Artificial intelligence is not something that emerges into the world in a neutral way, or which affects the world in a neutral way. Artificial intelligence is something created by humans within the context of a particular society and period of history; that context determines the nature of the particular artificial intelligence that we create, as well as the environment in which it operates and the scope of its potential influence. This being the case, a proper understanding of how artificial intelligence influences human society and the possibilities for how it may do so in the future begins with a study of human society as it presently exists. This is a very broad topic and a full survey is well beyond the scope of the entire Satanist Reads the Bible project, but we can hone in on some key points that are particularly relevant to the subject of artificial intelligence.
Category: politics
The Dialectic of American Identity
What does it mean that I went to war for a country where this kind of person—a fellow American citizen and one among those whose rights I literally swore to defend with my life—does not feel safe? Does not feel free?
Political Propaganda in America
Last week, I opened the show with a description of the murder of George Floyd by the police officer Derek Chauvin by way of introducing the ongoing political unrest in the United States that was instigated by Floyd’s murder, and that by way of introducing a White House photo shoot at St. John’s Episcopal Church in Washington, D.C., which took place in the midst of the protests and which, for me, exemplifies the relationship between Christianity and white supremacy in this country. This week, I’ll be turning to my roots as a propaganda analyst for the United States Army and examining that photo shoot—and the video montage it was used to create—in further detail, analyzing it as United States government propaganda using the methods in which I was trained.
Satanism, Religion, and Racial Hegemony
Racial hegemony and police violence in America are inextricable from religion, and Satanism, while not necessarily partisan in either direction, is necessarily political. Christianity cannot be disentangled from American politics, and so neither can Satanism.
American Mythology: Capitalism, pt. 2
In my last essay, I took a general survey of the history and philosophy of capitalism as formulated by Adam Smith in the aforementioned book, which is usually referred to by the shortened title of The Wealth of Nations. If you haven’t listened to that episode, I highly recommend checking that out before continuing with this one, in which I intend to begin looking at critiques of capitalism.
American Mythology: Capitalism
I’m continuing this week with my American Mythology series, which explores the myths present in contemporary American philosophical and political thought. My objective in my explorations of religious texts has been to demonstrate that what is said of the texts and what they actually contain are often two very different things, and my objective in these essays is essentially the same, only addressing political theory instead of sacred texts, but as I’ve described in the previous two essays in this series, political theory and religion are themselves not very distant from each other and often there’s considerable overlap. I’ve looked at the myths surrounding the way in which the Americas were first conquered and colonized and the myths about American freedom as related to the philosophical influence of John Locke on the American political sphere, and now I’m turning to the myths embedded in American capitalism.
Satanism and Fascism
Let’s start with Karl Popper and the Paradox of Tolerance. This is something that has vexed me ever since I found out about it. The idea is this: think of society as having a sliding scale between tolerance and intolerance, with regard to people, with regard to ideas, politics, religion, race, sexual and gender identity, and so forth. The more the scale tips toward tolerance, the more intolerant ideas are sanctioned, so both tolerance and intolerance result in intolerance. Intolerance prevails either way. And the only way around this is to embrace intolerance, and then the question becomes, what kind of intolerance do we truly wish to prevail?