Tag: values

A ‘Catholic’ diocese that values online hierarchy in excess of spiritual know-how

Amel

(RNS) — The Catholic Diocese of Discord might be the only 1 of the United States’ Catholic communities that has captivated the vast majority of its 2,300 members as a result of online memes.

One meme in particular sums up what the diocese’s members assemble to do: “Discuss theology, troll Protestants, perform Minecraft, and pray the rosary.”

What’s most significant to know about the Catholic Diocese of Discord is that it’s not an official diocese, but a group of world wide web-savvy Catholics applying new messaging platforms, this kind of as Reddit and Discord, to link with other devoted and find out much more about their shared faith.

“We wished our Reddit group to get pleasure from much more means,” suggests their founder, who goes by Anselm_oC (shorter for Anselm of Canterbury, the 12th-century saint who designed a now-famed argument for God’s existence).

Anselm declined to give his name to Religion Information, citing worries for his protection. There has not been an incident of violence or risk against him that he understands of, but the online can be a fickle place.

Anselm_oC, also regarded as “Pope Discorditus,” is a person of the “bishops” of this digital diocese. He grew up Baptist but transformed to Catholicism in his 30s — there are a variety of recent or adult converts on the server — and has embedded himself in several on line Catholic communities given that.

He’s the founder of the Diocese of Discord “server,” as affinity teams are recognized on the system, and the moderator of 20 Catholic-oriented communities on Reddit (r/RealCatholicMen, r/Tradwave, and r/CatholicMemes, to name a few). With practically 40,000 users, r/CatholicMemes has been a single of the major feeders of the Diocese of Discord community.

Released in 2015 as a chat system for videogamers, Discord rebranded itself in the spring of 2020 as an application for people and mates to converse with a person another all through COVID-19 lockdowns. With text, voice and online video chat solutions, the application feels like the dizzy appreciate boy or girl of Slack and AOL instant messenger.

A first-time Diocese of Discord user is offered with a cornucopia of hash-tagged dialogue channels full of Pepe the Frog gifs and Vatican flag emojis. There is a whole lot of jabber about reduced Mass and high Mass, albs and surplices (robes for altar servers), and a apparent amount of suspicion of liberalism, modernity and other Christian denominations. Discussions on thinking about becoming a priest or nun goes in the “discernment” channel. Introduction conversations materialize in the “Advent and Christmas” channel.

In the live chat “chapel,” three rosaries are mentioned everyday in Latin, English and Portuguese.

The Discord server hosts users from all in excess of the world: from Portugal to Australia, from Belgium to Canada, so political discussions transcend U.S. politics. There is, regardless, no lack of memes creating entertaining of Dr. Anthony Fauci, celebrating guns and protesting lockdowns or quarantine camps.

A welcome submit from Anselm_oC for The Catholic Diocese of

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NATO Assessment – Why our values ought to drive our technological innovation possibilities

Amel

It is reasonable to say that our romance with technologies is sophisticated.
Just seem at headline topics like renewable power or Artificial Intelligence (AI), or take into consideration prescription drugs, automotive, customer electronics, social media and biotechnology. On the matter of any of these systems, you will practically surely hear a cacophony of voices that selection from promising a new period of pleasure to predicting the doom of humanity.
How can we make sense of these bewildering views, and how can we maximise the benefits of emerging and possibly disruptive technologies although properly minimising their hazards?




As persons, we have quite a few diverse passions in technology. Some are interested in technologies itself, but most are intrigued in the impression know-how could have. These passions are frequently competing, and occasionally downright conflicting. Below is a simplified overview:

  • the consumer is looking for an affordable option to a presented trouble,
    whilst the designer seeks to improve a offered product

  • the innovator strives to display that her thought will perform,
    although the investor is keen on the return on his expenditure

  • the company manager is fully commited to growing his company’s revenue and current market share,
    whereas the regulator focuses on thoughts of

  • the citizen desires to maximise her freedoms and have her legal rights safeguarded,
    though the politician attempts to harmony all the aforementioned interests in devising policies for the profit of all.

This significant entanglement of pursuits features technological thoughts, economic and business passions, societal needs, and political considerations. Most of us, most of the time, go after quite a few of individuals pursuits in parallel: absolutely as shoppers and citizens, but also as people today and members of communities that have an effect on our contemplating and the decisions we make.

None of these issues are predetermined, nor are the resulting choices and decisions. Hence, the collective final result simply cannot be predicted. We simply cannot pre-point out the developmental path of any technological know-how. Nevertheless, it would be hare-brained to conclude that technologies follows a path of its very own or that we have no influence on technological innovation at all. Quite to the contrary, we all affect technologies advancement, only, this affect is rarely immediate or right away seen. The complexity researcher W. Brian Arthur summarised our multi-faceted romance with technology as follows: “Technology regions co-evolve jointly with culture in a approach of mutual adaptation.”

In other terms, our possibilities now have an affect on the trajectory of a given technology’s further advancement. That growth will in convert present new prospects and troubles that we will answer to, and this response will affect the additional evolution of that technologies in an open up-finished course of action.

Take the steam engine for illustration. This device marked the commencing of the Industrial Revolution when it was initial introduced to pump h2o from coalmines. That productive software triggered even more imagination, as developers and consumers alike came to glance for other troubles a steam motor could resolve. People things to

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