What we’re about
The DC Atheist Meetup is a project of DC Region Atheists. We are an educational and philosophical group serving Washington, DC, Maryland, and Virginia that fosters and advances the growth of non-religious communities by providing both a social setting and forums to discuss intellectual topics pertinent to their concerns and by working with other like-minded groups. We educate and encourage critical thinking through rational and respectful dialog between our members and others.
DC Region Atheists is a chapter of the Washington Area Secular Humanists. WASH is a non-profit 501c3 organization with all contributions being tax deductible. Contributions are very much encouraged and can be made here: join.
Upcoming events (1)
See all- Secular Zoom CommunityLink visible for attendees
As usual the craziness out there is getting more twisted and insane. Or perhaps my tracking of events is just better at finding that insanity. The newest anti-choice tactic is to claim that abortions are not private medical information. They think it should be treated like death certificates. Kansas Gov. Laura Kelly had to veto legislation that would have demanded detailed and invasive information on every abortion. This would streamline the demonization of the women who pursue an abortion and ease criminal prosecutions. Indiana and New Hampshire are dealing with similar efforts. Rep. Tommy Tuberville has introduced a Federal bill that would require the Veterans Department to collect and provide data on abortions within their facilities.
I felt that Christian nationalism was largely centered in organized fundamentalism such as Southern Baptists. It seems that the unaffiliated charismatic churches are more to blame. The NAR, New Apostolic Reformation, is the organizing label used by these nondenominational churches. The Nation has an excellent article highlighting the rhetoric fueled by claimed direct messages from God received by these new prophets. From the article: Anthea Butler, the chair of the University of Pennsylvania religious studies department and the author of White Evangelical Racism. “All the talk you hear about demonic stuff, about violent stuff—people should take that very seriously.”
I have claimed that AI will change everything. Obviously, it could be a great boon for humanity. Truly intelligent machines might solve problems with great efficiency. Creativity can be massively enabled with AI. As people know, I love to create exotic images that would be appropriate for the cover of a science fiction book or magazine. Check out the images in this short AI music video, C3PO x Childish Gambino - Gold Gang (Official AI Music Video) Star Wars. I read many newsletters about AI. One common claim is that it is easy to create bot to answer questions. A company needing to support their products could train an AI bot on prior messages dealing with customer questions. The bot might then be able to provide needed information.
However, that same capability could be used for malice. Facebook has become a forum for major hacks. I have received numerous phone SMS messages with codes to complete my password reset when I did not request any reset. This implied to me that people were trying to hack my account. Several of my Facebook friends actually did have their accounts hacked. Each of them then sent me messages claiming six figure payments from government and other agencies. They said they saw my name on a list of others deserving such payments. Of course, they then offered a URL where I could request my payment. I presume that my bank account information would then be solicited because how else could they program a bank transfer to my account? I also had gorgeous young woman send me a friend request. Normal I would just ignore such nonsense. However, this one had a couple of my respected friends in common. I then looked at her posts. There was a certain amount of intelligence and humor in her posts. The posts made me laugh and I decided that I would not mind such posts in my news feed. So I accepted the friend request. She then started to message me. I very much suspected then that the account was a bot. Another friend sent me a message saying that she was a bot and I then noted that the other personal friends of mine were no longer friends with her. In the past there was usually a con-man working such bot accounts. With AI, there now might only be trained machines running such accounts. The single most promoted AI application is marketing. There is no guarantee that such marketing will be lacking in malice.
There are QANON accounts on youtube making six and seven figure annual incomes sending out “Q-drops.” What if such nonsense becomes automated and becomes an even greater fraction of the social media landscape. In 2015, Facebook research found that Russian bot farms were controlling 19 of the 20 most visited Christian Facebook groups. This gullibility presents an opportunity that AI systems could exploit on a massive scale. Polls indicate that absurd fractions of the population now think that violence might be required for democracy to survive. What if AIs start to more radically inflame that insanity?
The link for our meeting is posted now. I will likely send the full zoom info in the 24 hours before our meeting as a reminder to those who RSVP.
