- Jonathan Green on Transportation Theory and Algorithmitizing Mission Assignments: “Assigning missionaries to missions seems like it would be algorithmically optimizable, but I’m more skeptical of in-mission assignments, since a successful outcome is much more difficult to quantify. Some surprising combinations can be highly successful, while others you’d expect to be a natural fit turn into disasters. You might have enough training data if you had all the records from all missionary companionships in history for AI to handle it, but then you’d need a long time to figure out how to set the temperature for inference. Probably a case for leaving human and divine beings in charge of the decision-making.” May 27, 09:36
- on Transportation Theory and Algorithmitizing Mission Assignments: “At every level of the church, from Apostle down to missionary, we hear stories of the unintuitive missionary assignment that proved miraculous in the end. The young missionary that speaks fluent Norwegian and is sent to Peru, but 22 months into his mission stumbles across a street in Peru that has 11 Norwegian families and they all join the church. I’m curious (I know I’m not going to find out from a few comments here) how many missionaries feel that they were sent to a specific mission, or mission president, or companion, or area for a specific purpose. I served for two years and never found that for myself. My mission president is a good man, and ran a more sane mission that many I’ve heard tale of, but we formed no special connection. I had a number of companions and we generally got along pretty well. A couple were harder, but we did our best to get along without huge issues. A couple were a lot more fun. And of course I met a ton of people, and a few of them I really got on well with. Statistically that is to be expected. Some of the people I loved the most were investigators that never joined the church, or inactive people that never set foot in the chapel one time while I was there. But that doesn’t mean that it wasn’t wonderful to know them. (Of course, they could be stake presidents down there telling stories about how I changed their life for all I know. But if they are, no one has told me about it. [And I am very findable online even if you only know my last name.]) I am willing to accept that there are missionary assignments that are divinely inspired. I am also willing to accept that many (most) are not, at least not in a specific “only this missionary in this place at this time” sort of way. I am content that with tens of thousands of missionaries being assigned every year, many of them are just people that need to fill open slots to keep the system going, and that I was one of them. If any miracle about my missionary assignment is to be found it is that I was given 4.5 months from when my call was issued until I reported to the MTC. This abnormally long period gave me time to start dating the girl that I would eventually marry. If I’d only had 8 weeks, I’m sure things would have been too busy to have time for any romance.” May 27, 09:13
- on Transportation Theory and Algorithmitizing Mission Assignments: “FWIW: I served a Spanish-language mission in the Paleolithic Age (1960s), and I didn’t have any kind of pre-call testing to determine whether I could potentially speak another language.” May 27, 09:03
- on Transportation Theory and Algorithmitizing Mission Assignments: “Fun stuff to think about! You left out the GA assigning that day being “off” (not feeling it)…maybe they dont assign when they are off?? I would hope every question on the mission request form is there for a reason. I think the most telling one is…:did your parents serve a mission and where? (not sure what questions are on the forms these days) I also think most who served felt they were sent to where God wanted them to go but is that God or that we were willing to go wherever we were sent to? Or both? In my case I prayed “mightily” to be sent to where I would predominantly teach Black people. This was the early 80’s and I felt a need to teach the people that we recently were rejecting. I was upset that I was called to Raleigh NC. =) When I boarded the Trailways bus to go to my first area from Raleigh to Fayetteville, I was thrilled and nervous, that I was the only white person on the bus! I actually thought there might be a black only bus and I was on the wrong bus! Then a white girl about my age got on and set next to me and it was all good. I prayed mightily for thanks on the way to Fayetteville. Trivia note: Back in the late 60s (not sure when it stopped) you were given a language aptitude test that you had to score good enough to serve in a foreign language mission.” May 27, 07:46
- on Transportation Theory and Algorithmitizing Mission Assignments: “There must be some algorithm or heuristics in place for broad sorting. But, if so, anyone who’s watched the system for any length of time will see enough baffling outcomes to suggest that there’s a strong need for optimization.” May 27, 07:34
- on Hymns Officially Rejected: “Kent, I LOVE that idea of somehow being able to experience other submissions. Maybe there is a way, if not officially through the Church…perhaps in other ways?” May 26, 22:13
- on Overcoming Inattention: How Did You Participate in Church (Or What Did Church Lead You to Think About) Yesterday, 5/24?: “I removed the off-topic comment. I apologize for taking so long” May 26, 14:25
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “my 2 cents on the subject based on my limited study of it…. At best, polygamy is a hot mess. You had so many versions of polygamy/sealings/adoptions/marriages etc that were being done, I think we try and lump them all into one thing/type and we cant. It was also a moving target, meaning what they did and did not do changed over the years. To pretend we know/understand what actually happened or what people actually felt/experienced (good and bad) 190 years ago is almost impossible to get accurate based on our current world views. I am sure we have many members in the past who felt 100% that polygamy was from God and were blessed to be a part of it. The opposite can be found as we all know. IMO, none of us are qualified to correctly judge what they did and why. We have current scholars that are on completely opposite views of basic polygamy. (JS did it, no he didn’t) I have my own strong opinions and views based on my current knowledge and info today. I could be completely wrong. Polygamy is just a hot mess.” May 25, 15:01
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “John, “Noting that a woman who refused a powerful man’s proposal had a son who rose to lead the institution that man founded is not complexity. It’s the system working as designed” doesn’t make logical sense, but it’s not the main topic here so let’s move on. I think you’re mistaken about what historical research involves, so you’re looking for a value judgment in my post that isn’t there. Where relationships are contested or ambiguous – including in the context of slavery – then yes, part of the process is clarifying someone’s status on the basis of documents or other evidence. That process of clarification isn’t a defense of anything, it’s just establishing the facts or the most likely interpretation of evidence. In the case of Helen Mar Kimball, there are contested facts and ambiguity, so some basic historical work is required before the argument about value judgments can begin. Helen seems to describe the sealing to Joseph Smith as “for eternity” only: I thought through this life my time will be my own The step I now am taking’s for eternity alone, (You asked above about signalling irony: I see now that I forgot the lines that make the ironic distance between adult author and teenage subject explicit: But could’st thou see the future & view that glorious crown, Awaiting you in Heaven you would not weep nor mourn. Sorry, my bad.) Of course that’s expressed as verse, and is a 52-year-old woman’s woman’s recreation of a 14-year-old girl’s thoughts, about which opinions can differ. But I think the preponderance of evidence points in the same direction: a sealing “for eternity” as part of Joseph Smith’s expansive project of linking the human family, rather than a case of child marriage similar to that of Chad’s ancestor impregnating a 13-year-old. Todd Compton regards the relationship between Helen Mar Kimball and Joseph Smith as unconsummated. So, about those value judgments. You bring up the question of consent, as does Helen: “This promise [of eternal salvation and exaltation for herself and her family] was so great that I willingly gave myself to purchase so glorious a reward.” But also: Her mother “had witnessed the sufferings of others who were older and who better understood the step they were taking…but it was all hidden from me.” Does that sound like how we want to organize sealings? No, it does not. We agree on that point. But I lean toward accepting the past on its own terms, and we shouldn’t overestimate anyone’s freedom of action in a context that was radically more impoverished and precarious than anything we know today. I don’t know how much more we agree on. I agree with Helen Mar Kimball that Joseph Smith was a prophet, and that the salvation and exaltation he spoke of are real rather than tools of manipulation, and that the principle of plural marriage allowed my grandfather to be buried between the graves of my grandmother and the wife he married after my grandmother’s death, secure in the knowledge that both relationships would continue after death. I don’t know how much of this is included in the frameworks or structures you mention and seem to regard as illegitimate.” May 25, 14:25
- on Historiography and Helen Mar Kimball: “Dynastic sealing is not Helen’s language. It’s not in her letter. It’s a category invented after the fact to drain the sealing of its content and applied to a child’s life by people who were not that child. The angels now weep not at what was done to her but at how society misunderstood her. Every time the plain description gets close, the framework produces a new term, a new reframing, a new category. That’s not historiography. That’s what a closed system does. It doesn’t defend a position. It generates positions. The specific content of each defense is less important than the capacity to keep producing them. To ensure that plain description never quite lands, that there’s always another layer of complexity, another term, another reframing available. I don’t know what the solution is here or a path forward to better understanding. I guess one solution that has somewhat works is external pressure – or internal fracturing. The beneficial slavery literature didn’t collapse because abolitionists out-argued it in footnotes. It collapsed because the moral consensus outside the institution became impossible to ignore and enough people inside agreed and took action. I think the Gospel Topics Essays and the Saints books are some evidence that’s some of this is happening inside the Church. We have had to acknowledge certain facts because denial became untenable. Again, thanks for the good conversation here. I do appreciate the good faith engagement on this sensitive topic.” May 25, 10:47
