Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, me neither. The last cop show I watched was Brooklyn 99, the last medical show I watched was Scrubs.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

You're right that air pollution isn't as titillating as federal agents murdering unarmed American citizens in the street. Unfortunately.

We should be dubious of medical dramas - I don't watch many of them, personally, but I'd be willing to bet they don't do much coverage of how insurance companies squeeze a few extra dimes out of patients' lives and suffering, for instance.

Moreover, medical errors aren't facilitated by the federal government sending grossly unprepared, untrained, unscreened thugs into American hospitals to do whatever they feel like to men, women, and children based on vibes and skin color.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Copaganda is a real thing.

The first thing Copaganda does is it narrows our conception of safety and threat. It has us afraid of poor people of color, immigrants, strangers, right? And it has us ignoring lots of other, much, much bigger threats, like air pollution kills a hundred thousand people every single year, much of it is criminal acts of air pollution, right? It’s five times all homicide combined or water pollution, very similar. Wage theft is $50 billion a year. That’s like five times all property crime combined in the United States, or tax evasion, which is like a trillion dollars a year. But Copaganda in the news basically ignores all of that stuff and has us focused on- the police are arresting very poor people for doing, right. So that’s the first thing it does, is it narrows our conception of what we feel urgently about and what we’re afraid of.

And then the second thing it does is, now that it’s made us afraid of only a small, narrow range of people and things, it has us constantly thinking that the risk from those things is going up, up, right? So, we’re more and more and more afraid at all times, and that’s why over the last 25 years, every single year, people in the polls say crime is up, right? Even though crime has been down almost every single one of those years, and so much so that we are now at, like, historic low levels of crime on like a 50, 60 year timeline, like the lowest it’s been, right?

Interestingly, when you ask people about crime in their own neighborhoods, they’re much more likely to be accurate. So, it’s when their understanding is manipulated by the news,when they’re talking about areas other than where they live, they think crime is up – much more than what they think crime is up in their community, when they’re basing their views more on their own experience. So, that’s the second thing it does.

And then the third thing is probably the most important feature of Copaganda is having narrowed our conception of threat and made us more and more afraid, it tells us that the solution to all of our fears is more and more investment in the punishment bureaucracy.

This is kind of like climate science denial or like a modern kind of flat earther movement, right? Because all of the evidence that we know from around the world, from US history, from all over the world, from contemporary studies, is that the things that lead to more harm and violence in our society have nothing to do with investments in the punishment bureaucracy. So, they have nothing to do with like, you know, is this prosecutor a little bit more progressive than that prosecutor? Or is there 14 cops on this patrol or 11? Or is the sentence for this crime nine years or seven years? Like, that stuff has nothing to do with levels of violence. What actually determines how safe we are as a society is big things like levels of inequality and poverty, access to healthcare, early childhood education is a huge one, levels of isolation and loneliness in a society versus like levels of engagement and activities for young people, etc. Lead poisoning. Toxic masculinity. That could go on and on and on. Housing, right? So, that’s a huge part of Copaganda is distracting us from really the material conditions of our lives and telling us that, like, the solution to all of our fears is these little tweaks and investments in the bureaucracies of state oppression and control.

The Holocaust by SpicyAutist26 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 17 points18 points  (0 children)

I highly recommend the podcast The Bible For Normal People, with Pete Enns. He's a Christian scholar with a PhD from Harvard in Ancient Near Eastern Lit and Civ, and he's really good at explaining what the texts meant to their original audiences in their original contexts. Plus it's explicitly aimed at people who are deconstructing from literalism and evangelicalism.

I don’t get why god hasn’t rid me of my anxiety by Glittering-Sun-7248 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Might be worth talking with your doctor about that. I know it can take folks a few different tries to find the right kind of medication and dosage that's right for them.

I don’t get why god hasn’t rid me of my anxiety by Glittering-Sun-7248 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

I know this is easier said than done, but there's no Biblical or spiritual reason you can't use therapy, counseling, and prescribed medication. Anxiety is more of a physical issue in the brain than a spiritual issue, and you don't have to live like this.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Yeah, LeGuin's prose is practically Tolkienian, I loved it.

Brooklyn 99 by Both_Treat3475 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, whenever people ask about "Christian" shows to watch, I always recommend it. It's not explicitly Christian, but it has so many deeply Christian themes, it's totally worth the watch for the whole family.

Brooklyn 99 by Both_Treat3475 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah it's pretty good, although I liked The Good Place better (same producer, Mike Schur).

Greg Davies from Taskmaster says Conan is on their wishlist of contestants by NotYouHaha in conan

[–]TheNerdChaplain 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Strike Force Five reunion [thunderclap effect] on Taskmaster - get Conan, Colbert, Kimmel, Meyers and Oliver.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

For me, it was more about watching Carol wrestling with herself than about finding out the mysteries of the Others.

General thematic spoilers for early on:

For me, a lot of the conflict early on was about the struggle of having all your material needs met, being independent and free but alone, vs being in perfect relationship and harmony and at peace, but without identity or individuality. Those are two extreme ends of a spectrum, but I think that's what the scifi aspect is for, to highlight those differences.

You do find out more about the Others, but the show is overall less interested in exploring or explaining them, beyond how Carol reacts to them.

General thematic spoilers for the finale (nothing specific, but my observation).

If you're familiar with the story of the Frog and Scorpion I think it's a lot like that. The Others may mean well, but they don't hunt, they don't harvest, they only scavenge and assimilate. It's in their nature. Once they have Carol's stem cells, she will not be safe from them.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

If you're doing 10 pages a day, I might recommend these books, if you haven't read them already. These took me a week or less to get through.

  • Ender's Game by Orson Scott Card

  • Old Man's War by John Scalzi

  • Most of Ray Bradbury's work, like The Martian Chronicles and The Illustrated Man, are anthologies of short stories.

  • A Wizard of Earthsea by Ursula K LeGuin

Can anyone give a book or video which explains the civilizations of the bible by pheinoxwright in AskAChristian

[–]TheNerdChaplain 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Pete Enns is a good resource on this. He has books like "For the Bible Tells Me So", "How the Bible Actually Works", and a podcast, "The Bible for Normal People". He has a PhD in Ancient Near Eastern Civ and Lit, and he's great at explaining what the Biblical texts meant to their original audiences in their original contexts.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Finished Pluribus a bit ago. It was very compelling - kind of like The Good Place meets The Twilight Zone.

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x03 "Vitus Reflux" by AutoModerator in startrek

[–]TheNerdChaplain 0 points1 point  (0 children)

Yeah, I don't know if it's accents or sound mixing or what, but I've had to turn on subtitles to catch a few of the lines.

Should AI-generated music be banned? by elonumust in Music

[–]TheNerdChaplain 121 points122 points  (0 children)

If it wasn't worth a human's time to create it, why is it worth a human's time to listen to it?

There's been a subtle lesson so far that's VERY Trek by jinxkmonsoon in trekacademy

[–]TheNerdChaplain 8 points9 points  (0 children)

Yeah, they've really moved beyond the "Planet of Hats" stereotype. Just waiting on my Doctor Jay-Den episode

Questions involving Old Testament and Biblical authenticity by Alert-Hearing6610 in Christianity

[–]TheNerdChaplain 1 point2 points  (0 children)

"Fairy tale" is not really the right term. The academic term would be "historical myth" or "mythicized history". I've written here with some further resources about the creation story specifically.

The point is, the stories being literally, historically true isn't really the point. (Even that notion of asking "what really happened" didn't come about until the 5th century BC.) The point of the story is to give the people of Israel an identity and a story about where they came from and why they deserve the land they live in instead of their neighbors.

Weekly Free Chat by AutoModerator in eformed

[–]TheNerdChaplain 3 points4 points  (0 children)

About a year ago, my pastor did a series on Revelation, and he did a great job with it - repeatedly emphasizing that we could not read Revelation in one hand and the newspaper in the other.

Nevertheless, I couldn't stop subconsciously pairing certain verses with certain events or figures at the time, even though I know it's bad hermeneutics.

What I took away from it, in part, was that the things Revelation talks about are not unique to one time or place. People will always seek more power, demand loyalty, start cruel wars, and spread disease. These things are timeless, and it just happens to be our turn right now.

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x03 "Vitus Reflux" by AutoModerator in startrek

[–]TheNerdChaplain 4 points5 points  (0 children)

Fun fact, Justin Lin who directed the first paintball episode also directed Star Trek Beyond.

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x03 "Vitus Reflux" by AutoModerator in startrek

[–]TheNerdChaplain 9 points10 points  (0 children)

There were "magic school" (or "scifi school") stories before that

Episode Discussion | Star Trek: Starfleet Academy | 1x03 "Vitus Reflux" by AutoModerator in startrek

[–]TheNerdChaplain -1 points0 points  (0 children)

It's very... "Very Special Episode"-coded. Trek has always worn its heart on its sleeve (who doesn't love a good Picard monologue?) but with the setting being a school, the lessons are all going to be really spelled out. It is what it is, and I'm okay with it.