Delightful word, unsettling prospect

https://substack.com/@philosophyminis/note/c-149240134?r=35ogp&utm_medium=ios&utm_source=notes-share-action

“Why do you dislike Trump?”

Kid's done his homework…

https://www.threads.com/@itsclaash/post/DOlxB3dD-1V?xmt=AQF0yfRrcm1fh-QQjVvocx7TGhTnwlL6AEUrdzSwla58rw&slof=1

Six stages of marriage

Give or take…

Dear Time

 It does make some of us sentimental, and grateful.

Dear time On this fair occasion I’d like to say you given me More than what you’ve taken Hey time Working well together I know it’s not forever We’ll both be moving on Look what I’ve collected A little box of memories Somewhat disconnected Tied with twine Each a small remembrance One inside the other On rewind, tonight I find them Dimmed by wine Hey time Thank you for the lovers The ones that went astray and Thank you for the one that stayed Hey time Accepting of each other Hold off on that buzzer For a little while Look what I’ve collected A little box of memories Somewhat disconnected Tied with twine Each a bit of color Winter, spring, fall and summer Set to burn, they return, a warm blue flame Dear time You know I’m at your service Thank you for the extra heartbeats I’m not so sure I earned them Dear time I heard you are efficient I cancelled my physician Whatever you decide How much have I forgotten? In the little box of memories Edges start to soften Lose their shine Each a little wonder A faded watercolor All unsigned, on standby In my mind Look what I’ve collected A little box of memories Somewhat disconnected Tied with twine Could I trade them in for A visit with my mom and dad Or throw the ball with my old dog One more time Hey time Look at what you made me Sentimental Slightly crazy Dear time On this fair occasion I’d like to say you given me More than what you’ve taken Dear time

Swallowed by greed

This 3-minute film, 'Black Hole,' is a powerful, award-winning look at the terrifying emptiness of human greed.

https://www.threads.com/@katortarkaa/post/DOTjiM2jP4k?xmt=AQF0FFflb2CDNs7-rr-YF-d0FxtwSK7WGdNpV2wFS4kwKg&slof=1

The church of baseball

 My colleague repeated again an old profession of faith I've heard him attest before, and as before he met the predictable chuckles in the conference room with an emphatic: "I'm serious!" And he was. He insisted that baseball is his religion. Just like it was Morris Cohen's:

When my revered friend and teacher William James wrote an essay on “A Moral Equivalent for War,” I suggested to him that baseball already embodied all the moral value of war, so far as war had any moral value. He listened sympathetically and was amused, but he did not take me seriously enough. All great men have their limitations, and William James’s were due to the fact that he lived in Cambridge, a city which, in spite of the fact that it has a population of 100,000 souls (including the professors), is not represented in any baseball league that can be detected without a microscope. The Dial,Vol. 67, p. 57 (July 26, 1919)

And then there's Professor Ted Cohen...

Interestingly, one of the topics discussed at our staff meeting yesterday was whether to teach a course on Religion and Sport. Well of course we should, right alongside Philosophy and Baseball. 

A Trip to the Moon (1902) - the first sci-fi film

 

How ChatGPT Surprised Me

"…we're already treating it as borderline banal — and so GPT-5 is just another update to a chatbot that has gone, in a few years, from barely speaking English to being able to intelligibly converse in virtually any imaginable voice about virtually anything a human being might want to talk about at a level that already exceeds that of most human beings. In the past few years, A.I. systems have developed the capacity to control computers on their own — using digital tools autonomously and effectively — and the length and complexity of the tasks they can carry out is rising exponentially.

I find myself thinking a lot about the end of the movie "Her," in which the A.I.s decide they're bored of talking to human beings and ascend into a purely digital realm, leaving their onetime masters bereft. It was a neat resolution to the plot, but it dodged the central questions raised by the film — and now in our lives.

What if we come to love and depend on the A.I.s — if we prefer them, in many cases, to our fellow humans — and then they don't leave?

Ezra Klein

https://www.nytimes.com/2025/08/24/opinion/chat-gpt5-open-ai-future.html?smid=nytcore-ios-share&referringSource=articleShare

Joe

In Praise of Joe

by Marge Piercy

I love you hot
I love you iced and in a pinch
I will even consume you tepid.

Dark brown as wet bark of an apple tree,
dark as the waters flowing out of a spooky swamp
rich with tannin and smelling of thick life—

but you have your own scent that even
rising as steam kicks my brain into gear.
I drink you rancid out of vending machines,

I drink you at coffee bars for $6 a hit,
I drink you dribbling down my chin from a thermos
in cars, in stadiums, on the moonwashed beach.

Mornings you go off in my mouth like an electric
siren, radiating to my fingertips and toes.
You rattle my spine and buzz in my brain.

Whether latte, cappuccino, black or Greek
you keep me cooking, you keep me on line.
Without you, I would never get out of bed

but spend my life pressing the snooze
button. I would creep through wan days
in the form of a large shiny slug.

You waken in me the gift of speech when I 
am dumb as a rock buried in damp earth.
It is you who make me human every dawn.
All my books are written with your ink.

"In Praise of Joe" by Marge Piercy from The Crooked Inheritance. © Alfred A. Knopf, 2006. Reprinted with permission. 

https://writersalmanac.publicradio.org/index.php%3Fdate=2008%252F08%252F18.html

William James and I went to a Cubs game at Wrigley Field...

It was a nice dream. We didn't care if we ever got back.

"When my revered friend and teacher William James wrote an essay on “A Moral Equivalent for War,” I suggested to him that baseball already embodied all the moral value of war, so far as war had any moral value. He listened sympathetically and was amused, but he did not take me seriously enough. All great men have their limitations, and William James’s were due to the fact that he lived in Cambridge, a city which, in spite of the fact that it has a population of 100,000 souls (including the professors), is not represented in any baseball league that can be detected without a microscope..." Morris R. Cohen, in The Dial,Vol. 67, p. 57 (July 26, 1919)

Baseball as a National Religion, John Thorn