commands to a computer just by thinking them. This is an amazing accomplishment and I applaud the people who figured it out. It has almost inconceivable benefits for mankind in the potential form of restoring simple communication abilities to those who've lost it through accident/injury or birth defect. The obvious example is the Steven Hawkings of the world who basically can't use any limb nor even speak yet can possess all the intellect that any of the rest of us has (and sometimes more!)

Considering the pattern of computer advancement over the last 50 years it's not hard to believe that the technology will progress to more than simple commands (probably even before I retire, let alone within my lifetime.) Because why stop with allowing the computer to detect when you've thought the concept of forward, backward, left or right? Why not help a quadriplegic write their graduate thesis in six hours rather than six weeks/months? Imagine the potential for the universal translator? (No pun intended.) However it's got to make you wonder. Like any tool, how badly could this be abused? The potential for an abuse of telepathy would seem limitless.

In 1 Corinthians 2:11 the Apostle Paul asked the rhetorical question "who knows a man's thoughts but his (your) own spirit?" Well now we all can, or will be able to soon. The product I mentioned above was selling for retail $200 by the time I saw it a year after the recorded live demo. A true (or perhaps orthodox) Christian would consider the Bible to be the inspired word of God. But it's in our fallen nature that anything we can do to prove God wrong is at the top of our bucket list, because if we succeed then that would mean we're smarter than God. (Of course we can't prove God wrong but what's that to stop us from trying?) In this case Paul isn't saying telepathy will never happen, he's just stating the obvious to make another point, but it's the first verse I thought of when I saw the video. Because while God is willing to give us His character we don't want it, we want His omni's: omniscient (all knowing), omnipresent (present everywhere), omnipotent (all powerful), and this new technology helps us get one step closer, especially to omniscience.

This gets more interesting when rather than being hooked up to a wheel chair or simple word processor we hook this telepathic machine to the Internet, or a Police scanner, or the misguided Christian zealots who were behind the scarlet letters and witch hunts in colonial America, etc. After Star Trek: The Next Generation my favorite TV show was Babylon 5. In the episode 'Face of the Enemy' one of the main characters is told "Information is power and telepaths represent the greatest threat to freedom we've ever seen... The danger before us is nothing less than the death of human liberty and human thought." At the risk of sounding morbid and pessimistic I'm afraid there's a lot of truth to that, whether the "power" is biological in nature or mechanical. Babylon 5 certainly wasn't the first science fiction story to address this issue. (1984 is another that comes to mind.)

While we're on the subject, it's important to point out that we don't need special hardware scanning your skull to read your mind. Amazon, Google, Match.com and others are leveraging mathematical equations based on your behavioral patterns to predict your next purchase (and maybe even push that next thing to you before you realize you even want it.) Jesus pointed out in Matthew 15:18-19 and Luke 6:45 that we advertise what's in our heart all the time anyway, the difference now is it's being recorded and modeled like never before. So next time you're renting a movie on Netflix, Amazon, iTunes, etc. and deciding whether to get the unrated version or not, remember that the seller will remember your decision for as long as they can so they can tailor their advertisements for you. (And don't forget the "recently purchased" lists so many websites have. Who knows who'll be looking over your shoulder next time you go to that website.) And don't kid yourself that those sellers will think twice before selling the history they accumulate on you to anyone willing to buy it. Let's not jump to criticism and pretend there's no benefit to society from this. As long as we're aware of this new reality then the potential for accountability and genuine targeted marketing is pretty cool. The trick is once again we must remember that any tool has proper and improper uses, and we must pity and consider compassion on the poor soul who only learns of this new reality the hard way.

My last thought is this: how long will it be until it they can not only read your mind from their magic hat, but write to it too?

Sweetie

Noodle's preschool teacher emailed this to Dora Beth recently.

I just wanted to take a moment to tell you what wonderful children you have.  Not only are they polite, well behaved and always a joy to be around, but they are constantly demostrating God's love with their words and actions towards others.  During church today, [Pastor] asked the children what they would do if their brothers and sisters treated them badly.  Most of the class replied by saying they would be mad or sad.  Not [Noodle], she raised her hand and said "I would forgive them". [The other teacher] and I both fought tears.  Your girls hug my heart daily with their genuine love for others. You should be so proud, not only of the girls, but of the wonderful job you guys are doing raising them. I am so glad that you chose [our school] and thank you for sharing your wonderful children with us. 

God' Blessings

[The teacher]

Memories from the Vancouver Olympics

About a year and a half ago I went with Answers in Genesis on an outreach to the people attending the Vancouver Olympics. I kept a brief journal at the time on my phone but the notes didn't fit exactly on my website and I hadn't started this blog yet so just kept them on my phone. Recently I was thinking about those notes and realized duh, I should put the highlights here.

Eighty of us from 13 states and 3 other countries stayed at Stillwood Christian Camp (map), almost two hours east of Vancouver. It was a very nice campground with a beautiful lodge and really nice cabins, not far from a lake and mountains. Each morning the staff there made us breakfast and prepared a sack lunch for us and made dinner. It was great food and I'd be stuffed each meal (and I'm not one to normally say that).

I arrived Saturday evening and left 8 days later. That first day after we arrived we got to hear Ken Ham speak in person at a local Penticostal church in Abbotsford. This was where I recorded the quote "You may not believe the Bible but I do... I don't use evidence to prove the Bible, I'm going to use the Bible as a starting point and show the evidence fits." Each day we drove into town on two charter buses and handed out tracts that were custom made for this event. The tracts gave a history of the Olympics, the gold metals, the gold rush in western North America a hundred years ago, the streets of gold in heaven mentioned in the Bible, and the gift Jesus gave by coming to earth, dying and resurrecting, with links to the Answers in Genesis (AiG) website (no local contact info was needed since we'd be giving these out to people from all over the world.) We had these tracts in 6 different languages (English, French, Spanish, German, Chinese and Japanese.)

The first couple days I walked the streets with a nice guy from Ohio named Sherman. We started out on Granville Island and then moved into downtown Vancouver, Robson Road specifically. We discovered hundreds of "inuits" (the little stone statues like the Olympic symbol that year) lining the bay out back behind BC Place Stadium (map). So I stopped and offered to take people's photos for them and then offered tracts. I gave out about 125 tracts these two days.

Wednesday I took a 3 hour bus ride up to Whistler (map), where the downhill skiing was. I walked up and down the street (there was basically one main pedestrian walkway with a few spinoffs) and said hi to people, took their pictures for them, handed out tracts, telling people God loves them. I gave out about 120 tracts this day.

The next three days were spent out front of Canada Place (map) which is where the hockey games were held, and we were a half block east of where the Olympic torch was being kept. I had thought about walking down to the steam clock (map) since I had been there 11 years before with my family on our way to Alaska, but if I did that then I'd be leaving three teenagers to pass out tracts alone so I stayed back at the Canada Place. (You never know when you'll want an adult around when you're doing something as controversial as passing out tracts that tell people God loves them.) I didn't write their names down but I think the kids' names were Isaiah, Silas and Avery. Thursday the four of us handed out 500 tracts.

The location was really a great intersection between those two landmarks and also triangulated by being a major intersection for people coming from or going to downtown, so it worked out beautifully. Not only that, but we had a concrete awning over our head in case it rained and a huge curb to put all our boxes of tracts on so they'd be easily accessible. The next day since it worked out so well we returned to the same spot. This day we passed out 2,400 between the four of us. We ran out of English tracts twice and had someone go get us more from the bus, because like hikers in the mountains we had to cary everything we had with us, lunch, tracts, rain gear and all. I should make note that AiG prides itself that their tracts don't get thrown around as garbage by the people who take them and they don't become litter in the streets of the Olympic host city. (This was not the first Olympics they had sent volunteer missionaries to.) All week whenever we saw our tracts on the ground we'd immediately pick them up and either throw them away or redistribute them, but by the end of the week I think I had picked up maybe 30 (and I even went up and down the streets at least twice a day looking for them.) Of the 80 of us there, some where good at striking up deep converstaions with people and would spend 30-90 minutes with someone. I'm not good at discussing anything on the spot, but would never hand a tract and run. I always said what it was, gave it to them if they wanted it and paid close attention to their reaction. In the very rare occasion that someone wanted to discuss it with me I did, but usually people didn't even stop when taking it.

The last day for distribution was Saturday, which was also the last day of any official events. So it was a big day. We returned to the same spot again with so many boxes of tracts that our arms ached by the time we walked from the bus drop zone to our spot. Most of the last couple days I had been standing in the crowds of people proclaiming in a decently loud voice, but not shouting "Free souvenir, gold metals of the Olympics, gold rush in this country 100 years ago, the city of gold described in the Bible, the good news of Jesus." This had to be said very quickly as people would only be in earshot for 3-5 seconds before they'd pass you by as they're rushing to their next destination. By Saturday I heard God give me another idea and I started adding a second sentence: "God loves us and sent His Son to prove it, He has a wonderful plan for your life and wants a personal relationship with each of us." This was a little more bold and perhaps less politically correct but I really thought it was an idea planted by God and I figured, if anyone's going to raise a stink about this new sentence they'd probably raise a stink about my original sentence anyway so why not. By now I was spending half the day literally in a crowd of fastly moving people. There wasn't even time for lunch we had so many "customers." I estimated that I said my short little commercial at least 5 or 6,000 times this day alone. As I spoke I was paying attention to the reaction I got, compared to when I just smiled, and when exactly in my speach people decided they were interested in taking the tract from me. As the day progressed I was amazed that it was the second, more explicitly love related sentence that got dramatically more people to take what I had to offer. By the late afternoon I was skipping the part about the gold and just telling them the part about God loving them. By the end of this last day, and on just this last day, in just this one 20 by 20 foot spot, in 6 hours the 4 of us passed out a full 4,900 tracts. That was an average of one every 4 seconds.

At the end of the day the organizers came by to say it's time to go but we wouldn't have been able to hand out those tracts faster if they had diamonds taped to them so they just let us keep going. In those last 30 minutes two of us broke open and emptied a case of 480 tracts EACH. I estimated my personal total for the week was 3,000 and the group of 80 of us handed out a grand total of 91,460 tracts in the name of "encouraging people that the Bible is true and God can be trusted."

Interesting trivia: we had been living in our current town for about a year now and it wasn't until I was on this mission trip in Canada that I met a guy (named Helmet) who lived in the next town over from us and had his own creation appologetics ministry.  Not only that, but he works for the same company as me!  Small world.

With 80 people fighting spiritual warfare in the middle of a few million people you can imagine there were plenty of stories to tell each night. But the one that stood out the most to me was actually as much related to the previous mission trip to the London Olympics as it was to this one. Some people can understandably be skeptical about tracts really being of any value at all. But the AiG office got an email from their website just a couple weeks before the Olympics started. It was from an athlete who had gotten one of the tracts four years prior and never looked at it and stuck it in their bag of souvenirs. As they were getting ready to come to this one they emptied out that bag and skimmed through the contents. The AIG tract stood out to him and he read it and God spoke to him in that moment. The man was not a believer but after reading the tract and hearing God speaking to him then, he read the prayer of salvation at the end and promised God he wanted to live for Him in gratitude for His love. Praise God, and thank you Answers in Genesis for standing up for the uncompromised authority of the word of God.

Waiting for Daddy

Awe, Carrot was the only kid who wanted to sit on the counter with me while I shaved this morning. Then afterwards while I was going to shower I said you should wait outside the bathroom until I'm done, so you took one step out of the bathroom and sat down to wait for me. Mommy offered to read some books in the family room and you took her up on that, but that was so cute!
Sent from my BlackBerry® by Boost Mobile

It only comes once

I'm sitting in a meeting with 75 people from 4 continents in our twice a year leadership meeting. Yesterday at the first day of this 2 day meeting I received a Vice President's Award for the awe inspiring database integration I do with website design but that's not what inspired me to write today.

This morning I figured I wouldn't attend day 2 since I only had reason to be here the first day. This morning my schedule was open so I was going to drive Pickle to preschool. Pickle was eating and I was about to and Noodle came down from your bedroom for the first time in the morning. You had that bashful "I don't want to process too much info, I just woke up and want to be held" look. So I gently swooped you up. I asked if you wanted to eat breakfast or snuggle on the couch first and you chose to snuggle first. You picked a book and we snuggled and I read a Magic School Bus book. In the middle Carrot came down for the first time of the morning and quietly bashfully came over and snuggled on my other side, and we continued reading. (Pickle was eating but came over to say hi.) I was proud of you, Carrot for having dry underwear again. You've been doing good for about a month now.

We had breakfast and were snuggling and going to read another book when I got a call asking I come to the second day, I'm wanted. Being wanted is nice, but I'm very glad we had this morning together. It was one of many like it and Lord willing one of many more. Most people say the time goes by fast but I think that's inaccurate. I think it's more accurate to say the time we have together only comes once and we never get it back. I'm trying to value our time even in the midst of the God given success I'm experiencing at work.