The Crowhill Journal

“The worst thing any president has done in my lifetime,” by Victor Davis Hanson.

Pigweed and I watched Oppenheimer over the weekend, which got me thinking about nuclear bombs. I’ve been reading up on them a bit. It’s fascinating and terrifying stuff.

In Star Trek lore, it was Zefram Cochrane’s warp drive that got the attention of the Vulcans and caused them to make first contact with Earth.

Why is warp drive the trigger? Why not nuclear bombs? That seems far more significant.

All a warp drive does is manipulate space-time so you can go faster than light. That doesn’t seem as big a deal as splitting the atom.

I guess the logic is that if you want to split the atom and destroy your own planet, that’s your problem, but if you have warp drive you can take your insanity elsewhere and mess with other people.

However, if Star Fleet is a humanitarian outfit, you’d think they’d want to find planets that had learned to make nukes and guide them in the right direction before they discovered warp technology.

The bad news is that it doesn’t seem like there are any nice people out there who want to guide us through this mess we’ve created, so we’re stuck with idiot politicians.

It’s actually a wonder we’ve survived this long.

FBI Kills Utah Man Who Allegedly Posted Online Threats Targeting Joe Biden, Alvin Bragg

You can’t threaten to shoot the president. Law enforcement has to take that seriously.

But I fear law enforcement is getting a little too addicted to the idea of early morning, armed raids on civilians. I’m not sure that’s exactly what happened here, but it seems likely.

There have been too many situations recently where law enforcement used way too much force. E.g., the arrest of Roger Stone.

Who’s keeping an eye on this?

These are priests who were laicized, or otherwise prohibited from their duties, because they were too political, or too conservative.

Coalition for Canceled Priests

Here’s a ChatGPT summary of very long email I got on the subject.

The Coalition for Canceled Priests, an organization founded in 2020, held its second annual conference in Rosemont, Illinois. The conference brought together dozens of Catholic priests who claim to have been “canceled” by the Church for expressing conservative views on issues like abortion, homosexuality, and politics. They feel betrayed by the Church and are critical of Pope Francis, whom they see as a “woke pope” leading the Church astray from its traditional teachings. The attendees seek a return to a more orthodox and rigid version of the faith, reminiscent of pre-Vatican II times. The conference reflects a growing divide within the Catholic Church over social and theological issues.

I’ve heard stories about bishops shutting down conservative priests, but I didn’t think there were enough of them to make a “coalition”! Wacky.

I’m listening to the “Philosophize this” podcast about consciousness, and (doggone it!) there’s a section on whether free will is an illusion. The host mentioned the alleged connection between free will and moral agency. I.e., if we don’t have free will, we can’t be responsible for our actions.

What came to mind was a society (perhaps shortly in the future) in which we have humanoid robots.

I can easily imagine a scenario where (1) we do not believe the robots have free will, but (2) we still hold them accountable for their actions. E.g., we would dismantle bad robots, or limit their sphere of action or influence, even if they thought of that as a punishment.

IOW, it doesn’t seem obvious to me that a lack of free will therefore means that we are not responsible for our actions.