Podcasts about implicitly

Cheating violates a fundamental and foundational milestone of childhood development with very serious adult implications. Implicitly speaking to both the promise as well delivery of much needed care and nurturance, once TRUST is violated becomes very difficult to overcome. Psychological Counseling can HELP!Contact Us; DrMDClay@TheWORDHouse.com; TheWORDHouse.com; on FB and YouTube @WORDHouse; or call 304.523.WORD (9673).

Donald Trump implicitly threatened Liz Cheney recently. The Arizona AG has opened a death threat investigation. Subscribe to our Newsletter: https://politicsdoneright.com/newsletter Purchase our Books: As I See It: https://amzn.to/3XpvW5o How To Make America Utopia: https://amzn.to/3VKVFnG It's Worth It: https://amzn.to/3VFByXP Lose Weight And Be Fit Now: https://amzn.to/3xiQK3K Tribulations of an Afro-Latino Caribbean man: https://amzn.to/4c09rbE

Our guest this episode is Avery Miller, VP and Head of Digital Consumer Product and the Avion Rewards Platform at RBC. Avery got his MBA at the University of Richmond and spent time before going to RBC at Capital One and PayPal. We talk about how connected finance impacts shopping and card use and loyalty programs. Topics include: How are financial services organizations doing at keeping up with modern shopper expectations, wants, and needs? How consumer expectations are changing generation to generation. Where the data that powers purchasing and rewards programs comes from. How interconnectivity is being achieved to facilitate shopping and payments. Implicitly and explicitly given data and the proper way to use that data for better consumer experiences. Is the current infrastructure enough to build the connected finance ecosystem of tomorrow? The impact cloud, AI, and quantum computing will have on verifiable sources of trust. What are the odds we can ever get to open banking on a global scale? Helpful Links: Avion Rewards Avery Miller on LinkedIn Envestnet Yodlee

Today we learn about a company called Implicit Conversions that specializes in porting old games to new consoles, we get a whiff of a strike that could be on the horizon from Voice Actors from SAG-AFTRA, and we also chat about the pros and cons of having exclusive rights to video games.

DISCLAMER >>>>>>    The Ditch Lab Coat podcast serves solely for general informational purposes and does not serve as a substitute for professional medical services such as medicine or nursing. It does not establish a doctor/patient relationship, and the use of information from the podcast or linked materials is at the user's own risk. The content does not aim to replace professional medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment, and users should promptly seek guidance from healthcare professionals for any medical conditions.                                                  >>>>>> The expressed opinions belong solely to the hosts and guests, and they do not necessarily reflect the views or opinions of the Hospitals, Clinics, Universities, or any other organization associated with the host or guests.                                                                                  Disclosures: Ditch The Lab Coat podcast is produced by (Podkind.co) and is independent of Dr. Bonta's teaching and research roles at McMaster University, Temerty Faculty of Medicine and Queens University. 1. Introduction and Background of Guests   - Introduction to "Ditch the Lab Coat" podcast emphasizing the focus on Covid-19's past, present, and future.   - Background of Dr. Sumon Chakrabarti as an infectious diseases specialist.   - Dr. Chakrabarti's expertise in tropical medicine and his anecdotal experiences with diseases such as neurocysticercosis.2. Vaccine Efficacy and Policies   - Discussing the stability and effectiveness of COVID-19 vaccines for under 70 populations.   - Debates on COVID-19 booster shots for young, healthy individuals.   - Government policies on vaccinations and the comparison to alcohol and cigarettes accessibility.   - The role of vaccine in individual risk reduction versus transmission prevention.   - Comparison of COVID-19 vaccine with traditional vaccines like measles for public health impact.3. Epidemiological Insights and Disease Transmission   - Concepts of fomite transmission and the role of ventilation in transmission reduction.   - Transmission of infectious diseases like tuberculosis in poorly ventilated spaces.   - The use of masks, especially N95 masks, and related confusion.4. Healthcare Workers' Experiences and Emotional Stress   - Dr. Mark's reflections on emotional stress while working in hospitals.   - Sumon Chakrabarti's personal experiences during the pandemic.   - Healthcare providers' emotional reactions and fears.5. Public Health Messaging and Social Impact   - Regrets over early response and messaging advocating for strict isolation.   - Effects of isolation measures on mental health and widening socioeconomic disparities.   - The credibility of public health messaging and the evolving nature of science.6. Social Media and Public Engagement   - Sumon Chakrabarti's use of Twitter before and after Elon Musk's acquisition.   - The experience of online vitriol and engagement strategies with the public.7. Pandemic Reflections and Measures   - Experiences leading up to the declaration of the pandemic.   - Initial pandemic preparations and avoidance of large gatherings.   - The idea of self-sufficient confinement and its health impacts.8. Impact on Healthcare Systems and Services   - The struggle of healthcare systems with ventilator supplies.   - Halting of non-COVID health services and its consequences.   - Prioritization of COVID-19 patients over other health needs.9. Socioeconomic Factors and Policies   - The shift in perspective on the affected population and the impact of lockdowns.   - Downstream impacts of delayed diagnoses and mental health issues among children.   - Policies crafted by individuals not experiencing the same realities.10. Controversies and Community Perspectives    - Dissenting opinions within the medical community regarding lockdowns.    - The tension between public health guidance and individual freedoms. Summary:- Final thoughts on the episode's discussions.- Acknowledgment of the learning curve throughout the pandemic.- Anticipation for further discussions with Sumon Chakrabarti in upcoming episodes.Timestamps:09:49 Reflecting on pandemic experiences and shift in care.11:15 Fears of death due to pandemic impact.14:40 Medical students sent home due to COVID-19.20:04 Ventilation important in preventing spread of respiratory viruses.21:42 TB spread through air, not just close contact.26:51 Message: Be cautious but don't isolate completely.29:30 Ventilator shortage fears during Covid, healthcare impact.31:12 Implicitly shifting healthcare responsibility to the population.36:22 Frustration over policy makers' lack of experience.39:44 First vaccine dose, limited protection against infection.43:27 COVID vaccine blunts severe disease but not transmission.45:34 COVID vaccines less effective due to mutations.49:22 Healthcare workers struggled as resources dwindled.52:25 Criticism of government's pandemic response and hypocrisy.57:15 Analysis of pandemic impact on various aspects.59:57 Changes take time, hope for better response.© 2024 ditchthelabcoat.com - All Rights Reserved 

In Philippians 2:5-11 contains one of the most glorious descriptions of the incarnation in the entire Bible. This doctrine, however, is also intensely practical. Christ, being fully God and yet emptying himself and submitting to death, is the greatest example of humility the world has ever seen or will ever see. Christ becomes the pattern for his people and their motivation for humility. Implicitly the text promises, if you humble yourself like Christ, you will also be exalted like him.

Julia and Jeremiah from the Sexvangelicals podcast (a podcast for providing the sex education the church didn't want you to have) join Uncertain podcast to discuss how Purity Culture can impact men.Some topics addressed in this episode: Erectile DisfunctionShame around sexSexual Agression Gender Binaries Check out two of the Sexvangelicals' episodes featuring Uncertain's host Katherine Spearing:Episode #53: Kicking Off the New Year with Spiritual Abuse: How to Leave a Controlling Family Environment, with Katherine SpearingEpisode #54: Kicking Off the New Year with Spiritual Abuse: How Romantic Comedies Can Reinforce the Worst Parts of Evangelical Culture, with Katherine Spearing Katherine: [00:00:00] Hello. How are you? Julia: Good. We're excited. Katherine: Yes. It is morning where I am, or early, early, early afternoon, and then it is evening where you all are. I know. So, thanks for giving up your Saturday night.I know you would. Probably normally be out wildly partying, Jeremiah: right? Wildly. The wildest Julia: of parties. Katherine: You in the Netherlands. Jeremiah: That's right. Hanging out with windmills and eating a bunch of cheese. Julia: Today is Sinterklaas and so I have heard that it is a chaotic time to be out. So this is a good day to be inside.We've got tea. It is raining outside. So this is actually a cozy and a Perfect way to send Saturday night. I love Katherine: it. I am so excited to be able to talk to you. I love, I love y'all's podcast episodes. I have recommended them to, I mostly recommend them to friends of mine who are recently [00:01:00] divorced and first exploring.All of the things that they were not allowed to explore pre evangelical marriage. And and so that's a, that's a recommendation y'all are a recommendation that I pass around to some folks. I love your intro. My favorite part about your, your. Podcast episode for listeners is how you, you kind of interview each other and chat like before your episodes, those, those are always really, Jeremiah: yes, absolutely.And we do talk about divorce a lot on our podcast. So, that is unfortunately a part of our story and, and, and how we've come into how we've come into recognizing the impact of purity culture on relationships, so. Is that a part Katherine: of both of your stories? Julia: It is. Yeah. We are both we are both divorced.Katherine: All right. And then, did you all get into doing what you do as sex and relationship therapy post [00:02:00] evangelicalism? Our post? These experiences or was this something that came up before, were you already working in this? Jeremiah: So I, a little bit of both for me. So, I joke with people, except it's not a joke, that I did my first couples therapy session when I was 12.And listeners, you can... Put some of the pieces together. I, so, so I've known for some time that that I wanted to be a couples therapist. Huh. And in the field of psychotherapy there's a specific license for marriage and family therapy. My license is in marriage and family therapy. And a lot of the marriage and family therapy schools are either at these big kind of research schools. So Ohio state has a big program where Julia went Michigan state has one or they're at Christian schools because the history of couples therapy and marriage family [00:03:00] of the history of couples therapy.The history of marriage therapy is pretty closely linked to the Christian community. In fact, our professional organization split in the seventies from the California organization because religious people, the, the pastors spiritual directors in the seventies said like, no, like what's happening in California is too liberal, is too progressive.Let's, let's talk about marriage and let's talk about marriage from the perspective of heteronormativity. And this is. A little bit before James Dobson starts taking over with, with focus on the family, but, but, but it's all connected to that. So. So my graduate program at Abilene Christian University is a Christian university.But interestingly, that was, I would say, probably the beginning of my deconstruction process too. Yeah. Because marriage and family therapy at its root is systems theory. So this idea that everything is interconnected you know, I can't succeed unless you [00:04:00] succeed. We, we talk about this through, through Desmond Tutu's work.And so, so I actually begin realizing, oh, like the church, a lot of the Christian stuff, like, like, isn't really making sense. It's clashing with systems theory. The system stuff makes a lot more sense to me. It connects. The problem is that in my twenties, I am employed by churches. Yeah. I'm, I'm a music my first career is through music ministry.And when I left Texas moved to Boston and very quickly get hired by a church to do music ministry. And so a lot of my thirties, then my early thirties is trying to figure out how to do a systems work. I later discovered sex therapy through, through my office. How to be a sexual health professional and to be a minister at the same time.And I thought I could pull both of them off. The church that I was in worked at claimed to be really [00:05:00] progressive. At the end of the day, I ended up getting fired. I ended up talking about sex therapy too much, made the wrong people uncomfortable, and I get the axe. Oh no! So I end up getting kicked out of Christianity, more so than leaving and choosing not to return to organized religion. Yeah, these Katherine: two things are very connected in your story, like you're very much and your vocation and your deconstruction are, are very entwined. Jeremiah: Absolutely. Julia: Yeah. Minor entwined but in a different way. Catherine when we were interviewing you, you had mentioned something that I could relate to which is the socialization for women to be some sort of caretakers within.fundamentalist, and other evangelical circles. Being a therapist is very much a nurturing type of career. The other career options I had considered were [00:06:00] teaching and nursing, also stereotypically nurturing, stereotypically associated with Christianity. So, I don't know if I would have become a therapist.Had I not grown up in the environment that I did. What a question, right? Right! Ultimately, I love it most of the time, but sex therapy was deeply connected to my deconstruction process. I got married young, at the age of 22. I am divorced and when I got married my world crumbled because I had learned that getting married, getting married young was a rite of passage into adulthood, would be the sign of my worth as a human being, and would ultimately be the way that I could access the sexuality that had been denied to me.And when I got married and I hated sex, when I got married and I didn't experience the desire from my husband that I was told would be [00:07:00] present all the time, because all men ever think about is sex, which I'm sure we'll come back to in this episode. My sense of identity shattered. My sense of identity was always in my purity as a woman, in my ability to perform my gender role, and in being a desirable person, particularly sexually.So I became very distressed and my first years married were awful for me, even though I didn't understand exactly what was happening. Yeah. I did, two years after getting married, find a phenomenal sex therapist in Boston. I will always give Nancy McGrath a huge amount of credit for my individual and relational growth.She was an amazing sex therapist, an amazing couples therapist. And my ex husband and I made a lot of progress, even though we did choose to get married. And just to get divorced. Yes. Yes. Even though my ex husband and I choose to got [00:08:00] divorced, choose to get divorced. And as I was continuing to grow, as I was continuing to heal, my therapist said, I was already a practicing therapist.She said, if you decided to become a sex therapist, you would be a great sex therapist. And that was such an affirming and healing moment for me in my sex therapy training. I admitted to myself and my therapist for the first time that I didn't want to be married. And so sex therapy training was really like the last Jenga piece that caused the tower to shatter.I wasn't an active member of a religious community when I participated in sex therapy training, but I still was. Connected to the religious world. And I was still married to my ex husband. And because I was married to a Christian man, I had status in my family system and I had status in all kinds of other systems.And then I lost my status within my family. [00:09:00] I lost my status within my community. My divorce was fodder for gossip at a funeral and becoming a sex therapist and ultimately getting divorced was what broke my connection to that world. Katherine: Woo! Goodness. Goodness. So this is somewhat of a rhetorical question that I know the answer to, but I still want to hear your answer.How interconnected is sex? To personhood and relational dynamics itself. How often do you see that connection? Jeremiah: Strongly. Strongly. Well, so, so there's two, two categories of that. In religious communities, absolutely strongly. We, we could talk maybe about the, the, the professional kind of non religious universal relationship about that later, but in the religious context very strongly, Julia: yeah.And I would say outside of religious contexts, [00:10:00] yes, but in a different way. So, when my, when I say that my sense of self crumbled after getting married, a big piece of that was sexuality. And so... I will sometimes have folks come to sex therapy in similar positions as me, and the couple might say something like, but it's just sex, and we still love each other, and I have a good life in all these kinds of ways, but it's not just sex for anyone.Sex is never just sex for anyone, but especially if you grow up in an adverse or religiously abusive context, sex is actually everything. And I'm not joking when I say everything. So if you get married and sex is painful physically or emotionally or relationally, that can have massive consequences in all areas of your life.Katherine: Right. Mm. So when you are a sex therapist and folks come to you for difficulties and [00:11:00] challenges within their sex life, very regularly, there's more happening and in their lives and in their relationships. Absolutely. Jeremiah: Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. So, so there's a couple of things that, that come up one. Sex isn't talked about in a lot of, in a lot of couples, obviously it's not talked about at all in religious couples.Sex with each other, like they don't talk about it. That's right, that's right. Yes, yes, the church talks a lot a lot about sex. But the church doesn't give partners the tools or the skills to be able to talk about sexuality with each other. And if they do it's almost exclusively from the perspective of quantity, meaning how much do you want to have it?Yes. And from the perspective of performing gender roles where men are expected to have high volumes of sexual desire, interest, and women are expected to be asexual yet to conform to the, the needs of male partners.[00:12:00] The second way that, that this shows up is around just in, in general,, if a couple doesn't have the skills and resources to talk about sexuality, what else do they not have the skills and resources to talk about?Katherine: Right. Julia: Yeah. A whole lot of other things. That's right. Money, or child rearing, or household management. How to Jeremiah: deal with families of origin. So a lot of stuff gets avoided, and there's a lot of conflict avoidance that we find. And the second thing is that for the couples who are able to talk about sex and sexuality, there's a lot of variance regarding sex.Sex can mean a lot of different things to a lot of different people. Culturally speaking, sex is often thought of as a euphemism for intercourse. Julia: Vaginally penetrative intercourse. That is Jeremiah: correct. Yes. But what Julia, you and I talk about is that there's a lot of different ways that bodies can connect.Sometimes [00:13:00] involving a vaginal intercourse, sometimes not involving vaginal intercourse. Let's talk about all of it and let's talk about all of it from the perspective of like what kinds of touch do you want? And then also, how do you want that touch to happen? How do you, what do you need before your body gets the touch that it wants?There's a lot of different variables that Julia, you and I talk about, and that's on an individual level. And in couple therapy, of course, there's two people. So the ways that I go about sex are going to be different Julie from the ways that you go about sex. And, and then the work is, is how do we then make how do we make arrangements?How do we make agreements about? How to do sex, how to do anything, but for the sake of this conversation, how to do sex in a pleasurable, in a pleasurable way for both people. Yeah. Katherine: Yeah. So many, I'm like, as y'all are talking, I'm like, question, question, question, question, question, question. I Julia: know, that happens to me too.I was telling Jeremiah after our interview with [00:14:00] you and we took a bathroom break, I was like, I had 20 more questions to ask for Katherine: each episode. Well that just means that we have a podcasting relationship and we will do more episodes together in the future. This is the one, one, one, one interview I've already decided five minutes in.One interview is not enough. But one of the things that I wanted to focus on for this specific, this specific episode there is so much, and this is even just for me personally so much, uploaded A literature right now about how purity culture impacts women and women in relationships and what that does to marriages and dating and recovery after purity culture.I this is just, you know, a regular topic of conversation with my between myself and my peers. I was in a, I'm in a, like a [00:15:00] sort of deconstruction group. I call us the Renegades. And we met a couple Saturday nights ago and everyone's at different phases in their, their deconstruction.They're also at different phases in their sexuality and their sexuality exploration. And I just asked them just like a very, like, simple question of like, what would have been different? If you had been raised with like the full gamut of the feast in front of you and like that was the class that you got in Sunday school, as opposed to don't have sex.And then that's the end of it. And then also just for the subject of our conversation too, I asked them very specifically about what, so in evangelicalism, It's cisgender binaries of male and female, and you and there's no other category. And so I asked them very specifically, how did that impact you and this was all people who these are all [00:16:00] people who identify as, as, as female, and then how intricately connected that binary that gender binary is to this messaging.And so a question for you all when you meet with couples that come out of evangelicalism, what role does that binary play? In your conversations and, and for good or ill. Jeremiah: Sure. I'll start. And then I'm curious about how you'd answer that too. Again, a lot of folks coming out of evangelical systems don't have the relationship skills of the negotiation skills to figure out how to navigate one, how to navigate differences and to how to make decisions about a relationship based on their own preferences.So in the absence of that, they rely on gender roles. They rely on the performance of gender roles to [00:17:00] create expectations for, say, how administration gets done, how sex gets done, how parenting gets done, and there's a lot of resentment that is, that is there because Even though these things, these positions were assumed there weren't overt conversations about how to how to enact these you know, women and men both, like, they, they don't make verbal agreements to each other in the, in these contexts about Well, hey as, as a female partner, I absolutely want to do this particular thing as a male partner.I absolutely want to do these things. It's you should do these things. Yes. And any conversation that happens centers around the should. Like you Katherine: should do these things, not I would prefer that I do. That's right. Okay. Right. Absolutely. So one of the Jeremiah: things, Julia, you and I do with with regards to the binary is we do whatever we can to get rid of it.Katherine: I love that. Jeremiah: Yeah, [00:18:00] how would you answer that? I would Julia: agree with that. I'm sure that I'll have more to say as Katherine keeps asking questions, but the first part is recognizing What we learned about gender and how that has then impacted the relationship and what are the structures and systems and patterns that the couple falls back to.And if anyone has ever gone sledding in the winter, you know that once you've got a path that's slick, it's really hard to set a new path. So even if, like Jeremiah said, the gender roles are causing some resentment. I imagine that my ex husband probably developed some resentment around what gender role looked like for him.I had my own resentment around what that looked like for me. We didn't get ahead of the resentment by talking about it and negotiating it until it was too late. And even though that wasn't working for either one of us, it [00:19:00] was like a very slick... path down a sledding hill. And if you want something different, you've got to take that sled, move it to a new part of the hill, put it in snow that hasn't been down, and you've got to do a lot of hard work to create a new path that works.Katherine: Yes, absolutely. And it sounds like from both of your stories that sometimes that new path is a new relationship. Julia: Yes. Jeremiah: Sometimes. In our case, yes. Julia: Yeah. Go ahead. Yeah. Sometimes it is a new relationship. Sometimes it is hard work with a current partner. And sometimes it is... Being a person who is partnered with multiple people or being a person who is dating and not partnered.Mm-Hmm. So it can look all different kinds of ways. When we talk about our podcast having a relational bent what we mean is that we live in relationships with all kinds of people. Mm-Hmm. That might mean [00:20:00] starting a new path on a new hill and your family's on another hill and they're like, you abandoned us.Katherine: What's going on? Yes. Yes. Absolutely. No, I love that. I love that. And that, that expands sexuality and relationships in general, because even, even if you have this dynamic within this couple, like our sexuality impacts how we interact with everyone. It's not just our intimate partner. And I've really enjoyed it.My. deconstruction journey, learning about that because it just expands possibilities and, and just, it makes it just beautiful and vibrant. And like, there's so much here and, and so very sad and also very angry at how narrow. The teaching that I received was and how very specific and gendered it was and, so sad.And then also just like, it's a [00:21:00] fucking lie. And yet. The we'll get in all of this, but just like the, the, the conservative agenda behind that lie and unpacking that as well. And, and having that just opportunity to grieve the opportunities that I was denied. And I know that's a part of me.So many people's journeys of just like grieve, grieving this, this loss that happened. How did that play out for both of you? Julia: The grief part or a different Katherine: part? Great. Yeah. Just the grieving. If, if that was a part of your journey. Jeremiah: Oh, I think it still is a part of our journey. Yeah. I think you and I both make reference.I'm trying to remember the last time you and I both made references to our former partners. It's been within the last week. . And, and reflecting about the sadness of, of, of painful things that, that we received. Even painful things that we said missed [00:22:00] opportunities. Mm-Hmm. To to explore and, and to have conversations that, that we didn't get the chance to have.Mm-Hmm. that the church didn't want us to have. Mm-Hmm. . So, yeah. Yeah, that comes up quite a bit. Yeah. Julia: I I haven't even mentioned this to Jeremiah yet, but. Something that I say when I talk about getting divorced is that my ex husband is a really phenomenal human being. And I am, I am sad that the education neither of us received, probably to a large, large part, impacted our decision to get divorced.I am rarely on social media because it is too overwhelming for me. However, I saw that my ex husband recently celebrated his two year anniversary to his new wife. And I imagine that he is an even better partner, probably, than he was with me. Not because he wasn't a good partner to me, [00:23:00] but because he has had life to grow and evolve and learn.And... I am very happy that he is in a partnership that seems to be really beautiful for him. And I am still, I'm still really sad. I'm sad that that relationship ended. I'm sad about the ways that I contributed to hurt. I am sad about the ways that I was hurt. And I know that I will probably think about my ex spouse to some degree.Daily or often for the rest of my life. Katherine: Yeah. Yeah. Because it, it, it doesn't just go away. Deca, deconstructing and rewiring those sled paths. It's not just a, like a one and done thing. Right. Jeremiah: Well, and it also happens while Julia, you and I are also figuring out our relationship and experiencing these really beautiful [00:24:00] moments that we have.And. Kind of hashing out how we want to do different things. Grief doesn't happen in this, like, process where you take a pause from life and you go off and, and, and you grieve for an extended amount of time. Like, grief happens in the midst of these concurrent processes that, that are happening in a person's life.And, and that, that makes it even more Julia: challenging. Yeah. And I can't grieve the end of my marriage without ultimately grieving The systems that raised me, the systems that conditioned if conditioned early marriage, the systems that taught me about what dating and marriage looked like. So whenever I consider my ex husband, whenever I consider the pain or the joy that we experienced, I, I'm unable to separate that from the lack of relational and sexual health education.From the religious systems in my life. Yes. [00:25:00] Yes. Katherine: And how just so entwined those two things are and and just the reality of like those, those indentions in the snow are going to be so much more defined when it's coming from. religious space. This is what God wants from you. This is what requires from you.And then everything in that system upholds that and supports it. And these things are very deeply embedded into us and is the soup that we swim in. And so I'm really excited to just get into some practical stuff and maybe provide a little bit of a resource for folks. I would like to concentrate our our conversation on specifically.How purity culture impacts men in, in these relationships. And I, I will, we'll, we'll just start with the, with the. Typical trajectory. How, how does does purity culture show up and impact men in dating relationships? Julia: Yeah, [00:26:00] something that I say on almost every podcast is that one of the biggest double binds or mind fucks that men experience in evangelical and other Christian cultures is that they are They're sexual aggressors, and that is the way that God made them, and they are supposed to, they should lean into that, and at the same time, that is part of their evil base nature, and they have to fight it.Mm hmm. That is. An impossible, impossible place to live to be told that you've got to lean in and embrace this, but that also this is the most debased part of who you are and that shows up in a myriad of contexts. Katherine: Do you feel like. Men tend to migrate towards one or the [00:27:00] other because of that double bind.Julia: That's a good question. Good question. I would say that I've noticed men... Jeremiah: I have a Julia: way of answering that. I've got an idea, but you go first because I'm still formulating it. Jeremiah: I would say that... Men who are interested in men who are interested in kind of reinforcing the gender hierarchies tend to lean more into kind of the Kind of the ownership of sexuality and, and then also the conflict in that, that, that can come from fromadvocating for that. I would say that men who want more egalitarian relationships. Especially in, in opposite sex context. I think that those are men who tend to struggle with that that the double bind Julia, that you're referring to a little bit [00:28:00] more and as a result 10, those relationships tend to have a little bit more avoidance to them.That's anecdotal. I don't know if that, I don't have any research to support that. I would Julia: say my anecdotal experience is mostly similar and I really appreciate the theme of this episode because I, I work with a lot of couples, but I also, for probably lots of different reasons, have many individual male clients between the ages of like 25 to 37.So we talk about this. a lot. And the really challenging part is that the gender binaries that we've described means that the misogyny reinforces the, or the, sorry, the the misandry towards men that they are sexual monsters that reinforces the misogyny and the sexism. And [00:29:00] then the misogyny continues to perpetuate this patriarchal pattern.Which is such an awful systemic issue. Yeah. Yeah. And so often the misandry and the misogyny are just like fucking having this orgasm together. Sadly. What Jeremiah: is the image of the orgasm? Like Katherine: they're feeding each other. Yeah. Satisfying Julia: each other. Right, and so I absolutely want to keep on the topic that you're describing, and I've been reflecting quite a bit on like specific impacts for men, and I think we have to still acknowledge at the beginning that all of the negative consequences towards men Still continue to hurt the entire relational structure and still continue to [00:30:00] prop up the, the sexist and misogynist norms of the patriarchy.Jeremiah: Can I give an example about that that doesn't involve sex? Sure, yeah, yeah. So, I'm seven and Enneagram? No, no, no. Age 7. Enneagram 3. Oh, Katherine: okay. Oh, oh, sorry. You're about to tell a story. Yes. Started when you were 7. Jeremiah: Yes, yes. So, I'm 7 years old. Julia: I knew where that was going, but it was confusing. Jeremiah: I'm 7 years old.And I am at a part of of a Bible study that a few of my families do on Wednesday nights, because heaven forbid, we don't have some sort of a church service two to three times a week. And at this particular group from time to time, I would be I would be the only boy that was there, only penis owner that was there.So my dad had to work or that was at least his excuse for, for not showing up. [00:31:00] I made a similar excuse. So some of the other men had to, had to work. So it was the mom's wives all the kids were little girls and me. And so at seven, I remember the women in the church and this group saying, it's a devotional time at Jeremiah because you're the boy you have to lead the songs.Okay. So little seven year old me like leads a song. Can you do an example of your accent? Oh, so I grew up in Texas. I had a. Thick southern accents, very flat vowels. My name had three syllables on it. Sometimes it had two syllables, Jerma. But, then they say, okay, well, you have to leave the scripture.You have to lead the prayer. And, you know, I know that I am not the only boy who has been in that [00:32:00] experience who learned early on that, that men and women look to boys to provide quote leadership and running shit. And that's something that is still to this day, something that. I, I make the assumption that people will look to me.Men and women will look to me to run things. I step into leadership roles and, and a lot of my healing work has been giving myself permission to, to, to step out of that. And, and, and I'm good at it. I, I think that I have I enjoy being in control more than I think sometimes I would like to admit, I've also taught you and I've both actually taught Julia with plenty of men who have had similar experiences and don't want any part of that.Yeah. Right. And, and play those roles both out of a sense of obligation to the system and also do so in a way that's antithetical to their own personality traits and to their preferences. They'd much rather play a more passive role, just kind of sit [00:33:00] back, kind of watch the world kind of do its thing.And, and, and they don't know what to do. We actually had an interview quite recently on our podcast with, with a couple of men actually for, for whom that was true. So yeah, so, so the expectation then that men are not just like sexual monsters or sexual initiators, but are initiators of any kind of process with, with the exception of domestic administrative processes, which is a whole other conversation we can get into in a bit.Except for cooking and cleaning. Yeah, right. And mending the stockings. Right, right. But yeah, that's, that's, that's a lot of pressure. That is a lot of pressure. That, that men get put on and it also, it also discourages men from moving into collaborative spaces. Hmm. This is something you and I actually Katherine: May I, may I pause here for just one [00:34:00] moment because one of the things that I have noticed in this, in the space that I work in the spiritual abuse realm.Is that same thing we were talking about a podcast earlier, talking on our interview earlier about art and being ingrained with this mistrust of art. I also believe men get ingrained with this mistrust of women and how I, my work is predominantly women coming to me one because women are. You know, it's more acceptable for women to look for help and to want to collaborate one.And then two, it's a woman run organization, like we have one male board member, but other than that, like, it is run by women, and they're not going to migrate. And I know this because I watched them migrate to the Wade Mullins and the other male leaders and and not migrate to the women, because it's still just [00:35:00] ingrained into.The physique. Yeah, Jeremiah: I actually think that Catherine that that's another double bind is that I agree with you that men that that this system that we're talking about you know, where Men are expected to be in leadership positions. Women from time to time reinforce that. And there's also plenty of women that are like, Hey, no, this doesn't work for me.And then figuring out how to navigate those differences. I think that that's right, that that there are a lot of men who mistrust women and simultaneously. I don't think that men really trust men any better either. And I think that this is actually true, Julie, with what you're talking about with your, your clients.Men are much more likely to seek an individual female sex therapist for individual therapy than they are to seek an individual male for individual therapy. Julia: Really? Absolutely. But, but I want to qualify something that you said. I think you said that [00:36:00] men are equally less likely to trust other men. I would say men.might be unwilling to trust men when it comes to kind of emotional issues because men are far more likely to trust men in more stereotypical leadership positions. But in terms of like the caretaking therapy to some degree has a caretaking element to it. And so I think that men Are uncomfortable talking about sex in general.Many people are. That's not a misandrist comment. And I think it can be easier for individual men to talk to a woman about sex than a man. I don't know if seeking a female therapist for couples or family therapy is as oriented. Not for couples and family therapy. But I think that. They're going to go Katherine: to a man.Julia: Right. Because, because, because of what you're describing, Catherine, around like trusting men in these [00:37:00] forward facing leadership positions in a family or couples therapy is more forward facing, so men are more quote unquote reliable. But if it's an individual context in which. There's the assumption that emotional nurture might be more a part of it.I think that men could be more prone to seeking a woman, just to seek a woman. But all of this goes back to Catherine, exactly what you're describing around men needing to be in over leadership positions. And Jeremiah, you use the word passive growing up in my community. Passive was used as derogatory.Yeah. And that a passive man was not a man. Right. So books like Wild at Heart and pour into my community every man Battle to fight, beauty to save. Yeah. Yeah. Every everyman's battle was popular in my community and it was all about, [00:38:00] men being assertive at best, aggressive, dominant, violent at worst, and I'm even thinking about, like, my dad, and my dad is not a particularly dominant person.If my parents were out of their religious system, I would probably ask my dad what that was like because I wonder if it was really hard to be in a system in which you were told that you had to be so overtly dominant when that wasn't part of your nature. Katherine: Yeah, I'm thinking about the women that I met with.That I referred to earlier and, and they just said how most of their relationships sort of defaulted into a functionally egalitarian relationship while they still espoused complimentary and they just [00:39:00] didn't tell anybody. I think Julia: that's, I think that's how my parents marriage operates. And I think that's how Jeremiah: my ex's parents.Julia: Many relationships operate. Yeah. Jeremiah: Oh, yeah. Hmm. That would be interesting to do research Julia: on. Just a clarifying Katherine: question about men seeking out a female sex therapist, more likely to seek out a female sex therapist. Is it possible that there's some shame? In that too of they're not going to talk to another man to admit that they struggle.Yes. Julia: I can give a great example. So I had a male client and I've had several iterations of this. And he came to therapy seeking help for quote unquote, erectile dysfunction. Diagnostic language around sexual health is so damaging to men and women. So I would never use that language of erectile dysfunction, but that was his language to me.That's why I'm using it. what I would say is that [00:40:00] sexuality had some challenges for him. And one of those challenges was having the erections that he wanted to have. So we tried to get away from diagnostic language as much as possible, but. He told me that it would be one of the most shaming things possible to have a conversation with another male about about sexual health in general, particularly because men learn in and outside of religious structures that part of sexual dominance is having a specific type of erection in a specific kind of way.And that is not how erections work for many, if not all people. We could have a whole con, a whole longer conversation about erections and what men learn about their penises and what they learn about erections. It might be even worthwhile later in our conversation, but [00:41:00] over time, I really encouraged this client to talk to some of his male friends about sexuality and what was working and not working for him.And one day he came into therapy and he was like, Julia. I had a conversation with one of my male friends about sex, and it was one of the most meaningful conversations that I've ever had. And If more men talked with each other about sexuality in non toxic, dominant ways, I believe that would be massively healing towards humanity in general, regardless of gender.If the shame was stopping him. Katherine: Yeah, and I just think about how... So much of the sexual conversations for men was accountability oriented and like, how are you guarding your eyes? And how are you guarding your heart? And, you know, you know, documenting how often you masturbate and all of these like [00:42:00] very shaming?So I can see that being so just so damaging for it Julia: is. And it's so it can I say one other thing about this. It's really interesting because in another conversation, the three of us talked about how the church is not as counter cultural as they think they are.But one of the main themes is this idea of like, You. In these cases, like, the humanity of women being fairly non existent, so in secular world, that means you just keep track of how many women you have sex with, and like, they are a number to you, and you want to get as high as possible, and then Catherine, what you're describing, when men are told to, you know, document how time, how many times they masturbate and then confess to another man and like not look at another woman.It's still like this idea of like women being objects. We had a conversation several podcasts [00:43:00] ago with our friends. Sarah and... Jake. Yeah. And, and Jake was describing about, you know, going to Six Flags as a youth group. And it's like, there's gonna be a lot of boobs out there.They wouldn't have said it that way. And it's like, just avoid the boobs. Like, and, and without any conversation that these are 13 to 16 year old girls. They are not walk Sets of boobs. Yeah. But whether they're children, right? Mm-Hmm. . And so, in and outside of these contexts, women are these vessels that you either have to conquer or avoid until you get married.And you have to document how you're either like dominating or avoiding Mm-hmm. in this really restrictive version of what it means to be a man. And in either context. You are essentially a sexual monster who is either dominating and giving in to the, like, desires of the flesh, or you're working really hard to, like, fight your sin nature, and that makes you a good Jeremiah: man.And we have language for [00:44:00] this. Sex addict. Right. So so Joshua Grubbs is a researcher at Bowling Green and he has produced several articles about this that the majority of men who identify as sex addicts also have a high degree of religiosity. Oh and so the idea connected is absolutely so well, and it's, and it's connected back even to like to seven year old Jeremiah too, that, that, that, that the problem must be me.I am a sexual monster as opposed to men coming together, talking together, Julia, like what you're saying. And talking about the fucked up positions that that, that the fucked up things that men learned about their bodies, the fucked up things that men learned about women's bodies and how we all want to, how we all want to do better in our own relationships, same sex relationships, opposite sex relationships, sexual relationships, non sexual [00:45:00] relationships.Yeah. And Katherine: maybe it's not a, and I feel like I've, I've approached it. What was brought into that in a little different perspective through the trauma lens of just like addiction itself, typically, or what we call addiction typically developed out of trauma and religiosity itself typically develops out of trauma and and having and having that you know, stuff ingrained into your mind. It's not like, and, and approaching it like a, a, where you like have all of these steps and you have all of these, you know, accountability things that you're supposed to do, but then you you're not addressing the stuff underneath it and the trauma that is, Jeremiah: well, and I think that that's right.And, and I think that. It's one thing to address that trauma in a professional context. I think it's a completely different thing to address that trauma in relationships with other people who've gone through a similar thing. [00:46:00] Yeah. And that's, from my perspective, that's why the relational perspective is so, it's so powerful.Mm hmm. As the capacity to help, for the sake of our conversations, kind of men get out of some of these double binds and the shame that accompanies that double bind. Mm hmm. In, in, in more meaningful, kind of longer lasting ways. Right. Julia: Right. And the language around. Addiction also focuses on behavior versus value.So, so I will always ask clients, what does sex mean, if a person is talking about sex, if a person comes in and says that they are a sexual addict, I will ask what that means. And typically they might say, Well, I masturbate or I watch pornography. And so, so we'll talk, we'll be like, okay, so let's, let's put porn on the side.Let's put masturbation on the side as a behavior. And let's talk about like what [00:47:00] the values are. I had a really interesting client, former client who was a seminarian. And and he Had reached out to me because he thought that I was a Christian sex therapist, and I explained, I said, I am not. I said, I actually am not a part of any religious communities, but I have an understanding of Christian culture so I work with a lot of folks in this area.And I think it spoke to volumes of this client that he said, Okay, I'll work with you. with you because typically working with a secular therapist, that's like scary. And it was so interesting because he had a lot of shame around masturbation and he had a lot of shame around pornography. And we had this conversation and I said, okay.Tell me about what your sexual values are without moralistic language and without behavior language. So he talked about sex being a form of connection, and he talked about sexuality being [00:48:00] sacred, and he talked about a few other values. And I said, that's so interesting. I said, huh, I actually think almost all of the values that you have.I hold two. And, and then it was the conversation around, okay, so if sex, whether it's with yourself or someone else, if it's a form of connection, like, What does that mean? How can you enact that? If sexuality on your own or with someone else is a sacred thing, like what does that mean? And I think a big piece of work for men in Christian communities is getting out of the behavior obsession, which isn't their fault.And thinking about the value moving away from the quality of an erection, moving away from whether or not you masturbate and or watch pornography and moving about, like, what are the values that you have around your bodies about gender, about women, about men, and then like rethinking what sexuality can look like.And Jeremiah: we talk about this, [00:49:00] Julia, in our series on Sex Evangelicals The Sex Education We Wish We Had in which we talk about the sexual health principles or values from the work of Doug Brown Harvey around consent, non exploitation, conversation about contraceptions and STIs, honesty, shared values, and mutual pleasure.I love it. Those are the values that we tend to start from. But also, Julia, your question, being able to ask, what are your values as well? Like that and Katherine: being able to have an opportunity to develop your own values outside of that religious. I want to go back. I want to get into those five things that you just mentioned, but I want to go back and talk about bodies for a minute.We mentioned that women's bodies were made objects and it's like you're walking instead of boobs like it was it was objectification. And that was how a woman's body was viewed and presented to [00:50:00] men. It was also how we we viewed our own race to kind of your own body is of just like cover up cover up cover up and that was literally cover up cover up cover up and then.Here's how you use a tampon on your period. And like, that was literally it. And so for men, what are the messages about their bodies that they receive in these communities? Jeremiah: Men are machines. And, and, and this is both within Christian context and in larger capitalist contexts that men are machines that men are, that all men think about is sex.That sex is the number one most important thing and that that's what being a good man is about. And that men are meant to compete. Yeah. Mm. And, and compete with other men and also compete with women. Yeah. I, I would argue that ultimately misogyny is a A misappropriation of competition between men [00:51:00] and women as opposed to men taking that energy around some of the injustices that they experience and taking it back to like the larger political and social systems that put them into shit situations.Yeah. Julia: It's interesting, Jeremiah, because some of, I don't, I agree with everything that you said. some of what you said isn't necessarily inherent to bodies. Sure. It's about, you know, competition, for example, you use your bodies to compete, but that's more of a concept, I guess. And so I suppose, and I'd be curious.To hear how the two of you experience this similarly or differently, there wasn't a lot said about the bodies of men in my communities. And when I work with couples, especially hetero couples, women have a lot to say about their bodies and what they learned about their bodies. Men have much less to say about their bodies, at least anecdotally.And what they do say about their bodies does tend to [00:52:00] revolve around their penises. And I would say that's more from secular culture than religious culture. Although, as we've discussed, both of those things overlap. Actually I'm going to walk that back. The church doesn't talk about erections explicitly.Implicitly, there's a lot about erections. So if you edit it, you can edit that how you will. But yes, women have a lot. About their bodies that they learn that they can communicate men don't learn as much about their bodies. I Jeremiah: agree. Katherine: Yeah, and it makes me think that like what women learn about their bodies is typically oriented around a man.Or oriented around the reproductive system and having babies, men don't, don't quote unquote need their body for those things. Like they don't, they're conditioned. I don't need my body other than to protect.[00:53:00] Yeah. Yeah. And, and I remember reading this like super toxic book and the fundamentalist world about why like women need to like submit to men because like women have more power to have Babies. And so if men don't have that power, then they're going to turn into an animal. So they need like the woman to like, keep them from turning into the monster.Because the woman has this like special power and like birthing babies, very, very toxic book yet. That's it. That's kind of like it in a nutshell Jeremiah: of and that's what that's that's also a Christian relationship literature in a nutshell. Yeah, I can think of like 13 other metaphors that describe like the very similar process that you were just describing Catherine, Julia: right?Well, in going back to the erection piece, and clearly that's on my mind a lot today. When men learn that all they want is [00:54:00] sex, they, the the When they're told that's all they want. Yes, yes, yes, yes. When they are told all they want is sex. Yes. Which, when often they don't that does have some implicit Implications for for the penis and for needing to be physiologically aroused right away.And so sometimes other men will come in and talk about erectile dysfunction and I'll say, Oh, so you didn't get an erection in 30 seconds of making out or so you had sex with a partner for a longer period of time. And at one point. You lost your erection. Like, where did you learn that that's erectile dysfunction?Mm hmm. Actually, that's like very normative. Right. Functioning as a human being. But I will say that even though men don't learn as much about their bodies inherently, the implications about their bodies to [00:55:00] sexuality are pretty strong. And revolve Jeremiah: around the mythology around the penis. Yeah, yeah, yeah.Katherine: Whoa. So, what, what does a man do when they're no longer, like, The penis is not the only thing about them, like where, where does, where does the conversation go? How did they become like a full whole integrated human being? When their penis is no longer the center of their life. Well, Jeremiah: and that gets back to what I was trying to explain a little bit earlier about.I think the answer to that question is different. If a man is interested in reproducing complementarian gender hierarchical systems. I think men in those systems with with those needs have no idea what to do and have these existential crises, either over longer periods of time or in these like short term outbursts, types of [00:56:00] control behaviors.I think men that want. And strive for a more egalitarian context and opposite sex partnerships may have a little bit of an easier time exploring different ways of you know, providing, providing touch engaging in pleasure that, that don't involve, that don't center around their penises. It can Julia: come with some relief.Absolutely. Yeah, for sure. I'm thinking about some couples that Jeremiah: I've worked with. I've experienced that personally speaking. Julia: Oh, so. Is that okay that I asked him? You're the interviewer. I'm just very curious. No, I am Katherine: too. I was coming. I was coming right behind you. Jeremiah: No, Julia. I think, I think that I think that that's one of the sources of freedom that I've experienced in our relationship too.Like, like I I've shared with you some anxieties that I have around my penis and you've, you've said, Oh, well, that's silly. I don't think that most women don't think that I'm like, Oh, you're right. Oh, the research supports what you're saying. Also, like, I want a more collaborative relationship. I want to be a more collaborative person than, than I was in, in [00:57:00] my marriage.And so, yeah, I think I've been, I think a sense of relief is, is absolutely correct. I've experienced a lot of that regarding regarding sexuality regarding a lot of elements of our relationship. Very Katherine: cool. I'm such a great partner. You guys are Jeremiah: the real MVP of this operation. Katherine: Ah, I love, I love that. Segueing into some of your, your five, your five things.And also because this was probably one of the first episodes I listened to from, From you all. And I learned a lot about it. The message of consent, which I never learned until like very, very recently within the past few years and, and have friends. Who were married very young, and are now, you know, divorced and exploring things outside of it and I am having to teach them about consent, because it [00:58:00] was never a part of their upbringing, either and like, No, actually what that man just did to you was, was not consent and like sending them the YouTube video about the tea and tea and consent, tea and consent and like, you are allowed to say, No, and they should be looking for an enthusiastic.Yes. And, and how does that, I know how that like shows up for women and what, and the impact that that has on women, what is the impact that that has on men in sexuality? Well, Jeremiah: first of all, consent is a relational process. Consent is a dialogue. And part of. The narratives of masculinity is that men by being the gender and opposite sex couples by being the gender that has a higher quote sex drive should also be the initiators and that [00:59:00] initiation is so if, if initiation is expected by men If initiation is accepted to be done by men, if there's an assumption that men have higher sex drives, that women don't have high sex drives like this is setting up a recipe for some really harmful sexual experiences both in terms of, of.emotional damage that can happen through a lack of communication, lack of overt consent, and also through significant emotional, physical, psychological damage from men who overtly exploit that to abuse women. So I would, I, I, I would start there that I talked on the podcast about what happened when I in my sex therapy training, the first class that we took was around the, the six sexual health principles that I mentioned and, and, and about consent and my response leaving that was, oh, fuck, I [01:00:00] am 33 years old.I have never had this conversation and I have been. engaged in a 14 year sexual relationship that has not been particularly dialogical. Yeah. And there's reasons for that that we can talk about maybe in another context, but, but, but part of that is rooted in these expectations that both my partner and I had that, or my ex and I had that, I am the one that has a higher sex drive that it should be initiating sex.And, and, and my partner as, as a woman should be the recipient and, and, and even be even be asexual. And so according to that, I have conversations which is super, super damaging. And so I had, I came back. From a class. I talked with my ex about this. Hey, we need to talk. I am so sorry that we have been having these experiences.I want to do this differently. I'd love to figure out a way to talk to you [01:01:00] about this and my ex, who is also like steeped up in, in much more of a similar experience religious experience to Julia growing up, growing up in the Baptist church than, than I was. Her response was, Oh, it's no big deal.Thank you. Which threw me for a loop and looking back on this now, like recognizing how entrenched she still was. Yeah. In these expectations about what men do and what women do. Katherine: And it was just normal, so normal for her. She had no concept or idea of anything else. That's right. Julia: Yeah. That's bad. Well and I'm not saying bad in a that is not bad in a blaming way towards anyone.That is a bad system for all of us to have learned from, you know, this is super sad. So I've had [01:02:00] experiences in which like men have abused me sexually in an exploitive way. And that is a really awful experience. And then I've had experiences, perhaps more similar to what you're describing, Jeremiah. In which the abuse of, or the the non consensual experience is not necessarily abusive.Non consent can absolutely be abusive and I've experienced that. Or non consent can exist when a couple doesn't have relational tools to navigate consent. So I had a diagnosis of vaginismus and vulvodynia, which means essentially painful intercourse and the constriction of the vaginal muscles. Deeply connected to...Evangelicalism so I'm hesitant to use that diagnostic language, but that was what I experienced, which means that sex was often painful. And when I got married my husband and I would sometimes have these sexual experiences that were very, very physically painful. And my ex husband, who is a good human being, saw that I [01:03:00] was in pain, and he had this terrible choice in which he could stop the sexual experience because he didn't want to see his partner in pain or be any part of inflicting that.However, if he chose to stop the sexual experience, that would also communicate to me as the woman in this. situation that I was not desirable. And so sometimes he would initiate stopping the sexual experience. And I would sometimes say, no, no, no, keep going. Because for me, that was my only way of proving my worth as a human being.And so I could also have the opportunity to say, yes, let's stop this experience and save myself from the pain. Or I could power through the pain. And so both of us were stuck in these really terrible dynamics, which the experience was not consensual, right? Right. Not consensual because I was clearly in a huge amount of physical distress and emotional distress.[01:04:00] However, From my perspective, that wasn't an abusive, non consensual experience, and I think the assumption that non consent is always abusive keeps us from having these dialogues because there is so much shame associated with it. Katherine: That's right. Right, right. And I think that was something that I learned from y'all's episode about just because it's non consensual doesn't equal marital rape.And I think that that is a new, a new a new phrase. Phrase. Simple. Right. That we're, we're more acquainted with. And, and I, and I love, thank you so much for sharing your example, Julia, because It was like you both were consenting to play roles. So there was consent. You didn't necessarily, you didn't know there was anything different, you know, like, yeah, it wasn't that he, you were saying, no, I don't want this.And then he was forcing [01:05:00] still, that's a very different dynamic. We both have these roles to play. And we're both just playing Julia: and we're performing our genders and we didn't know that we could consent out of it. And sadly, I've had the experiences that you're describing in which a sexual experience was forced due to an abuse of power.And, and that's a different, that's a different kind of experience. Both are painful, both are harmful. But I think we have to have more nuanced dialogue around consent. Katherine: Absolutely. Yeah. And then, and then just, Oof. And then like your story, Jeremiah, of like recognizing that this had never happened, like, and it wasn't in an effort to, to dominate, it was in an effort to play the role that you were told.Jeremiah: Right. Right. Yeah. Right. And, and, and just to kind of build on [01:06:00] that, that yeah, like our earliest sexual experiences with my ex, yeah. Were they almost all ended with panic attacks. With my ex wife having a panic attack, and, did you Katherine: correlate it with what had just happened? Or did you think it was completely separate?I had Jeremiah: no idea what was going on. I didn't have the language for it. I just knew that there was a sexual experience for something I wanted, something I thought she wanted. And the panic attacks, obviously like shut down the experience. It, it it heightened my own desire to move into like protective spaces.And, and so I learned that initiating conversations about sex that had the capacity to bring that that, that, that kind of pain. So, so not just on a, on a, on a physical level, Julia, what you're talking about, but on a dialogical level. Sure, sure. Both. Yeah. Yeah. So. Katherine: If this is too much information, you're, I will cut it from the episode, but were, [01:07:00] was, were your first sexual experiences in marriage?Jeremiah: Depends on what you mean by sexual experience. Let's, Katherine: let's, let's play the, the Jeremiah: marital relationship was my first experience with intercourse. Got Julia: it. There you go. Yeah. Yeah. Me too. And Yeah. I think the question is relevant in the sense that that meant a following of purity culture rules because the church defines sexuality by vaginally penetrative intercourse.I think that language is so harmful because it I think that eliminates any other kinds of sexual experiences that are, that are just as, as valid and Jeremiah: just as enjoyable. Katherine: Yeah. And, and building that connection and intimacy as you were, you were talking about earlier as [01:08:00] a way of just wrapping up the episode, we've talked a little bit about this and you have shared some really great insights into the healing processes.That you have both been through and then also clients but what are some just like stepping stones and, and, and starting places for like men listening to this episode of just like how to integrate and be that whole human. And then for women who might be in that hetero cisgender relationship on on what they can like how to just kind of navigate.Potentially very brand new things that they may have learned in this episode. We can start with the men. Jeremiah: I'm also thinking about stepping stones. I think first things first, we have to start thinking about sex in ways that go beyond vaginal intercourse. That sex is the way that the ways that two bodies interact with each other in a way that creates [01:09:00] some sort of, some sort of physical pleasure.And thinking then about, well, what are the diversity of ways in, in, in, in which that happens for me what are the types of what are the types of touch that I like? Well, what are ways that I can have pleasure that, that, that don't involve touch and, and that can, that can either for myself and, and that are also relational so I think that.Thinking about stepping stones, I think that that's an important stepping stone to acknowledge that sex is not a reduction to our penises that sex involves the totality of our bodies. Yeah. Julia: I would say that learning to talk about... Sex is probably one of the stepping stones, and that's really difficult if you've never had any models for talking about sexuality. In our episode with you when we interviewed you for our podcast, you mentioned the [01:10:00] challenge of Well, how do you find a voice after leaving a religious community when you never developed one, right?And so I recognize that even, I suppose, this stepping stone is a complicated one because that would require a person or a couple or a group to step up. to create a new roadmap or to start a new pathway down this sledding hill. Maybe having some questions could be helpful. So asking a partner or a friend or someone you trust who you believe could have this dialogue with you in a meaningful way to say, you know, what did you learn about your gender growing up.What did it mean to be a man in your church? That might be a helpful first step, because it can also test out the water a little bit. Talking about what you learned is potentially vulnerable, but you're still [01:11:00] talking about something outside of yourself to a degree. And so being able to talk with someone about what that meant and what about that might've been difficult you know, to go there if, if, if the first part of that conversation goes well.Yeah. Katherine: Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. I'm just getting, just getting comfortable with like just understanding the messages. Yeah. You received. Yes. It's hard though. It's hard work. Listen to sexvangelicals. Julia: That's right. You can listen to our podcast. Jeremiah: Spotify, wherever you get your podcasts, Katherine: wherever you get your podcasts. Well, this has been very informative and also feels like the beginning of a conversation and there's just so much more to explore.Just, yeah, through this lens, but I really appreciate you providing that extra perspective[01:12:00] just because. In the purity culture conversation, it tends to center around the woman's experience. And, and it, and as we know, patriarchy doesn't just impact women, it impacts everyone. Julia: Right, right. And I think that one of the messages about purity culture is that women are the gatekeepers to sexuality.And that's something that's damaging to women, but it damages men because it erases their ability to describe Their experiences in, in their own ways , Katherine: And, and almost eliminates their agency Julia: within it. Absolutely. Absolutely. Of course. Katherine: Yeah. Well, this has been great. As we, as we wrap up , share where folks can interact with you.And then are you, are you all taking. Taking clients or do we have a full docket at the moment? Julia: They can reach out Jeremiah: to us and reach out to us. Yeah. So for more information about working with us, we're in, in the early stages of getting some coaching processes together.[01:13:00] Sex evangelicals at gmail.com. We're also on Instagram and threads at sex evangelicals. And then we also have a subsect that goes out two or three times a week called relationship 101, which you can find at sex evangelicals. subsect. com. That's super Katherine: easy and super simple. I love it. Appreciate y'all.

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Sam Altman returning as OpenAI CEO "in principle", published by Fermi-Dirac Distribution on November 22, 2023 on The Effective Altruism Forum. This was just announced by the OpenAI Twitter account: Implicitly, the previous board members associated with EA, Helen Toner and Tasha McCauley, are ("in principle") no longer going to be part of the board. I think it would be useful to have, in the future, a postmortem of what happened, from an EA perspective. EA had two members on the board of arguably the most important company of the century, and it has just lost them after several days of embarrassment. I think it would be useful for the community if we could get a better idea of what led to this sequence of events. [update: Larry Summers said in 2017 that he likes EA.] Thanks for listening. To help us out with The Nonlinear Library or to learn more, please visit nonlinear.org

Books can help us grow through what we go through and there are two broad categories of books in bibliotherapy: books that EXPLICITLY help us and books that IMPLICITLY help us.  Today, I am sharing three books that blur the boundaries of bibliotherapy in different ways. One book is a bestseller, one is brand new and one is yet-to-be-published, but should be in your pre-order cart.  Come listen as I explore three books that feel like therapy. You'll find the show notes for the episode with all mentioned links here.  Love this podcast and want more? Consider this your invitation to join my Get Lit(erate) Patreon community! Each month, we take a deep dive into one bookish theme and work to bring it to life in our own lives. You'll get bonus episodes, book calendars, live book club and notebook sessions, special events and much more. Learn more at www.getliterate.co.  Get your own Get Lit(erate). notebook to take notes on the books you want to read and notebook ideas you want to try! Follow Stephanie: Website   Facebook Twitter Instagram --- Send in a voice message: https://podcasters.spotify.com/pod/show/getliterate/message

Gossip Series #5 Please listen to Episode #1-4 if you haven't yet.  I left the best for last and I am super pumped to chat with you today about navigating gossip as a female Christian leader. Get your notebook and pen handy, because this is going to be a super tactical episode. Let's do it! So by now you know all the negatives and you know that I feel super passionate about you doing something about those gossip girls, those gossip queens, the grapevine guardians. But what do you do about it? Are you ready, here we go. Pray Pray every single day that God will guide you, and give you wisdom and knowledge in every situation. Put on the armour of God: Ephesians 6:10-18 (NIV) 10 Finally, be strong in the Lord and in his mighty power. 11 Put on the full armor of God, so that you can take your stand against the devil's schemes. 12 For our struggle is not against flesh and blood, but against the rulers, against the authorities, against the powers of this dark world and against the spiritual forces of evil in the heavenly realms. 13 Therefore put on the full armour of God, so that when the day of evil comes, you may be able to stand your ground, and after you have done everything, to stand. 14 Stand firm then, with the belt of truth buckled around your waist, with the breastplate of righteousness in place, 15 and with your feet fitted with the readiness that comes from the gospel of peace. 16 In addition to all this, take up the shield of faith, with which you can extinguish all the flaming arrows of the evil one. 17 Take the helmet of salvation and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God. 18 And pray in the Spirit on all occasions with all kinds of prayers and requests. With this in mind, be alert and always keep on praying for all the Lord's people. 2. Do self-reflection Ask yourself these questions and answer honestly. Do I gossip? Do I inadvertently encourage gossip? Do I talk the talk, but not walk the walk? Do I demand my team to respect each other, but I yell, embarrass, belittle, slander or gossip about my team? You don't have to share this with anyone. But all I'm asking is for you to be honest with yourself, right here right now and in this moment. When you join my 6-month group coaching program, we do this together, 1:1. I am going to help you dive deep into you and your leadership style. The aim is not to make you feel inadequate, target your inadequacies No, the aim of this is to understand who you are and why you are the way you are because this greatly impacts your leadership style. 3. Assess the current situation at work Complete the free risk assessment on gossip in your workplace. You can gain access to this by simply joining the free Facebook community. Identify the gaps and come up with an action plan This may include creating clearer boundaries surrounding no-gossip in your workplace, SOPs regarding addressing workplace culture issues etc. Involve your leadership team and train them to understand the importance of getting rid of gossip and why. Now, when you join my 6-month group coaching program, we delve very deep into this process and I work through the risk assessment with you, I support you in identifying the gaps, we put the action plan together, we create guidelines, policies, procedures, pledges, SOP's, everything you will and might need, we'll be doing it together and I'll be holding your hand every step of the way. 4. Speak to your whole team about the new expectations moving forward Gather your team and let them know that you are committed to providing them with an environment that is positive, encourages growth mindsets and is a safe space for them to be in. Let them know that gossip will no longer be tolerated and that you are making a commitment and would like them to make a commitment as well, to strive for a gossip-free environment. When you join my program, I will provide you with a script and we'll run through this together, I will coach you through the whole process and we'll even do a couple of practice runs when your team don't agree or doesn't want to participate or when they are being difficult. What do you do? We'll be doing some intensive training on this so you are super prepared and know exactly what to do and say. 5. Start spotting the gossipers Start documenting when and where people are gossiping, and who are they gossiping about. I would recommend keeping a OneNote document with each of your team members having their own tab and then just start keeping notes on each of them. This will greatly help you down the line when you have to have more serious conversations with them or even issue warnings etc. If you are not keeping individual notes on your team yet, I would highly recommend you start. This in particular felt icky to me as a leader because the bible says in 1 Corinthians 13 1: “Love is patient, love is kind. It does not envy, it does not boast, it is not proud. It is not rude, it is not self-seeking, it is not easily angered, and it keeps no record of wrongs. Love does not delight in evil but rejoices with the truth.” And in Jeremiah 31:34 “Implicitly, God does not keep a record of sins. As he promises through Jeremiah, concerning "the least to the greatest": "And I will forgive their wickedness, and I will never again remember their sins" However, this is different because if you want to set the bar high, if you want to set the standard, you need to take the necessary actions, which include keeping people accountable for their actions. 6. Support your team Support the staff who are committed to change and train and support new staff coming into your work environment. Make sure that they all receive training, especially the new staff so they know the expectations on them with regards to gossip (basically that it's a gossip-free zone). 7. Provide an ongoing positive work environment For each team that will look different. Ask your team what they want this positive work environment to look like. Does that include team building, effective communication training, Friendly Fridays, online staff meetings, get-togethers etc. The Sky's the limit. How does this sound to you? Doable? I hope so! I'd like to personally invite you into the first round of the 6-month group coaching program where you will take some serious action to move your workplace/department or organisation from toxic to thriving. Do you want a proven system that has helped countless other leaders take their organisation to the next level? By getting rid of gossip, you can provide a safe and harmonious workplace environment for your entire team! How does that sound? Awesome right? But, you've got deadlines, you've got reports, you have training to complete, new employees, interviews, and then on top of that you might have your own family needing you at home, and you just don't know when you'll find the time to figure it all out because you do not have the time to sit still and to think about. You're probably listening to this podcast in your car or whilst you doing something else because you do not have the time to simply just sit and listen, let alone complete an audit of the current situation and come up with an action plan. That's where the program comes in. Do you have 1 hour a week, that you can commit? Do you have 1 hour that you can utilise to go through the program and within 6 months, get rid of gossip… for good! For a moment, visualise what a work environment without gossip looks like, feels like and sounds like. You can hear your team chatting about sports, the new local cafe that's opened, and their favourite coffee spots along the beach. There's not a bad or negative vibe or word in sight. That's what I want for you. Nights where you can sleep not worrying about the workplace culture issues at work. Peace at home because you're not taking your frustration with your team, out on your partner, your husband, your wife or even your kids. Because let's be honest, they often get the short end of the stick. You gain back the time you've spent on mediating conflict, claims of bullying, claims of discrimination and the list goes on. This is all possible. Please go to womenoffaithinleadership.com and fill out the application form to join the program. I will be in contact with you shortly after. I look forward to seeing you next week, with a brand-new episode. Next steps: 1. Navigate to https://www.womenoffaithinleadership.com where you can: Join the community of like-minded female Christian leaders. This is where I will be hanging out if I'm not on the podcast chatting to you all. Come share and support each other here.  Subscribe to my newsletter so you can stay up to date with all upcoming episodes and any other exclusive or special offers. 2. If you need any support, you can get in contact with me for a 1:1 coaching call, simply email me at support@rikawhelan.com 3. Connect with me on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/rikawhelan Upcoming From Gossip to Growth Program Sign up for my upcoming Program, where I will be taking you through a step-by-step guide to get rid of workplace gossip… for good! Navigate HERE to sign up for more information. I look forward to chatting with you in the next episode. Make sure you don't miss it!

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Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Definitions of “objective” should be Probable and Predictive, published by Rohin Shah on January 6, 2023 on The AI Alignment Forum. Introduction Core arguments about existential risk from AI misalignment often reason about AI “objectives” to make claims about how they will behave in novel situations. I often find these arguments plausible but not rock solid because it doesn't seem like there is a notion of “objective” that makes the argument clearly valid. Two examples of these core arguments: AI risk from power-seeking. This is often some variant of “because the AI system is pursuing an undesired objective, it will seek power in order to accomplish its goal, which causes human extinction”. For example, “The AI does not hate you, nor does it love you, but you are made out of atoms which it can use for something else.” This is a prediction about a novel situation, since “causing human extinction” is something that only happens at most once. AI optimism. This is often some variant of “we will use human feedback to train the AI system to help humans, and so it will learn to pursue the objective of helping humans.” Implicitly, this is a prediction about what AI systems do in novel situations; for example, it is a prediction that once the AI system has enough power to take over the world, it will continue to help humans rather than execute a treacherous turn. When we imagine powerful AI systems built out of large neural networks, I'm often somewhat skeptical of these arguments, because I don't see a notion of “objective” that can be confidently claimed is: Probable: there is a good argument that the systems we build will have an “objective”, and Predictive: If I know that a system has an “objective”, and I know its behavior on a limited set of training data, I can predict significant aspects of the system's behavior in novel situations (e.g. whether it will execute a treacherous turn once it has the ability to do so successfully). Note that in both cases, I find the stories plausible, but they do not seem strong enough to warrant confidence, because of the lack of a notion of “objective” with these two properties. In the case of AI risk, this is sufficient to justify “people should be working on AI alignment”; I don't think it is sufficient to justify “if we don't work on AI alignment we're doomed”. The core difficulty is that we do not currently understand deep learning well enough to predict how future systems will generalize to novel circumstances. So, when choosing a notion of “objective”, you either get to choose a notion that we currently expect to hold true of future deep learning systems (Probable), or you get to choose a notion that would allow you to predict behavior in novel situations (Predictive), but not both. This post is split into two parts. In the first part, I'll briefly gesture at arguments that make predictions about generalization behavior directly (i.e. without reference to “objectives”), and why they don't make me confident about how future systems will generalize. In the second part, I'll demonstrate how various notions of “objective” don't seem simultaneously Probable and Predictive. Part 1: We can't currently confidently predict how future systems will generalize Note that this is about what we can currently say about future generalization. I would not be shocked if in the future we could confidently predict how the future AGI systems will generalize. My core reasons for believing that predicting generalization is hard are that: We can't predict how current systems will generalize to novel situations (of similar novelty to the situations that would be encountered when deliberately causing an existential catastrophe) There are a ridiculously huge number of possible programs, including a huge number of possible programs that are consistent with a ...

Link to bioRxiv paper: http://biorxiv.org/cgi/content/short/2022.10.13.512071v1?rss=1 Authors: Fuchs, X., Heed, T. Abstract: When concurrent visual and tactile stimuli are repeatedly presented with a spatial offset, even unisensory tactile stimuli are afterwards perceived with a spatial bias towards the previously presented visual stimuli. This so-called visuotactile ventriloquism aftereffect reflects visuotactile recalibration. It is unknown whether this recalibration occurs within a bodily map and interacts with perceived features like shape and size of body parts. Here, we applied tactile stimuli to participants' hidden left hand and simultaneously presented visual stimuli with spatial offsets that - if integrated with the tactile stimuli - implied an enlarged hand size. We either used a fixed spatial mapping between tactile and visual positions ('congruent'), or a scrambled ('incongruent') mapping. We assessed implicitly perceived hand size via two independent behavioral assessments: pointing movements to unisensory tactile stimuli and tactile distance judgments. Moreover, we assessed explicitly perceived change in hand size with perceptual self-reports. Especially after congruent recalibration, participants localized unimodal tactile stimuli as if they were aiming at an enlarged hand. They also reported tactile distance as shorter after congruent than incongruent recalibration. These modulations resemble those obtained after using tools that prolong the arm and extend reaching space; they suggest that recalibration affected a common, implicit hand representation that underlies both tasks. In contrast, explicit perceptual self-reports did not differ significantly between congruent and incongruent recalibration. Thus, simple visuotactile stimuli are sufficient to modify implicitly perceived body size, indicating a tight link of low-level multisensory processes such as the visuotactile ventriloquism aftereffect and body representation. Copy rights belong to original authors. Visit the link for more info Podcast created by Paper Player, LLC

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: How are you dealing with ontology identification?, published by Erik Jenner on October 4, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. Not really novel, but I've made this point quite often in recent conversations, so I decided to make a short write-up. I think a wide range of alignment proposals will somehow have to deal with ontology identification, i.e. mapping an AI's beliefs about the world to a representations humans can correctly understand. This could happen explicitly (e.g. via an ELK solution or strong interpretability), or be more hidden, or maybe the proposal avoids the problem in some clever way. But I think alignment proposals should have some answer to the question "How are you dealing with ontology identification?" A class of examples One high-level approach you could try to use to align AI goes as follows: Somehow get a model of human values. This could be a utility function, but might also look more like a preference ordering etc. Build an AI that optimizes according to this value model. (If the value model is just a preference ordering, you might have to deal with the fact that it can be inconsistent, but we're ignoring those issues here.) To be clear, this is not the only approach for building aligned AI (maybe not even the most promising one). It's a special case of separately solving outer alignment and inner alignment, which itself is a special case of solving alignment more broadly. But this still covers an important class of approaches. I think any approach along those lines has to deal with ontology identification, for a pretty simple reason. The model of human values we get from step 1. will be defined in terms of the human ontology. For example, if we're learning a utility function, it will have type signature Uhuman:{states in human ontology}R. But for step 2., we need something the AI can optimize over, so we need a utility function of type signature UAI:{states in AI ontology}R. This means that as a bridge between steps 1. and 2., we need a translation from the AI ontology to the human ontology, τ:{states in AI ontology}{states in human ontology}. Then we can use UAI:=Uhuman∘τ. Note that in practice, we will often collapse learning Uhuman and specifying τ into a single step. For example, when doing RLHF on videos of trajectories, we're learning a reward function defined directly in terms of videos, rather than a human representation of what's happening in those videos. These videos also map easily into the RL agent's ontology (the agent's initial layers perform that mapping). So we don't need to explicitly use an ontology translation τ anywhere. Implicitly, we're using the translation τ that satisfies UAI=Uhuman∘τ, where UAI is the reward model, defined as a function on videos. τ maps from videos to human's understanding of what's happening inside those videos, and Uhuman are the "true" human values (which aren't explicitly represented anywhere in this setup). This implicit translation τ corresponds to the human simulator from the ELK report: it maps videos to what humans think is happening when they see those videos. This leads to outcomes that look good to humans on video, rather than outcomes that are actually good. So when I say that alignment proposals have to "deal with ontology identification" somehow, I mean that they need a better map τ than this implicit one. So far, we've focused on RLHF as an example, in which case this perspective doesn't add much. But I think the same argument applies much more broadly. For example, one response to the issues with RLHF is "Ah, we need a better model of human irrationality". In other words, we should do a lot of cognitive science to figure out precisely in which ways humans give feedback that doesn't reflect their true preferences. Then we can back out true human preferences from irrational human feedba...

Romans: Romans 9:21-Paul Uses The Potter And Clay Analogy To Implicitly Rebuke The Attitude Of The Creature Presuming To Judge The Ways Of His Creator-Lesson # 314

Romans: Romans 9:21-Paul Uses The Potter And Clay Analogy To Implicitly Rebuke The Attitude Of The Creature Presuming To Judge The Ways Of His Creator-Lesson # 314

Romans: Romans 9:20-Paul Implicitly Rebukes The Attitude Of The Creature Presuming To Judge The Ways Of His Creator-Lesson # 313

Romans: Romans 9:20-Paul Implicitly Rebukes The Attitude Of The Creature Presuming To Judge The Ways Of His Creator-Lesson # 313

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Author Catherine Arnold joins me for a fascinating conversation about the history of some of the most iconic graveyards and cemeteries in London.  Get her book Necropolis London and It's Dead right now on Amazon.  Above, a city thriving with life. Beneath, a city filled with the dead.      London. A vast, labyrinthine, ever-moving place that shimmers as the jewel of Britain. But what about beneath it? What of it's history? It's mishaps? It's dead?      Catharine Arnold invites us on a gloriously macabre tour - across London's many graveyards, cemeteries and burial plots in a quest to discover whether what has departed can teach us anything about what is to come. It's an intriguing, occasionally dark, occasionally humorous journey that reaches right back to the Romans and concludes with the most recent display of mass public mourning: Princess Diana's funeral.      Utilising archaeology, anthropology, anecdote and history, Arnold explores the presence of death in people's lives and the developments and changes in mourning and burial through two millennia. London's greatest disasters, including the Great Fire and the Black Plague, are explored and analysed for their massive impacts on both the population and the change in the disposal of the dead, while the unusual resting places of several thousand Londoners are highlighted and studied, as a means of examining growth and city development. Implicitly entwined with the passing of generations is the transformation of an entire population; where and how people live, where and how they die, and where their children move on to. Arnold marvellously celebrates the possibilities of living in a city as large as London and sensitively demonstrates how much modern citizens owe to their ancestors.      Filled with beautiful details, such as the reason we wear black to funerals (Romans believed the colour made mourners invisible to vengeful spirits), and in an optimistic and respectful voice, Arnold brings us a unique history of one of the world's greatest cities - built atop centuries of history and still rising to this day. If you've ever wondered where the sweet hereafter might be, then look no further - Arnold shows us beautifully how even in a city as massive as London, the dead never really leave us.      It's super easy to access our archives!   Here's how:   iPhone Users: Access Mysterious Radio from Apple Podcasts and become a subscriber there, or if you want access to even more exclusive content, join us on Patreon.   Android Users: Enjoy over 800 exclusive member-only posts to include ad-free episodes, case files, and more when you join us on Patreon.    Please copy and Paste our link in a text message to all your family members and friends! We'll love you forever! (Check out Mysterious Radio!)

Author Catherine Arnold joins me for a fascinating conversation about the history of some of the most iconic graveyards and cemeteries in London. Get her book Necropolis London and It's Dead right now on Amazon. Above, a city thriving with life. Beneath, a city filled with the dead.  London. A vast, labyrinthine, ever-moving place that shimmers as the jewel of Britain. But what about beneath it? What of it's history? It's mishaps? It's dead?  Catharine Arnold invites us on a gloriously macabre tour - across London's many graveyards, cemeteries and burial plots in a quest to discover whether what has departed can teach us anything about what is to come. It's an intriguing, occasionally dark, occasionally humorous journey that reaches right back to the Romans and concludes with the most recent display of mass public mourning: Princess Diana's funeral.  Utilising archaeology, anthropology, anecdote and history, Arnold explores the presence of death in people's lives and the developments and changes in mourning and burial through two millennia. London's greatest disasters, including the Great Fire and the Black Plague, are explored and analysed for their massive impacts on both the population and the change in the disposal of the dead, while the unusual resting places of several thousand Londoners are highlighted and studied, as a means of examining growth and city development. Implicitly entwined with the passing of generations is the transformation of an entire population; where and how people live, where and how they die, and where their children move on to. Arnold marvellously celebrates the possibilities of living in a city as large as London and sensitively demonstrates how much modern citizens owe to their ancestors.  Filled with beautiful details, such as the reason we wear black to funerals (Romans believed the colour made mourners invisible to vengeful spirits), and in an optimistic and respectful voice, Arnold brings us a unique history of one of the world's greatest cities - built atop centuries of history and still rising to this day. If you've ever wondered where the sweet hereafter might be, then look no further - Arnold shows us beautifully how even in a city as massive as London, the dead never really leave us. Share your thoughts and opinions! Join our new group chat on Telegram - https://t.me/mysteriousradio Visit our home on the web: https://www.mysteriousradio.com Follow us on Instagram @mysteriousradio Follow us on TikTok mysteriousradioTikTok Follow us on Twitter @mysteriousradio Follow us on Pinterest pinterest.com/mysteriousradio Like us on Facebook Facebook.com/mysteriousradio Mysterious Radio is starting a spin off podcast called Paranormal Fears! If you love to hear a sh*t load of in-depth interviews that are ONLY about supernatural phenomena this is your home! New shows are being produced now and will start releasing at the end of this month! Follow 'Paranormal Fears' on any podcast app or Apple Podcasts. Check Out Mysterious Radio! (copy the link to share with your friends and family via text Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: The "Measuring Stick of Utility" Problem, published by johnswentworth on May 25, 2022 on The AI Alignment Forum. Let's start with the simplest coherence theorem: suppose I'll pay to upgrade pepperoni pizza to mushroom, pay to upgrade mushroom to anchovy, and pay to upgrade anchovy to pepperoni. This does not bode well for my bank account balance. And the only way to avoid having such circular preferences is if there exists some “consistent preference ordering” of the three toppings - i.e. some ordering such that I will only pay to upgrade to a topping later in the order, never earlier. That ordering can then be specified as a utility function: a function which takes in a topping, and gives the topping's position in the preference order, so that I will only pay to upgrade to a topping with higher utility. More advanced coherence theorems remove a lot of implicit assumptions (e.g. I could learn over time, and I might just face various implicit tradeoffs in the world rather than explicit offers to trade), and add more machinery (e.g. we can incorporate uncertainty and derive expected utility maximization and Bayesian updates). But they all require something-which-works-like-money. Money has two key properties in this argument: Money is additive across decisions. If I pay $1 to upgrade anchovy to pepperoni, and another $1 to upgrade pepperoni to mushroom, then I have spent $1 + $1 = $2. All else equal, more money is good. If I spend $3 trading anchovy -> pepperoni -> mushroom -> anchovy, then I could have just stuck with anchovy from the start and had strictly more money, which would be better. These are the conditions which make money a “measuring stick of utility”: more money is better (all else equal), and money adds. (Indeed, these are also the key properties of a literal measuring stick: distances measured by the stick along a straight line add, and bigger numbers indicate more distance.) Why does this matter? There's a common misconception that every system can be interpreted as a utility maximizer, so coherence theorems don't say anything interesting. After all, we can always just pick some “utility function” which is maximized by whatever the system actually does. It's the measuring stick of utility which makes coherence theorems nontrivial: if I spend $3 trading anchovy -> pepperoni -> mushroom -> anchovy, then it implies that either (1) I don't have a utility function over toppings (though I could still have a utility function over some other silly thing, like e.g. my history of topping-upgrades), or (2) more money is not necessarily better, given the same toppings. Sure, there are ways for that system to “maximize a utility function”, but it can't be a utility function over toppings which is measured by our chosen measuring stick. Another way to put it: coherence theorems assume the existence of some resources (e.g. money), and talk about systems which are pareto optimal with respect to those resources - e.g. systems which “don't throw away money”. Implicitly, we're assuming that the system generally "wants" more resources (instrumentally, not necessarily as an end goal), and we derive the system's "preferences" over everything else (including things which are not resources) from that. The agent "prefers" X over Y if it expends resources to get from Y to X. If the agent reaches a world-state which it could have reached with strictly less resource expenditure in all possible worlds, then it's not an expected utility maximizer - it "threw away money" unnecessarily. We assume that the resources are a measuring stick of utility, and then ask whether the system maximizes any utility function over the given state-space measured by that measuring stick. Ok, but what about utility functions which don't increase with resources? As a general rule, we don't actually care...

Welcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Kosher Hot Dogs, published by johnswentworth on April 1, 2022 on LessWrong. If ever there were an industry that no one in their right mind would trust, it's hot dogs. First rule of hot dogs: you do not want to know what's in it. But in this unsavory industry, Hebrew National stands out. The slogan on the company's site summarizes their advantage well: When your hot dog's kosher, that's a hot dog you can trust. And indeed, people do trust Hebrew National's hot dogs.This is more remarkable than it might seem at first glance. Consider the problem from the perspective of a hot dog company. This company wants to carve out a niche: they will produce high-quality hot dogs, and sell them at a correspondingly higher price. Many people will happily pay extra to know that their hot dogs do not contain ground-up lucky charms, bits of fur, or the occasional lost dog. But how can the company communicate their quality to prospective consumers? How can they convince the public of the superior quality of their hot dogs? What claim could they make which an unscrupulous competitor could not copy?This is the problem known in game theory as signalling: one party wants to communicate their superior quality to another party, but in order to do so they must send a signal which their unscrupulous competitors cannot easily copy. A certification body can solve this problem. Consumer Reports, for example, provides unbiased analysis of a wide range of products. Unfortunately, this solution is subject to attack in the real world by exploiting the limited information capacity of consumers. Any company can (and does) invent arbitrary metrics by which their product performs best. A less cynical interpretation is that each company stakes out a niche, claiming that their product is the best for X. If you want X, you buy that company's product. Just within hot dogs, we have Ballpark's "Angus", Applegate's "Organic", Nathan's "Bigger than the Bun", Oscar Meyer's "Selects", and several brands of "Premium Jumbo". Many of these brands have multiple lines of hot dog servicing different niches. Consumers with limited attention to devote will ignore most of these, and most are useless anyway. Thus the true signals of quality are drowned out by the noise of their competitors.If a company is to charge extra for a truly superior product, then they need a more dramatic way to signal quality. Hebrew National does this by invoking kosher rules. Implicitly, the entire weight of the Jewish religion backs the quality of their product. The kosher rules force the company to produce high-quality hot dogs, and lets them communicate their high quality even in the noisy environment of the modern supermarket.But what does that even mean? I don't actually know the kosher rules. I remember a few bits and pieces... no hooved animals, separate meat and dairy, something about which cuts of meat are acceptable... but I don't know most of it. Yet I'm willing to accept kosher standards as an assertion of quality, at least in the unpalatable hot dog industry.I do know that kosher rules are generally intended to ensure food quality. They are a 3000 year old FDA regulatory equivalent. They are interpreted by an active rabbinical community, which makes sure that the word and spirit of the rules are properly applied to new foods and new food processing technology. The result is a regulatory framework which is roughly understood and highly trusted by laypeople, even though most of us do not have a detailed knowledge of the rules! Just as important, I know that the whole community of people who observe, certify and maintain kosher rules is highly trustworthy. They consider themselves in service to God. Abusing the kosher rules or certification would be not just unethical, but a direct transgression against God. I can trust that the rules a...

Link to original articleWelcome to The Nonlinear Library, where we use Text-to-Speech software to convert the best writing from the Rationalist and EA communities into audio. This is: Kosher Hot Dogs, published by johnswentworth on April 1, 2022 on LessWrong. If ever there were an industry that no one in their right mind would trust, it's hot dogs. First rule of hot dogs: you do not want to know what's in it. But in this unsavory industry, Hebrew National stands out. The slogan on the company's site summarizes their advantage well: When your hot dog's kosher, that's a hot dog you can trust. And indeed, people do trust Hebrew National's hot dogs.This is more remarkable than it might seem at first glance. Consider the problem from the perspective of a hot dog company. This company wants to carve out a niche: they will produce high-quality hot dogs, and sell them at a correspondingly higher price. Many people will happily pay extra to know that their hot dogs do not contain ground-up lucky charms, bits of fur, or the occasional lost dog. But how can the company communicate their quality to prospective consumers? How can they convince the public of the superior quality of their hot dogs? What claim could they make which an unscrupulous competitor could not copy?This is the problem known in game theory as signalling: one party wants to communicate their superior quality to another party, but in order to do so they must send a signal which their unscrupulous competitors cannot easily copy. A certification body can solve this problem. Consumer Reports, for example, provides unbiased analysis of a wide range of products. Unfortunately, this solution is subject to attack in the real world by exploiting the limited information capacity of consumers. Any company can (and does) invent arbitrary metrics by which their product performs best. A less cynical interpretation is that each company stakes out a niche, claiming that their product is the best for X. If you want X, you buy that company's product. Just within hot dogs, we have Ballpark's "Angus", Applegate's "Organic", Nathan's "Bigger than the Bun", Oscar Meyer's "Selects", and several brands of "Premium Jumbo". Many of these brands have multiple lines of hot dog servicing different niches. Consumers with limited attention to devote will ignore most of these, and most are useless anyway. Thus the true signals of quality are drowned out by the noise of their competitors.If a company is to charge extra for a truly superior product, then they need a more dramatic way to signal quality. Hebrew National does this by invoking kosher rules. Implicitly, the entire weight of the Jewish religion backs the quality of their product. The kosher rules force the company to produce high-quality hot dogs, and lets them communicate their high quality even in the noisy environment of the modern supermarket.But what does that even mean? I don't actually know the kosher rules. I remember a few bits and pieces... no hooved animals, separate meat and dairy, something about which cuts of meat are acceptable... but I don't know most of it. Yet I'm willing to accept kosher standards as an assertion of quality, at least in the unpalatable hot dog industry.I do know that kosher rules are generally intended to ensure food quality. They are a 3000 year old FDA regulatory equivalent. They are interpreted by an active rabbinical community, which makes sure that the word and spirit of the rules are properly applied to new foods and new food processing technology. The result is a regulatory framework which is roughly understood and highly trusted by laypeople, even though most of us do not have a detailed knowledge of the rules! Just as important, I know that the whole community of people who observe, certify and maintain kosher rules is highly trustworthy. They consider themselves in service to God. Abusing the kosher rules or certification would be not just unethical, but a direct transgression against God. I can trust that the rules a...

The last two chapters of the first part of Zechariah are triggered by a question. The question is posed by a delegation from the exiles about liturgical observance. The Jews in Babylon wanted to remain in liturgical sync with the Jerusalemites. Their delegation is pretty early in the life of the returned community—late 518 B.C., just over twenty years since the initial restoration and only a year since the commitment to rebuild the temple, under the preaching of Haggai, had taken hold. The formal answer to their question is not given until 8:18–19. Yet the focus on fasting as a ritual to be observed calls forth sermonic material and various oracular sayings from the Lord that press beyond merely formal observance and call the people, yet again, to fundamental issues. Zechariah 7 is the first of these two chapters, and verses 5–14 provide the first barrage of the prophetic response. We may usefully organize this material by asking three questions:(1) Is our religion for us or for God? The prophet Zechariah faithfully conveys God's question to the delegates of the exiles: when across seventy years (i.e., from 587) they faithfully fasted on certain days, thinking those were the “proper” days, did they do so primarily as an act of devotion to God, or out of some self-centered motivation of wanting to feel good about themselves (Zech. 7:5–7)? Fasting may be no more than self-pity, or faithfulness to a cultural mandate, or passive acceptance of tradition. How much of the religious practice was offered to God?(2) Does our religion elevate ritual above morality? That is the burden of Zechariah's stinging review of earlier Jewish history (Zech. 7:8–12). Implicitly, Zechariah is asking if their concern for liturgical uniformity is matched by a passionate commitment to “show mercy and compassion to one another,” and to abominate the oppression of the weak and helpless in society (Zech. 7:9–10). Indeed, a genuinely moral mind extends to inner reflection: “In your hearts do not think evil of each other” (Zech. 7:10). Implicitly, Zechariah asks us precisely the same questions.(3) Does our religion prompt us passionately to follow God's words, or to pursue our own religious agendas? “When I called, they did not listen; so when they called, I would not listen” (Zech. 7:13), the Lord Almighty announces. Passionate intensity about the details of religion, including liturgical reformation, is worse than useless if it is not accompanied by a holy life. In true religion, nothing, nothing at all, is more important than whole-hearted and unqualified obedience to the words of God. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson's book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M'Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Matthew 12:9-14The Pharisees and scribes wanted to test and then accuse Jesus. So, when a man with a withered hand was in the synagogue on the Sabbath, they set the trap. They asked Jesus if it was lawful or if He really had authority from God to heal people on the Sabbath. Andrew and Edwin dig into Jesus's response to learn a fantastic lesson about Bible authority, hermeneutics, and how we should use the Scripture to know what we are authorized to do as Christians and in Christ's church. While doing so, they take to task a common objection people make today to a sound Jesus-exemplified principle for establishing authority.Read the written devo that goes along with this episode by clicking here.    Let us know what you are learning or any questions you have. Email us at TextTalk@ChristiansMeetHere.org.    Join the Facebook community and join the conversation by clicking here. We'd love to meet you. Be a guest among the Christians who meet on Livingston Avenue. Click here to find out more. Michael Eldridge sang all four parts of our theme song. Find more from him by clicking here.   Thanks for talking about the text with us today.________________________________________________If the hyperlinks do not work, copy the following addresses and paste them into the URL bar of your web browser: Daily Written Devo: https://readthebiblemakedisciples.wordpress.com/?p=8086The Christians Who Meet on Livingston Avenue: http://www.christiansmeethere.org/Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/TalkAboutTheTextFacebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/texttalkMichael Eldridge: https://acapeldridge.com/ 

Diplomacy is breaking out in the Middle East. Traditional rivals like Saudi Arabia and Iran have been sitting down to talk through their differences. Why is this happening? Trita Parsi of the Quincy Institute and several other influential commentators have argued that the United States' drawdown in the region has forced its partners to dial back more confrontational elements in their foreign policies, as they no longer have Uncle Sam backing them up. What's more, Parsi and others argue, there's reason for optimism that this diplomacy can improve things in the region. Not so, argues Thanassis Cambanis of Century International. These states have their own reasons for diplomacy, and to argue otherwise is to overstate American influence. Moreover, he argues, much of this diplomacy is not likely to succeed and may even be jostling for position ahead of new conflicts. Implicitly, this debate has implications for U.S. grand strategy. U.S. global military presence is intended in part to suppress conflict. If Parsi is right, that presence may be sustaining conflict and enabling partners' intransigence. This debate was held in partnership with our University of Florida chapter. Parsi article Cambanis article

Maria Montessori once said that “Education is acquired not by listening to words, but by experiences”. From a personal standpoint I can fully resonate with this quote having two young boys and watching them blossom through experiential learning.  The pandemic and lockdowns have thrown up challenges for children to continue experientially learning with passive screen time being a real issue.  Out of this potential dark place shines a light that I discovered  over lockdown.  This bright light was called Cosmic Kids which is yoga for children, created and presented by the fantastic Jaime Amor! Jaimes's backstory is fascinating having started off as an actor, then working as a children's entertainer before qualifying as a yoga instructor.  Jaime's assorted background has led to her creating Cosmic Kids which tells stories through Yoga and demonstrates an engaging , active and experiential way for children to physically move, learn about emotions, develop bodily awareness, all whilst having oodles of fun!  There is a serious, important theme that does run through Cosmic Kids in that it is developing children's implicit learning as to how to be mindful and not mindless and in today's passive social media consumption society, this is more important than ever.   In today's chat Jaime spoke to how she uses stories to engage children, seeing the world through a child's eyes, healthy active screen time, mindfulness. vs. mindlessness,  and the importance of children being connected to themselves vs. being disconnected. Jamie was a pleasure to have on the podcast and her energy and enthusiasm were infectious and I challenge you to not listen to this without a big, massive smile on your face!  So, without further ad, please welcome Jaime Amor from Cosmic kids!  Resources Instagram Cosmic Kids: cosmickidsyoga Twitter Cosmic Kids: @CosmicKidsYoga Cosmic kids website: Cosmic Kids YouTube Cosmic Kids: Cosmic Kids Yoga - YouTube - Book recommendation – Eastern Body for the Western Mind by Anodea Judith - Answer to my question on what would you put in a message in a bottle to promote physical activity in children: stay calm, keep breathing and think positive Follow Dan: Twitter: Twitter.com/believemovegrow Instagram: Instagram.com/believemovegrow Track: Down the street — Vendredi [Audio Library Release] Music provided by Audio Library Plus Watch: https://youtu.be/FU0IiZj3H2g Free Download / Stream: https://alplus.io/down-the-street

This week on the Groupthink Podcast, Tyler and special guest Leo from the channel Implicitly Pretentious talk spoilers for Star Wars: Episode 9!

2 Kings 13:20-21 ESV 20 So Elisha died, and they buried him. Now bands of Moabites used to invade the land in the spring of the year. 21 And as a man was being buried, behold, a marauding band was seen and the man was thrown into the grave of Elisha, and as soon as the man touched the bones of Elisha, he revived and stood on his feet. ----- 20 Namatay si Eliseo at kanilang inilibing siya. Noon ang mga pulutong ng mga Moabita ay laging sumasalakay sa lupain sa panahon ng tagsibol. 21 At habang inililibing ang isang lalaki, kanilang natanaw ang isang sumasalakay na pulutong. At ang lalaki ay naihagis sa libingan ni Eliseo; at nang sumagi ang tao sa mga buto ni Eliseo, siya'y muling nabuhay at tumayo sa kanyang mga paa. LIFE FROM DEATH. Elisha had died for sometime. What was left in his grave was his bones. Since the graves were carved out of soft rock, it was possible that a dead man was thrown into his grave. This unknown man, perhaps, was mercilessly killed by the marauding band and in a hurry was thrown into Elisha's grave. Amazingly, as his dead body touched the bones of Elisha, he became alive again. Elisha though he died for sometime was still became a blessing. Was this because he has the double portion from Elijah. Elijah did not taste death but Elisha, though he died has given life to an unknown man. His name means “God saves”[2 Kings 2:19-25]. Elisha was mentioned only once in New Testament, particularly in Luke 4:27, “And there were many lepers in Israel in the time of the prophet Elisha, and none of them was cleansed, but only Naaman the Syrian.” Jesus did this analogy with Elisha in healing the sick, specially the lepers. Implicitly, he was a type of Jesus. Bruce Waltke, writing in Ligonier Magazine about the parallels between Elisha and Jesus: Both are designated by a prophet, whom the general populace recognized as a true prophet. Both receive the Spirit on the other side of the Jordan (2 Kings 2:7–15; John 1:28); • are surrounded by more disciples than their predecessors; • are itinerant miracle workers; • give life in a land of death; • cleanse lepers (2 Kings 5; Mark 1:40–45); • heal the sick (2 Kings 4:34–35; Mark 8:22–25); • defy gravity (2 Kings 6:6; Matt. 14:22–33); • reverse death by raising dead sons and restoring them to their mothers (2 Kings 4: 1–7; Luke 7:11–17); • help widows in desperate circumstances; are kinsman redeemers to save from slavery (2 Kings 4:1–7; Luke 4:19); • feed the hungry (2 Kings 4:1–7; Mark 8:1–12); • minister to the Gentiles (2 Kings 5:1–16); • prepare (2 Kings 6:20–23) and sit at table with sinners (Luke 5:29); • lead captives (2 Kings 6:18–20; Eph. 4:7–8); • have a covetous disciple (Gehazi and Judas); • end their lives in a life-giving tomb from which people flee (2 Kings 13:20–21; Mark 16:1–8). ----------------------- Visit and FOLLOW Gospel Light Filipino on YouTube, Facebook and Instagram

The short paragraph 1 Peter 2:13–17 is filled with moral admonitions found elsewhere in the New Testament. In today’s meditation I shall briefly clarify the main points and observe the supporting themes around the paragraph.First, like Paul in Romans 13, Peter tells his readers to submit to every properly constituted human authority, and to do so “for the Lord’s sake” (1 Pet. 2:13–14). Implicitly, Peter acknowledges that such human authorities were set up by God, and their proper function (or at least one of them) is to foster justice. Second, it is always God’s will that Christians by doing good “should silence the ignorant talk of foolish men” (1 Pet. 2:15). Behavior stamped by courtesy, respect, and integrity is not itself preaching the Gospel, but it wins a hearing for the Gospel, simultaneously preparing a way for it and authorizing it. Third, our freedom from the law-covenant must never become an excuse for licentiousness: “live as servants of God” (1 Pet. 2:16). Finally, it is always right and good to show proper respect to everyone. Everyone is made in the image of God. But what “proper” means may take on different overtones with different ranks: “Love the brotherhood of believers, fear God, honor the king” (1 Pet. 2:17).The surrounding verses provide support for this outlook. (a) Christians are “a chosen people, a royal priesthood, a holy nation, a people belonging to God,” their very existence designed to declare the praise of the One who called them “out of darkness and into his wonderful light” (1 Pet. 2:9). The transformation of Christians’ conduct is the attestation that they really do belong to God (1 Pet. 2:10, 25). (b) This also means that we no longer belong to the world. Here we live “as aliens and strangers” (1 Pet. 2:11). If we do not think in those terms, but are frankly comfortable with the world and its ways, we ought to question whether or not we really belong to the “people belonging to God.” This is the assumption Peter makes when he writes, “Live such good lives among the pagans that, though they accuse you of doing wrong, they may see your good deeds and glorify God on the day he visits us” (1 Pet. 2:12). (c) If any of this involves hardship or suffering—as it especially did in the case of slaves who belonged to cruel and unjust masters—we can never forget that we follow a Master who himself suffered most unjustly. No moral value attaches to suffering what we deserve; we show ourselves to be followers of Jesus Christ when we suffer unjustly and endure it faithfully. “To this you were called, because Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow in his steps” (1 Pet. 2:21). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Here I shall focus on three of the several themes that surface in Proverbs 21:(a) “To do what is right and just is more acceptable to the Lord than sacrifice” (Prov. 21:3). The prophets say something similar (e.g., Hosea 6:6), and so does the LORD Jesus (Matt. 9:13; 12:7). Every generation must remember that integrity and righteousness are more important than religious ritual. It should come as no surprise that religious people may sometimes cheat on their income tax, abuse their children, covet their neighbor’s car, and love nothing so much as personal pleasure. Their religion may actually serve as a cloak to cover their sin with a veneer of respectability. This chapter includes another relevant proverb: “The sacrifice of the wicked is detestable—how much more so when brought with evil intent!” (Prov. 21:27). The religious observance of wicked people is simply detestable in God’s sight; it is unimaginably revolting to him when the wicked person is less a wicked dupe than a self-conscious charlatan using his religion to deceive people. Implicitly, of course, this means that the religion of the Bible is more about character than choirs, more about real transformation than religious tradition, more about God and the Gospel than about leadership and glitz.(b) Poverty may come about because of abuse and oppression by the strong and powerful. But it may also come about because of a character flaw such as laziness or love of self-indulgence. So it is in this chapter: “He who loves pleasure will become poor; whoever loves wine and oil will never be rich” (Prov. 21:17). “In the house of the wise are stores of choice food and oil, but a foolish man devours all he has” (Prov. 21:20). “The sluggard’s craving will be the death of him, because his hands refuse to work” (Prov. 21:25). “All day long he craves for more, but the righteous give without sparing” (Prov. 21:26). By contrast, “The plans of the diligent lead to profit as surely as haste leads to poverty” (Prov. 21:5). The wise will not pursue pleasure as one of the great goals of life, but will prove provident, generous, hard-working, faithful, and just—precisely the kind of qualities that make good employers and good employees.(c) “Haughty eyes and a proud heart, the lamp of the wicked, are sin!” (Prov. 21:4). “The proud and arrogant man—‘Mocker’ is his name; he behaves with overweening pride” (Prov. 21:24). The heart of all wickedness is this vaulting self-focus that deludes itself into thinking we are self-determining, such that God himself can never be more than an accessory. Small wonder that gospel transformation begins with repentance. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Halfway through his long speech to Job, God gives him an opportunity to respond. Following a rhetorical question (“Will the one who contends with the Almighty correct him?”), God says, “Let him who accuses God answer him!” (Job 40:2).It is vital for the understanding of this book that we do not misunderstand this challenge. God is not withdrawing his initial estimate of Job (Job 1:1, 8). Even under the most horrible barrage from Satan and from the three “miserable comforters,” Job has not weakened his fundamental integrity nor lost his basic loyalty to the Almighty. He has not followed the advice of his suffering wife to curse God and die; he has not followed the advice of his friends and simply assumed he was suffering for sins hitherto unrecognized and therefore turned to repentance. But he has come within a whisker of blaming God for his sufferings; or, better put, he has certainly insisted that he wants his day in court, that he wants to justify himself to God. Implicitly, and sometimes explicitly, Job has accused God of being unjust, or of being so removed that the just and the unjust seem to face the same ends. In his better moments Job steps back from the least restrained parts of his rhetoric, but he certainly feels, to say the least, that God owes him an explanation.But now God is saying, in effect, that the person who wants to “contend” with God—to argue out some matter—must not begin by assuming that God is wrong or by accusing the Almighty of not getting things right. That has been the thrust of the rhetorical questions (chaps. 38–39): Job has neither the knowledge nor the power to be able to stand in judgment of God.By this point Job has apparently absorbed the lesson: “I am unworthy—how can I reply to you? I put my hand over my mouth. I spoke once, but I have no answer—twice, but I will say no more” (Job 40:4–5). But the question arises, Is Job really convinced that he was out of line? Does Job now really believe that, however righteous he may have been, he really does not have the right to talk to God that way? Or, devout man that he is, has he simply been cowed into quiescence?God takes no chances: he presents Job with two more chapters (Job 40–41) of unanswerable rhetorical questions. Once more Job is told to “brace [himself] like a man”—and then God begins: “Would you discredit my justice? Would you condemn me to justify yourself?” (Job 40:8). It is as if God wants something more from Job, something that Job recognizes only in the last chapter of the drama. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

The casual racism of starchy royals was never particularly secret,

The casual racism of starchy royals was never particularly secret, but in all the debates about whether the Royals are racist or whether Harry and Meghan are whiners who want to have their cake and eat it too, one forgets that it’s possible for both to be true.

On this week's episode, Manny C. and Lauren B. had the greatest honor to collaborate with our podcast sibling, Implicitly Awkward!

What shapes the ways we teach? What influences teachers' views and beliefs about language learning? Trinity College London teacher trainer Karin Xie and I discuss what factors we see influencing teachers' ideas about teaching and talk about how our own experiences have informed our views of language teaching and learning.For more podcasts, videos and blogs, visit our website Support the podcast – buy us a coffee!Develop yourself! Find more about our teacher training courses Watch as well as listen on our YouTube channelRoss Thorburn: Today, we have with us Karin Xie. Hi, Karin.Karin Xie: Hi, everyone.Ross: Karin, do you want to tell us a little bit about what you do? You do teacher training. Tell us who you do teacher training for.Karin: I work with teachers who prepare students for [inaudible 0:13] exams. It's a graded speaking exam that focuses on communication skills.Ross: You were saying also for those teachers, a lot of them end up teaching in a way that they were taught before, right? Which is really quite different to what the exam measures.Karin: Yeah. In my experience with the teachers, I found a lot of them, they would still focus on teaching students the knowledge, like the grammar and the vocabulary, so that students have the knowledge for the exam but not really the skills. I wondered why. I found that relates to how they were taught when they were students. How they learned language and how they were trained.Ross: That got us into this conversation about all the different things that might affect how teachers teach to them, we just mentioned. One is how you were taught as a student backwash, and then how teachers are trained.Today, we're going to try and look at what affects how teachers teach. Let's start off by talking about backwash, you mentioned earlier. What's backwash?Karin: It's the impact an assessment has on classroom teaching. For example, for [inaudible 1:18] exams, it's a one‑to‑one, face‑to‑face conversation the candidate has with an examiner. There's no script, no question banks.To prepare students for that, the teacher has to mimic what's happening in the real exam and give the students a lot of chance to use the language at their own choice and express what they want to say, ask questions, etc.Ross: I guess a good example backwash, and maybe less good would be what? If your test is a multiple choice, pick the right tense of the verb exam, right?Karin: Yeah, exactly.Ross: In that situation, people end up just...Karin: Giving students lots of words to remember and do a lot of written exams that don't really prepare learners for real‑life languages.Ross: It's amazing how much of an effect that they can have on what happens in the classroom. IELTS, for example, the speaking part of that test, this is one of my bugbears is that the students don't have to ask any questions in the IELTS speaking exam.If you think of what effect is that going to have in the classroom? If you're preparing students for IELTS, why would you ever teach them to ask a question? Because you never need to do that.Of course, people usually take the IELTS so they can study abroad or so they can move to another country. I think we all agree that if you do move to another country, one of the main things you have to do is ask questions because a lot of the time you don't know what's going on.Karin: Yeah. Any kind of speaking exchange requires contribution from both people whereas in IELTS, the examiner is not allowed to contribute to the communication by say, giving comments or giving support.Ross: Absolutely.Karin: I think maybe we could add one point here...Ross: Sure, of course.Karin: ...about the materials teachers use, especially with new teachers. Very often you see the teachers fall into the flow, what it says, and just use it as it is.Ross: Materials can almost act as a source of teacher training if they're good materials, because teachers will get into the habit, maybe if they're new teachers, of following whatever structure there is in the coursebook.It's problematic though, isn't it, if the structure in the coursebook may be using ideal or if the coursebook has been written for first year teachers and you never move beyond that.Karin: Or if the book doesn't allow a lot of communicative activities, the teacher may not even think about designing any activities for students to talk to each other and work with each other.I remember you were really excited when you were designing materials. You were like, "If you do a teacher training workshop with the teachers, you are not so sure whether they're going to apply everything. But if you design good teaching materials, you are kind of sure that they're going to use it somehow." I don't know if that's...Ross: [laughs] I guess that must be before I'd seen the reality of how teachers use materials.[laughter]Ross: I guess those are both ways of influencing what teachers do, but all of it passes through some filter that the teachers personally have of this is work, does this is fit in with my views of teaching and learning.I remember in a previous job doing some research where we tried basically introducing different materials in this job. It was all one‑to‑one classes. Because it was online, every class was filmed. You could go back and you could watch and see the effect that the materials had on the teaching.We did a little bit of research and started including some personal questions in the materials because we noticed in general, teachers didn't ask for [inaudible 4:47] . I remember one word that was a tongue twister.It said like, "Can you change one word in the tongue twister and make a new tongue twister?" Pretty simple. Not an amazing activity, but some tiny bit of personalization. Afterwards, we watched 20 videos of teachers doing this. 18 of the 20 teachers didn't even ask the question.Karin: I found if you have that is often at the end of the unit or of the chapter. You find teachers either saying that we don't have time for that anymore or they go through it really quickly, whereas that's the most important part of the lesson. That's when the students really get to use it.Ross: I guess you think that's the most important part of the lesson but maybe the person using the book doesn't see it that way.Karin: That makes me think about why we make those different choices. We both have the same course book, but we use it so differently. That, I think, is the beliefs we have towards teaching.Ross: Absolutely. Another thing that maybe affects how teachers' beliefs are formed obviously is people's own experiences as a student. I can't remember what the numbers are, but it's something like by the time you graduate from university, you've been a student for something like 20,000 hours.If do a CELTA course or something, or an initial teaching course, if you're lucky you do like a 120 hours. You're at 120 hours versus 20,000 hours. One month versus 20 years of education. It's very, very difficult to break the beliefs that are formed and how teachers themselves have been taught as students.Karin: I always think about the teachers that taught me and the good things that they did that I think made me learn better and the things that I didn't really enjoy. I think that shaped my teaching beliefs.Ross: Which is interesting, but it reminds me of the George Bernard Shaw quote, "Don't do unto others as you would have them do unto you." It assumes people's preferences are the same. Obviously, it's worth thinking about what you liked or disliked about your teachers might be different to what the other people in the class liked and disliked about their teachers.Karin: I was thinking about the cultural environment behind our teaching beliefs. The one reason that my teachers used to do the lecture style teacher‑centric way of teaching is because the thousand‑year‑old teaching belief of the role of a teacher is to impart the knowledge to the students.If the teacher doesn't talk enough, you feel like you don't learn enough. Same with a lot of parents today. If they send their students to a class, if the students were doing things rather than the teacher doing all talking, then they have the feeling of they don't get good value for the money. I'm not learning enough.Ross: I like your point there about the it's maybe not the 18 years that your teacher was a student...Karin: Or 2,000 hours.Ross: Yeah, or 2,000 or 20,000 hours. It's actually maybe the last 1,000 years of the culture or something that's affecting how that person teaches. There's also something in there about the culture of the school that you're in, I think as well.There's a great chapter, I think it's at the end of Jack Richards book called "Beyond Training." He has students who did his [inaudible 7:54] course. All these teachers, after doing the [inaudible 7:58] course, are really brought into communicative language teaching, task‑based learning.Then they go into these public schools in Hong Kong. The reality in those schools is very different from the context often surrounding communicative language teaching where in those public schools in Hong Kong, there's 60 students in a class. You're next towards others classes, so you can't be too noisy. Your manager expects you to do X, Y and Z in the class.It's amazing how over the course of a year, you look at these teachers, some of them just go 180 degrees, and go from being like, "Oh, I want my students to communicate. I'm going to speak English in the class. I'm going to make sure students enjoy what they're doing," to being authoritarian, grammar‑based and doing everything in the students' first language.Karin: We need to raise teachers' awareness on their own teaching beliefs because that's how they make the choices in lesson planning and delivery, but we often miss out the step of how they can adapt all those methodologies into their own teaching context.I had a similar experience of training some public school teachers where we talked about communicative language teaching, group work, student feedback and things like that. They were like, "With our learning aims, and the class size and our schedule, it's really hard to do that. We literally don't have the time for that, or if we get the students do that, they won't be able to pass all the exams."Ross: Another point here is teachers' own experiences of learning a language. This is something that I personally find really interesting, because I've learned my second language without going to any classes and without studying.I think I have a very laissez‑faire attitude towards the teaching of grammar, really anything overly formal in the classroom, because I know that's not how I learned. Implicitly, I think that's not important, but I obviously that's not true for everyone.Karin: Personally, I like the language awareness approach because my experience with the language learning is that when I was learning English in high school, I never really enjoyed the grammar lessons where we learned the rules. I liked to engage myself with different sources of the language.In the last two years, suddenly, I just became aware of the rules and I see how it works. I was like, "This is amazing." Now I like to lead my students to be aware of how language or how English works rather than giving them the rules. For example, one day, they were asking me about a brand sly. Like, "How can I say this?"Instead of teaching them the pronunciation, I said, "Well, how do you say fly?" They were able to say that. Then I said, "Now take another look at this. How do you say this?" She was like, "Oh, sly. I know how to do it. Now I'm going to find more examples of that." I think that sense of achievement as a learner, and for me as a teacher, was really important.Ross: Obviously, this end up being very personal. One of the dangers with this is that there's always some learners that will learn regardless of what you do. You could have something which is definitely not the best method of teaching a language.Let's say audio linguicism or grammar translation. There will be still have been some people that learned like that. They can then use that to justify, "Well, it worked for me, so I'm going to use it for everyone else."Karin: Our teachers didn't talk about why they did the things with us. Now, we can get the students to have conversations with us on how we learned the language, how we teach the lessons, and why we did them and how they can discover the ways that work for them the best.Ross: The last one we had here was something that affects how teachers teach is their personalities. I'm sure you've heard this before. I definitely have. Saying teachers are born instead of made, or often there's people saying, "So and so, they're just a natural teacher."That's something that really used to annoy me a lot, because to me, it just seems as devalue all the professional development, qualifications, knowledge, and research. No one would ever say that about a doctor or a scientist. At the same time, I think there are a lot of personality traits...Karin: There are.Ross: Yeah.Karin: Yeah. For example, very often when you ask someone, "What makes a good teacher?" Instead of saying all those skills, people say they need to be patient, they need to care for their learners and things like that. Those were all personality traits.Ross: Absolutely. To me, it also reminds me of the nature/nurture debate in psychology. Are we who we are because of our genes, or are we who we are because of our upbringing? Just like that with teachers. Are teachers who they are because of their personality and who they are as a person, or is it their training and professional knowledge?Obviously, I guess it is both, but it's really interesting to think and reflect on what are your own personality traits that you bring into the classroom, and how do you use them. Overall, it's a wrap‑up. I think it's useful for us to think about who we are and how all these different factors affect how we teach and what our teaching decisions are and what our beliefs are.Karin: For me, I think it's the most important thing now as a teacher that we are constantly aware of why we're making the decisions we make.Ross: Good. Karin, thanks so much for joining us.Karin: Thanks for having me.Ross: Great. See you next time, everyone. Goodbye.Karin: Bye.

Job’s response to Eliphaz takes up two chapters. In Job 6 he argues as follows:(1) In the opening verses (Job 6:1–7) Job insists he has every reason for bemoaning his situation: his anguish and misery are beyond calculation (Job 6:2–3). Nor does Job flinch from the obvious: in God’s universe, God himself must somehow be behind these calamities—“The arrows of the Almighty are in me … God’s terrors are marshaled against me” (Job 6:4). Not even a donkey brays without a reason (Job 6:5), so why should Job’s friends treat him as if he is complaining without a reason?(2) Job utters his deepest request: that God would simply crush him, “let loose his hand and cut me off” (Job 6:9). This is more than a death wish: “Then I would still have this consolation—my joy in unrelenting pain—that I had not denied the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10). From this, three things are clear. (a) Despite his agony, Job is still thinking from within the framework of a committed believer. His suffering is not driving him to agnosticism or naturalism. (b) More importantly, his primary desire is to remain faithful to God. He sees death not only as a release from his suffering but as a way of dying before the intensity of his suffering should drive him to say or do something that would dishonor God. (c) Implicitly, this is also a response to Eliphaz. A man with such a passionate commitment to remain faithful to “the words of the Holy One” (Job 6:10) should not be dismissed as a light and frivolous prevaricator.(3) Eliphaz’s position depends on the assumption that if Job acts as Eliphaz advises, all his wealth and power will be restored to him. Job insists he is well beyond that point: he has no hope, no prospects. He cannot conduct himself in such a way as to finagle blessings from God (Job 6:11–13).(4) Meanwhile, Job reproaches Eliphaz and his colleagues (Job 6:14–23). “A despairing man should have the devotion of his friends, even though he forsakes the fear of the Almighty” (Job 6:14); that is what real friendship is like. Job analyzes the real reason why his friends have proved “as undependable as intermittent streams” (Job 6:15): they have seen something dreadful and they are afraid (Job 6:21). Their neat theological categories have been blown away by Job’s suffering, since they had believed he was a righteous man. They must now prove him to be unrighteous, deserving of his sufferings, or they too are under threat.(5) Job ends with a wrenching plea (Job 6:24–30). As far as he is concerned, his own integrity is at stake; he will not fake repentance when he knows he does not deserve this suffering. “Relent, do not be unjust” (Job 6:29), he tells his friends. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

From Job 3 until the first part of the last chapter of the book, with a small exception at the beginning of chapter 32, the text is written in Hebrew poetry. The book is a giant drama, like a Shakespearean play. Speech follows speech, the movement of the drama carried forward on the sustained argument between Job and his three “friends.” Eventually another character is introduced, and finally God himself responds.The opening speech belongs to Job. The burden of his utterance is unmistakable: he wishes he had never been born. He is not ready to curse God, but he is certainly prepared to curse the day that brought him to birth (Job 3:1, 3, 8). Everything about that day he wishes he could blot out. If he could not have been stillborn (Job 3:11, 16), then why couldn’t he have just starved to death (Job 3:12)?Implicitly, of course, this is criticism of God, however indirect. “Why is life given to a man whose way is hidden, whom God has hedged in?” (Job 3:23). What Job is experiencing is what he feared throughout his years of plenty (Job 3:25). He has no peace, no quietness, no rest, but only turmoil (Job 3:26).Four reflections will put this first address in perspective:(1) This is the rhetoric of a man in deep anguish. So many of the things about which we complain are trivial. Even our most serious grounds for complaint are usually only some fraction of what Job faced.(2) Before we condemn Job, therefore, we must listen attentively, even fearfully. When we come across those who for good reason are in terrible despair, we must cut them some slack. It would have been wonderful if one of the “friends” had put an arm around Job’s shoulder and wept with him, saying, “We love you, Job. We do not pretend to understand. But we love you, and we’ll do whatever we can for you.”(3) Job is transparently honest. He does not don a front of feigned piety so that no one will think he is letting down the side. The man hurts so much he wishes he were dead, and says so.(4) Both here and throughout the book, for all that Job is prepared to argue with God, he is not prepared to write God off. Job is not the modern agnostic or atheist who treats the problem of evil as if it provided intellectual evidence that God does not exist. Job knows that God exists and believes that he is powerful and good. That is one reason why (as we shall see) he is in such confusion. Job’s agonizings are the agonizings of a believer, not a skeptic. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

In Acts 26, Luke provides the third account in this book of Paul’s conversion (compare Acts 9 and 22). Each has a different aim, of course. Here Paul is defending himself before the Roman Governor Porcius Festus and Herod Agrippa II of Galilee. Important highlights include the following:(1) As in earlier defenses, Paul stresses his continuity with his past in conservative Judaism: he shares with unconverted Jews a “hope” for what God promised to their fathers and an anticipation of the final resurrection (e.g., Acts 24:15; 26:6–7).(2) Paul’s remarkable rhetorical question in Acts 26:8 therefore accomplishes several things at once. He asks: “Why should any of you consider it incredible that God raises the dead?” To Jews who are in the court, the question establishes Paul’s agreement at this point with the Pharisaic strand of Jewish tradition. Implicitly, it also hints that if they have a category for God raising the dead at the end, why should it be thought so impossible that God raised Jesus from the dead in anticipation of the end? To a man like King Agrippa, well acquainted with Jewish beliefs, the question was reinforcing categories with which he was already familiar. To a man like Festus, the question aimed at lessening the skepticism of his sophisticated pagan background. To people with naturalistic outlooks today, the same question remains a challenge: dismissal of the category of resurrection stems from an earlier dismissal of the God of the Bible. Granted the God of the Bible, why is the category of resurrection so difficult?(3) Paul addresses himself primarily to King Agrippa (Acts 26:2, 13, 19), that is, to the ruler most familiar with the Jewish heritage and the Bible. For his part, Festus acknowledges he is at sea (Acts 25:26–27); and for all that he recognizes Paul’s learning, he judges Paul’s claims so bizarre that they only demonstrate he must be insane (Acts 26:24). Had Paul addressed himself most immediately to Festus, perhaps he would have used an approach like that in Acts 17:16–31, the Mars Hill address.(4) Paul’s direct appeal to King Agrippa (Acts 26:25–29) is openly evangelistic and wonderfully direct while remaining perfectly respectful. Paul’s “defense” is not at all defensive; his address reads more like an evangelistic offensive attack than the plea of a frightened or cowed prisoner. Yet just as his “defense” is not defensive, so this “offense” never becomes offensive.(5) Both Festus and Agrippa perceive that, whatever they make of him, Paul has done nothing worthy of death or imprisonment (Acts 26:31). Had this taken place before the events of Acts 25:1–12, Paul would have been released. As it is, appeals to Caesar cannot be undone, so in God’s providence Paul is transported to Rome. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 2) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Revelation 19 is divided into two parts. In the first part, John hears the roar of a great crowd in heaven shouting out various lines of unrestrained praise, joined by various others in antiphonal unity. The first stanza of adoration (Rev. 19:1–3) praises God because he has condemned the great prostitute (see the reflections for December 26–27), thus demonstrating the truth and justice of his judgments (Rev. 19:2). This stanza elicits a chorus: “Hallelujah! The smoke from her goes up for ever and ever” (Rev. 19:3), and the elders around the throne join in adoring approbation (Rev. 19:4). A voice from the throne exhorts all God’s servants to join in praise—“you who fear him, both small and great” (Rev. 19:5)—and again John hears a vast multitude in the thunderous acclamation of worship. Now the focus is less on God’s justice in condemning the prostitute, and more on the sheer glory of the reign of “our Lord God Almighty” and on the imminent “wedding of the Lamb” (Rev. 19:6–8).The second part of the chapter depicts Jesus in highly symbolic categories. Once again it is important to remind ourselves how apocalyptic can mix its metaphors. He who from chapter 5 on is referred to most commonly as the Lamb (a designation that is still very common in chapters 21–22) is now presented as a warrior riding a white horse. This warrior is called “Faithful and True” (Rev. 19:11); his name is “the Word of God” (Rev. 19:13; compare John 1:1, 14), and his title is “King of kings and Lord of lords” (Rev. 19:16). He leads the armies of heaven in the final assault on the two beasts (i.e., on the beast and the false prophet) and on all who bear their mark. His weapon is a sharp sword that comes out of his mouth: he needs only speak to win. It is he who “treads the winepress of the fury of the wrath of God Almighty” (Rev. 19:15), which returns us to the terrifying image of Revelation 14:19–20.In one sense, Revelation 19 does not advance the plotline of the book of Revelation. It does not try to do so. We have already been told that God destroys the great prostitute, that those who bear the mark of the beast must face the wrath of God, and so forth. What it adds—and this is vital—is the entirely salutary reminder that God is in absolute control, that he is to be praised for his just judgments on all that is evil, and that the agent who destroys all opposition in the end is none other than Jesus Christ. Moreover, all of this is conveyed not only in the spectacular language of apocalyptic, but with the exulting tongue of enthusiastic praise. Implicitly we readers are invited to join in, even if at this stage we do so by faith and not by sight. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

We have already observed that 1 and 2 Chronicles differ from the books of Samuel and Kings (though the Chronicles cover roughly the same period of history as Samuel and Kings) in placing much more emphasis on the southern kingdom of Judah, after the monarchy divides. Even at this juncture, however, during the period of the united monarchy, 1 and 2 Chronicles greatly expand on anything to do with the temple.In this framework, 1 Chronicles 28 discloses a little more detail not only of the transfer of power from David to Solomon, but of the origin of the temple’s plans. On the former point, David charges the people with serving Solomon well; he charges Solomon with serving the Lord God with his whole heart: “For the LORD searches every heart and understands every motive behind the thoughts. If you seek him, he will be found by you; but if you forsake him, he will reject you forever” (1 Chron. 28:9). In particular, David charges Solomon with the building of the temple for which he, David, has made such large provision (1 Chron. 29:10, 20–21). Nothing is reported of the attempt by David’s son Adonijah to usurp the throne before Solomon could be crowned, or of Bathsheba’s strategic protection of her son Solomon (1 Kings 1); nothing is mentioned of the substantial array of other charges David gave to Solomon (1 Kings 2). All the focus here is on the transfer of power as it affects the construction of the temple.There is a new element of stellar importance. We are told that David gave Solomon “the plans of all that the Spirit had put in his mind for the courts of the temple of the LORD and all the surrounding rooms, for the treasuries of the temple of God and for the treasuries for the dedicated things” (1 Chron. 28:12)—as well as for the divisions of the priests and Levites, the amount of gold or silver to be used in the various instruments, and so forth (1 Chron. 28:13–17). Above all, “he also gave him the plan for the chariot, that is, the cherubim of gold that spread their wings and shelter the ark of the covenant of the LORD” (1 Chron. 28:18) in the Most Holy Place. “‘All this,’ David said, ‘I have in writing from the hand of the LORD upon me, and he gave me understanding in all the details of the plan’” (1 Chron. 28:19).Here is the counterpart to the constant emphasis in Exodus on the fact that Moses and his peers built the tabernacle in exact accordance with the plan shown Moses on the mountain. That is then picked up in Hebrews 8:5: this proved the tabernacle was only a copy of a greater original (see the meditation for March 14). Implicitly, the same care is taken with the construction of the temple, with David, not Moses, now serving as the mediator. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

This week on the AntiSocial Network, Leo from Implicitly Pretentious joined the show to talk about how he's been handling the quarantine lockdown and what we've been watching of late! 

Under inspiration, Paul wrote, “I exhort therefore that, first of all, supplications, prayers, intercessions, and giving of thanks, be made for all men; For kings, and for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty. For this is good and acceptable in the sight of God our Saviour; Who will have all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth” (1 Timothy 2:1-4). The passage takes on a special significance as one remembers that Paul was Nero’s prisoner in Rome.The Scripture explicitly states God desires “all men to be saved, and to come to the knowledge of the truth.” Thus, the prayer “for all men” and “all that are in authority” implies praying for the salvation and spiritual growth of everyone, including civic leaders. As the focus turns to political leaders, the Scripture exhorts believers to pray specifically: “for all that are in authority; that we may lead a quiet and peaceable life in all godliness and honesty.” When Paul wrote these inspired words, the rulers were not godly people. Still, this is how Paul exhorted God’s people to pray. Pray for national leaders so that their leadership and public policy allow God’s people to love and serve God unhindered. This directive is explicit. Yes, pray for the salvation of political leaders, but if the leaders themselves are not godly, pray that the leaders allow for Christians to live godly.Implicitly, this admonition informs us how to vote in an election. We should vote for those whose leading and decision-making would afford quiet and peaceable lives in all godliness for Bible-believing Christians. History tells us of many ungodly leaders who led in a way that allowed Christians to live godly. The issue here is public policy, exalting decent public policy, and not the godliness or ungodliness of particular leaders. While it would be dishonorable to exalt vileness, it is another matter entirely to vote for good public policy—even when those who promote it lack personal godliness.Sometimes we understandably struggle with voting for a less-than-ideal candidate, but at least we have the privilege of voting. First-century Christians did not. We must vote realizing we are responsible for the privilege God has given us. A few considerations may help us come to grips with what we have to work with and vote according to the principle implied in 1 Timothy 2:1-4.

The last chapter of 1 Kings, 1 Kings 22, many believers find troubling. For here God himself is presented as sending out “a lying spirit” (1 Kings 22:22) who will deceive King Ahab and lead him to his destruction. Does God approve of liars?The setting is instructive. For once, the kingdom of Judah and the kingdom of Israel are pulling together against the king of Aram, instead of tearing at each other’s throats. Jehoshaphat, king of Judah, comes across as a good man who is largely desirous of adhering to the covenant and being loyal to God, yet is a bit of a wimp. He treats the prospective military expedition as if it were an adventure, but he does want Ahab, king of Israel, to “seek the counsel of the LORD” (1 Kings 22:5). After the false prophets have finished, Jehoshaphat has sufficient smarts to ask if there is some other prophet of the Lord, and Micaiah surfaces. Yet despite Micaiah’s warnings, he goes off with Ahab, and even agrees to retain his royal robes while Ahab’s identity is masked.But the heart of the issue turns on Micaiah. Observe:(1) Implicitly, Ahab has surrounded himself with religious yes-men who will tell him what he wants to hear. The reason he hates Micaiah is because what Micaiah says about him is bad. Like all leaders who surround themselves with yes-men, Ahab sets himself up to be deceived.(2) When Micaiah begins with a sarcastic positive prognostication (1 Kings 22:15), Ahab instantly recognizes that Micaiah is not telling the truth (1 Kings 22:16). This hints at a conscience more than a little troubled. After all, God had previously told Ahab that because of his guilt in the matter of Naboth, dogs would one day lick up his blood (1 Kings 21:19). He thus expected bad news someday, and at a deep level of his being could not really trust the happy forecasts of his domesticated “prophets.”(3) When Micaiah tells him of impending disaster, he also provides a dramatic reason for the coherence and unanimity of the false prophets: God himself had sanctioned a deceitful spirit. Ahab’s time has come: he will be destroyed. God’s sovereignty extends even over the means to send Ahab’s tame prophets a “strong delusion” (compare 2 Thess. 2:11–12). Yet the fact that Ahab is told all this demonstrates that God is still graciously providing him with access to the truth. But Ahab is so far gone that he cannot stomach the truth. In a ridiculous response, he believes enough of the truth to hide his own identity in the hordes of common soldiers, but not enough to stay away from Ramoth Gilead. So he dies: God’s sovereign judgment is enacted, not least because Ahab, hearing both the truth and the lie, preferred the lie. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

This newsletter is really a weekly public policy thought-letter. While excellent newsletters on specific themes within public policy already exist, this thought-letter is about frameworks, mental models, and key ideas that will hopefully help you think about any public policy problem in imaginative ways. It seeks to answer just one question: how do I think about a particular public policy problem/solution?PS: If you enjoy listening instead of reading, we have this edition available as an audio narration courtesy the good folks at Ad-Auris. If you have any feedback, please send it to us. India Policy Watch #1: Consumption And The Fable Of BeesInsights on burning policy issues in India— RSJ‘The pandemic has shown us what is truly important in our lives.’‘We learnt to go slow and consume only that we need during the lockdown. That’s one lesson we should follow beyond the pandemic.’‘The earth is healing as the pandemic has forced us to slow down our lives and reduce our greed.’  Every couple of weeks I come across a column that argues on similar lines as above since the pandemic began. I guess we have a great desire to search for a silver lining in the bleakest of scenarios. But this is exactly the kind of silver lining we should avoid. The idea we learn to reduce consumption so the earth can sustain our load doesn’t have any underlying logic. Worse, such reduction will harm the vulnerable and the poor the most. But, hey, good intentions are all that matter, right?Any discussion on consumption as a vice takes me back to Mandeville and his work ‘The Fable of Bees’ which has a deserving claim of being among the most provocative and counter-intuitive texts of all time. Published in the early 18th century, it’s alternative title, Private Vices, Public(k) Benefits establishes its central thesis upfront. The book is in three parts. The first part is a poem, The Grumbling Hive, which is followed by an essay discussing the poem. The book concludes with an essay An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue that lays out his defence of vice. This essay, as we will soon see, is a proto-text for different schools of economic and moral philosophy that emerged during and after the age of enlightenment.The Wages Of VirtueThe Grumbling Hive is a simple poem of uncertain literary merit. There’s a hive of bees that live in ‘luxury and ease’ while giving virtue, moderation and restraint a short shift. Instead of being happy with this prosperity, the bees question their lack of morality and wonder (or grumble) if there wasn’t a more honest way to lead their lives. Some kind of divine power grants them their wish and their hearts are filled with virtue now. This turn to an ethical hive however comes at the cost of prosperity. Ease was a vice now, temperance a virtue and the industry that emerged from the bees competing with one another disappeared since the virtuous bees didn’t bother any further with competition. This lack of industry meant a fall in prosperity. Many thousand bees lost their lives, and society started collapsing. The bees weren’t deterred. They flew into a hollow tree that suited their new lifestyle of restraint. They were content being poor but honest. Mandeville questions the social benefit of this trade-off. What good is this virtuous life which keeps everyone poor? This leads him to make the almost blasphemous claim that vice is good so long as it is within bounds of justice. Not just that he also bats for people as a resource. People are not a burden for society. This was incendiary material then. And I guess, even now. He wrote:So Vice is beneficial found, When it’s by Justice lopt and bound; Nay, where the People would be great, As necessary to the State, As Hunger is to make ’em eat.And after having set the Thames on fire, he concludes the poem with these famous lines:Bare Virtue can’t make Nations live In Splendor; they, that would revive A Golden Age, must be as free, For Acorns, as for Honesty.With this, Mandeville earned his lifelong notoriety as a libertine of dubious morality. It didn’t bother him and his later defence of thievery and prostitution as public good suggests it possibly fuelled his desire to be more outrageous.Private Vice, Public BenefitIn his essay ‘An Enquiry into the Origin of Moral Virtue’, Mandeville explains the paradox of private vice and public benefit further. Mandeville makes three key arguments:A virtuous act is one that’s unselfish and driven by reason. Acts that are selfish and involve raw passions were vices. Mandeville goes about looking for virtuous acts in society and draws a blank. However, he finds there are acts beneficial to the society that don’t qualify as virtues. He concludes individuals might pursue their self-interest (vice) but on an aggregated basis this might be creating a societal good. For example, members of a society might quarrel among each other pursuing their interest, but that quarrel generates employment for lawyers, clerks and judges. If they were to turn virtuous, this public benefit would disappear.The natural state of man (the term used in the text which we will use here) was to be selfish. The individual was a ‘fallen man’ who was selfish and sought pleasure only for himself. This vice was the foundation of the society and all social virtues emerged from self-interest. Vice is good. To Mandeville, virtue was a state of denial of this natural state. Even virtue that man displays is rooted in vice. A man acts with virtue for two reasons –either to satisfy his ego (vanity) of being seen as virtuous by the society or to not offend the ego of his peers. This is a facade to cover the underlying greed or selfish motives that give him private pleasure. These days we might call it virtue signalling. This cynical take on man and society didn’t earn him friends. The act of calling virtue a facade was unacceptable in a society whose foundation was the Christian notion of virtue. The idea that a human couldn’t do a virtuous act without self-denial negated the concept of a religious man being a superior person who could rise above primal passions. There were multiple attacks on The Fable of Bees from moral and political philosophers of the time. Yet the text survived for two reasons. One, in its belief that the society is held together by individual acts of self-interest of many and not by some kind of faith in the divine, it was the first attempt at separating social science from the clutches of theology. This was already achieved in natural sciences with scientists like Galileo, Copernicus and Newton challenging religious orthodoxies through the scientific method. The time was ripe for questioning the role of religion in social sciences too. Two, there was something liberating about a text that didn’t speak about how humans should be. Instead, it was a realist’s view of how humans behave in nature and that behaviour at an aggregated level produces social benefits. This was a powerful insight that advocated individual liberty.The Long Shadow Of The FableThe Fable of Bees served as inspiration for a wide range of philosophers over the course of the next two centuries. Hume agreed with the basic premise of Mandeville that the sense of morality or virtuousness in a man occurs only in a community or a society through aggregated acts. Hobbes drew from Mandeville on self-interest being the primary motivation for human action. Adam Smith was inspired by the notion of aggregated self-interest producing social good though he disagreed with Mandeville by bringing in the role of sympathy. He also thought vanity alone wasn’t the reason people acted with virtue. There was a desire for true glory too. As Smith wrote in The Theory of Moral Sentiments:“It is the great fallacy of Dr. Mandeville's book to represent every passion as wholly vicious, which is so in any degree and in any direction. It is thus that he treats everything as vanity which has any reference, either to what are, or to what ought to be the sentiments of others: and it is by means of this sophistry, that he establishes his favourite conclusion, that private vices are public benefits.”Yet Smith accepts there is a kernel of truth in Mandeville’s core assertion:“But how destructive soever this system may appear, it could never have imposed upon so great a number of persons, nor have occasioned so general an alarm among those who are the friends of better principles, had it not in some respects bordered upon the truth.” (emphasis ours)While the fable of bees influenced Smith and his methodological individualism, it also left a mark on Rousseau and the French collectivists who followed him. Rousseau agreed with Mandeville on the lack of social or public-spiritedness in man in the natural state. However, Rousseau introduced ‘pity’ or a “natural repugnance at seeing any other sensible being and particularly any of our own species, suffer pain or death” as natural sentiment within a man. This pity overrode self-interest and became the reason for other virtues.It isn’t too difficult to see how Mandeville’s philosophy became the founding text for the economic theory based on the primacy of individual liberty and limited intervention of the state. If individual acts of self-interest could lead to social good, what was the need for any intervention by anyone? This was the argument of Friedrich von Hayek who took the fable of bees as the first text that advocated ‘spontaneous order’. He wrote:“It was through asking how things would have developed if no deliberate actions of legislation had ever interfered that successively all the problems of social and particularly economic theory emerged. There can be little question that the author to whom more than any other this is due was Bernard Mandeville.”   In a similar vein, Ludwig von Mises (Hayek’s peer from the Austrian school) explained, in Theory and History (1957):“Only in the Age of Enlightenment did some eminent philosophers . . .inaugurate a new social philosophy . . . They looked upon human events from the point of view of the ends aimed at by acting men, instead of from the point of view of the plans ascribed to God or nature . . .“Bernard Mandeville in his Fable of the Bees tried to discredit this doctrine. He pointed out that self-interest and the desire for material well-being, commonly stigmatized as vices, are in fact the incentives whose operation makes for welfare, prosperity, and civilization.”While Hayek and Mises were crediting Mandeville for being the first to articulate spontaneous order, their great intellectual rival, Keynes, was finding merits in the fable of bees too. Keynes’ Paradox of Thrift is the intellectual progeny of the Private Vice, Public Virtue paradox:“For although the amount of his own saving is unlikely to have any significant influence on his own income, the reactions of the amount of his consumption on the incomes of others makes it impossible for all individuals simultaneously to save any given sums. Every such attempt to save more by reducing consumption will so affect incomes that the attempt necessarily defeats itself. It is, of course, just as impossible for the community as a whole to save less than the amount of current investment, since the attempt to do so will necessarily raise incomes to a level at which the sums which individuals choose to save add up to a figure exactly equal to the amount of investment.” The state could get itself out of a recession by stimulating demand and increasing consumption while it could dig itself into a bigger hole by reducing consumption. Keynes credits Mandeville’s work in his General Theory of Employment, Interest and Money for highlighting consumption (aggregate demand) as the principal engine for economic prosperity. It is possible Mandeville wasn’t aware of the profound implications of his fable when he wrote it. He was possibly baiting the hypocrites of the society of his time who hectored others to live in virtue while committing vices themselves. It is also likely he was being ridiculous for the sake of infamy since he seemed to enjoy riling up people. But given his influence on the entire spectrum of philosophical and economic thought – from individualism to collectivism and from statism to laissez faire – I’m inclined to side with Adam Smith. Mandeville’s fable borders on a fundamental truth – private vices may lead to public good.A Framework a Week: A COVID-19 Vaccine Deployment Strategy for IndiaTools for thinking public policy— Pranay KotasthaneWhat should India’s approach be to deploying a COVID-19 vaccine? Once a vaccine candidate passes all clinical trial stages, the sequencing problem is non-trivial for a country of India’s size and income levels. Consider this: India’s rather successful and extensive Universal Immunisation Programme (UIP) vaccinates about 2.9 crore mothers (and 2.6 crore infants) annually whereas the COVID-19 vaccine has to reach nearly 100 crore people as soon as possible — a problem 30 times bigger than what the UIP manages.Led by my colleague Shambhavi Naik, we have a reaseach document out that develops a framework for vaccine deployment. It breaks down the challenge into four parts:(Source: Shambhavi Naik et al, A COVID-19 vaccine deployment strategy for India. Takshashila Discussion SlideDoc, September 2020)Estimate Need: Initially, prioritise a really small set of recipients initially based on how essential the service they provide is for managing the pandemic. Once that’s out of the way, randomisation works better than sequencing recipients based on age, comorbidity prevalence, or other such demographic indicators.Secure Vaccine Supply: At our current production capacity, vaccinating 80% of the population will require 20 months. Which means India will need to source vaccines from other companies/countries and incentivise increased manufacturing in India. A transparent model contract specifying terms of technology transfer and manufacturing partnerships to build manufacturer and public confidence.Choose Delivery Channel: Use the Election Commission of India machinery to get the vaccine booths to the people in a mission mode operation. The state governments’ public health administration will coordinate the vaccine administration. Track Vaccine Distribution: A separate database, enabled by Aadhaar and/or election ink as an identifier, to track vaccine distribution and adverse events.Do give the document a read and send in your suggestions. This problem needs all hands on deck. Not a PolicyWTF: The Art of Letting GoThis section looks at egregious public policies. Policies that make you go: WTF, Did that really happen?— Pranay KotasthaneIn this section, we are on the lookout for egregious policies. Such policies are not difficult to find. Very rarely though, the reverse happens. Governments spring up a surprise on us by bringing in pro-market reforms. Here are two such cases from the recent past. Neither can be classified as a policy success. They are at best first steps in the right direction, requiring further work. EV Minus BatteryOn August 12, the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways notified that state governments allow registration of electric vehicles without pre-fitted batteries. Since batteries make up 30-40% of an EV’s cost, this move is intended to bring down up-front costs for consumers.This is a positive move. Unbundling the battery from the vehicle creates new market opportunities. A consumer can potentially register an EV from a vehicle manufacturer but get the vehicle battery from an energy management company. Energy management companies can come up with new models for both battery swapping or for the charging infrastructure. Of course, this move has made the incumbent vehicle makers unhappy as their own battery manufacturing plans now face a new challenge. Nevertheless, a pro-market policy is often an anti-incumbent one. One bottleneck remains. Batteries are taxed at 18% GST while EVs are taxed at 5% GST. This creates an inverted duty structure (explained in edition#50) that will generate huge GST refund claims — some fraudulent, others genuine. This must be fixed by taxing both batteries and EVs at the same rate.Governments prefer overregulation. But this move is an example of dismantling regulation and enabling markets. For governing technologies under low state capacity, stepping back instead of overdetermining rules is a better approach. Market conditions should inform regulation, not the other way around. The Corporatisation of Ordnance Factory Board If you thought defence PSUs such as HAL and BEL are underperforming, you haven’t met Ordnance Factories (OFs). These 41 factories form ‘the largest and oldest departmentally run industrial organisation in India’ (Indian Defence Industry: An Agenda for Making in India, page 20). Together they employ more than 80,000 people. In 2013-14, OFs had sales of more than eleven thousand crores and yet being a departmentally run organisation, they do not have to follow commercial accounting practices, and do not have to maintain balance sheets and P&L statements. Even their barebones annual reports are classified and hence not open to public scrutiny. How convenient.Not surprisingly, OFs have failed to deliver. The government has now constituted an Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) to begin corporatisation — a process that will make these OFs into one or more defence PSUs such HAL. Even though these DPSUs will remain a wholly-owned entity of the Ministry of Defence, corporatisation will make these factories quasi-independent of government and allow them to focus on business goals such as profits and return on investment. With their own budgets and balance sheets, their performance (or the lack of it) will be out in the open. Corporatisation was first proposed by the Kelkar Committee in 2005. Fifteen years down the line, it seems to be gathering some steam. Nevertheless, as our DPSUs demonstrate, corporatisation is but a first step towards a modern defence industrial base. Going further, non-performing OFs should be shut down or the stake in them should be divested. India Policy Watch #2: A Fog Of Information— RSJWe have made the point in an earlier edition about the perils of scanning sectoral data or select high-frequency indicators to arrive at any conclusion about economic recovery in India. The pandemic is still raging with daily case count on an upward trend, supply chains aren’t fully restored, and the consumers aren’t confident of stepping out of their homes and spending. The pandemic and the lockdown were idiosyncratic events and we should accept the uncertainty that comes with it. Yet we seem to be keen on highlighting narrow slivers of data and drawing conclusions from them. Kidding Ourselves?Take this news item that suggests “signs of a pickup that augurs well for manufacturing activity”. Our exports have gone up by 13 per cent and the railway freight loading is up by 10 per cent. That’s great news till you realise the period of comparison is a week! That is, we are comparing data for the week of Sep 1-8 this year to the previous year. It is difficult to draw any conclusion when you compare a random weekly data with the previous year in normal times. It makes no sense to do it in these times. For instance, the railway freight loading could be up because the trucking and logistics companies might still be coming to terms with lockdown disruptions, working capital drying up and absence of drivers who might have gone back to their homes. Till you see a complete picture of the movement of goods across all modes of transport, it is difficult to conclude manufacturing activity is up. A similar case can be made for exports where a single week can’t suggest a trend. But you have the country’s #1 daily newspaper showcasing this as an instance of green shoots of recovery.Or there’s this news item that talks up the auto sector. There’s been a 15-20 per cent growth in auto sales during the 15-day festive period of Ganesh Chaturthi and Onam in the two states of Maharashtra and Kerala. This data is then used to suggest a strong recovery could be on cards in the oncoming festive season. This despite an industry official making it clear these numbers aren’t comparable because of the floods in Kerala during the same time last year that had severely impacted sales. Sobering Reality Then we have this news which indicates we might have lost 21 million salaried jobs in the five months of the pandemic. As Mahesh Vyas, MD & CEO, CMIE, writes:“An estimated 21 million salaried employees have lost their jobs by the end of August. There were 86 million salaried jobs in India during 2019-20. In August 2020, their count was down to 65 million. The deficit of 21 million jobs is the biggest among all types of employment. About 4.8 million salaried jobs were lost in July and then in August, another 3.3 million jobs were gone. These job losses cannot be confined to only of the support staff among salaried employees. The damage is likely to be deeper, among industrial workers and also white-collar workers.”    Here we have a research agency that has a long track record of measuring employment data suggesting we might have lost almost a quarter of salaried jobs during the pandemic. Now even this is data for only five months, but you might agree with the long-term view of the author that salaried jobs once lost are more difficult to replace. So, this is a trend that should worry the policymakers. In the same article, Vyas makes another important point about the stagnation of salaried jobs and the rise of ‘entrepreneurs’ who don’t employ anyone:“In 2016-17, employment in entrepreneurship accounted for 13 per cent of total employment. This proportion rose to 15 per cent in 2017-18, then 17 per cent in 2018-19 and 19 per cent in 2019-20. This sustained increase in entrepreneurship in India has not led to a rise in salaried jobs. The count of entrepreneurs has risen from 54 million in 2016-17 to 78 million in 2019-20. During the same period the count of salaried employees has remained stable at 86 million. It is counterintuitive to see a rise in entrepreneurship but not a corresponding increase in salaried jobs.Part of the reason for this is that most of these entrepreneurs are self-employed who do not employ others. Implicitly, they are mostly very small entrepreneurs. The government has propounded the idea that people should be job providers rather than job seekers. This objective seems to be succeeding but not entirely in ways that was intended.Entrepreneurship is often a desperate escape from unemployment rather than an initiative to create jobs.”Act With Confidence, Plan For The WorstWe understand all data is political in the best of times. It is used by partisans and critics of any government to build narratives that suit them. However, the normal expectation is that beyond the political rhetoric the policymakers know which data to use to draft a course of action. We fear this might not be true in these times. First, the data from various sources isn’t indicating a definite trend about the economy. This inability to have any kind of predictive certainty about the extent of contraction, tax collections or the true picture of fiscal deficit makes decision making difficult. This is a difficult time to be a policymaker. This gets compounded by the government being keen to talk up a V-shaped recovery to an extent where there are fears it has started believing its own message about the economy is beginning to touch pre-COVID levels. There’s merit in highlighting feel-good news to build consumer confidence and spur consumption. We get that. We just hope the government is able to make out the difference between its own hype and reality. Often it is not easy to make this out.  We have written in our earlier editions that a second ‘real’ stimulus has to be launched before the end of Q2. The extent of contraction in Q1, the impact on the informal economy that’s not fully measured yet, the fall in salaried jobs and the reluctance among consumers to spend make a fiscal stimulus necessary to get the economic engine going again. Also, a significant stimulus announcement in Q2 will be a good indicator of the government not drinking its own kool-aid about a V-shaped recovery.  The government and the PM continue to enjoy very high approval ratings. The people are convinced about their intentions. There’s no taint of corruption or policy paralysis on it. These are ideal grounds for the government to take people into confidence about the challenges the economy faces and the sacrifices the people need to make in the short-term as we begin the long road to recovery. This clarity will be welcome. The current fog of information doesn’t help our cause.    HomeWorkReading and listening recommendations on public policy matters[Article] Normany Barry on ‘The Tradition of Spontaneous Order’ where he traces the origin of this philosophical thought.[Article] A Business Standard editorial on why the government should listen to advice that it doesn’t consider politically ‘reliable’. [Paper] Elinor Ostrom’s integrative paper A General Framework for Analyzing Sustainability of Social-Ecological Systems continues to remain relevant. [Book] Indian Defence Industry by Laxman Kumar Behera gives a good overview of India’s defence industrial base.That’s all for this weekend. Read and share. Get on the email list at publicpolicy.substack.com

It is beyond these brief reflections to provide a history of the difficult visits and painful letters that generated deep emotion in the apostle’s relations with the Corinthians. Relations between Corinth and Paul are apparently improving in the opening chapters of 2 Corinthians, but remain a trifle raw.In this context Paul devotes quite a bit of attention to explaining the nature of his ministry, whether its grand design or discrete decisions he has made. For example, in 2 Corinthians 1, it is fairly obvious that the Corinthians had charged Paul with being fickle. He had said he would come, and then he had changed plans and not arrived. Paul acknowledges that he had indeed changed plans, but insists this does not indicate fickleness (2 Cor. 1:15–17). In his conduct he tries to imitate God’s steadfast faithfulness (2 Cor. 1:18–22). And then he gives the real reason why he did not show up: he was trying to spare the Corinthians, for he knew that if he had shown up at that point he would have had to take action that would have caused even more distress (2 Cor. 1:23–2:2).In 2 Corinthians 2, Paul is still unpacking various elements of his ministry. Here we note two.First, Paul understands his ministry to be akin to a device that distributes the fragrance of the knowledge of God (2 Cor. 2:14). Otherwise put, before God Paul himself is an aroma, “the aroma of Christ among both those who are being saved and those who are perishing” (2 Cor. 2:15). “To the one we are the smell of death; to the other, the fragrance of life” (2 Cor. 2:16). In other words, Paul insists that he does not himself change, depending on his audience. He is the same aroma; he proclaims the same Gospel, the same discipleship, the same Christ, the same way to live. Whether he is perceived to be a sweet fragrance or a foul stench does not depend on some change in him, but on the people who must deal with him. Implicitly, the Corinthians must recognize that some animus against the apostle is the animus of the unregenerate heart. “And who is equal to such a task?” (2 Cor. 2:16).Second, many Corinthians (as becomes clear later in this letter) thought that teachers should command substantial salaries, and if they didn’t, they weren’t worth much. In that kind of atmosphere, it would be easy to despise even a gifted apostolic teacher who refused your money. But because he was teaching a gospel of grace, Paul evangelized for free. (He accepted support money from elsewhere.) On the long haul, he did not want to gain a reputation for peddling the word of God for profit; rather, he wanted to be known as a man sent from God (2 Cor. 2:17). This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Nehemiah: Rebuilding the Wall of JerusalemThe first chapter of the Book of Nehemiah introduces the book bearing his name as a resident of Susa, the capital of the Persian Empire. When Nehemiah heard that the walls of Jerusalem were still broken down more than a half-century after the completion of the rebuilding of the temple, he “sat down and wept,” fasting and praying before God (Neh. 1:4). Implicitly, he was formulating a plan to remedy the situation in Jerusalem.The connection between the temple and the wall is significant for the theology of work. The temple might seem to be a religious institution, while the walls are a secular one. But God led Nehemiah to work on the walls, no less than he led Ezra to work on the temple. Both the sacred and the secular were necessary to fulfill God's plan to restore the nation of Israel.If the walls were unfinished, the temple was unfinished too. The work was of a single piece. The reason for this is easy to understand. Without a wall, no city in the ancient Near East was safe from bandits, gangs and wild animals, even though the empire might be at peace. The more economically and culturally developed a city was, the greater the value of things in the city, and the greater the need for the wall. The temple, with its rich decorations, would have been particularly at risk. Practically speaking, no wall means no city, and no city means no temple.Bible Commentary / Produced by TOW ProjectToday we will look at how Nehemiah moves from what's comfortable to the calling that God placed on his life.3 Ways To Get Off The Comfy Couch1: Move Past CONVENIENCE We tend to equate “easy” as being “good,” and “hard” as being “bad.”2: Move Past CIRCUMSTANCE God desires to use your circumstance as your testimony.3: Move Past COMPARISON Comparison is poison.So I sent messengers to them with this reply: “I am carrying on a great project and cannot go down. Why should the work stop while I leave it and go down to you?” Nehemiah 6:3I'm Doing a Great Work; and I Can't Come Down

First Corinthians 10 includes several passages worthy of prolonged meditation. But today we reflect on a passage which, superficially speaking, is one of the easiest of them.Paul tells the Corinthians that the things that happened to “our forefathers” (1 Cor. 10:1) that are recorded in Scripture “occurred as examples to keep us from setting our hearts on evil things as they did” (1 Cor. 10:6). After giving some examples, the apostle again says, “These things happened to them as examples and were written down as warnings for us, on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11).(1) It is important to observe the diversity of purposes the Scriptures have. Elsewhere we learn, for instance, that the Old Testament Scriptures, or parts of them, were given to make sin appear as the awful thing it is, nothing less than trangression; to prepare the way for Christ, not only by prophetic words but also by models, patterns, and “types” that anticipated what Christ would be like; to announce the time when God would take definitive action on behalf of his people; to warn against sin and judgment; and much more. But here, the Bible provides us with examples to keep us from pursuing evil things. That means that although the Old Testament narratives doubtless offer more than “mere” moral lessons, they do not offer less. While we seek out the complex layers of inner-canonical connection, we must not overlook the moral instruction that lies on the very surface of the text.(2) The gross sins that Paul lists by way of example—idolatry, sexual immorality, “testing” the Lord (i.e., by doubting his goodness or ability, as in Ex. 17:2), and grumbling (10:7–10)—are not unknown among contemporary believers.(3) According to Paul, God’s intention was that the writing down of these materials in Scripture was so that we should benefit from it—the “we” referring to those “on whom the fulfillment of the ages has come” (1 Cor. 10:11). Doubtless this should not be taken as an exhaustive statement of God’s intention, but it is certainly meant to be a foundational one. Thus from God’s perspective, the Old Testament books were not meant simply for those who read them when they were first written, but for “us” who live at this formidable moment in world history when the first installment of the promises of the ages is being experienced.(4) Implicitly, it is all the more shocking if we who have received so much instruction and warning from ages past ignore the wealth of privilege that is ours. In our blindness we sometimes marvel at how some Old Testament figures or groups could so quickly abandon the godly heritage and covenant they received. How much worse if we do so! This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

“IMPLICITLY, UNEQUIVOCALLY, ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT RESERVATION!” from www.vopwc.org by Pastor N. R. Taylor, Jr.. Released: 2020. Genre: Vocal. The post IMPLICITLY, UNEQUIVOCALLY, ABSOLUTELY, WITHOUT RESERVATION! appeared first on Voice Of Praise Worship Center.

A study delving into subconscious thinking about certain groups has found the majority of Australians of all backgrounds have negative views of Aboriginal people.

On this episode of the DNVR Rockies Podcast, Drew Creasman attempts to boil down the latest development in the battle between owners and players to the essential details. Most blatantly, the conundrum of the owners asking everyone to trust them without giving much reason to do so.

It is episode ten, and this week, we are not doing the same thing! Every ten episodes, Mr. Castano and Justin have decided that we are going to give you a special treat; the podcast will not feature a former Milkie, but rather, a special guest who has been a part of the group's evolution. Today on the pod, we sit down with The Flobots and Associate Principal, Scott Strainge! The episode kicks off with Mr. Strainge telling us about his earliest memories of the Milkmen including their dubious marketing campaign, meeting The Flobots, and his initial time reaching out to them to speak and perform at the school. Jamie and Stephen then talk about a wide range of topics including what makes a successful performance, people ascribing meaning to their music, the permission to fail as a performer, and their appearance at National Improv Day 2019! We even have an exclusive segment post-outro called Spilled Milk! So, pour a glass of your favorite dairy-based beverage, and enjoy, because here we go yo...it's time for The Podcast that Delivers! *** Go check out The Flobots on Apple Music, Amazon Music, or Spotify.   Follow The Flobots on Instagram @flobotsmusic and on Twitter @flobots Support Youth on Record: https://www.youthonrecord.org/ Check out their collaboration with Wonderbound Ballet: http://www.flobots.com/wonderbound

MESSAGE SUMMARY: Life preferences are not, necessarily, sins; but your Life Preferences can close doors to God in your life. You need to submit our life preferences to the God. By submitting your life preferences to the Lord, He can help you to understand the life path that your preferences will lead. Paul, in 1 Corinthians 9:24, tells us that our Life Preferences need an overarching focus: “Do you not know that in a race all the runners run, but only one receives the prize? So run that you may obtain it.". In Matthew 10:37-39, Jesus provides a context from which we can assess life preference choices: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. And whoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.".   TODAY’S AFFIRMATION: Today, I affirm that, because I am in Jesus Christ, I press on toward His goal for me. (Philippians 3:12f). “I can do everything through Him who gives me strength.”. (Philippians 4:14). SCRIPTURE REFERENCE (ESV): Matthew 10:37-39; 1 Corinthians 9:12-27; James 3:13-18; Psalms 135:12-21. THIS SUNDAY’S AUDIO SERMON: You can listen to Archbishop Beach’s Current Sunday Sermon: “Covid-19 Pentecost: Be Filled with the Holy Spirit – Today, Covid-19 Issues Need an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit": at our Website: www.AWFTL.org/listen/. WEBSITE LINK TO DR. BEACH’S SERMON VIDEO – “Covid-19 Pentecost: Be Filled with the Holy Spirit – Today, Covid-19 Issues Need an Outpouring of the Holy Spirit”:  www.AWFTL.org/watch DONATE TO AWFTL: https://mygiving.secure.force.com/GXDonateNow?id=a0Ui000000DglsqEAB

On this episode of the DNVR Rockies Podcast, Drew Creasman attempts to boil down the latest development in the battle between owners and players to the essential details. Most blatantly, the conundrum of the owners asking everyone to trust them without giving much reason to do so.

Today's Bible Readings: Deuteronomy 1; Psalms 81-82; Isaiah 29; 3 John“Open wide your mouth and I will fill it” (Ps. 81:10): the symbolism is transparent. God is perfectly willing and able to satisfy all our deepest needs and longings. Implicitly, the problem is that we will not even open our mouths to enjoy the food he provides. The symbolism returns in the last verse: while the wicked will face punishment that lasts forever, “you would be fed with the finest of wheat; with honey from the rock I would satisfy you” (Ps. 81:16).Of course, God is talking about more than physical food (though scarcely less). The setting is a common one both in the Psalms and in the narrative parts of the Pentateuch. God graciously and spectacularly rescued the people from their slavery in Egypt, responding to their own cries of distress. “I removed the burden from their shoulders,”God says. “In your distress you called and I rescued you” (Ps. 81:6-7). Then comes the passage that leads to the line quoted at the beginning of this meditation:Hear, O my people, and I will warn you --if you would but listen to me, O Israel!You shall have no foreign god among you;you shall not bow down to an alien god.I am the LORD your God, who brought you up out of Egypt.Open wide your mouth and I will fill it (Ps. 81:8-10).Historically, of course, the response of the people was disappointing: “my people would not listen to me; Israel would not submit to me” (Ps. 81:11). In that case, they were not promised the satisfaction symbolized by full mouths. Far from it, God says, “So I gave them over to their stubborn hearts to follow their own devices” (Ps. 81:12).Of course, the nature of the idolatry changes from age to age. I recently read some lines from John Piper:The greatest enemy of hunger for God is not poison but apple pie. It is not the banquet of the wicked that dulls our appetite for heaven, but endless nibbling at the table of the world. It is not the X-rated video, but the prime-time dribble of triviality we drink in every night. For all the ill that Satan can do, when God describes what keeps us from the banquet table of his love, it is a piece of land, a yoke of oxen, and a wife (Luke 14:18-20). The greatest adversary of love to God is not his enemies but his gifts. And the most deadly appetites are not for the poison of evil, but for the simple pleasures of earth. For when these replace an appetite for God himself, the idolatry is scarcely recognizable, and almost incurable (A Hunger for God, Wheaton: Crossway, 1997, 14).“Open wide your mouth and I will fill it."This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

This is our first episode. We are two USC Graduate Social Work students. We are creating a space to talk about social, culture, and race issues. Stay tuned for more content! ✌

As the clinical presentation would include either overt INTOXIFICATION and/or RISK FOR WITHDRAWAL, there is also a corresponding risk for RELAPSE and ONGOING USE.Implicitly this risk thus reduces the efficacy of Level 1 Outpatient Care absent Medication Assist Treatments, such as that of combining psychological counseling with prescribed Buprenorphine and Naloxone.With an immediate reduction in the use of opioids, the body is given much needed time to physically, cognitive, and psycho-socially recover.Contact:Michael David Clay, D. Min., M.A.Licensed Professional Clinical Counselorthewordhouse@frontier.com.

Today's Bible Readings: Numbers 15; Psalm 51; Isaiah 5; Hebrews 12Guilt. What a horrendous burden.Sometimes people carry a tremendous weight of subjective guilt — i.e., of felt guilt — when they are not really guilty. Far worse is the situation where they carry a tremendous weight of objective guilt — i.e., they really are guilty of some odious sin in the eyes of the living God — and are so hardened that they do not know it.The superscription of Psalm 51 discloses that as David writes he consciously carries both objective and subjective guilt. Objectively, he has committed adultery with Bathsheba and has arranged the murder of her husband Uriah; subjectively, Nathan’s parable (2 Sam. 12) has driven home to David’s conscience something of the proportion of his own sin, and he writes in shame.(1) David confesses his sin and cries for mercy (51:1-2). There is no echo of the cries for vindication that mark some of the earlier psalms. When we are guilty, and know we are guilty, no other course is possible, and only this course is helpful.(2) David frankly recognizes that his offense is primarily against God (51:4), not against Uriah, Bathsheba, the child that was conceived, or even the covenant people who bear some of the judgment. God sets the standards. When we break them, we are defying him. Further, David knows that he sits on the throne out of God’s sheer elective grace. To betray the covenant from a position of God-appointed trust is doubly appalling.(3) David is honest enough to recognize that this sequence of sins, though particularly vile, does not stand alone. It is a display of what is in the heart, of the sin nature that we inherit from our parents. Nothing avails if we are not finally cleansed inwardly, if we are not granted a pure heart and a steadfast spirit (51:5-6. 10).(4) For David this is not some merely cerebral or cool theological process. Objective guilt and subjective recognition of it so merge that David feels oppressed: his bones are crushed (51:8), he cannot escape the specter of his own sin (51:3), and the joy of his salvation has dissolved (51:12). The transparent honesty and passion of David’s prayer disclose that he seeks no blasé or formulaic cleansing.(5) David recognizes the testimonial value of being forgiven, and uses it as an argument before God as to why he should be forgiven (51:12-15). Implicitly, of course, this is an appeal for God’s glory.(6) Steeped as he is in the sacrificial system of the Mosaic covenant, David nevertheless adopts more fundamental priorities. The prescribed sacrifices mean nothing apart from the sacrifice of a broken spirit, a broken and a contrite heart (51:16-19).This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Today's Bible Readings: Exodus 25; John 4; Proverbs 1; 2 Corinthians 13Exodus 25 and John 4 are canonically tied together.The former begins the instructions for the construction of the tabernacle and its accoutrements (Ex. 25 — 30). The tabernacle is the forerunner of the temple, built in Solomon’ s day. Repeatedly in these chapters God says, “See that you make them according to the pattern shown you on the mountain,” (25:40) or “Set up the tabernacle according to the plan shown you on the mountain” (26:30) or the like. The epistle to the Hebrews picks up on this point. The tabernacle and temple were not arbitrary designs; they reflected a heavenly reality. “This is why Moses was warned when he was about to build the tabernacle: ‘See to it that you make everything according to the pattern shown you on the mountain’”(Heb. 8:5).John 4 finds Jesus in discussion with a Samaritan woman. Samaritans believed that the proper place to worship God was not Jerusalem, home of the temple, but on Mounts Gerizim and Ebal, since these were the last places stipulated for such worship when the people entered the land (Deut. 11:29; Josh. 8:33). They did not accept as Scripture the texts concerning the monarchy. The woman wants to know what Jesus thinks: Is the appropriate place for worship these mountains, near where they are standing, or Jerusalem (John 4:20)?Jesus insists that the time is dawning when neither place will suffice (4:21). This does not mean that Jesus views the Samaritan alternative as enjoying credentials equal to those of Jerusalem. Far from it: he sides with the Jews in this debate, since they are the ones that follow the full sweep of Old Testament Scripture, including the move from the tabernacle to the temple in Jerusalem (4:22). “Yet a time is coming and has now come when the true worshipers will worship the Father in spirit and truth, for they are the kind of worshipers the Father seeks” (4:23).This means: (1) With the coming of Christ Jesus and the dawning of the new covenant, appropriate worship will no longer be tied to a specific geographic location. Implicitly, this announces the obsolescence of the temple. Worship will be as geographically extensive as the Spirit, as God himself who is spirit (4:24). (2) Worship will not only be “in spirit” but “in truth.” In the context of this gospel, this does not mean that worship must be sincere (“true” in that sense); rather, it must be in line with what is ultimately true, the very manifestation of truth, Jesus Christ himself. He is the “true light” (1:9), the true temple (2:19 — 22), the true bread from heaven (6:25ff.), and more. True worshipers worship in spirit and in truth. This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Based on John 11:17- 44, “Freedom from Grave Clothes” calls believers to consider the story surrounding Lazarus' death burial and resurrection. Implicitly, believers can fall into the trap of focusing on the seeming impossibility of a situation that they fail to see possibilities even when is obvious as it was in the case of Martha. Martha believed in the metaphorical futuristic resurrection of Jesus Christ, but Jesus was right there and was talking about what was possible in the immediate. Even when resurrection happens, the possibility of remaining bound by graveclothes can be a factor in the life of the believer. My prayer is that someone finds comfort through this podcast. Shalom!Music:William Augusto – Soaking in His Presence (Instrumental) Nick Alfanni: Four Days lateDisclaimer: All music used belong to the copyright owner credited. NO copyright infringement intended. Support this podcast

Cheating? Affairs, or just a really good massage?? What do you say?? OOOOKKKRRRRDDTTTT!!!!This is IB WHAT THE?!?! The MOST off the wall discussions, every time! We are Implicitly Biased. Implicit bias: this is an unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.Join us on this journey of understanding our own implicit bias(es) and through friendship, and empathy, come to an understanding, that we are all in this together, no matter our differences.Find us on your favorite podcast streaming service @ Implicitly Biased.Got questions? Drop it in the comments below, or email us at ImplicitlyBiased@gmail.com

LDS Study Session seeks to generate reflection and about areas in the Restored Gospel. Whether it's Come Follow Me, a General Conference talk or a recent Gospel Topic, hopefully you'll find something to keep the Spirit of Christ in your life. @mattsroberts90 ldsstudysession@gmail.com Join us as we continue our Come Follow Me study for this week, today we conclude our discussion of 1 Nephi 11. We consider the condescension of God, as described by the visions that the angel showed. We also reflect on the perils of the great and spacious building, which may be closer to us than we think. Robert S Wood: It is far too easy sometimes to fall into a spirit of mockery and cynicism in dealing with those of contrary views. We demoralize or demean so as to bring others or their ideas in contempt. It is a primary tool of those who occupy the large and spacious building that Father Lehi saw in vision. Jude, the brother of Christ, warned that “there should be mockers in the last time, who should walk after their own ungodly lusts. These be they who separate themselves, sensual, having not the Spirit.” Closely related to mockery is a spirit of cynicism. Cynics are disposed to find and to catch at fault. Implicitly or explicitly, they display a sneering disbelief in sincerity and rectitude. Isaiah spoke of those who “watch for iniquity” and “make a man an offender for a word, and lay a snare for him that reproveth in the gate, and turn aside the just for a thing of nought.” In this regard, the Lord has counseled in latter days that we “cease to find fault one with another” and “above all things, clothe [ourselves] with the bond of charity, as with a mantle, which is the bond of perfectness and peace.”

Today's Bible Readings: Genesis 8; Matthew 8; Ezra 8; Acts 8Why does Jesus find the faith of the centurion so astonishing (Matt. 8:5-13)? The centurion assures Jesus that as far as he is concerned it is unnecessary for the Master to visit his home in order to heal the paralyzed servant. He understands that Jesus need only say the word, and the servant will be healed. “For,” the centurion explains, “I myself am a man under authority, with soldiers under me. I tell this one, ‘Go,’ and he goes; and that one, ‘Come,’ and he comes. I say to my servant, ‘Do this,’ and he does it” (8:9). Why is this such an astonishing evidence of faith? Three factors stand out. The first is that in an age of not a little superstition, the centurion believed that Jesus’ healing power did not lie in hocus-pocus, or even in his personal presence, but in his word. It was not necessary for Jesus to touch or handle the servant, or even be present; he needed only to say the word, and it would be done. The second is that he came to such confident assertions despite the fact that he was not steeped in Scripture. He was a Gentile. What grasp of Scripture he had we cannot say, but it was certainly less than that enjoyed by many of the learned in Israel. Yet his faith was purer, simpler, more penetrating, more Christhonoring than theirs. The third astonishing element in this man’s faith is the analogy he draws. He recognizes that he himself is a man under authority, and therefore he has authority when he speaks in the context of that relationship. When he tells a Roman soldier under him to come or go or do something, he is not speaking merely as one man to another man. The centurion speaks with the authority of his senior officer, the tribune, who in turn speaks, finally, with the authority of Caesar, with the authority of the mighty Roman Empire. That authority belongs to the centurion, not because he is in fact as powerful as Caesar in every dimension, but because he is a man under authority: the chain of command means that when the centurion speaks to the foot soldier, Rome speaks. Implicitly, the centurion is saying that he recognizes in Jesus an analogous relationship: Jesus so stands in relationship to God, and under God’s authority, that when Jesus speaks, God speaks. The centurion, of course, was not speaking within the framework of a mature Christian doctrine of Christ, but the eyes of faith had enabled him to penetrate very far indeed. This is the faith we need. It trusts Jesus’ word, reflects a simple profundity, and believes that when Jesus speaks, God speaks.This podcast is designed to be used alongside TGC's Read The Bible initiative (TGC.org/readthebible). The podcast features devotional commentaries from D.A. Carson’s book For the Love of God (vol. 1) that follow the M’Cheyne Bible reading plan.

Screw New Year's Resolutions. At Fitness Protection, we're getting ready to ROAR. This podcast discusses the origins of Romjul and why Coach MK is hell-bent on getting rid of New Year's Resolutions for good. New Year’s resolutions rely on the assumption that something is wrong with you and you need to work on it, change it, fix it. The quest for self-improvement that the fitness industry wants to sell you is presented as noble, hardworking and humble, the antidote to sloth and laziness and inertia. These assumptions are IMPLICITLY baked into New Year’s Resolutions - without them, what would you buy? So with that in mind, Coach MK and Coach Sarah talk about how to start the process of examining those assumptions, calling them out for what they are (abusive and unkind) and flipping the script they have been writing for you.   SHOW NOTES Coach Sarah and Coach MK are recording this podcast on December 12th, the Day of Miracles, and Coach MK is burning a sandalwood candle to summon St. Anthony, the Patron Saint of Lost Things. So what have we lost, exactly? The kind of love and respect for ourselves and our achievements that we ALL deserve. Coach MK thinks New Year’s Resolutions had something to do with it. And that’s where Romjul comes in. SO, what is Romjul? In 2018, MK heard Nadia Bolz-Weber speak about the way “the soul felt its worth,” an idea that she really loved, and that same day she watched her Instagram feed go from “the soul felt its worth” on December 25th to “I’M GONNA FIX MYSELF IN THE NEW YEAR” on the 26th. All the marketing for the New Year kicks into gear as soon as Christmas ends, asking us to face the fundamental wrongness of ourselves and start spending our money on fixing it. It’s a deeply embedded cultural tradition that few of us are able to avoid completely. The first rule of financial modeling is “Before you do ANYTHING else, check your assumptions”. Coach MK wishes this simple rule existed in our everyday lives. New Year’s resolutions rely on the assumption that something is wrong with you and you need to work on it, change it, fix it. The quest for self-improvement that the fitness industry wants to sell you is presented as noble, hardworking and humble, the antidote to sloth and laziness and inertia. These assumptions are IMPLICITLY baked into New Year’s Resolutions - without them, what would you buy? So with that in mind, Coach MK and Coach Sarah talk about how to start the process of examining those assumptions, calling them out for what they are (abusive and unkind) and flipping the script they have been writing for you. Many people subscribe to the notion that goals have to be SMART (Specific, Measurable, Achievable, Relevant, and Time-Bound) but we argue that that’s more abusive bullshit. We would rather you stop and THINK about your New Year’s Resolutions: are they True, Helpful, Intelligent, Necessary and Kind? If you’ve spent February and March of every year feeling like you’ve fallen off the bandwagon (like this meme describes), ask yourself why you were standing on a moving bandwagon to begin with - maybe what you were really doing was walking a tightrope, and we would argue that you really don’t need to be doing that shit. This reframing of the New Year’s Resolution is going to feel unnatural, and we are going to help shepherd you through the process because we KNOW how much is working against you after years of believing you needed to change. Send us your resolutions, and we will transform them into Romjul ROARS on December 29th, the last Sunday of 2019, during our normal Ask Away broadcast time (now available for download in our podcast feed!). Coach MK will be joined by Jummy Olawale the Therapist and Dalia Kinsey the School Nutrition Dietician to help set you up for a thoughtful (THINKful?) 2020. You are perfect just the way you are and you do not have to change. Other links: https://www.readitforward.com/essay/article/jolabokaflod-meet-favorite-new-holiday-tradition/ https://nobarriersusa.org/podcast/episode-16-contemplating-faith-and-forgiveness-with-pastor-and-author-nadia-bolz-weber/

I didn't start making videos because I wanted to be a film maker. I never wanted to be a videographer or a cinematographer. As much as I love the art form, as creatively invigorating as it is to film and edit, it's not my primary aspiration. It's not my passion. And yet, I've found myself becoming increasingly obsessed with camera angles, camera settings, lenses, aperture, frame rates, lighting, audio, mic placement, B-roll, cinematic sequences, setting, background, etc, etc, etc. In other words, I've become overwhelmingly obsessed with the production, the "quality". I've also been unhealthily obsessed with "the numbers"; the subscriber count, the views, the listens, the plays, the likes, the shares, the comments, and the things. We all know the numbers shouldn't matter. We've all either said ourselves or heard other creatives say "don't create for the numbers", "the numbers don't matter" but, saying it and believing it are two different things. Implicitly, in the back of nearly every creators mind, the numbers matter. A lot of us, especially me, will attach our value as a creator, the value of what we create to those numbers. We will interpret those numbers as a numeric representation of how much our work matters, and we start judging the quality of our work based on those numbers. At least, that's what's happened for me. I think I lost my connection to an even more important question, "why did I start?" "What did I start doing this for?" It's so easy to get lost in the minutia of techniques and all the things that touch the thing you're doing but, what's the core of what you're doing? What's the heart beat of why you do what you do? If you lose touch with the thing that made you want to start doing what you're doing then you've lost the whole drive, you've lost the whole aspiration, the whole motivation, the whole operative significance of the thing. I started doing this because I'm in love with ideas. I'm in love with the kind of ideas that James Victore might call "Dangerous Ideas". Oscar Wilde said that " An idea that is not dangerous is unworthy of being called an idea at all". That is my core. It's gotten buried in the process but, its still there, and I'm trying to find my way back to it. How do I get back? I don't know. I don't have it all figured out yet. But, this is an attempt to get back to the dangerous ideas, and maybe that's a dangerous idea in itself. I hope that it is. I don't know what comes next, but i never have. All I can tell you is that I'm still in the process. If you're still here then, we're in the process together. Keep showing up, Keep doing the work, FAIL BOLDLY, and let's make something meaningful. Shout out to my Patrons and Supporters: Jim Martin - https://theunusualbuddha.com/ Ben Bridges - https://www.myfpvstore.com/ Rev. Jerry Maynard - https://www.facebook.com/revjerryhtx/?epa=SEARCH_BOX Jerome Shaw - https://anchor.fm/jshaw Rajan Shankara - https://rajanshankara.com/ If you want shout outs in podcasts and videos, if you want access to all my behind-the-scenes, patron only content, if you want early access to all my videos, and if you want to be a part of a community of creativity and curiosity, the check out my Patreon page - https://www.patreon.com/duanetoops --- Support this podcast: https://anchor.fm/duanetoops/support

We all prefer to leave things open and not commit. That way we postpone conflict, intimacy and maintain control.But this vagueness creates personal and relational problems and tensions.The Solution: being explicitly uncomfortable. In this talk I explain why we keep it vague and how can we dare to become more uncomfortably explicit. Examples are included from the clinic and my life.Tips are given how to be more explicitly uncomfortable.Recorded live on FB.https://www.psychologytoday.com/intl/blog/the-other-side-relationshipshttps://medium.com/@assaelhttp://podcast.potentialstate.com/https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCXwdZhwQFgUcRQgZoI_L2Uwhttps://www.facebook.com/ThePotentialStatehttps://twitter.com/assaelSupport the show (https://www.paypal.com/cgi-bin/webscr?cmd=_s-xclick&hosted_button_id=Q5AG6K7L8GYKA&source=url)

How off the wall can we get?? In these WHAT THE?? Segments, you’ll find out, EXACTLY that!!!Bathroom talk...We are Implicitly Biased. Implicit bias: this is an unconscious attribution of particular qualities to a member of a certain social group.Join us on this journey of understanding our own implicit bias(es) and through friendship, and empathy, come to an understanding, that we are all in this together, no matter our differences.

Act I: Charlie and Joey talk freewriting, problematic open mics, and TV show denouements. Then, reviews of Charlie's recent doctor's trip and Joey's updates to his Bumble profile.   Act II: A discussion of SUPERHOT. Once a webgame demo, the full-fledged console game was just re-released for Nintendo Switch. Charlie and Joey talk about the game's mechanics and what it says about violence in gaming.     For a deeper dive on Breaking Bad failing Skyler White, here is what actor Anna Gunn wrote about receiving fan hate while playing the wife of Walter White: https://nyti.ms/2ueBKjj

In an interview with ABC News, President Trump said that he would be open to accepting opposition research on a presidential rival from foreign sources. He added that he wouldn’t necessarily go to the FBI if his campaign were approached.

In this Message Mike continues to look at Acts 13 . He explains that The Resurrection Declares That Jesus Is Not Guilty As Charged. He also makes it clear that Implicitly, the apostles (Paul & Barnabas) did not leave Antioch just because of the persecution, but because they had done what they came to do. In conclusion He explains that : Mission requires determined resolve Mission involves risk Mission is more than evangelism Mission makes disciples Mentoring disciples is hard work Hard work reaps great reward

Demetra Christopoulou (Patras) gives a talk at the conference on "The Analysis of Theoretical Terms" (3-5 April, 2013) titled "Implicitly defining mathematical terms".

Chopping it up about being evaluated daily and unspoken-implicitly biases networks.

Starswing S2 E20 "We trust him implicitly unless he's lying" by Erik Beltz

This happens to me so often - people will trust me with their money and babies and valuables, without a second thought. Why? What does my face say? Why do they find INFJs so trustworthy?Thank you for listening! I have just started an online community called Soul Vitamins where you can access all of my courses, books, and videos for a low monthly price. Check it out at https://bit.ly/soulvitamins2 If you want to connect with me further - below are some ways:Buy my course on creating healthy boundaries at http://bit.ly/boundariescourse2Check out my YouTube Channel at https://m.youtube.com/c/BoomShikhaJoin my FB group! https://www.facebook.com/groups/boomshikha/ Email me at boomshikha at themillionairehippie dot com if you have feedback. Love and light as always,Boom Shikha See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

For many of you listening to this podcast, taking photos of things and people in our lives has become much more common, as well as documenting our experiences of life. Understanding how the act of taking photos may get in the way of or increase our pleasure in these activities seems like an important topic for research. Implicitly, we may hear the message that we should stop taking so many photos and just be in the moment and enjoy our experiences without trying to record everything. But is this true? Does photography - especially using our smartphones - get in the way? Join me as I talk with Asst Prof Alixandra Barasch, based in the Stern Business School, New York University, USA. --- Send in a voice message: https://anchor.fm/sarb-johal/message

There’s a common argument out there that gender differences are just the product of socialization. Implicitly and explicitly, the argument goes, culture tells men and women how men and women should behave. My guest todayargues that the drivers of male and female behavior are little more complex than that. In fact, about 50% of the differences between men and women are rooted in our biology, beginning with how our respective brains form in utero.  Her name is Louann Brizendine. She’s a neuropsychiatrist, a professor at the University of California, San Francisco, and the author of two books: The Female Brainand The Male Brain. Today we discuss that latter work, and the trajectory the male brain takes from prenatal life through old age.  We begin our conversation discussing how a megadose of testosterone in the womb wires a male brain differently from a female brain and how that influences how boys socialize and learn during childhood. Louann then discusses how the male brain is re-structured again with another megadose of testosterone during puberty and the impact that has on a teen's behavior. She then walks us through what happens to the male brain when a man falls in love, has kids, and enters mature adulthood.  Consider this podcast an intro guide to how your brain works (assuming you’re a dude listening to this, though female listeners will also get some insights into why the males in their lives act the way they do). Get the show notes at aom.is/malebrain.

This week on Millennial Love we're joined by social media influencer and podcaster Oenone Forbat to discuss the many issues surrounding contraception and specifically whether it's inherently sexist. Whose responsibility should it be to ensure sex is safe? If there was a male pill, would women really trust men to take it given we're the ones who would still get pregnant?We also discuss the different contraception options available and how they affect women psychologically.Follow us on Instagram to stay up-to-date! https://www.instagram.com/millennial_love/ See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

IUOs are dead, long live IUOs! With this change, IUOs are no longer a type but rather a special variant of Optional.

Today Pete and Luke are discussing John Dickerson's argument in May issue of The Atlantic that the modern presidency is too unwieldy for any individual to succeed. Implicitly he is pushing back against the idea that Trump's personality is ill-fitted to the job: Anyone would be overwhelmed by the office, he thinks.

Bolman, Lee G. and Terrence E. Deal. Reframing Organizations: Artistry, Choice, and Leadership. Fourth Edition. San Francisco: Jossey-Bass, 2008. …organizations are filled with people who have their own interpretations of what is and should be happening. Each version contains a glimmer of truth, but each is a product of the prejudices and blind spots of its maker. No single story is comprehensive enough to make an organization truly understandable or manageable. In deciding what to do next, managers operate largely on the basis of intuition, drawing on firsthand observations, hunches, and judgment derived from experience. Too swamped to spend much time thinking, analyzing, or reading, they get most of their information in meetings, through e-mail, or over the phone. The image of firm control and crisp precision often attributed to managers has little relevance to the messy world of complexity, conflict, and uncertainty they inhabit. They need multiple frames to survive. They need to understand that any event or process can serve several purposes and that participants are often operating from different views of reality. The essence of reframing is examining the same situation from multiple vantage points. The effective leader changes lenses when things don't make sense or aren't working. … …leadership. It is not tangible. It exists only in relationships and in the perception of the engaged parties. Implicitly, we expect leaders to persuade or inspire rather than to coerce. We also expect leaders to produce cooperative effort and to pursue goals that transcend narrow self-interest. Leadership is thus a subtle process of mutual influence fusing thought, feeling, and action. It produces cooperative effort in the service of purposes embraced by both leader and led. Single-frame managers are unlikely to understand and attend to the intricacies of this lively process. Ideally, managers combine multiple frames into a comprehensive approach to leadership. Wise leaders understand their own strengths, work to expand them, and build diverse teams that can offer an organization leadership in all four modes: structural, political, human resource, and symbolic. The desired target is never easy to reach, and almost everyone wants change as long as they don't have to do anything differently. Ethics ultimately must be rooted in soul: an organization's commitment to its deeply rooted identity, beliefs, and values. Each frame offers a perspective on the ethical responsibilities of organizations and the moral authority of leaders. Every organization needs to evolve for itself a profound sense of its own ethical and spiritual core. The frames offer spiritual guidelines for the quest. The most important responsibility of managers is not to answer every question or get every decision right. Though they cannot escape their responsibility to track budgets, motivate people, respond to political pressures, and attend to culture, they serve a deeper, more powerful, and more enduring role if they are models and catalysts for such values as excellence, caring, justice, and faith. Both managers and leaders require high levels of personal artistry if they are to respond to today's challenges, ambiguities, and paradoxes. They need a sense of choice and personal freedom to find new patterns and possibilities in everyday life at work. They need versatility in thinking that fosters flexibility in action. They need capacity to act inconsistently when uniformity fails, diplomatically when emotions are raw, non-rationally when reason flags, politically in the face of vocal parochial self-interests, and playfully when fixating on task and purpose backfires. Leading requires walking a fine line between rigidity and spinelessness. Leaders need to be deeply reflective and dramatically explicit about core values and beliefs. Leaders fail when they take too narrow a view. Unless they can think flexibly and see organizations from multiple ang...

Trust in government is low and declining after another polarized election and in a polarizing administration. We're frustrated, even angry, but maybe we still hold some underlying pride in our government. Steven Webster finds that anger decreases trust, whether it's directed toward the candidates or life in general. But Stephen Nicholson says we still hold implicit trust in government that can be drawn upon in a crisis. We discuss the two sides of trust in government.

What's the difference between honest and harsh?Harsh? Honesty? Heresy? [Works for me.]https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/17-on-the-real-for-real-implicitly-explicit/id1291654738?i=1000400396644&mt=2www.facebook.com/heirofgrievanceswww.patreon/heirofgrievanceswww.revolutionchurch.comVoicemail612-460-0364 See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

When we have a guest on the podcast, and the guest says something we disagree with, do you want us to interrupt or let it slide? Each time I talk back to a guest, I feel some internal unrest. Is just keeping silent Implicitly violent? Or am I just being a pest? WCME 022: A […]

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How do you successfully grow a software-as-a-service company? Bob La Loggia, founder and CEO of AppointmentPlus, an appointment scheduling software, has carved one path that has led to amazing growth and a 15-year track record.  In this episode, Bob discusses lessons learned, what one thing he did that made a major difference in the growth of the business, and what advice he'd offer up to fellow entrepreneurs. 

Part of the reason we came to India was to show our son a different perspective on life. Implicitly, we wanted this experience to change him, but we didn't expect all of the ways he might change. Related LinksGet an idea of when evening MLB games are on: MLB schedule in IndiaWhat is a Dhol?

- Voicemails EMAIL: wrestlingsoup.com@gmail.com LEAVE A VOICEMAIL ON wrestlingsoup.com SHOW #: (815)345-4756 TWITTER: @wrestlingsoup DONATE ON PAYPAL TO: wrestlingsoup.com@gmail.com SUBSCRIBE TO WRESTLING SOUP: Radio Influence: http://radioinfluence.com/category/wrestling-soup/ iTunes: https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/wrestling-soup/id463290655?mt=2 Stitcher: http://www.stitcher.com/s?fid=22881&refid=stpr Spreaker: https://www.spreaker.com/user/wrestlingsoup Feedburner: http://feeds.feedburner.com/WrestlingSoup FOLLOW: Wrestling Soup: https://twitter.com/WrestlingSoup Joey Numbas: https://twitter.com/joenumbas and visit the website: http://wrestlingsoup.com

The average church person usually is more worldly minded than they think. Do not be deceived. In God's economy, what looks like foolishness is actually the wisdom of God. What looks like weakness is actually his strength. It's common for us to boast in people/abilities. Implicitly we are finding our identity and value in those things. The truth is, we belong to Christ. All things are ours. We need to reclaim who we are in Christ in the church.

Gives the human or philosophical thinking behind optimal predictive control and explains why this is an intuitively obvious approach to predictive control algorithm design. Implicitly builds on insights developed in chapter 3.

Many of us, whether from Macedonia or Malaysia, Mexico or Madagascar, identify strongly with our nation. Implicitly, we understand the nation as a group of citizens whose rights and responsibilities are mediated by state. This idea emerged from France and the US in the late 1700s, replacing the certainties of “King and Country” and “Christendom”. The idea is that the people of a nation possess something real which ties them together. However, anthropologists think that the nation is actually a product of the imagination. Copyright 2013 Nicholas Herriman / La Trobe University, all rights reserved. Please contact for permissions.

In this episode, we start with our conclusion and try to move on from there. In This Episode: What if we couldn’t use IDEs? Confessions What is an IDE anyway? Glade! The value is in the integration? IDE as antidote to problematic language choices. Metatool! The Bulldozer and the Treehouse Managing Java without an IDE How poor memory leads to simplicity Design patterns for the memory impaired PHP and the Abstraction Loving Programmer Football helmets and the damage they hide Implicitly magical Mutability causes debuggers or air planes or something IDEs can remember it for you IDE interface remains the same when the languages change Unix and Windows, reflections of their Eras in Tooling Wait for the tool maker, or be the tool maker? Weblogic Workbench: hooray! Rails: hooray! Did IDEs solve the problems of software complexity? Solve complexity by simplifying, not managing. Brazil! Managing CSS The Importance of Re-thinking Earnestly Creativity and Limitations What can I do with blue? Download MP3

There are a few issues on the docket that raise the question of "how much is too much?" when it comes to government spending or authority. Cash for Clunkers, Bailouts, Vaccines, health care. A husband and wife team up to deliver weekly commentary on the most current events, hot and controversial topics. Not for the faint of heart.

There are a few issues on the docket that raise the question of "how much is too much?" when it comes to government spending or authority. Cash for Clunkers, Bailouts, Vaccines, health care. A husband and wife team up to deliver weekly commentary on the most current events, hot and controversial topics. Not for the faint of heart.