Earlier quoted context omitted.
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Tier-0 whataboutism argument.
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Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
211–220 of 264 posts
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#212Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yeah and if there was a global organization of Harry Potter PhDs that selected the best from all over the world for hundreds of years I'd probably think those guys were smart too and probably wouldn't have surface level takes about adjacent topics.
Given what we know about the origins of Harry Potter, you basically proved ryandrake’s point. Just because you put time into something does not make it worthy of attention. Religions’ primary purpose is to facilitate tribal bonds, not experimentally seek truths and evaluate data for consistency. That is why almost all start with a set of tenets or immutable “facts”, such as the existence of an immortal component of a…
> Religions’ primary purpose is to facilitate tribal bonds
That's what religion does, but so does "working in Silicon Valley for a tech company". What religion is is another matter entirely.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#213Earlier quoted context omitted.
What rot. Tell that to native Americans who were forcibly converted and enslaved. Tell that to people in the inquisition. Tell that to peoples in India and the east that were forcibly converted so that the pope could fill his coffers. Tell that to all the children murdered in Christian and catholic schools. Christianity and Catholicism doesn’t fool me. If you’ve ever wanted to see the mythical devil - look to those p…
So your argument is that if some people who claim allegiance to an idea do evil things, that renders all who claim such allegiance, and even the idea itself, evil? That is a pretty poor argument. It's also one that I don't think you would actually accept in another context. I bet you anything that I can find some ideal you uphold which was espoused by some vile people at some point, and I also bet that you wouldn't g…
If a group of people claim to be "divinely inspired" but then they do the same evil more or less as other groups, that leads me to conclude that they are not uniquely favoured by a god.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#214I'm an atheist, but most of what I have heard from popes in recent years seems like sound and possibly needed advice. Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit base…
> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" because I think that's really premature and pretty obvious that AIs are not people at this point.
I hope it is, because we already have the likes of Dawkins spilling opinions like “machines are conscious”.
So here we have a figure of authority saying humans are soulless but machines are conscious, furthering the argument that it’s okay to exploit humans, there’s nothing special about them if we can replace them with a machine.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#215Earlier quoted context omitted.
>>> It's the human value that welcomed slaves, prostitutes, wretches, merchants and kings as peers in something grander than economy or state or lineage or tribe or creed. This sounds a lot like an appeal to democracy, yet it often seems that religion is at odds with democracy in our world. And given the choice between living in a religious society or a democratic one, I'd choose the democracy any day of the week. No…
Modern democracy developed in societies dominated by religious values and at least partly because of those values. What you describe as an appeal to democracy could also be described as a statement of Christian values. The idea that every individual matters and is loved by God is a core belief. There are some quotes in my other comments, but I think this is worth adding. https://biblehub.com/galatians/3-28.htm
This is indeed the paradox. I call it a paradox because it seems like religions value those things on paper but religious societies counteract them. I'm as puzzled as anybody as to the root cause.
The development of democracy may have been a reaction of religious people towards their own religions.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#216 > Magnifica humanitas will be presented on the day of its release at 11:30 a.m. at the Vatican’s Synod Hall.
> [...]
> The Pope will be present, along with several speakers:
> [...]
> Christopher Olah, co-founder of Anthropic (USA) and head of research on the interpretability of artificial intelligence [...]Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#217I'm an atheist, but most of what I have heard from popes in recent years seems like sound and possibly needed advice. Also, even though I feel AI and robotics are very important for progressing humanity, I think that much of the world has long since lost a proper sense of intrinsic human value. It's really gone from overt exploitation to slightly more mild exploitation where we pretend the system is really merit base…
> I hope the speech isn't something dumb like "remember only humans have souls" because I think that's really premature and pretty obvious that AIs are not people at this point. It really is en vogue to have this attitude that everyone in church is stupid for believing but it's a huge disservice to yourself to not understand the Vatican is full of the equivalent of the best PhDs sourced from all over the world center…
> ANTIQUA ET NOVA
> Note on the Relationship Between Artificial Intelligence and Human Intelligence
> https://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/documents/rc_ddf_doc_20250128_antiqua-et-nova_en.html
Let's see how the direction evolves with the new Pope and 1.5 years later.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#218Earlier quoted context omitted.
Human value has rarely existed. Pre-industrial world didn't have much human value. Your were a lord or a serf. There was not much in between. A lord's life had value, a serf's value was nothing. Post-industrial world needed human capital. Hence, the need for human value. If you notice most of this "need" has arisen out of then need for industrial expansion. Post-AI will be interesting. Will we go back to pre-industri…
It's telling how blithely you're missing the point of what the pope(s) mean by human value. Their intended meaning is that far gone from modern consciousness, even among people who meant to champion some kind of human value themselves. They're not talking about the economic value of humans or even the psychological value of humans as subjects with experiences and a right to liberty or care or something. The idea they…
I prefer a more general version: (and keep out of the discussion)
= All life is precious =
For "life", you can read: any creature that potentially could be perceived as an individual that deserves a minimum of respect, a fair share of space/raw materials, not hurting, torturing or kill it without good reason, etc.
No need to go to extremes, but the above is imho a good starting point when considering the ethics on how to treat other creatures. Note that the question of whether something has a 'soul' or not, is not relevant there.
I'd be willing to consider including AI entities in that "life" category, if/when they cross that line between machine/tool and "creature with own personality, hopes, dreams, fears etc". Regardless of physical form.
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#219Earlier quoted context omitted.
Modern democracy developed in societies dominated by religious values and at least partly because of those values. What you describe as an appeal to democracy could also be described as a statement of Christian values. The idea that every individual matters and is loved by God is a core belief. There are some quotes in my other comments, but I think this is worth adding. https://biblehub.com/galatians/3-28.htm
This is indeed the paradox. I call it a paradox because it seems like religions value those things on paper but religious societies counteract them. I'm as puzzled as anybody as to the root cause. The development of democracy may have been a reaction of religious people towards their own religions.
It depends on what you mean by a religious society. Do you mean theocracies ? Democracies with a religious electorate? Countries with an established religion?
Re: Pope Leo XIV’s first encyclical Magnifica humanitas to be published May 25
#220Earlier quoted context omitted.
This is indeed the paradox. I call it a paradox because it seems like religions value those things on paper but religious societies counteract them. I'm as puzzled as anybody as to the root cause. The development of democracy may have been a reaction of religious people towards their own religions.
It depends on what you mean by a religious society. Do you mean theocracies ? Democracies with a religious electorate? Countries with an established religion?
Yes. ;-)
Granted there are only so many countries, so it would be hard to see a clear statistical picture. And it's complicated by the fact that religion may be secondary to democracy as a predictor of well-being. But I don't know of a country right now (or a region in the US) where the influence of religion on governance is a cause for optimism about the future of democracy.