- Stephen C. on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “Lol, you’ll always have a place in my pew RLD. I’ve actually thought about that silver lining. For example, I suspect a decline in the demand for sex workers would have myriad benefits for society. That point about the tension between having the most appealing meetings while giving everybody a chance to contribute is a good one that I hadn’t thought about before.” Mar 27, 18:22
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “Yes, AI is going to be good at porn, precisely because it is meaningless and predictable. I’d guess integrating VR and programmable sex toys into porn will come before sex robots. Is it a silver lining if partnered sex becomes something people only do in the context of a meaningful relationship because the alternative is so appealing? I predict that long before 2080, guidelines for healthy use of media will become as common as guidelines for healthy eating. Hopefully that will help restore America’s attention span and ability to read complex literature, which I agree is lacking. But whatever happens, the Church will adapt, just like it now produces media similar to current secular media on a regular basis. Not to mention cutting church services from three hours to two. But there will always be a tension between having wonderful services produced by the most talented people available and giving all the members opportunities to prepare talks and lessons. I suspect in many cases the preparation process produces more growth and learning for the one person doing the preparation than the most professional presentation would for the entire congregation combined. We’ll see, but I don’t think the appeal of media will be a major factor in reducing the size of the Church–and I doubt Stephen C will get his wish for a much smaller Church where everyone agrees with him. :) (I’m kidding…mostly.)” Mar 27, 13:54
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “With polygamy I suspect most women would rather be single than be a plural wife, with maybe some exceptions for elite males for some women, but whatever the case this clearly isn’t going to be good for the marriage market. The robot technology is less impressive right now than the chatbot technology, so it’s hard to know when a completely realistic sex robot will come online, but 50 years is a long time so who knows. What we do have coming up is: “Girlfriend” or “boyfriend” chatbots: if somebody reduces the response time for GPT-4 and hacks the code to get rid of the filters, then a companion chatbot like in the movie “Her” is already here. Photorealistic custom porn for still images: technologically this is already here with Midjourney V5. Thankfully MJ V5 also has filters, but it’s just a matter of time before a non-filtered open source version comes out and non-consensual porn will be a much, much bigger issue than it is now. Photorealistic VR: This one is still a ways off, but it’s somewhat plausible; it’s not faster-than-light travel. Text-to-movie: There are some versions of this out, but they’re still underdeveloped. I could see this being a thing in a couple years to a decade.” Mar 26, 07:16
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “which would help the scripture that says that in the end of time, 7 women will want the same man…or something like it…because few men will not want real women. I figured that this would happen because so many women in the church today are single and younger men are leaving the church. Robot woman will just help that issue along.” Mar 25, 20:20
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “I don’t think that it’s going to be pornography and opportunity costs, but sex bots. Slowly, men unable to find a woman will find themselves satisfied with a robot. I’ve seriously wondered if what the future holds is if a man is a desirable husband it will be normal for him to have two wives, while the men who are not husband material are happy with a robot girlfriend that they don’t have to put effort into.” Mar 25, 18:31
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “Good stuff Stephen. I think the only people going to church in the future will be all the same pretenders that go to be seen in church today…mingled with the devoted that you mention. I home churched for as long as possible as I figured this chance would probably never come my way again. Best. Church. Ever! I now know what worship is, or at least I think I do until I get more insights. Devotion to God can be so much more than what we mormons typically do on sunday. I dont think we know what “worship” even means in our church. But that’s for your next article! :) I think its really important for our youth to start dating younger and learning what healthy relationships are when they are young and get more slack when they screw up. The group dating era in the church made men lazy and gay. (Not that there is anything wrong with that) Everyone is different, but if our YM know what it is like to hold, kiss and love girls, they will get jobs and do what it takes to be with them. Those girls will encourage them to serve missions. Half of those will come back and marry said girl. Jesus is there throughout it all if they screw up. Great program actually. I am describing the 80s. This is what we did. The girls in the church will get asked out and feel good about themselves. Yes society has changed since the 80’s, my kids tell me that all the time. I tell them their way sucks! Our way back them was so much easier. Everyone dated it seemed. All good natural God-given thing to do. We were so worried that our youth would sin, we prevented it. (group dating only and no relationships until after missions crap) What did they learn? How to play video games, hang out, be selfish, turn gay, be entitled etc….It was a blessing for me to feel what sin felt like as a youth and a bigger blessing to know what forgiveness felt like. The atonement was real to me, it worked as described. I am glad I did that before I made serious promises inside the temple and I personally think this has helped me keep those promises through my current old age. Porn wasn’t everywhere in the 80s but I enjoyed my real relationship with my girlfriend so I didn’t have much desire/pull/interest in porn. The church villainized porn and masturbation so much in the 80s and 90s I think local leaders went to far on making youth feel horrible about it. As a bishop when the youth were brave enough to talk to me about this, I told them congratulations, you are normal and its not a serious sin. This gave me opportunity to warn them of what is serious sin and the heartbreak that follows it but also the power of the atonement. In summary; put down the devices and go touch (good way) a real person of the opposite sex when your young! :)” Mar 25, 08:31
- on The Church in 2080, Part IV: The Future of Porn and Opportunity Costs: “Fantastic insights. One of my fav articles you’ve written. Thanks!” Mar 24, 14:11
- on Fully Divine and Fully Human: “Chad, I heartily second your considering a deep-dive into the human/animal evolutionary chain as projected onto the LDS “doctrine” opus, because it is so completely antithetical to the religion-only view of the present physical world that we inhabit and that we are capable of studying in depth and in great complexity. As it is, one can either think of the physically-present world and its impressive complexity as TRUTH, or we can accept what the bible and religious leaders tell us to by TRUTH, but seems impossible to accept both concepts on the same discussion panel. As a corollary deep-dive, perhaps you, or a religion-based cosmologist, could discuss how a millennial world, as presented in our second-coming/millennium discussions and scriptures, could possibly fit into the presently-observable universe. That would also appear to be one of those areas where a person apparently has to accept it as a religious concept or as an actual physical concept, but not both. Thanks for considering –” Mar 24, 11:39
- on Fully Divine and Fully Human: “No mention of that in the interview or book this post focuses on. It is a good question, and one that you’ll find plenty of people who have thoughts on. At this time, the Church doesn’t have a stance on that of which I’m aware. I’ve considered doing a series on evolution from my perspective as a Latter-day Saint and a biologist, and that would be a great topic to interrogate.” Mar 24, 11:20
- on Let’s Talk About Race and Priesthood: “Yes, Mauss was one of the foremost authorities on the issue. Like I said, Let’s Talk About Race and the Priesthood takes a massive amount of information and background research and distills it into a very accessible book” Mar 24, 11:16