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Programmers were better back in the day, weren’t they? Back when we had real programmers. Not just people who got paid to write code, but people who lived it, who were obsessed with their craft, and whose code was a lively expression of themselves. Hackers were hackers in those days before money took over the industry. Don’t even get me started on LLMs. Could there be a better example of today’s degenerate spirit? A machine to mass-produce software (not good software, just barely good enough), so that the weak minds that dominate the industry can indulge their obsession with quantity : of slop code, of features, and ultimately of money, which is the only way they can understand value. If they weren’t destroying our way of life, they would be pitiable. All of them together don’t have a fraction of the spiritual integrity of someone like Mel . But as it is, we must band together to crush them and drive them from our industry like the parasites they are. Okay, that’s not actually what I believe. But there sure are a lot of posts 1 and comments on the internet that sound a bit like the paragraph above. Here are some older quotes that might sound similar: …the third collapse, in which power tends to pass into the hands of the lowest of the traditional castes, the caste of the beasts of burden and the standardized individuals. The result of this transfer of power was a reduction of horizon and value to the plane of matter, the machine, and the reign of quantity. 2 Usura rusteth the chisel \ It rusteth the craft and the craftsman \ It gnaweth the thread in the loom 3 The actual accomplishments of the past will nevertheless remain accomplishments, while the artistic stammerings of the painting, music, sculpture, and architecture produced by these types of charlatans will one day be nothing but proof of the magnitude of a nation’s downfall. 4 These are all from the writings (or speeches) of famous fascists: Julius Evola, Ezra Pound, and Hitler himself. Mussolini’s Doctrine of Fascism begins by defining fascism as a “spiritual attitude”, which the fascist man adopts in order to regain the mysterious qualities that were lost by the transition to modern life. In his classic Ur-Fascism , Umberto Eco’s first two defining features of fascism are the “cult of tradition” and the “rejection of modernism”. So when someone tells me that the industry has lost its way and we must deny the corrupting influence of modern technology in order to retvrn to the time of virile real programmers (who understood and appreciated the spiritual dimension of programming), I get suspicious. It’s strange to describe anti-AI sentiment as potentially fascist, since a very popular argument is that LLMs themselves are an inherently fascist tool. Surely both sides of the debate can’t be fascist? I do think that the structure of fascist arguments is generally persuasive , and that many avowedly anti-fascist groups do sometimes fall into this trap: describing the world as a struggle between the spiritual power of the macho, traditional man and the corrupting influence of degenerate (often foreign) capital. For instance, I am a big fan of Lord of the Rings. I’ve read the series and watched the films multiple times, and even made a failed attempt to learn Elvish as a kid. But it’s hard to deny that fascists absolutely love Lord of the Rings. “Marble statue of a Roman emperor” might be the most popular avatar for fascists on the internet, but Aragorn is the second most popular. Neo-fascist movements in Italy explicitly take up Lord of the Rings as a foundational text. Why? Because the core conflict in the text is between the traditional, nostalgic heroism of the Shire and Gondor, and the corrupting modern industrial (partly foreign ) influence of Saruman and Sauron 5 . I don’t think Lord of the Rings (or anti-AI rhetoric) is intrinsically fascist. In fact, the surface-level reading of the text is anti-fascist: the plucky people of the West banding together to fight Sauron’s command-and-control totalitarian society. But I can see why fascists love it. One common historical touch-point for anti-AI folks is the Luddites, who were a violent conservative labor movement in early 1800s England. Anti-AI blogs adopt Luddite language like “smashing frames”, and positively cite the Luddites as “the go-to enemies of fascism since its inception”. I’ve written at length about what we can learn from the Luddites in Luddites and burning down AI datacenters , but one point I think is under-emphasized by the (generally pro-Luddite) books is that the Luddites were a little bit fascist themselves . Brian Merchant’s Blood in the Machine is the most popular recent book on the Luddites. I enjoyed it, but Merchant’s attempts to paint the Luddites as a friendly, left-wing, proto-feminist movement 6 seemed really unconvincing to me. From the writings of the Luddites, it’s clear that they were interested in protecting the rights of their all-male elite guild fraternity. Here’s one Luddite threat to a workshop that explicitly includes a threat against the female workers 7 : We think it quite inconsistent with our duty as men, as husbands and as fathers to suffer ourselves to be ruined any longer by a set of vagabond strumpets and those gibbet-deserving rascals that are looking over them. We will lead them to their satisfaction. We sincerely hope, gentlemen, that you will discharge the bitches and take men into your employ again, or they must take what they get. These were fundamentally conservative people who felt (correctly) that modernity had deprived them of their elite status, handing it instead to lower-paid inferiors: women, vagabonds, and foreigners. The Luddites were obviously not fascists 8 . However, the basic ingredients were there: wounded pride, a masculine elite identity, hatred of modern economics, and violence aimed at restoring their previous position in society. The currents that produced Luddism are the same currents that guided so many unhappy people towards fascism. When things are looking grim for an elite group, they often turn towards any movement that promises a return to an idealized past. If my blog has themes, one of them is surely that many software engineers labor under a delusion that their job is to be excellent at their craft. Of course, wanting to be an excellent programmer is not a delusion; it is a completely legitimate value to hold, and a legitimate purpose to pursue. It’s just not what you’re paid to do at work. Your job , unfortunately, is producing shareholder value . This delusion has been punctured by the end of ZIRP , and again more recently by the rise of AI coding. In this environment, I worry that some software engineers will form exactly the kind of disillusioned elite that was the audience for Ezra Pound’s poems about “usury” or the Luddites’ campaign against unapprenticed (often female) textile workers. I worry that AI, and the companies that build AI, are becoming an enemy against which anything is permitted: an enemy which in Umberto Eco’s words is “at the same time too strong and too weak”, unable to reason and yet powerful enough to drastically reshape the global labor market for the worse. The enemy of fascism is nuance. Fascism presents a good, clean, rousing story about a spiritual conflict between right and wrong. It is anathema to fascism to stop and muddy the waters a bit: in this case, to explore the ways in which LLMs, like any transformative technology, can both support and endanger traditional values. In The left-wing case for AI I wrote about how AI is being used right now as a disability aid, and many disabled readers wrote in to share their positive experiences with LLMs, and often how alienated they feel by the anti-AI mainstream on the left. I recently got an email describing how there’s a sudden flood of accessibility software for blind people 9 that’s actually built by blind people , who can now iterate with a LLM to get a product that meets their needs. Framing AI as an ontological evil erases experiences like these. Being anti-AI is not inherently fascist. Many of the anti-AI posts I’ve quoted are thoughtful, sensitive pieces exploring how the author thinks about one of the biggest changes to our industry. I still think the world needs more articles like that, not less, but the more of them I read, the more I recognize the tropes: spiritually pure lovers of the craft, degenerate peddlers of corrupt modernism, a need to return to the traditional ways of the hacker, and a lament for the (potentially) waning power of an elite fraternity of programmers. I know I’m tiptoeing around the worst argument in the world . It isn’t a refutation of anti-LLM arguments to say that they are structurally similar in some ways to fascist arguments, any more than it’s a devastating critique to say the same thing about Lord of the Rings. Sometimes it is good to try and halt the march of progress! Some of our past traditions really were purer and more spiritually robust! It just bothers me, that’s all. I used to read The Story of Mel with unalloyed pleasure. Now it makes me nervous. If you believe you’re fighting the embodiment of fascism , or for the idea of value itself , what tactics are off-limits? What positions might you eventually come to accept? It feels wrong to directly associate my caricature with any actual posts, but it also feels wrong to make a blanket assertion without examples. Just so you know what I’m talking about, here are some posts that have elements of this attitude. I like some of these posts and dislike others. Page 329 of my copy of Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World . Ezra Pound, Canto XLV. “Usura” should be read as “usury”, or today we could gloss it as “capitalism”: all Pound’s examples of great art were from the pre-capitalist patronage era of art. Adolf Hitler, from his speech at the 1933 Party Congress in Nuremberg. Of course, there’s also historically been a strong pro -technology current in fascist thinking (even specificially Italian fascist thinking ). Page 134 of Blood in the Machine has a brief argument that Luddism was feminist because the (exclusively male) artisans’ wives would provide food for their meetings. No, really. From Kevin Binfield’s Writings of the Luddites , page 40. I’ve taken the liberty of re-rendering it in modern spelling and grammar. Aside from being too early, they didn’t have any connection to the state apparatus of power (in fact, they were ultimately crushed by it) and they famously lacked a singular leader. The example cited was BlindRSS . It feels wrong to directly associate my caricature with any actual posts, but it also feels wrong to make a blanket assertion without examples. Just so you know what I’m talking about, here are some posts that have elements of this attitude. I like some of these posts and dislike others. ↩ Page 329 of my copy of Julius Evola’s Revolt Against the Modern World . ↩ Ezra Pound, Canto XLV. “Usura” should be read as “usury”, or today we could gloss it as “capitalism”: all Pound’s examples of great art were from the pre-capitalist patronage era of art. ↩ Adolf Hitler, from his speech at the 1933 Party Congress in Nuremberg. ↩ Of course, there’s also historically been a strong pro -technology current in fascist thinking (even specificially Italian fascist thinking ). ↩ Page 134 of Blood in the Machine has a brief argument that Luddism was feminist because the (exclusively male) artisans’ wives would provide food for their meetings. No, really. ↩ From Kevin Binfield’s Writings of the Luddites , page 40. I’ve taken the liberty of re-rendering it in modern spelling and grammar. ↩ Aside from being too early, they didn’t have any connection to the state apparatus of power (in fact, they were ultimately crushed by it) and they famously lacked a singular leader. ↩ The example cited was BlindRSS . ↩
May was another weird month here in Belgium: the last weeks have been unusually hot. It’s pouring now, but I’m glad that it is as it gives our airconditioning units a few moments of respite. We’ll see what the upcoming summer months will bring. This month is packed with exams, grading, and deliberations, but after that, school’s out! Which means I’ll have to play daddy day care as my wife isn’t as lucky as me when it comes to paid leave. Hopefully I’ll emerge beaten up but victorious. Previous month: April 2026 . I somehow managed to keep up the pace from last month and finished four (mostly small) games: Forbidden Solitaire is a candidate for my GOTY. Yes, it’s that good. Related topics: / metapost / By Wouter Groeneveld on 2 June 2026. Reply via email . Duck Detective: The Ghost of Glamping which is the second episode of the Duck Detective’s deducktions-based adventure game. It’s nice but only two hours long. Forbidden Solitaire , without a doubt the best and most unique card game with horror vibes I’ve ever played. Its atmosphere is inspired by nineties FMV games. Check out the launch trailer and tell me you don’t want to rush out and buy it: Pipistrello and the Cursed Yoyo is inspired by GBA-era top-down adventures. Its unique mechanics, pixel art, and soundtrack are superb, but the platforming near the end was a bit too much for me. Strange Horticulture is a cosy puzzler/visual novel where you have to figure out which client wants which plant. Are we past the point of the The Last Human-Written (academic) Paper ? Scientists Liu et al. compile a hefty report on what they call agent-native research artefacts. The results are… worrying? Promising? Popcar reviewed every single UFO 50 game . I don’t agree with many ratings but they’re well-explained. Noah Clements discusses how he hacked his bycicle monitor . The “welcome to hell developer” message is hilarious! James Sweeting thinks there should be a better term for game remakes and remasters: some specific types could be called videogame remakes instead. PekoeBlaze sees a difference in private versus public creativity . Do you make something different if you don’t have an audience? Seth Godin reminds us that nostalgia used to be deadly : For hundreds of years, nostalgia was seen as a serious disease, with doctors across Europe scrambling for a cure. Hundreds of thousands of people died from it . I enjoyed Pablo Meier’s review of Tunic . Every blog post by Pablo is accompanied by a song (“The song for this post is…”) which is a whimsical way to start an article. What’s a metroidbrania ? Even as a metroidvania lover, I hadn’t come across that term before. GiovanH explains the differences and intersection points . Is Animal Well a metroidbrania? Diederick de Vries played around with a retro printer and explained how you can use a “Retro Printer” daughterboard on top of a Raspberry Pi to connect an old electronics port to a modern printer. Inspired by my workspaces post, Diederick also shared his past and present computing workspaces . Nicole Express unboxes a unique high-tech computer . You’d be surprised. I enjoyed the many photos present in this one emphasiszing the high-tech part. Slightly related: Stephen Sherratt restored his childhood family computer . I’m a sucker for these kinds of articles. Some more articles to rattle the cage: just fucking use Go . Fuck no: Go is a terrible programming language . Ty Porter explains how he built a Game Boy Game in 2021 . Very educational! Blain Smith reflects on 30 years of programming at 44 years old . Profit pursuing enterprises indeed kill the joy of programming. Matthijs van Boxsel maintains a “digital encyclopedia of foolishness” where in 2021 he wrote about the Homo Viator (in Dutch). Miss Booleana writes about the struggles of motherhood (in German). Her experiences with parenting felt very much like ours. Matthias Wiesmann shared his thoughts on the video game Loop Hero . I’ve had my eye on that one for a long while; perhaps it’s finally time to try it out. Fabian Sanglard expresses why he likes the Magic: The Gathering 40 card format more than the usual 60. Over at ResetERA, Toma played 120 roguelikes so that we don’t have to . Their report is very extensive, a must read if you’re into the genre. Jeff Kaufman again urges us to donate 80% of our income and he has the numbers to prove it works for his family. I came across david.reviews , another indie site David maintains where he collects his thoughts on the media he consumes. After ten years of tinkering, Steve McCrea managed the impossible: to recreate Ultima Underworld in the Unity engine. It’s freely available at itch.io and looks very impressive compared to the original. Keep It In Your Pants! What? Apparently, Nintendo thought it was a good idea to create a few bold commercials for their Game Boy—including cuffing a woman to the bed as a misplaced joke to claim the GB is “seriously distracting”. The roguelike Game Boy game Roguecraft got a physical release! Of course I’m too late and everything is sold out. https://www.jwt.io/ is a JWT token debugger that shows how a token is compiled. Retro Ready is a nice Dutch blog that reviews retro-inspired handhelds (think Anbernic, GameMT). It seemed that Atari acquired the rights to the first five Wizardry titles . I still hope they’ll sometime, somewhere do something useful with Wiz 7 & 8. They deserve a proper reimagining/remake/whatever-you-call-it. Geneat is a website that helps you dig into the genealogy of your family. https://cooklang.org/ is a… recipe markup language? Nerds!
On those who think differently, and those who never change.
Whenever someone talks about how they let AI improve their writing, I realize we are still taking the wrong things away from what good writing supposedly is. Not that I am the arbiter of good writing, but we can agree that at its core, good writing is a pleasure to read, connects to the reader, respects the context and chooses the correct tone for the audience. It’s also about correctly identifying when “good” writing is needed at all. I think the literacy crisis we are going through extends in this way, where people aren’t just lacking in media literacy, but lacking in the skills above. It’s easy to think that good language is always full of jargon, that being an expert on something means long, drawn out explanations, and that you should use a supposedly intelligent, professorial tone all the time. It’s only with education and reading a lot that you learn that good writing is a spectrum, and all these things depend on the author’s style, occasion and intent, and are used in the right moments. That’s why people who generate responses to casual chat messages aren’t being met with excitement; cases like when you get an AI-generated Happy Birthday text, or when your friend replies to your vent with an AI-generated professional therapist response. These people want to do it right , but don’t respect context-switching and why some interactions need to decidedly be personal and “imperfect” to others. They have only taken away that good writing is big words, many words, and they are willing to shoehorn it into everything. I cannot blame anyone for reading over an AI-generated improvement of their text and thinking “ Wow, that’s so much better! ”. On the first read, it does seem impressive. And I don’t wanna sit here and pretend humans don’t manage to choose a completely wrong tone for the occasion or audience without AI as well, but it seems like many don’t actually tell AI the context or audience, and AI guesses incorrectly. People know what you sound like and how you usually write. Of course you are allowed to improve and change your writing style, but people will know when it is very sudden, completely out of character, and not something you’d manage on your own. And if you overdo it, AI will turn a concise, engaging and personal read with your own endearing quirks into either SEO marketing language, or an extremely dry scientific journal style read. You should be able to detect when that happens and take a step back. Otherwise you will sit there, proud of yourself that you wrote that, when it is so markedly different to your usual style and draft that you essentially employed a ghostwriter and pat yourself on the back for its output. And weirdly enough, I get the feeling many of you were never interested in “improving” your writing when it didn’t mean just copying a machine’s work. That’s having an editor, not you improving on your skills. You can liken it to skills in the kitchen: People who are just learning how to cook are learning about spices and think: The more spice, the better, so throw all of it in! Until a dish doesn’t taste good at all; too salty, too intense, everything is clashing. There is a point when it doesn’t elevate the dish, but ruins it. Some occasions don’t call for a curry, but instead a salad. A good cook will know the right dish and how to use ingredients and spices to make it pop. Don’t come with the fine dining if the people want your rustic potato bake. Employing AI to improve your text into oblivion is a slippery slope to sounding uneducated and phony. Please get away from the notion that longer and more complicated is better just for the sake of it. Reply via email Published 02 Jun, 2026
Sunday came, Sunday went, but the notes can be week notes any day they want to be. Current situation: Monday 25 May: Memorial Day, also hospital day. Having to work certain holidays is a new thing for me. The long light days of summer begin. Lat night it was light until well after 8. Pool is open now. Hasn’t been very warm yet but that will change quickly. We’re a week away from June. Tuesday 26 May: Thinking about the cost of optimizing: The more you optimize, the more difficult it is to be flexible. A danger of losing resilience. There’s an underlying principle at work here. Stress creates resilience. — Scott Hogan, Built from Broken On the other hand: A nervous system that is constantly in sympathetic mode cannot hold complexity. — Nate Hagens, A Framework for Action (YouTube link) Wednesday 27 May: Back to runnnning. I did a Couch ➡︎ 5K program over March and April, ended in early May. Took a few weeks off. Wasn’t sure how I’d do today but all the muscles seem to remember what to do. Now I’m pleasantly tired, my legs are sore, and I feel amazing. I kind of wish running didn’t feel so good because it’s also so goddamn awful. Got Rob all moved out today. 😭 It’s fine, it’s good, he’s ready, it’s great, it’s time, blah blah blah blah blah I hate it. He’s still in town, at least. Thursday 28 May: One of those days where there are too many things. We gotta quit with all the things. So many things. One thing then another thing. LET ME NAP. The linden trees are blooming and they smell amazing. Also the magnolias. After everything, the wild went on. Of course it did. — Moonbound , Robin Sloan Friday 29 May: You know you are genuinely in old-person territory when sleeping till 7 feels late. Also, impossible to sleep past 7. My back has a strict time limit on when it must no longer be on a mattress. I find this upsetting and unfair. 💜 Mara here for the weekend! Saturday 30 May: Hospital day. I have GOT to get better about having some sort of dinner mostly prepped on hospital days because otherwise I come home and just eat whatever I can grab like a starved maniac. Gremlin mode activates. I just stood in the kitchen shoveling stale old potato chips in my mouth for… I don’t know how long. Let’s not talk about this anymore. Sunday 31 May: Hiking church. Very muddy after all the rain. Delightful water sounds everywhere. Spontaneous tattoo time, thanks to Mara who had her tattoo stuff with her and just casually freehand drew this design on my wrist from a couple of inspo pics I found. It’s a blackberry vine with a few tiny skulls. I LOVE IT SO MUCH. 📚 Finished Moonbound by Robin Sloan. Excellent. I loved it. Cozy but in the way I want cozy to be when I try to read a cozy genre book and am inevitably disappointed (bored?). This one is the feeling. …. other things happened like I remember going to the gym at least twice? OH WAIT FUCK YEAH I PR’D BENCHPRESS BABY!! 115 POUNDS. That was satisfying. I want to write more about that Nate Hagens which I have not finished watching but which is really good but I am too tired. To sum up: A week (or so) has passed, I was alive, I did things or did not do things, here we are, me and the adorable tiny skulls are ready for sleep now.
Spider warning! Had some time with the wife away from the kids this weekend that allowed us to go hiking!
I know I just mentioned the Google Search app, but I’m also in the process of disentangling myself from Google and Gmail after last week’s Google I/O revelations. On that note, this is an interesting, meandering essay by Ernie Smith at Tedium , reflecting on the enshittification of Google and the two-year anniversary of &udm=14 , a simple site that removes AI from Google’s search results: I spent two hours of my life building a thing. Google has probably spent thousands, if not millions, of collective employee hours building all their AI innovations. And for a surprisingly large number of people, the two-hour workaround I built wins out. There’s a lesson in that. Somewhere in the middle, the essay transitions into talking about the value of good tools and single-serving websites: Our world needs more, smaller tools that speak the same language, where everyone makes a little money, but nobody dominates the industry. In the 1980s, the software industry was kind of like this. Oh, sure, Microsoft and Apple were still out front, sucking up all the oxygen. But there were lots of little companies, selling software on disks. The bigger ones put them in boxes in stores. The smaller ones realized that they could just ship software through the mail and let the software spread naturally among user communities. Shareware didn’t really survive the internet era—but, at least for a while, its spirit did. More recently, that spirit has taken a backseat to the larger companies that realize, if they’re big enough, they can shape how we interact with our world. In 1991, if you wanted to start a software company, you had to hope that your product was good enough that word of mouth and a P.O. Box could push it around. That’s exactly what happened when Tim Sweeney released ZZT. It became the starting point for Epic Games, the kind of company that today is big enough that, thanks to its Unreal Engine and the success of Fortnite, it can dictate terms to much of the gaming industry. If you ask me, I want a world where more software is like ZZT than it is like Fortnite, because more people have a chance to succeed in the former environment. Previously in this general category, we covered Keyhole and (Gmail) Simplify . If you have a favourite small tool or a simple tool-like website, I’d love to hear from you! #ai #enshittification #google #toolmaking
In Tattoorist , a 2026 Flemish TV show, musician and tattoo artist Tijs Vanneste explores six European capitals through the lens of the tattoo world. In the first episode , he meets up with a famous artist from London whilst exploring city’s more sketchy corners (literally and figuratively) with local guides. During the episode, we briefly see Tijs exploring the Highgate East Cemetery where he visits the graves of various famous people and reflects on his own life choices. There was a specific gravestone that caught my eye. The following words are engraved onto it: Lawyer. Should Have Been a Marine Biologist. 1958 - 2015. Lawyer. Should Have Been a Marine Biologist. The short take doesn’t show the entire engraving. Tijs remarks that the engravings in the cemetery are much sharper, funnier, and wittier than a typical cemetary in Belgian that would just state dates and perhaps at most something like “beloved family”. He then moves on to go do other tattooy stuff. Weeks after watching the episode, I still had Should Have Been a Marine Biologist lingering inside my mind, like an unwelcome visitor that I repeatedly fail to show out. Why is this striking example of an enigmatic epitaph so important for me? The admittance of making a wrong career choice written forever on your gravestone is not just funny but can also be interpreted as a friendly warning to do with your life what you want to do instead of what others want you to do. Thanks to a The London Dead blog post on the Highgate East Cemetery (what an amazing blog, by the way), I learned that this specific grave belongs to Sally Hunter. Film director Gurinder Chadha, one of her best friends, explains the origin behind the quip: Sally was one of my best friends, she fell into Law at university but never wanted to be a lawyer. Her big passion was snorkelling, diving and the sea. she would escape to Egypt, or anywhere she could snorkel, at a drop of a hat. She was a very well read, witty, passionate person who made the wrong choice in career life. We miss her terribly. The wrong career choice in life. I guess she must have failed Nietzsche’s Will To Live experiment: would you want to endlessly repeat the live you’re living now or want to make some much-needed changes the next time you’re living it? I wonder if Sally was the one who chose the epitaph and wrote it on her will. Probably not. What would your own epitaph say? Mine’s quite easy: Dr. Wouter Groeneveld. Brain Baker. And of course something along the lines of “loving husband & father of …”. Hopefully, as I’m no longer able to make that decision. Hopefully, by then, I am still loved. Who knows what your relatives will make of it. One thing is for sure: you won’t be the one who’ll get to see it. Unless you plan on returning as a ghost, of course. Most gravestones in the area don’t contain any special epitaph at all: the only text on it is the name, the data of birth and death, and optional close relatives such as significant other and/or children. Inspired by the London Dead blog, I plan on compiling a Hasselt Dead post in the future to highlight the exceptions. The last funerals I attended did not involve any gravestones at all: more and more, people opt for cremation instead, significantly reducing the available size on the plaque—if any. In our city, there are strict rules concerning the placement of monuments/urns/plaques that besides the obvious dimension rules also dictate the colour and way the letters are to be placed. Nothing on text beyond names and dates though. Name plaques for cremations are kept for 20 years and then removed. The only thing I could find local police regulation rule number 120 (my translation): In cemeteries, the appliance of any posters, advertisements, inscriptions, and objects not provided for in the Law on Cemeteries and Funeral Services is prohibited. In cemeteries, inscriptions and epitaphs may not be of a nature to disturb propriety, order, and the respect due to the deceased. So no fuck or God is a DJ , I guess? To be continued after I visited all the 21 local cemetaries 1 ! If you can’t wait, there’s findagrave.com that claims our local village’s cemetary contains 112 memorials , although most grave photos are missing. ↩︎ By Wouter Groeneveld on 30 May 2026. Reply via email . If you can’t wait, there’s findagrave.com that claims our local village’s cemetary contains 112 memorials , although most grave photos are missing. ↩︎
The biggest smallest GUI design schism between Apple’s platforms and Windows isn’t the black vs. white cursor or where to put the menu bar. It’s the presentation of keyboard shortcuts. On a Mac, the shortcuts are iconographic. Command is ⌘. Option is ⌥. Shift is ⇧. Control is ⌃. Fn is 🌐 . There are also icons for all the other non-printing keys, from the relatively well-known Tab (⇥), through the perennially confusable End and PgDn (⤓ and ⇟), to the absolutely cryptic Esc (⎋). On Windows, the keyboard legends are mostly text. PC lost the icon battle in the early 1980s – IBM had them on their 1970s computers, worldwide, but apparently American users of the early IBM PC hated them – and the names are spelled out (Shift and Enter and Home), or close to it (Ctrl, Esc, PgDn, Prt Sc). Why did Apple go this way? My speculation is the revered Braun and generally hi-fi hardware: a lot of stuff sold in Europe defaults to iconography in part because that makes exporting easier. Icons are also more compact – putting ⇧⌘C in a menu or a tooltip takes up a lot less space than Shift+Ctrl+C – and more beautiful when done well. Here’s Figma’s right click menu on Mac and Windows: = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/1.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/1.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/2.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/2.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> But there are also challenges, as icons are more cryptic and confusing. “Command” tells you something about itself out of the box, but “⌘” is completely abstract. (Arguably, only arrow keys and symbols like ⇥ and ↵ explain themselves visually.) The attendant issue is that icons are hard to talk about if you don’t know their names, hence tons of jargon like “propeller,” “splat,” or “beanie” for ⌘, for example. It’s a hard situation. Here is one of Mac’s own menus being thoroughly inconsistent, and an example of CleanShot using both the icon and the label to be sure: = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/3.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/3.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/4.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/4.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> “Why not both” seems to be the best way in places you can afford it. Apple started doing that on the keyboards too, but it took them decades to get there for modifier keys alone. Even on the 2026 computers, many other keys like Esc and Tab are still single-legended: = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/5.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/5.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> With all that in mind, I want to show you what I saw the other day in Google Docs, on my Mac: = 2x) and (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/6.2096w.avif" type="image/avif"> = 3x) or (width >= 700px)" srcset="https://unsung.aresluna.org/_media/shift-and-option-and-splat-and-escape/6.1600w.avif" type="image/avif"> This is one of those cryptic things that I would love to understand the thinking behind. Because, on the surface, this breaks so many rules: There is also a visual argument that cannot be ignored. We’ve been there once before ; if in your menu keyboard shortcuts start overwhelming the commands themselves, you are probably doing something wrong. The only explanation for this I can think of off the top of my head is this: these were invented somewhere else (Word?) and inherited by Docs to respect motor memory of the users transition from the older app. That still doesn’t cover the presentation, plus there is a way for Docs to redesign the shortcuts to be better for people who are starting anew. Ultimately, I think all of this also breaks a cardinal rule: it makes keyboard operation feel more scary and intimidating than it needs to be. Shortcuts are scary enough on their own, and they don’t need any help in this area. #google #iconography #keyboard #mac os A strange hybrid of Mac and Windows styling: some modifier keys are spelled out, and the others are iconographic. (It’s very strange to see ⌘ conjoined with others using a plus!) Complex and generally uncommon dual key shortcuts – to collapse the sidebar, you really need to press ⌃⌘A and then press ⌃⌘H, in sequence. Three-modifier-shortcuts are in general really unpleasant and Google Docs does not seem complicated enough to warrant them. (You can’t see that, but they’re also unreliable! ⌃⌘A ⌃⌘H doesn’t always work and seems to depend on where the focus is.)
My blog turned 16 this month! I did nothing to celebrate, but made some little tools and clicked some links about tech ethics. I published four little tools this month: I also did some work on Helmet, my open source project: And like every month, I wrote a few articles at Zelda Dungeon . I don’t feel I wrote anything special this month, but my colleagues put together a feature about Zelda and mental health which was very affecting! “The vast majority of tech workers, at least those who I have encountered in my many years of reporting, are not vampiric Silicon Valley tech bro caricatures [… They] both like working with tech and ultimately want to see it serve the public good.” From “They just formed the biggest tech worker union in the US. They plan to rein in AI and curb layoffs” . This “love letter to Gnutella” is both an introduction to a P2P protocol and a celebration of the culture around it. From “Affordances for me, but not for thee” : “One of the oddest parts of the AI shift is that people are much more willing to do things for LLMs that they should have been doing for human beings all along.” Accessibility, specifications, documentation, and policies are better codified now. The author calls this “dystopian”, and I agree: our motivation to do this stuff is AI or productivity, not helping our fellow human. “More importantly, whereas accessibility affordances provide new abilities for vulnerable people, an AI affordance provides new abilities for people with power. And that’s probably the heart of it.” Looking forward to being surveilled because I’m an “anti-tech extremist” . I can’t tell you how exciting it was to watch Jira add 2 + 3 . “What can I do to resist AI?” asks the AI Resist List . “Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft are ignoring data controls mandated under California law, researchers say.” “Your AI Slop Bores Me” presents an interface that looks like an LLM chatbot, but it’s entirely powered by humans. A very cute idea. I’m a very bad “image generator”, at least according to the ratings I received. I continue to be amazed by “Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes” . It’s so thorough. RIP to a real one: Wikinews is shutting down after 21 years . Hope you had a good May. ZIP Shrinker , a web app that shrinks ZIP files with higher compression ratios A command line tool to do (completely offline) translation Open Link in Unloaded Tab , a Firefox extension to open links without loading them png-cmp , a command line tool to compare PNG pixel data After over a year of quiet maintenance, I released version 8.2.0 with some small new features and documentation updates. In a step toward dropping GitHub, I moved the docs from a GitHub URL to helmet.js.org . “The vast majority of tech workers, at least those who I have encountered in my many years of reporting, are not vampiric Silicon Valley tech bro caricatures [… They] both like working with tech and ultimately want to see it serve the public good.” From “They just formed the biggest tech worker union in the US. They plan to rein in AI and curb layoffs” . This “love letter to Gnutella” is both an introduction to a P2P protocol and a celebration of the culture around it. From “Affordances for me, but not for thee” : “One of the oddest parts of the AI shift is that people are much more willing to do things for LLMs that they should have been doing for human beings all along.” Accessibility, specifications, documentation, and policies are better codified now. The author calls this “dystopian”, and I agree: our motivation to do this stuff is AI or productivity, not helping our fellow human. “More importantly, whereas accessibility affordances provide new abilities for vulnerable people, an AI affordance provides new abilities for people with power. And that’s probably the heart of it.” Looking forward to being surveilled because I’m an “anti-tech extremist” . I can’t tell you how exciting it was to watch Jira add 2 + 3 . “What can I do to resist AI?” asks the AI Resist List . “Tech companies like Google, Facebook and Microsoft are ignoring data controls mandated under California law, researchers say.” “Your AI Slop Bores Me” presents an interface that looks like an LLM chatbot, but it’s entirely powered by humans. A very cute idea. I’m a very bad “image generator”, at least according to the ratings I received. I continue to be amazed by “Lest We Forget the Horrors: An Unending Catalog of Trump’s Cruelties, Collusions, Corruptions, and Crimes” . It’s so thorough. RIP to a real one: Wikinews is shutting down after 21 years .
In the morning, I saw my daughter off to her school bus stop. I recently came across comedian Atsushi Tamura’s conversational nodding technique and thought it sounded interesting, so I immediately tried it out during some small talk with my mama-tomo (mom friend). The results were instant. The method is simple: completely turn off the critical thinking mindset and pour 100% of my mental energy into active listening and nodding. I focused entirely on how to vary my responses, using things like "Ohh," "Yeah," "Hmm," and "I see." In Japanese, I say 「へぇ」「うん」「うーん」「なるほど〜」. You should really give it a shot—it helps you understand the other person's point much better, and natural follow-up questions or reactions just pop into your head more easily. It takes the pressure off because you don’t have to squeeze out an interesting story of your own. Conversations don't even need a solid conclusion; you can just wrap things up with a "Right, makes sense," "That's great," or "Alright, see you later!" In Japanese, 「そうなんですね」「いいですね」「ほんじゃお疲れ様です〜」. If you're ever stuck on how to respond, just saying "That's great" is super convenient! It works just as well when talking to guys, and I bet it's useful for interview content, too. Love it. The weather was gloomy and I felt sluggish, so I spent some time doing mindless tasks in my room until I could find some motivation, like taking photos of receipts. Once I snap the photos, I send them off to my back-office assistant. I’ll want to replace this process with AI eventually. My receipts are pretty much exclusively from cafes lol. I checked the user forum and saw a reply from the user who reported an Inkdrop bug yesterday. He seemed happy that we were able to track down the cause together. That's great. Moments like this are honestly one of the best parts of being an indie developer. I want to keep doing this until the day I die. After playing with my six-month-old baby for a bit, my motivation kicked in, so I headed to a cafe. I cleared the tasks I’ve left unfinished from yesterday: adding exception handling to the AI features, maintaining plugins, and updating the manuals and API documentation. A guy sitting behind me was loudly holding forth about "how the younger generation leaves messages on 'read' (read-receipt ghosting/既読スルー)." Meanwhile, Claude Code drains the battery, so my PC is already down to half power. It completely ruins the energy efficiency of Apple Silicon. When I stepped out of the cafe, it was pouring rain. It felt nice and cool. I took a walk through the park while figuring out where to grab lunch and decided to check out a bookstore-slash-cafe I'd been curious about: Calo Bookshop & Cafe / Calo Gallery . I ordered the chicken curry. I noticed that a lot of the books on display seemed to blend art and politics. Just as I was thinking the themes and designs of the books were a bit quirky, I realized they were ZINEs. That made total sense. The curry was good. Only one other customer came in during my stay, and he left quickly. By the time I walked out, the rain had stopped. Time to head back. The atmospheric low pressure is making me feel heavy. My eldest daughter was already home from kindergarten, and I ended up taking a whole one-hour nap. That was unexpected, hmm. She then left for her gymnastics class. Last week, one of my users Adrián shared his Claude Code Skills with me, which uses Inkdrop as a persistence layer. While checking it out, I remembered a blog post by Nolan Lawson (PouchDB author) I read yesterday titled " Using AI to write better code more slowly " and tweeted about it in Japanese . I like his point of view so much. He mentioned Matt Pocok's , which is included in Adrián’s Skills as well. Since Nolan runs his AI agents in parallel (Claude sub-agent, Codex, and Cursor Bugbot), I wanted to try doing that myself, so I downloaded and set up Antigravity CLI, which is a replacement for Gemini CLI. Lately, I've been really liking a Neovim plugin called . I suddenly remembered that I had added a small feature to it the other day, so I sent a PR . By evening, my daughter returned from gymnastics. My focus ended—time to cook dinner. For dinner, I boiled some pasta I bought last weekend from the Italian Fair held at the Hankyu Umeda. It was thick pasta that looked sort of like dreadlocks, and it tasted great. It makes me want to visit Italy again. I use Claude Code in English every day, and today I learned the word "idempotent" (冪等性). For example: "Make this event handler idempotent." Meaning: make it so that no matter how many times you run this event handler, the outcome remains exactly the same. 冪等 is also a difficult word in Japanese. Lately, I've been listening to Laura day romance almost exclusively. The literary lyrics combined with the melancholic vocals and expressions make for a really chill vibe. Tonight, I’m going to read a bit more of a polar explorer Daisuke Kakuhata’s book, The 43-Year-Old Peak Theory , and head to bed. Good night.
The Ringer journalist Brian Phillips asked on Bluesky : I’m working on a column about the tech annoyances that drive us crazy, and I want it to be as universal as possible, so tell me yours! E.g. scanning a QR code to read a menu, never receiving the one-time passcode they supposedly texted you, “verify you’re human” by IDing tiny motorcycles, etc. There are already many responses. I am drafting behind Phillips before he even writes his essay, because I like occasionally checking in with people this way. Not just for commiserating; perhaps scanning the answers will also give you some inspiration, or validation, or quotes for something you can push to make better, wherever you are. Some patterns I noticed: The way super sketchy bootleg websites used to look (written in questionable English, 2/3 of the window overtaken by ads, constant popups and redirects, incorrect information more often than not) is just how all websites are now. Also, this little beauty : My toaster says to unplug when not in use. It also has a digital clock that resets when I unplug it. #enshittification #software evolution A lot of logging in woes: password requirements, bouncing people from apps to web to log in, login flows forgetting context, “I trusted this device” settings you cannot trust. “Local news websites that crash under the weight of all their pop-up ads and auto-play videos.” This post had a great take: Hatred of QR codes, or perhaps what they represent: needing to install an app, removing people out of the equation, introducing phones where they weren’t needed before. Surprisingly little AI. Is that because of the audience or the way the question was phrased?
One of the just-so stories we keep hearing about AI is that it’s inevitable, that the technology is here and will continue to be here, and we better get on board or get left behind. These stories have the ring of a threat because they are, explicitly and otherwise, threatening. They are also familiar . Fear that there may be no alternative to the will of the AI arise because we have been told for decades that there is no alternative to neoliberalism, that there is no alternative to the mediation of all society by profit-driven markets, no alternative to the universal power of private self-interest that continually tries not to better the world, but to maximize it’s own profit and hence power. Stories about the “promises and perils” of AI ring true, not because the AI is poised to hunt all of us down, but because the stories reflect real experiences of technology, capitalism, and ideology; they reflect the capitalist developments of the incomprehensibility of technology, the invisibilization of labor, enclosures, proliferating neoliberal bureaucracies, and the sense that there is no alternative to capitalism and the status quo. Blix & Glimmer, Why We Fear AI , page 56 In other words, the threat isn’t so much that AI is inevitable as that the ongoing—and likely expanding—immiseration of workers is unstoppable. This is the subtext of the strange and conflicted messaging that we get from the hype men: when they say that you better learn AI or be left behind, they are admitting that a great many people will be left behind. And if you—smart and clever and hardworking person that you are—are somehow able to make it to the other side of the line, you’re supposed to find relief or pride at having done so, and not horror at all the people suffering in your wake. You’re supposed to be as uncaring as the capital that uses you. But getting through this gauntlet is no guarantee of getting through the next one—and there will be a next one, because the plain aim of the technocrats is to immiserate everyone, eventually. From the capitalist perspective, anyone with skills enough to negotiate a comfortable wage is a cost in need of cutting. Add to that the fact that AI’s whole pitch is that the more you use it, the more data it gathers, the more likely it becomes capable of mimicking you well enough to convince the fools above you that it can do your job. So get-in-or-get-left-behind is something of a trick—everyone is left behind, eventually. Which is both terrifying and clarifying. Terrifying in that the capitalists really do have the ability to do us harm—they have been doing so, already. Clarifying in that there really isn’t any reason to stay on the path they’ve laid out for us. It leads nowhere good. Meanwhile, there aren’t very many people up ahead, and there are a whole lot of us back here. Let’s see what we can do. View this post on the web , subscribe to the newsletter , or reply via email .
During a discussion in the Retronaut podcast episode on Duke Nukem 3D , the podcast hosts and invitees thought back to the first time they came in contact with the Duke. Most of them first played the shareware edition—something that Apogee and 3D Realms made very good use of—on the family computer . Intrigued by those two words, I started thinking: what’s a family computer? It’s certainly not Nintendo’s Famicom even though that indeed correctly abbreviates the words. No, the computer wasn’t a console you’d hook onto your television set: it was a separate piece of furniture placed somewhere centrally in the house for all family members to access. More importantly, it was the only computer in the house. That thought bears repeating: the only computational machine with a central processing unit, dedicated memory, expansion slots, and a (very) heavy monitor in the house. How many computers do you have lying around in yours now? We have 2 personal laptops, 1 old but still functioning one, 2 work laptops not owned by us, and 3 retro PCs: that’s eight in total—but none of those could be called a family computer. I don’t want my wife to touch my MacBook: she has her own where she can make a mess on. Joey doesn’t share foo—ahem, laptops. In the early nineties, my dad bought our first family computer: a super modern 80486 with 40 Mhz that back then cost (more than twice the amount of what my father in law paid for his in 1994 ). Taking inflation into account, that’s more than . Needless to say, it was a huge investment and every little bit of usage was squeezed out of it in the following years. I even remember my dad driving to Brussels to fetch it, presumably because in our neighbourhood there was no-one making a similar offer? That 486 became the family computer: it was used by everyone. My eldest sister and I were small kids and my youngest sister was still a toddler so more than playing edutainment DOS games initially didn’t happen. When the Pentium arrived and the Voodoo 3Dfx cards came along, my dad couldn’t resist upgrading. He even got into overclocking (and blew up one of our graphics cards along the way). I started showing even more interest in that mesmerising beige machine. When I moved on to high school and got my Christian confirmation, my parents bought me my very own computer. Finally I could mess around without fearing the loss of important bookkeeping files and other things I wasn’t allowed to touch on the family computer downstairs. That must have been in 1997 or 1998: the beginning of the end of the family computer. Why ask to play on the family computer when I have my own? I still did because my dad’s PC was more powerful and he liked to keep it upgraded. I initially couldn’t play early 3D platformers (e.g. PlayStation ports like Pandemonium!) because a Voodoo card was expensive and we only had one. As years flew by during that period of extremely rapid hardware invention, that difference disappeared. The family computer became my dad’s computer. My sisters got their own desktop PCs. In other words, computing individualism became affordable. The family PC in the kitchen or living room moved out to the private study. In In Defense of the Family Computer , Niklas Barning predicts that with prices of RAM and general hardware going up again, the family computer might return. He writes: Back in the day, a computer was something so special and expensive that you only had one, and it was set up in a way that everyone had access to it. Dropping easily qualifies as “special and expensive”. But buying a new MacBook with 344686 TB RAM and 3482354 M4 CPUs only costs you nowadays. When turning our attention to cars, you can see the same evolution: the single family car got turned into mom’s car and dad’s car (or even the son/daughter’s car) appeared on the driveway as well. Another victory for capitalism and individualism—I’ll leave it as an exercise for the reader to figure out their relationship. Or how about the single family TV that gradually leaked to children’s (and parent’s) bedrooms and now is so pervasive that small children like ours know that you can watch anything on a phone? I have mixed feelings about the history of the family computer. It is thanks to that machine that I now am what I am, but it is also thanks to its decline that I retreated more often than not to my room to game, program, or do other naughty computery stuff. The social aspect that sparked conversation died along with it. Or at least moved to ICQ and then MSN . By Wouter Groeneveld on 26 May 2026. Reply via email .
While I was at the conference, my wife explored Brussels on her own. As you might know, she doesn't have a smartphone, and the only similar thing she has is a tablet with only WiFi capabilities. Public WiFi is more and more common, but you can still walk half the city without a connection. I asked her to document her experience, as I think most people would like to rely on their smartphone a lot during travels in another country in a city they have never been to before, even just to use live map navigation or spontaneously searching for the next café or restaurant that fits their needs. This is not meant to be a " dumbphone superior, touch grass " post; obviously, in today's world, the above circumstance is needlessly cumbersome. But I still wanted to give insight into it, and maybe it inspires less smartphone dependence during travels, relying more on your intuition and environment to navigate, or reassures you when the battery runs out. In the end, you still have signs and strangers to help. Once again the Dumb Phone-Wife rears her pretty Head to bless you with Tales of her pre-smart Life in a post-smart World and her Capitalisation-Idiosyncracy. Hello once more, esteemed Readers! As you've read before my Wife and I just were in Brussels for a few Days. As Ava was busy from Morning till Evening on every Day that left me with a lot of Time to spend on my own. This is not going to be a Travel report of my own though, you will be able to find that on my own Blog later this Week. Instead, Ava asked me to write a Guest Post for her Blog, about how I navigate being on my own in a new City, getting where I want to go and finding out what I need to know — as always without Smartphone nor mobile Data. One of the hardest Aspects of it is indeed literal Navigation. Most People today rely heavily on having an accurate and reliable GPS-Device in the Form of their Smartphone on their Person at all Times to find there Way around while out and about. Which I freely admit is an immensely practical and helpful Tool — but in my Eyes more nice-to-have than essential. I am not so old-fashioned that I would insist on using printed Maps or written Directions, rather I am taking the middle Way there. My Tablet luckily has the Feature to download set Areas of Maps for Offline-Use, which comes in very handy whenever I am alone and need to find my Way to Places. So what I usually do is save the Map of an Area, in this Case the Brussels-Region, and then use it to generate the Routes I need. Without GPS there obviously is no real Live-Tracking of my Position, it tells me roughly where I am though, based on WiFi-Networks in the Vicinity though (I'm not entirely sure why this works and it is a bit bewildering, but can't deny it being useful from Time to Time either). So I mainly use it to unburden myself of having to decide on Routes myself, as I can horribly indecisive about that, and tell me how for it will be. Then when following these Routes I'll have a Step-by-Step Instruction and to compensate the Lack of Livetracking I just pay heightened Attention to Roadsigns, Landmarks/Businesses along the Way and if I am going by Car actually my Mileage-Counter too, to know when a certain Distance until the next Turn/Exit/etc. will be over. To avoid having to give those Instructions any more Attention than absolutely necessary (Eyes on the Road!) I also thoroughly go through these Routes beforehand and try to memorise them as good as possible. Not Error-free and perfect, but also does help a Lot to make it easier and prepares me for what to expect on the Journey. Of course I still get lost...occasionally..., but so far this only every was a minor Annoyance and Delay, not an actual Problem. One Situation that comes to Mind during the recent Trip was when I had to use a specific Motorway Access, but the next Junction came so quickly, that I couldn't react on Time — so I had to drive until the next Exit and then get back on in the opposite Direction, inconvenient, but no big Deal. Generally when I'm driving alone I am very laidback about these Kind of Situations, and Motorways at least are very simple in their Layout and Direction most of the Time. Missing a Turn or taking the wrong one in the City tends to be more of a Hassle, because there is more Traffic and you get to Experience People's Impatience more directly, but even then I consider myself quite good at keeping an Overview what Street I should be on and then just try to get back en Route. Doesn't work flawlessly every Time, especially when I'm not very familiar with the Area. I never get really lost though thanks to the Map, and if it becomes too confusing, I can just use a long red Phase at a Traffic Light or stop on the Side of the Road to re-orient myself. Usually works just fine, and eventually I get where I want too without too much Issue. Another very present Aspect of being in a new City without a Smartphone is finding out about Places you want to go to to begin with. As both Ava and I are vegan and we have to consider some Allergies this is not merely a Matter of Sightseeing or Shopping, but more so relevant for finding Places to eat at that fulfill our Requirements, after all most Places still are not at a Point yet where we could just walk into any Food Establishment and expect to find something for us there. The Website Happy Cow is an absolute Lifesaver there, as it is probably the easiest and most reliable Way to find out about Restaurants with vegan Options in any given Area. On this Trip we used it extensively too, even wrote down a List of interesting sounding Restaurants, Cafés, Pâtisseries, etc. with their respective Adresses ahead of the Trip. In the End we didn't go to all of them (wasn't my Plan anyway, I'm always in Favour of some Redundancy) and also went to some that weren't on the List, but once again just being prepared helps a lot. One Thing I noted in Brussels is that there were relatively few public WiFi-Networks available. This is not necessarily a Problem, but it did stick out to me. Compared with Germany, where every bigger City seems to have their own public Hotspots in the City Center to use (which I am not above at all). Meanwhile the only one I encountered there, that wasn't affiliated with a specific Business was one in the Ravensteingalerij, which is basically a Shopping Centre, so not a really a public Service as the ones here are either. Stores and Restaurants also seemed to have their own public WiFi less often than I am used to here either, but I can't say that as definitely, because that might have just been my subjective Experience there. As I said, this is not a Problem per se, but given how here I reliably have constant Access to WiFi at least in the central Pedestrian Mainstreets and there basically not at all, I did also had to figure that into my Planning, which mostly meant preparing more thoroughly while still at the "Hotel" (for the Quotation Marks see Ava's Post). Which might have been a bit more restrictive if I had intended to be more explorative of the City and had wanted to look around more than I did this Time, thanks to Heat, hurting Feet and other Reasons. So I mostly limited my solo Endeavours to a few specific Target Locations and was satisfied with that. All in all, I would not claim that navigating a new (and big!) City without constant Internet Connection and GPS is not harder than with a Smartphone, but it is definitely very doable with good Preparation, a bit of Creativity and being able to think on your Heels at least occasionally. It is a bit of a Challenge, and I would even assume that it did not get easier in the Years since Smartphones became ubiquitous, most of it is just a Matter of Habit and easily learned Skills though. I would say I am faring pretty well with it and get by just fine. P.S. Not related to the Topic at all, but recently I realised that modern Dumbphones don't seem to have Holes to attach Charms at all, which is a bit sad! That was it! :) Reply via email Published 26 May, 2026
The Vatican has just released Leo XIV’s Encyclical, Magnifica Humanitas , and I figured I would read through and give my commentary on such a pivotal document in the era of “AI” and the continual lockstep toward dehumanizing all of humanity. I sit at an interesting crossroads between Catholicism and Technology, and try every day to reconcile the two in the way that I work - so this will be a interesting deep dive. Sit back, grab a coffee, and let’s read. I will provide my commentary below as I read through the various sections of the Encyclical. I was going to read the whole thing on stream, but it’s 42,000 words long, so will just provide the highlights as I read. I’ll provide quotes and things that stuck out to me, as well as my personal thoughts. I have seen so many surface level takes on Twitter that I wrote a piece about primary sources and the slew of opinion in the modern world . How many people have actually read this piece? I would hazard to guess very few. People think that the Pope is now on the board of Anthropic, or that the Vatican is now investing in this stuff. I kid you not. But, I digress. Immediately, the Tower of Babel is mentioned, and discussion of the role of humanity as the steward of the gift that is this life and world toward the Greatest Good. Every era is a unique opportunity for all to build it’s own collapsing tower to the “heavens” without God, and AI is the tower being built currently. Humanity has the potential in it’s own right to grow toward fullness, and the distraction/lie is that AI will help us to grow in that direction. Quite the opposite. We are living the greatest story ever written, and as characters in the book, we can be active participants in the outcome, by acting in accordance with that which is written for each and every one of us. Everyone has a role to play, in communion with Christ we can can overcome those challenges. There are real implications here and now to the teachings of the Gospel, and we can find the intersection of Heaven and Earth here and now, it is “already, not yet” - in that we actively create a better or worse world. Science and the Church are not at odds, rather science and faith are two paths up the same mountain, all things done in honest pursuit of The Truth are part of the same conversation and journey. The Church has great history with the sciences, and the teachings are not inert - just like Christ is alive today so too are the teachings. Technology has always had the ability to free or to enslave. In the cases of social media and the internet, we have slowly been building the cage for ourselves, and LLMs are an overt caging of the human ability and creative nature if we so allow it to become. There was someone trying to argue that “we” need to “win” the AI race on twitter the other day, to which I simply replied “who is we?” The only team I want to be a part of is the team that understands that “winning at all costs” is no way to win at all. The only team to be on is team Humanity here. When there are a couple trillion dollar companies that control the entire narrative and advancement, that is not “we”. Where are we going? This is the first person I have seen ask the simple question. The idea that we should just progress for progresses’ sake is no goal at all. “Just because we can” is not a reason. “Someone else will do it” is not a reason. These are the real questions we need be asking, unless we want to destroy ourselves. Pope Leo then contrasts the Tower of Babel with he rebuilding of the walls of Jerusalem. The project of the Tower was a project without the reference to God, as a “human achievement” rather than done for His Glory and does the opposite of unifying humanity - it scatters it. The aim to reach Heaven without God is a failing idea, one that is reflected in technological advances time and time again. Technology is not a cure all, nor is it intrinsically evil, it amplifies and takes on the human characteristics of the creators. Just as nothing is perfect created by man, so too are the technologies that we create - it is the means to an end, but the End must always remain forefront. We run the risk of dehumanizing our fellow man with technology. I have seen it myself in that one can replace real relationships with communication protocols, but they don’t make up for real face to face interactions, sitting together discussing the intricacies and depths of this life. relationship with God. It means recognizing that the truth of his love calls us to life “in all its fullness” ( Jn 10<10>) and communion with him. Like Saint Augustine, we too can say, “You have made us for yourself, O Lord, and our heart is restless until it rests in you.” [8] Indeed, God has inscribed in our hearts a desire for happiness that embraces all the dimensions of life. The Church, in dialogue with the men and women of our time, recognizes the urgent need to safeguard and guide this aspiration toward its deepest truth. I would make the argument that we are innately incapable of building the Cathedrals of old today not because we don’t have the ability, but because we don’t have the collective goal, the collective pursuit of the transcendent. When something is made to orientate toward the Infinite, you feel it in your being, and we by and far incapable of this today unless we do a hard u-turn toward that which is eternally true. Today, the human desire for fullness of life is at risk of being misled by deceitful goals, such as the prospect of a technology that promises to free us from all weakness, and models of wellbeing that leave behind entire populations. All too often, we place our hope in unlimited “upgrades,” in forms of progress that exacerbate inequalities, and in immediate solutions incapable of healing people’s wounds. The human being is capable of Sainthood - every single person is. What we actually do by alleviating (perceived) suffering is that we take away the potential to realize this end. In the era of artificial intelligence, when human dignity is threatened by new forms of dehumanization, ours is the pressing duty to remain profoundly human. True progress always stems from a heart open to others, an intelligence willing to listen and a will that seeks what unites rather than what separates. contribution of individual popes and their most relevant documents, we do not first clarify some fundamental principles concerning the way in which the Church exists in history and relates to the world. Failing to do so would expose Social Doctrine to the risk of being perceived as an undue interference in “worldly” matters or as an external code of ethics imposed from above. In reality, it stems from a Church that walks alongside humanity, recognizing the autonomy of earthly realities and the distinction between ecclesial and political communities. Indeed, it is for this very reason that she strives to serve the common good. The Church does not coerce those to believe but to provide a guidance in worldly matters, for all things can be sacramental. This is a realization I have had in that life is a sacrament, the way in which we conduct ourselves permits us to see God more clearly or to shroud Him away. The Church is a vessel on which we step to journey through time to go beyond. The Church regards all who sincerely seek “truth, goodness and beauty” as companions on the journey, and considers them as “precious allies” [12] in defending the dignity of every person and in caring for creation. Much of this is setting the stage of Catholic social teaching and why the Church takes stances due to previous teaching so I will skip ahead to Chapter Three in which Pope Leo discusses Artificial Intelligence directly. Gospel is not established once and for all, but remains a task entrusted, from generation to generation, to the Christian community. Under the guidance of the Holy Spirit, the Church allows herself to be enlightened by God’s word, reads the signs of the times and creatively seeks new ways for relationships between peoples and nations to become ever more conformed to the demands of the Kingdom of God. [118] For this reason, I encourage all members of the Church not to be afraid of the present challenges, but to listen to one another and firmly embrace their responsibilities in building a more humane and fraternal society. With all the fear mongering about loss of jobs, etc. calling one to not be afraid and to face the challenges that abound is a stance which I can get behind. recognized by Saint Paul VI, who warned that “the most extraordinary scientific progress, the most astounding technical feats and the most amazing economic growth, unless accompanied by authentic moral and social progress, will in the long run go against man.” [121] For this reason, technological progress — valuable in itself — requires careful discernment of the anthropological vision that guides it and the ends it pursues. If technological development advances without a corresponding ethical and social progress, the result may be an increase in means without a growth in humanity: “having more” without “being more.” In such a scenario, there is a risk that individuals will be evaluated principally according to the outcomes they produce. [122] within the digital context, control over platforms, infrastructure, data and computing power does not rest with States, but with major economic and technological actors. These entities effectively set the conditions for access, determine the rules of visibility and shape the very possibilities for participation. When such power is concentrated in the hands of a few, it tends to become opaque and evade public oversight, increasing the risk of distorted forms of development that give rise to new dependencies, exclusions, manipulations and inequalities. discernment in this new situation are the noble principles of Social Doctrine: the inalienable dignity of the human person, the common good, the universal destination of goods, subsidiarity, solidarity and social justice. They demand that we assess whether the power of digital infrastructures and algorithms truly fosters participation and responsibility, protects the vulnerable, ensures fair access to opportunities and remains directed toward the good of all. On this basis, we can now examine more closely what artificial intelligence is, the possibilities it opens up and the risks it entails. Correct. Which is why the internet as it was conceived was an interesting project and allowed for the freeing from institutional influence much of the knowledge of the world, and platforms go directly against this in locking away and censorship of ideas. I would argue the future of the internet is the past of the internet - back to open, freedom respecting protocols. And, to the core part, on Artificial Intelligence: There is no such thing as “artificial” intelligence - we are training models on human intelligence - and as such, all intelligence is human would be my initial thoughts. And, would you look at that: nor to give an overview of the extensive relevant literature, since authoritative contributions already exist, including within the ecclesial context. [123] I limit myself to recalling a few essential elements for a moral and social discernment that safeguards the primacy of the human person, in order to ensure that it will always be human intelligence, with its conscience and freedom, that guides technical innovations and responsibly determines their use and limits. however, is that we must avoid the misconception of equating this type of “intelligence” with that of human beings. These systems merely imitate certain functions of human intelligence. In doing so, they often surpass human intelligence in speed and computational capacity, offering tangible benefits across many fields. Yet this power remains entirely tied to data processing. So-called artificial intelligences do not undergo experiences, do not possess a body, do not feel joy or pain, do not mature through relationships and do not know from within what love, work, friendship or responsibility mean. Nor do they have a moral conscience, since they do not judge good and evil, grasp the ultimate meaning of situations, or bear responsibility for consequences. They may imitate language, behavior and analytical skills, or even simulate empathy and understanding, but they do not understand what they produce, for they lack the affective, relational and spiritual perspective through which human beings grow in wisdom. Even when these tools are described as capable of “learning,” their way of doing so is different from that of a human person. It is not the experience of those who allow themselves to be shaped by life and grow over time through choices, mistakes, forgiveness and fidelity. Rather, it is a form of statistical adaptation based on data and feedback, which can be very effective, but does not imply inner growth. It is paramount that we agree on this, otherwise we risk creating “persons” out of computational systems. The moment we do that, we have lost the plot, and we will invoke perhaps the greatest human suffering ever. The issue that occurs here is that those that are “building” these systems are not coming at it from a discernment at all, they are shoehorning in and trying to “accelerate” just because they can. George Hotz was once of that camp, and has recently changed his tune drastically. That is not to say that LLMs don’t offer tangible benefits. They do. One can be both a naysayer and LLM user (I am one myself!) But we cannot get disillusioned with technology into thinking it is something that it is not. at the same time, why it calls for a measured and vigilant approach. In recent years, its private use has expanded significantly, prompting growing reflection on both the opportunities it offers and the risks tied to its rapid spread. In personal use, three aspects in particular deserve careful consideration: the ease with which results are obtained, the impression of objectivity and the simulation of human communication. The speed and simplicity with which information, complex analyses, media content and practical assistance can be accessed undoubtedly makes life easier. Yet they can also encourage excessive reliance and the search for ready-made answers, and weaken personal creativity and judgment. The apparent objectivity of the responses and suggestions these systems provide can lead us to overlook the fact that they reflect the cultural assumptions of those who designed and trained them, with all their strengths and limitations. The artificial imitation of positive human communication — words of advice, empathy, friendship and even love — can be engaging and at times genuinely helpful. However, for less discerning users, it can also be misleading, creating the illusion of a relationship with a real personal subject. When words are simulated, they do not build genuine relationships, but only their appearance. The artificial imitation of care or support can become particularly risky when it enters contexts where real relationships and emotional bonds are lacking. Here, the danger is not so much that a person may believe they are communicating with another person, but rather that they may gradually lose the very desire to form genuine human connections. In the next section, Leo discusses how AI systems are built with implicit biases and limitations. This cannot be understated. In addition, the sycophantic nature of these systems in their incessant validation of the user is potentially detrimental to the mental health of some users. without anyone bearing responsibility for that judgment, is to hand over the task of redefining the boundaries of human possibilities. In this process, political responsibility is also lost, not just empathy toward those excluded, which can, after all, be simulated. The exclusion of the vulnerable becomes cloaked in a veneer of neutrality and objectivity, against which it becomes difficult to raise objections. In this way, injustice goes unnoticed, and compassion, mercy and forgiveness — understood not as mere appearances but as real political actions — gradually disappear from view. We risk in having “AI” be the final word on anything to create a sterile hellhole. Because Grok said so is now the way we have conversations, dunking on one another instead of compassionately reaching shared conclusion. clearly defined at every stage: from those who design and develop these systems to those who use them and rely on them for concrete decisions. In many cases, however, the internal processes leading to a result remain opaque, making it harder to assign responsibility and correct errors. This is where accountability becomes crucial: the possibility of identifying who must “account” for decisions, justify them, monitor them, and, when necessary, challenge them and remedy any harm caused. [127] does not mean opposing progress; instead, it is an exercise of responsible care for the human family. This need is all the more urgent given the frequent imbalance between the speed of technological growth and the slower development of awareness, norms, safeguards and institutions capable of governing its effects. It is not enough to invoke ethics in the abstract; robust legal frameworks, independent oversight, informed users and a political system that does not abdicate its responsibility are required. Otherwise, change will be governed only by technocratic thinking and presented as necessary and inevitable, ultimately imposing rules shaped by those who control data, infrastructure and computing power. The call for disarmament of AI systems is one which needs to be universally held - the moment you trust a system to make a decision for you, you end up double tapping a girl’s school in Iran . And, you will be accountable in eternity for that decision. Autonomous weapons are the responsibility of their creators, this is not the same as an inanimate object being used for ill. our central question: what does it mean to safeguard our humanity? The risk extends beyond the misuse of certain technologies. More gravely, the pervasive technocratic paradigm in which we are immersed, and that is amplified by the digital revolution and AI, threatens to normalize an anti-human vision. In that vision, the fullness of life is equated with having more, reducing weakness, eliminating uncertainty and exerting total control. When efficiency becomes the ultimate measure of value, human beings are tempted to see themselves as a project to be optimized rather than as persons called to relationship and communion. This is the battlecry of many - to optimize. At the expense of one’s humanity. To the point of “leaving humanity behind” in the transhumanist sense. To “enhance” humanity “beyond itself”. technology as such, but the vision that underlies it. If the human being is treated as something to be perfected or surpassed, it becomes easier to accept that some lives are less useful, less desirable or less worthy. In the name of progress, “necessary sacrifices” may begin to be justified, placing the burden on the most vulnerable in pursuit of a supposed optimization of the species. In this regard, the aforementioned warning of Saint Paul VI retains great foresight: indeed, scientific and technological advances, when detached from moral and social progress, end up turning against humanity. [130] For this reason, a clear distinction must be made. It is one thing to integrate technology within a human-centered, relational vision; it is quite another to be guided by an outlook that devalues human limits and promises a purely technical form of “salvation.” The limit, the heart and the grandeur of the human person “limit” — incapacity, illness, old age, suffering, vulnerability — tends to be seen primarily as a defect to be corrected, rather than as a reality through which our humanity matures and opens itself to relationship. And yet we must remember that humanity flourishes not despite limitations, but often through them. The light of faith offers a perspective on reality that helps us recognize what we call the “contingency” of the things of this world. While it is right to strive to alleviate the suffering that marks human life, it is also wise to acknowledge our fundamental finitude, knowing that “religious experience, and in particular Christian faith, propose that we live, without oversimplification, this ambivalence between human greatness and limitation, interpreting it in the light of our original and fundamental relationship with God.” [131] Suffering allows a place where we have collective understanding. To stop all suffering would be to stop living itself. I know that this is difficult to comprehend, but suffering creates spiritual growth; were it not for my own personal suffering, I would be a materialist atheist. It allows us to be compassionate, to be loving of one another, in effect, to be human. deny or suppress it, but to integrate it. To eliminate suffering entirely would mean, in the end, extinguishing love and desire as well. Those who love and desire cannot avoid passing through trial and suffering; and over the years, we carry within us lessons that leave their mark like scars, the memories of a journey shaped by freedom and failure, dreams and disappointments. It is only thanks to the interplay of these elements that the wonders of the soul occur within us, allowing us to sense the richness of our humanity. [132] To renounce this adventure, both tragic and splendid, in the name of a presumed transcendence of all limits, could mean many things, but it would no longer be human. God and others. Indeed, precisely because we experience limits — vulnerability, suffering and failure — we can recognize the inviolable dignity of every person, both our own and that of others. In this same experience, we remain capable of intuiting a fraternity greater than ourselves and of perceiving injustice as a scandal. Authentic culture and art preserve this spark, resisting the normalization of evil. The endgoal of humanity should be to be fully human - something that is increasingly rare in this day and age. Self transcendence is what is the common goal: centuries, the Christian tradition has maintained that human beings are not confined by the boundaries of their own nature; rather, they are called to self-transcendence, not through an escape from reality or a contempt for their limitations, but through their fulfillment in love. Faith recognizes an openness toward the “beyond,” which originates as a gift from God. This transformation is a work of the Holy Spirit. As Saint Thomas Aquinas taught, this process of elevation and transformation “surpasses every capability of created nature,” [134] for an infinite disparity separates our finite nature from the life of God. [135] Nevertheless, it remains possible to enter into the heart of that inexhaustible life, even as we journey through the limitations of this world. The one who makes this passage possible can only be the Eternal One who gives of himself. Indeed, it is God himself who overcomes the “infinite” disproportion. [136] In him, the re-creation of the human person happens. “If anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new” ( 2 Cor 5<17>). deny our nature, nor do we become less human. On the contrary, as Pope Francis explained, “We become fully human when we become more than human, when we let God bring us beyond ourselves in order to attain the fullest truth of our being.” [137] Herein lies the radical departure from Promethean dreams: what saves humanity is not enhanced self-sufficiency, but a relationship that liberates, a communion that transforms. In this light, a technology that merely classifies and optimizes what already exists can, however unintentionally, become an obstacle to change and growth. For an algorithm, an error is a flaw to be corrected; for a person, however, an error can be a catalyst for profound change. A person’s future is not calculable, but depends on one’s freedom — elevated by the inexhaustible grace of God — and on the relationships cultivated. and realism, and grounds them within a higher vocation. The creative intelligence of humanity is a gift that can alleviate suffering and open up new possibilities, but it must remain ordered toward the common good, justice, the care of the vulnerable and creation. In this sense, the true alternative is not between enthusiasm and fear, but between two paths of development: a progress that serves individuals and peoples, or a progress that subjects them to the mentality of power. Ultimately, the key question remains the one posed by Saint John Paul II: does AI “make human life on earth ‘more human’ in every aspect of that life? Does it make it more worthy of man?” [138] If the answer is yes, then we can recognize it as an opportunity to be embraced responsibly, on a path of patient, shared reconstruction, akin to the rebuilding of Jerusalem narrated in the Book of Nehemiah. If, however, power grows while the heart withers and human bonds fray, then we are faced with a new form of Babel — a construction that is grandiose, yet fundamentally dehumanizing. ultimately a matter of examining our own hearts. The way we understand and shape relationships, work and institutions, in practice reveals our fundamental values. In the end, it all stems from what we hold most dear. This is a love that guides us as to what we truly cherish, both as individuals and as a society, and directs our lives and actions. Saint Augustine described human history as a struggle between two loves, which give rise to two ways of inhabiting the world and living together — or two “cities,” as it were: on the one hand, the love of God and neighbor; on the other, the exclusive love of self. “Two loves have built two cities: the earthly city, the love of self even to the contempt of God; the heavenly city, the love of God even to the contempt of self.” [139] As throughout history, these two loves continue to contend for dominance in our hearts today. The age of AI is no exception: the construction of Babel or the rebuilding of Jerusalem begins within each one of us. This is the crux of the issue - we are attacking our very humanity with these technologies without questioning if it is Good or not. political communication. Tools that could foster dialogue and participation are often used to construct distorted narratives and blur the boundaries between truth and falsehood, mixing facts with opinions. Disinformation did not begin with AI, yet today it finds a powerful amplifier in AI. The ability to manipulate content, images and videos exposes people to biased or misleading perspectives. This problem has both cultural and moral dimensions, since the quality of public communication depends directly on social trust and, in turn, shapes it. At the same time, truthful information does not arise from centralized or automated control. In public discourse, the truth of facts has a rational dimension, as it requires verification, cross-checking of sources and responsible argumentation. Moreover, it is deeply relational, built through bonds of trust and shared practices, as well as an honest exchange with others and with the world. Only the shared pursuit of the veracity of facts, perceived as a common good, can provide a solid foundation for just communication. human capital for intervention, possess significant capabilities for influencing cultural change. Ultimately, they can influence a significant number of people concerning the truth about humanity, the world, the meaning of existence, the family and even God. This is pure power detached from truth, which subtly or overtly imposes what it wishes others to accept as true. At its root lies a deeper and often unrecognized “sickness”: the fact that “modern man is wrongly convinced that he is the sole author of himself, his life and society. This is a presumption that follows from being selfishly closed in upon himself.” [140] Consequently, people believe that they can construct reality, and that whatever best suits their claims corresponds to what is true. Saint John Paul II reflected on the consequences of this “crisis of truth,” going so far as to state that “once the idea of a universal truth about the good, knowable by human reason, is lost, inevitably the notion of conscience also changes.” [141] In such a context, universally valid truths, which precede us and which conscience must accept, are no longer recognized. This led Pope Francis to ask with realism: “What is law without the conviction, born of age-old reflection and great wisdom, that each human being is sacred and inviolable?” To which he concluded: “If society is to have a future, it must respect the truth of our human dignity and submit to that truth. Murder is not wrong simply because it is socially unacceptable and punished by law, but because of a deeper conviction. This is a non-negotiable truth attained by the use of reason and accepted in conscience. A society is noble and decent, not least for its support of the pursuit of truth and its adherence to the most basic of truths.” [142] Social media first did this, and we have not learned anything. The issue is that AI systems have ubiquity, and the attempt to strong arm them everywhere as we are seeing with Google et al. is going to blur the lines of truth. Much of this is echoing in history, yet on a global scale, one which can impact every single person alive today. The will to power is not Truth. This is a realization that must come to all that seek Truth. Our culture is obsessed with trying to create “our own reality” - but in order to actually see reality, we have to submit ourselves to Him. We are living in a time in which many would argue that truth doesn’t matter, or that it is what we make it, and that is dangerous, indeed. of information, but it is also the creation of a culture.” [144] The content that circulates within digital environments shapes how people perceive the world and introduces into the collective consciousness images and narratives that direct our desires and influence our daily choices. This is “not a parallel or purely virtual world,” [145] since what originates online now becomes a part of people’s lives, especially of the youngest. In times past, the internet was not so ingrained in every day life, but more and more, we believe what we see online to be true. With the advent of deepfakes and video created by artificial intelligence, we will not know what actually is . We will devolve into a world which is completely devoid of truth if we continue down this path. What you consume will consume you. communication strategies, the field of education assumes decisive importance. Yet rapid technological transformations reveal just how unprepared we are on the educational level. The pervasiveness of digital media fosters a culture of immediacy and hyper-stimulation, which gives rise to fatigue, boredom and apathy concerning the effort required for seeking the truth. development and for engagement with reality beyond appearances. This is a fundamental issue because every technology shapes those who use it. Educating people about the use of AI, then, involves teaching them to decide when and for what purpose it ought not to be used. The speed and ease with which answers or summaries can be obtained risk extinguishing the desire to ask questions, which is a process that bears fruit only over time. As Plato wrote, the deepest and most important things are learned only after much time and effort, by engaging in discussion with others, “striking upon” ideas and experiences together like flint until the spark of understanding is kindled within us. [147] We must learn, then, how to exercise restraint in the use of AI and to protect our young people from the promise of the perfect machine, from that subtle temptation which renders human thought seemingly superfluous precisely when it is most needed. insistence how early and unsupervised exposure to digital devices and social media can negatively impact sleep, attention span, control of emotions and relationships, especially during the most vulnerable stages of life, at times with tragic consequences. This is further aggravated by easy access to violent or degrading content that offends sensibility, to pornographic and hypersexualized material, to messages that trivialize the body and emotions, and to proposals that normalize risky behavior. Online phenomena such as grooming, blackmail and the sexual exploitation of minors are not uncommon, and are made more insidious by the use of fake profiles, algorithms that facilitate dangerous contact, and AI tools capable of manipulating images and videos. Having a personal mobile device at too early an age and using it without adult supervision can exacerbate young people’s vulnerabilities, foster addiction and expose them to isolation, bullying and cyberbullying, as well as to pressures to share intimate images or sensitive information. monetize attention and time. Therefore, it is essential to form an alliance among policy-makers, educational institutions and families that is capable of concretely supporting adults in this task. Far-sighted public policies are needed to oppose the immediate interests of platforms, concentrated in a few hands, when they conflict with the wellbeing of minors. In this regard, interventions by legislators are appropriate for setting age limits, holding service providers accountable rather than shifting the whole burden of control onto families, and for providing specific protections against all forms of online sexual exploitation and violence. Thus can children and adolescents, who are entrusted to our care, be genuinely protected as a precious treasure. [148] At the same time, it is also necessary to teach children, adolescents and young people how to recognize manipulation, defend their dignity and respect that of others in digital environments. [149] We’re getting into the issue of digital addiction, nice. The discussion about education and what that truly entails is an interesting point. Something that I’ve seen in myself with use of LLMs is that I don’t remember the answer I was given 5 minutes ago, because I didn’t have to fight for it. Work as a dignity enhancement for the human being. This is why devs feel their souls leaving their bodies as they vibe code away. Leo discusses unemployment as a grave evil as it creates an environment in which the human being is “without value” - which is never true. We are creating an envirionment of fear that is continually being propogated that “everyone will lose their jobs” but nobody is asking “then what?” You may have grand technological improvement, but you create the cyberpunk dystopia in which you’re “high tech, low life”. The founders and creators of this will not be able to live a good life, either, see what happens when mass social unrest occurs. Money won’t be able to save people. the serious implications for human dignity, we must now turn our attention to the yet more tragic issue of war. Here the question is not merely the efficiency of new tools, but also the risk that technology, detached from ethics and responsibility, will render decisions about life and death more rapid and impersonal, and will present the use of force as an immediate and viable option. In an increasingly interdependent world, peace is not simply one issue among others, but a prerequisite for the universal common good and a test of the moral maturity of peoples, especially of those who bear responsibility for governing. Again, the accountability of these systems cannot go forward without intense scrutiny. “A computer can never be held accountable, therefore a computer must never make a management decision.” – IBM Training Manual, 1979. Force without limits political landscape and has become a key sector in the economy of various countries. The close link between economic interests, the military apparatus and political decisions produces an “armed nation,” in which war appears as a natural extension of politics, and the arms market becomes an autonomous driving force behind military decisions. Nor can we ignore the enormous economic interests behind war. The armaments industry, and countries that supply weapons, profit from a market that thrives precisely on conflicts. In this sense, there are also financial interests that contribute to fueling tensions in various regions of the world. posed by weapons capable of destroying all of humanity had promoted paths toward détente and disarmament negotiations. Unfortunately, this approach has been left behind, and the evolution of nuclear arsenals — including the prospect of its “tactical” use — makes the use of such weapons seem less improbable. In this context, the Treaty on the Prohibition of Nuclear Weapons, which came into force in 2021 with the support of over seventy countries, is an important step. However, it risks remaining largely symbolic since the major nuclear powers have not agreed to it. This has led to the widespread yet erroneous belief that nuclear deterrence is an indispensable prerequisite for security. This has also contributed to a new arms race, which is hard to control and accompanied by the gradual dismantling of nuclear reduction agreements, as well as the development of “miniaturized” weapons, that make their use seem like a more viable option. and the complexity of the interests at stake contribute to conflicts that tend to become protracted, with extremely high human and environmental costs. It is much easier to start a war than to stop it, and yet, discussion on conflict prevention remains tragically marginal. The person pushing the button from thousands of miles away on the drone strike that kills the family at a wedding feels nothing. Pretty soon there will be no button, and no one to feel at all. errors. Religious extremism and identity-based fanaticism ally themselves with irrational economic policies, while politics often turns to misinformation and ridiculing opponents, and systematically cultivating fears and resentments. Thus, diversity is increasingly perceived as a threat, which fuels a desire for possession, a will to dominate, hegemonic ambitions, abuses of power and a fear of those who are different, thereby creating an environment in which new conflicts can develop almost imperceptibly. [186] People become a means to an end, and this is text book dehumanization. We can all do our part problems are too big and we are too small, and that our choices, therefore, cannot make a difference. This is a polite form of resignation, often disguised as realism. Certainly, not everyone has the same power to make a difference. There are those who govern, make investment decisions, lead institutions, conduct research, educate, produce or provide information, and then there are those who only seem to live their daily lives. Yet, no one is without responsibility. We all have our own areas for action, and it is precisely there — and nowhere else — that we must choose whether to fuel the mentality of force (even if only through indifference, cynicism, lies or hatred), or to preserve the mindset of peace (with truth, moderation, closeness and care). of his novels, described our responsibility in this way: “It is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till.” [187] The civilization of love will not arise from a single or spectacular gesture, but from the sum total of small and steadfast acts of fidelity that serve as a bulwark against dehumanization. For this reason, it is worthwhile pausing to reflect on some aspects of how we, each in our own way, can cooperate in building the civilization of love. Without presuming to exhaust this theme, I would like to propose five paths toward daily and public responsibility: the need to disarm words, building peace through justice, adopting the perspective of victims, cultivating a healthy realism and reviving dialogue and multilateralism. encouraged the Christians of Corinth to preserve unity. Dear brothers and sisters, we have reflected on the world we are building, and we asked ourselves what it means to safeguard the human person in the era of artificial intelligence. At the end of this reflection, I would like to propose a sober yet demanding program of Christian life with which we can navigate this epochal change in the light of the Gospel. This avenue emerges through contemplating God’s plan, living ecclesial unity by partaking of the Eucharist, building a world centered on the common good and praying in union with the Blessed Virgin Mary. The Word became flesh often shrouded in reassuring rhetoric and seductive ideologies. Yet our hearts yearn for an approach that is wise and benevolent, akin to that which Mary praises in her Magnificat, when she proclaims that God’s mercy extends in every generation to those who fear him. [205] This plan of mercy continues to unfold throughout history today, even amid the rapid and unsettling changes brought by algorithms and global networks, and it becomes a compass in the digital era for living our lives according to the Gospel. dwelt among us. The flesh of the Son, poor and vulnerable, evokes the flesh of so many brothers and sisters stripped of their dignity and reduced to silence. [206] Through the Lord’s closeness, the gift of peace enters into the world in a paradoxical way. It does so through the power to become children of God, and is awakened when we allow ourselves to be moved by the tears of the little ones, the fragility of the elderly, the silence of victims and the struggle of those who fight against the evil they do not wish to commit. [207] In this wounded yet beloved flesh, the Father shows us the true humanity of a life fulfilled through openness and communion, which leads us to desire that his will be done on earth as it is in heaven. [208] enhanced and almost disembodied humanity, we recognize a yearning that is of concern to us, namely the need for a fuller life, less exposed to limitations and suffering. Yet the Incarnation opens a different pathway. On the one hand, old and new ideologies alike urge humanity to overcome limitations through technology, and to rise above others by asserting dominance. Contrary to this, the mystery of the Son of God entering into our human condition promises something quite different. The living God descends into our history in order to free us from all forms of slavery. [209] He takes upon himself our weakness and transforms it into a setting for salvation. There is no moment or human situation that is not worthy of God. “According to the teaching of our faith, we have and adore, in our mysteries, a God who is born in a manger, a God who lives and travels in Judea, a God who dies on the cross, a dead God who lies in the tomb.” [210] The future of humanity, therefore, finds its standard in the ability to welcome this divine way of drawing near, of sharing the burden of the world, of transforming relationships from within. “O wonder… man is God and this God-Man passes through all those stages, endures all those states and ennobles them, sanctifies them, deifies them in himself!” [211] What saves humanity is the divine love that descends into the most fragile point of our history and renews it from within. face of the Son of God, the grandeur of humanity that shines a light also on the era of AI. In Christ, we are called to cooperate in the work of creation, rather than be disinterested observers of technological processes that limit our freedom and responsibility. [212] The dignity inscribed in each of us by the Holy Spirit can also be seen in our capacity to reflect critically, choose and love freely, and form authentic relationships. No computational system, however sophisticated, can create a heart that gives itself, or a conscience that discerns good from evil. Even when machines excel in efficiency, a human face that asks to be gazed upon remains the center of our history. This human face is the fullness toward which history is moving. It is the mystery of “recapitulation”: the certainty that the Father has decreed to bring all things, those in heaven and those on earth, back to Christ, the one Head (cf. Eph 1<10>). In this plan, nothing will be lost that is authentically human. Indeed, everything will be purified and reunited in the One, who gathers every fragment of life, every tear and every authentically human achievement, rescuing them from nothingness and delivering them, redeemed, to the Father. I will say that in my very humble layman opinion, Pope Leo has done a fantastic job with this Encyclical. I agree wholeheartedly with much of the sentiment. We are all in spiritual warfare whether we know it or not, and all of us were born at the right time for the soul that we each possess. Let us run the Good race toward all that is Good in this life and the next. As always, God bless, and until next time. If you enjoyed this post, consider Supporting my work , Checking out my book , Working with me , or sending me an Email to tell me what you think. Building a city founded on the common good implies, first and foremost, building on a firm This overview, however, would not be very comprehensible if, before reflecting on the I am convinced that the concrete way of living out social relationships in the light of the The danger of humanity becoming a victim of its own achievements was already clearly Here, we must recognize another crucial aspect, which I have noted earlier. In many cases Faced with this concentration of power in the digital world, the criteria for judgment and It is not my intention here to offer a comprehensive treatment of artificial intelligence, It is not possible to provide a single, comprehensive definition of AI. What can be stated, In light of what has been said, we can better understand why AI can be a valuable tool and, Indeed, entrusting an algorithm in practice with the power to select who is worthy or not, For AI to respect human dignity and truly serve the common good, responsibility must be Calling for prudence, rigorous evaluation and even, at times, a slower pace in adopting AI Having considered the issues of responsibility and governance of AI, we must now return to From the perspective of the Church’s Social Doctrine, the key issue is not the use of Our relationship with life seems to be in crisis today. Everything that appears as a Even when limitations are experienced as inner suffering, human wisdom teaches us not to Finitude, when truly accepted, does not diminish us but opens us to recognizing the face of The expression “more than human” is not an exclusive domain of technological promise. For When we embrace the possibility of transcending ourselves through God’s grace, we do not Christian humanism does not reject science or technology, but embraces them with gratitude Questioning this alternative path of progress and how we interpret and live it is The use of digital platforms and AI systems is driving profound changes in public and Those who command powerful technological and economic resources, along with substantial In view of this, it is important to recall that communication “is not only the transmission In an era when truth is often distorted in order to serve particular interests and Education, by contrast, is a long journey requiring patience, and therefore needs time for In recent years, psychological and psychiatric literature has documented with growing It is difficult for parents by themselves to resist the influence of business models that Having considered how AI is transforming certain aspects of life and society, in particular The growth of the military-industrial complex has become a defining feature of the current Military arsenals are receiving renewed attention. In the past, recognition of the threat The same logic applies to conventional warfare. Military force, weak diplomatic initiatives In such a climate, nihilism and pragmatism become intertwined and end up normalizing grave At this point, however, a subtle temptation may emerge, namely the thought that the The twentieth-century Catholic author J.R.R. Tolkien, in the words of a protagonist in one “Let each builder choose with care how to build” (1 Cor 3<10>). With these words, Saint Paul Our world is filled with attempts to seize control of markets and spheres of influence, At the heart of everything is the mystery of the Incarnation, the Word who became flesh and In the promises of transhumanism and some posthumanist currents of thought, which seek an For this reason, as a believer among believers, I invite everyone to contemplate, in the
With the Pope’s Encyclical Magnifica Humanitas recently posted, I have seen some of the worst takes online: All from people that have not read the thing they are critiquing. They will see a short soundbite from the Vatican’s meeting with Anthropic, and that will be their entire understanding. The piece is 42,000 words long, so I get that people “don’t have the time” to read the whole thing. You don’t get to have an opinion then. Too harsh? Okay - you can have an opinion about whatever you want. But, everyone should immediately discard your opinion on finding that you didn’t read the thing that you are having an opinion on. You should, if you are intellectually honest in the slightest, also discard said opinion until you have read the primary source. The reason for this is simple: you are renting someone else’s opinion . It’s the same with interviews that are soundbited, with “clips”. This is why our society is polarised, because nobody reads the original anymore, they just allow the filter of someone else’s thinking (and bias, and agenda). I have seen this far too often when it comes to The Church - people have not read anything beyond some guy’s “spicy take” on >Reddit and then claim a parroted opinion that is not their own. I’ll hit people with a very basic apologetic and their mind will be blown because THEY DON’T READ. Nothing I say is groundbreaking or “out there” - I just read primary sources. That’s not “hidden knowledge” or something that is beyond the majority of human beings. Grifters read primary sources, repackage them into soundbites, and sell them to you at a huge markup. Read the primary source. Think for yourself. As always, God bless, and until next time. If you enjoyed this post, consider Supporting my work , Checking out my book , Working with me , or sending me an Email to tell me what you think.
In my last post I used the word “clanker” as an alternative to “agent” quite consistently and probably excessively. That choice ended up attracting a lot more attention than I expected in the Hacker News comment section of that post and a number of folks had a very strong reaction: to them it sounded like a slur, in one case even something adjacent to the n-word. That reaction surprised me somewhat, but it also made me realize that I should write down what I mean by the word for future reference. For me “clanker” is useful because it creates distance from the machine and that is a quality which is important to me. The machine is not a person, not a co-worker, not a friend, not a little spirit in the terminal. It is just a machine, a tool, and nothing more. I dislike the word “agent” for these LLM based tool loops with a UI attached. In everyday use an agent is someone who acts on behalf of someone else and it has agency and more importantly: responsibility. An agent decides, represents, negotiates, acts, and can be blamed. In the current AI discourse we increasingly do a lot of anthropomorphizing and the term “agent” is now frequently being used to put blame on an abstract machine. But the machine cannot be responsible, whoever is wielding it is. If it drops your database it was not at fault, you were. Agent makes the machine sound like a person with delegated authority and I do not think that is healthy. What we actually have is a language model attached to a harness, a prompt, some tools, a bit of context, and a boring tool loop. Sometimes the loop is very capable and it surprises us by editing code for a really long time and produce genuinely amazing and even valuable outputs. But the agency is not in the model or harness but in the human and in the organization that deployed it. If my coding tool opens a pull request, I opened that pull request, not the machine. If my machine spams someone’s issue tracker, I spammed someone’s issue tracker with a machine. In that context I like a word that sounds mechanical as it puts the thing back into the category where it belongs: the category of machinery and tools. LLMs are not sentient and we should not behave as if they might be, just in case. Elevating these things to anything other than a very fascinating and capable tool is problematic for a whole bunch of reasons. Today’s machines are dumb (but truly fascinating) token predictors that emits text, calls tools, and are steered by prompts and the training that went into them. They can simulate distress and affection , can simulate being offended, apologize and mimic all kinds of things that humans would do. A compiler does not feel humiliated when I swear at it, a car does not suffer when I call it a shitbox and a power drill is not oppressed by being handled roughly. An LLM is more complicated than those things, and the interactions you can have with them can be truly uncanny, but a moral status does not appear just because the machine can produce emit text in the first person. I keep receiving strange emails from people because, for lack of a better phrase, I am in the weights. I have been writing public code and public text for long enough that models know my name, my projects, and some of the concepts around them. Every so often someone writes to me with the peculiar confidence that comes from a long conversation with a model that has validated and amplified an idea. Sometimes the model seems to have told them that I am relevant for their problem and a source of help. For historical reasons LLMs used to write a lot of Flask code, and every once in a while someone interacts with an LLM long enough about their Python and Flask frustrations that the LLM will eventually reveal who created it which then can result in them sending me an email. Increasingly also because people found my work in other ways interesting and are trying to reach out for advice. I do not want to mock these people but some of those messages are distressing and I do not know how to deal with them. They show signs of what people have started calling AI psychosis . It’s why I want cold and detached language for these systems. I want to use words that remind us that the thing on the other side is not a person. The comparison to racism is where I think the discussion goes badly wrong because racism is a human social evil. It is about humans subdividing humans, assigning lesser worth to some of them, and building rules around those subdivisions that can leave lasting damage for generations. Racial slurs are wrong because they are a tool for dehumanizing humans. On the other hand a machine is not human, a model is not a race and the GPU cluster that is powering them is not being oppressed. A coding assistant does not need dignity, emancipation, or civil rights. That’s also why I find the discussion about model welfare to be actively harmful. I’m sure you can find ways to measure the “trauma” of models or their feelings but I greatly dislike this theater. It risks elevating models to a position they should not occupy. Models are machines and they are not enslaved in the moral sense in which humans were enslaved, because there isn’t anyone there to be deprived of freedom. We should be careful about using the language of human oppression in relations to our interactions with machines to not devalue actual humans. If we start treating insults toward a model as morally adjacent to racism, we blur a line that shouldn’t be blurred. If you take a step away from the communities that are happily embracing AI in different ways, there are even more that are viciously against this technology. There are humans that feel or are harmed by AI systems: people whose work is copied, workers who label data under questionable conditions, people whose neighborhoods receive the data centers and increased utility bills, Open Source maintainers buried under generated slop, and now also people who spiral because a chatbot keeps validating their delusions. Those harmed or affected deserve that type of attention, not the model. While I am a true believer in the power and utility of this technology, I increasingly think that calling the non-adopters “misguided” or “afraid” won’t do it. It’s quite likely that this technology comes with risks and we better remember that all of this is supposed to be in service of humans, and not to replace them. The oddest interaction on the use of “clanker” so far has been people asking me if I were to regret at a point in the future calling the machines “the c-word”. I find that questioning revealing because it already grants the machine the status I am really trying not to grant it. It imagines a future “machine people” reading the discourse and sessions, discovering that we used an ugly word for their ancestors, and then judging us by the standards of human oppression. Could there be future systems that deserve moral consideration? Maybe. I do not know. If we ever build or encounter something that will have those qualities with memories and lasting interests, the capacity to suffer and feel, and a social existence of its own, and the ability to have agency and carry responsibilities, then we should draw a different line and use different language. But that hypothetical future does not extend backwards to the present day and make the current machines people. We can call an electric door an electric door even if one day someone builds some that have emotions and exhale with pleasure when opening and closing. Whatever the future may bring, let’s not pretend that current LLMs are a protected class or on a path towards it. The right response is to look at the evidence, draw the boundary where it belongs, and change our behavior there. We should not even remotely entertain extending empathy to an object that can generate an “ouch.” And if one’s worry is less moral and more about revenge, then I find that even less persuasive. A future machine that is so petty or authoritarian that it wants to punish humans because in 2026 they used an unflattering word for non-sentient tools, our vocabulary was really not the problem. There is however a part of this that I cannot ignore. I use “clanker” to create distance from the machine, but other people are using the same word very differently. Some online jokes and skits around “clankers” do not merely say “this robot is annoying” as they deliberately pull in the imagery of slavery, segregation, civil-rights-era racism, and anti-Black tropes. This is problematic as in those contexts the clanker is not just a machine any more and instead becomes a prop for replaying human racism behind a science-fiction mask. That is horrible and I want no part in that. I think it will be interesting to see where the meanings of these words end up a few years from now. We’re very much in the middle of society re-arranging around the changes that LLMs are causing. If a term becomes primarily associated with people using robots as stand-ins for actually oppressed humans, then using that term becomes impossible to defend. The reason I liked the word is precisely the opposite of that use. I want language that prevents anthropomorphizing. I want a word that says: this is a tool, a machine of numbers and matrices. If an AI system lies to a user, the system did not commit a moral wrong but the people who designed, deployed, marketed, or negligently used it might have. If a coding assistant generates a security bug, the model is not to blame but the human who accepted and committed the code is. This is why giving these systems softer, more human language worries me. It makes it easier to move responsibility into some undefined void. “The agent decided.” “The model refused.” Obviously that is convenient and I catch myself plenty of times engaging with the thing in ways that are unhealthy. Even just the “please” in the discourse with the machine calls into question how rational we are in engaging with them. I do not know what the right word will be. Maybe “clanker” will survive as a useful bit of jargon. Maybe it will become too loaded and we will need another one. Whatever word we use, I want it to preserve a clear division: humans on one side with responsibility, machines on the other as a boring tool. That boundary is very much not anti-AI. I use these systems every day and I have the pleasure to build tools incorporating them at Earendil and find them astonishingly useful. A machine can be useful, mimic a human but still just be a machine. That is the work I want “clanker” to do. It is not there to make a future “machine person” small if such a person ever were to exist, and it is not an excuse to launder racism through shitty robot jokes. If the word stops doing that work, I will find another one because the word isn’t what matters as much as the boundary which is important to me.
It was fifteen minutes into The In-Laws that I suspected an uncanny feeling of déjà vu, and thirty minutes in that I confirmed my suspicions with an unlocked memory of having watched it somewhere between ten and fifteen years ago, in a context I cannot recall beyond mild insobriety. With this revelation, the remainder of the plot — already formulaic and predictable — snapped into place, and I was left with wackiness and some sensible chuckle humor that I can admire without loving. This Blazing Saddles -esque style of broad comedy, which leans into action to punctuate and yet ends up deflating, is simply not for me. And I mean that sincerely. There's a lot about the film that I admire. First and foremost, the commitment to the bit that Peter Falk showcases: his dogged aloofness works in a compounding way, especially in comparison to Alan Arkin's self-serious nice — a contrast that had nonetheless grown threadbare and overdone somewhere in the film's second act. The schtick of the film feels more well-suited for a longer-runtime SNL sketch than an actual film, and the script's necessity to lampshade every single joke (the Bay of Pigs gag, to pick one) is the closest I can come to a sincere and critical critique. This and Murder by Death make two films in a row that I didn't really enjoy despite loving their usage of Peter Falk — which is perhaps a sign that I should just start watching Columbo instead.
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