Month: December 2024

Last few days of the year!

Met some nice people from the extended Brasilian family. Sacramento doesn’t have much to do in the way of activities, but is only a few hours from Tahoe. A little bit of Christmas silliness with matching PJs and fun.

On the way back, I was listening to tech news about AI and had a few discoveries:

1. Over-reliance – I don’t currently physically work in an office, so I can’t say much about how regular users use AI. You can see the facility of AI writing your emails and reports. Obviously we are not at a place where we let the AI take over; we shouldn’t trust our critical processes to software that is not intelligent in our sense. Right now, chatbot AI is a probability process of auto-complete.

2. Environmental concerns – Like cryptocurrency, AI is processing-intensive. Data centers are being built for expanding AI processes.

3. Over-investment – The hype, like others, may be at a stage where it’s little more than a buzzword. That’s an oversimplification, but gives one pause when budgeting.

Just some thoughts before the New Year.

End times laziness

There’s a certain kind of intellectual laziness arising from end-times teaching. In the 80s, television preachers pleaded for people to repent because of the approaching end.

Things haven’t changed.

Yes, it will come one day, but His people must live like it is already here. They must take the time to take time. Patience for the waiting come alive. Grace is a big part of it. Grace and patience for others, faith that His hand is on His love objects.

At midnight December 31, 1999, the ball came down and the lights stayed on.

And taxes

Yes yes yes our taxes are being spent on such and such, but what can we do to change that?

And then the conversation ends. Life goes on.

Even when DOGE inevitably exposes excess, it will be something that doesn’t affect us. We are comfortable. Modern society lets us be distracted.

At least until it hits us personally.

Unions

I have always been ambivalent about unions. I have never actually been a member of one until now.

I am first of all concerned about where my dues are going. We have meetings, talking about organizing. One of the main concerns is the pay discrepancy between the different third party employers that contract us out to the client. We all have MAs and PhDs, but are paid very little for our education. Add experience for some of us.

However, the union reps are recommending we read a book on organizing. I am not optimistic. They are young and idealistic. That is not a bad thing in itself, but I think they may be a bit too zealous as opposition to the employer.

Even so, I am wary about a new union. The client may not be happy and I need to guard my position.

How is the God of the bible different from the other religions of antiquity?

You can learn about the Epic of Gilgamesh or the gods of animistic religions in the rest of the world. But why would the ancient texts of the bible be any different?
– God is universal, rather than everyone having their own deities. We are also all members of God’s family, brothers and sisters.
– God is invisible and incorporeal, not material, rather than wooden gods propped up on your shelf. The material world itself is not the only reality. God is beyond nature. He made nature and is not of it. The human belief in nature gods ended.
– God is moral and justice is in the future. Other gods prior to the God of the bible were capricious and amoral.
– God lets his children challenge and question. Humans can wrestle with God and question Him.
– God loves and wants to be loved.
– Humans are universally valuable because we are created in His image.
– Humans have universal rights.