- Stephen C on Female Veiling in Mormonism: “Thanks for your insights Dr. Cocoa. Yes, that’s why I mentioned “different variations on the Islamic dress code,” alongside Eastern Orthodox head-covering, because of the variation in “veiling” (I’m kind of confusingly referring to both the face covering as well as the head-covering with that term) across the Muslim world.” Nov 13, 09:52
- on Female Veiling in Mormonism: “Having lived in the Middle East for several years, I’ll clarify that while it’s true there are many women who are forced to cover up by men in their lives, there are also many women who choose various levels of covering out of their love of Islam and modesty. Some even wear it for religious signaling purposes. Just as there is a wide range of application, there is a wide range of reasoning as to why Muslim women cover. The only requirement in Islam is for the woman to cover the hair (and even this is debatable). The practice of veiling women of importance already existed in the region before Islam, so it’s likely that those pre-existing practices blended with Islam, but the Quran does not explicitly require it. Anyway, the point is that we shouldn’t point to Islam as a religion and say it requires women to veil, because this simply isn’t true. We can more accurately say some middle eastern men require their female relatives to veil, while some females choose to veil for various reasons, while others choose to not veil, and some don’t even cover their hair.” Nov 13, 07:24
- on Zion will have data centers: “LotL, you sound like a local AI enthusiast who hasn’t found the right GPU yet. AI without all the data centers, but you might start filling up your PC with terabytes of your favorite LLMs just in case you need them one day.” Nov 13, 02:59
- on Zion will have data centers: “Hey Jonathan, I will admit that I was being overly dramatic, I had just gotten off work, and wasn’t in the best frame of mind. And I’m not totally against AI being a helpful tool. Just as you are wary of attempts to block growth on too broad of a scale, I’m wary in the opposite direction. To me, most of this AI growth seems to be forced upon us from above, rather than below. Which makes me wary, knowing all the messed up things our government and corporations have done in the last few hundred years. I also partly reacted the way I did because of my temperament. I’m a very conservative person and believe in hierarchy, law & order, etc. However, when I know or believe my leaders are trying to gaslight me, be that religious, secular, or business, I quickly become very much like the Founding Fathers during the revolution.” Nov 12, 20:30
- on Announcing B. H. Roberts: Warhorse of the Church, A Beginner’s Guide: “Kent, I do mention Corianton. As much as I appreciate the effort to fight for the gospel through literary works, though, it isn’t quoted directly in the book. I haven’t seen much of his poetry, though. I don’t remember him sharing it in his books or sermons, other than one about women. He was usually quoting other poetry instead. Is there a bunch published somewhere that I completely missed?” Nov 12, 20:20
- on Announcing B. H. Roberts: Warhorse of the Church, A Beginner’s Guide: “Those are some good ideas. Widsoe and Whitney are high on our list. Anyone active after 1930 gets tricky because of copyright, but there are a lot of people I would personally love to feature. Chieko Okazaki and Richard L. Evans in particular. J. Reuben Clark, Hugh B. Brown, Amy Brown Lyman, Lowell Bennion, and Eugene England are great options too. Talmage was in both the Deseret Book and Signature Books series. Nibley and the Pratt brothers were featured in one or the other. Those will likely be low priority as a result.” Nov 12, 20:10
- on Zion will have data centers: “LotL, you’ve got to find a better way to react to one guy posting something you disagree with than to feel all alone at church. There are plenty of people who agree with you. 41 states just voted to slow or stop construction of data centers. The last few centuries have seen many different experiments on how to make society work, and those of us with humanities degrees have to face the fact that free markets plus liberal democracy is the one formula for rising out of misery and oppression. So much so, that I’m wary of attempts to block growth on too broad of a broad scale. You’re right to worry about how the benefits of growth are distributed, though.” Nov 12, 19:29
- on Zion will have data centers: “hey great topic! this is my wheelhouse. i’ve written extensively about ways to rebuild the internet for zion. https://wetheusers.ai yes, zion will pass messages and record information. it will respect digital shadows completely and every message will have the right stewardship and accountability.” Nov 12, 19:01
- on Zion will have data centers: “To keep this short, when I read posts like this, I can’t help feeling somewhat morally and spiritually alone within the Church. To me Jonathan, and I hope you don’t get offended, but this post seemed to defend greedy avaricious capitalists. Because if we’re being honest, most people aren’t going to get benefits from AI. DaveW mentioned that tens of millions of Americans might lose jobs within the next 10 years and I think he’s right. Maybe it’s my humanities degree coming through, but not everything needs to be about productivity and efficiency. I personally don’t like data centers because their ugly. If I’m being frank with you, I think many of our political and social ills come from or has been negatively affected by having to look at our soulless architecture.” Nov 12, 16:56
- on Announcing B. H. Roberts: Warhorse of the Church, A Beginner’s Guide: “Another person I thought of, and RLD indirectly brought them up, is Orson F. Whitney who passed away a couple of years before Talmage and Roberts. I also thought about J. Reuben Clark & even Elder McConkie, but I do think it’s too soon for them, especially McConkie. As for Nibley and the others, I think they fall into being to recent as well.” Nov 12, 15:59
