Against Dale and Dale’s Bayesian analysis of the Book of Mormon – rough draft

The following is a rough draft of a paper that I am preparing to counter Bruce E. Dale and Brian Dale’s paper titled Joseph Smith: The World’s Greatest Guesser. I am looking for feedback on how to improve the piece for publication.

Bruce E. Dale and Brian Dale wrote a paper critiquing Dr. Michael Coe’s critique of the Book of Mormon. Coe claims that the Book of Mormon is a grossly inaccurate description of ancient America, so the most likely explanation of its origins is that someone in the 19th century made it all up. Dale and Dale claim that the Book of Mormon gets so many details right about ancient America that the most likely explanation for it is that it is indeed an ancient document, since a modern document couldn’t have correct in so many particulars. They employ Bayesian statistics in their argument, claiming that the odds of getting so many things right is virtually impossible for a lucky guess. I am not an expert in Bayesian statistics, but I believe that I can show that their analysis is flawed and that they give far too much credit to the book for what it gets right and not enough discredit for what it gets wrong.

Before I get too far, I want to make clear my own claims. Like Coe, I argue that the Book of Mormon is a 19th-century document. I claim that it draws inspiration from sources in Joseph Smith’s own environment, so that the details that it gets right are best explained as Smith drawing inspiration from elements around him that just luckily happen to match the details of ancient America, and that the details that it gets wrong also come from these same sources.

As I said before, I am not an expert in Bayesian statistics, but I think that I can demonstrate that Dale and Dale’s particular use of Bayesian statistical analysis is flawed because it proves too much. It “proves” the authenticity of the Book of Mormon in a manner that could be used to prove an obvious forgery to be also true. To demonstrate this, I want to focus on all the similarities between the Book of Mormon and the Bible, especially the King James Version of the Bible, and look at how Dale and Dale treat the details that match those similarities.

Dale and Dale note multiple details in the Book of Mormon that, by their admission, could have been inspired by the Bible. In other words, someone clumsily copying the Bible could have gotten all these details right. Yet, in all of these cases, they give credit to Smith for getting the details right, assigning the likelihood of Smith guessing correctly as less than 1, sometimes much less. Let’s consider these details:

• Tribute being required of subjects. They assign a likelihood of Smith getting this right as 0.1
• Limited number of important patrilineages. They assign this a 0.02
• Sacrifice of children and others to gods. They assign this a 0.1
• Close association of temples with sacred mountains/hills. They assign this a 0.02
• Temple and other religious rituals involve bloodletting. They assign this a 0.5
• Pantheistic religion and idols. They assign this a 0.1
• Divination: consulting oracles for secular guidance and assistance. They assign this a 0.1
• Stones and slings used as weapons for fighting. They assign this a 0.02
• Periods of terrible drought separated by decades or centuries with resulting famines. They assign this a 0.1

Again, by their own admission, Smith could have gotten all of these details out of the Bible, which is exactly what I and others accuse him of doing. In spite of this, they give him credit for all of these, and if you multiply all of these together, you get a combined likelihood of 4 x 10^-11, or one in four hundred billion. Again, someone copying details from the Bible might have included all of these, and anyone looking to prove the Biblical nature of the Book of Mormon would point towards all these details and ask what the likelihood was of Smith writing in all of these similarities. So how is it that Dale and Dale come to such a strong conclusion in favor of Smith?

I think that the answer is that they only consider the odds of Smith getting the details right, without ever considering the odds of whether or not he copied the details. In other words, they’re only looking at one set of odds. If we’re to accurately assess the likely origins of the Book of Mormon, we need to consider multiple theories at once. We need to ask what the odds are of all these details getting into the text without being copied from the Bible or other elements in Smith’s own environment. So how are we to consider these odds at the same time as considering the odds that Smith got details right?

Again, I’m no expert in Bayesian statistics, but what I’m going to do is to adjust the likelihood of any detail based on how easily Smith could have gotten 19th-century inspiration for that detail. If the explanation of Smith copying from his environment is as good as Smith getting inspiration from ancient America, then I’m going to assign the detail a likelihood of 1, reflecting the fact that either explanation is just as good. With that said, it’s time to re-examine every detail that Dale and Dale provided to see if the details really do justify giving Smith credit for lucky guesses.

Fundamental level of political organization is the independent city-state

This one seems unusual. Dale and Dale give a lot of credit to Smith for never using the word “nation” to describe the Nephite and Lamanite peoples. How much credit should we actually give Joseph Smith for never using a word that didn’t apply? I’m no expert here, so I’ll stick with Dale and Dale’s likelihood of 0.02.

“Capital” or leading city-state dominates a cluster of other communities

Dale and Dale claim that there is “no corresponding political arrangement in Joseph Smith’s time which he might have used as a model”. I disagree. Having the capital city be the most important city in a group of cities is an entirely normal arrangement, and I think this undercuts the significance of the previous point. Dale and Dale give this a likelihood of 0.02, but I say that it offers no strong evidence for or against the Book of Mormon. I give it a 1.

Some subordinate city-states shift their allegiance to a different “capital” city

Shifting allegiance isn’t unusual at all. Dale and Dale give this one a 0.1, but as they themselves note that this “does not seem unusual to a modern reader and probably would not have seemed unusual even to a country boy”, I give it a 1.

Complex state institutions

Dale and Dale’s justification for giving this one a 0.02 is that “the British and American civil governments had large, complex state institutions, but the Native American societies certainly did not”. The trouble here is that Smith was not describing existing Native American societies. He was describing a supposedly vanished society that was great enough to build wonders that the current population surely could not have built. In describing a great civilization, it would be only natural to ascribe them some level of complexity, and Smith had plenty of inspiration to draw from here. I give this a 1.

Many cities exist

Again, Smith was describing a lost great society, and he was drawing inspiration from sources like the Bible which describe multiple cities, not to mention his own environment of multiple cities. I give this a 1.

City of Laman (Lamanai) “occupied from earliest times”

This one is unclear. Dale and Dale give credit to Smith for naming a city Laman, but whether or not this city was actually “occupied from earliest times” in the Book of Mormon is unclear, not to mention how important the city actually was. As to the odds of getting the consonants correct, I don’t know how to measure that, but I will note that Smith was familiar with names like Lyman. Also, he named many cities in the Book of Mormon, and Dale and Dale don’t give us the numbers on how many cities have no parallels in Mayan names, so I think that we are entitled to ask what the odds are of Smith randomly getting one name right while throwing out so many names. Still, since I’m no expert on these matters, I’ll leave this as Dale and Dale’s estimate of 0.02.

Parts of the land were very densely settled

Dale and Dale again reference existing Native American populations, saying that “Native Americans with whom Joseph Smith had direct contact did not have cities, let alone cities so densely settled” but I again note that Smith was describing a great lost civilization, consistent with what he heard about in Mound Builder tales, and that he had inspiration from his own environment and texts like the Bible. I give this a 1.

Large-scale public works

Again, Smith was describing a great lost civilization, and whoever heard of a great civilization without large-scale public works? Smith had ample inspiration for this one. I give it a 1.

Some rulers live in luxury

Dale and Dale are at least decent enough to give this just a 0.5, but I see no reason to give this any more than a 1.

Elaborate thrones

Since Dale and Dale themselves note that “Joseph might have known about the elaborate throne of the British royal family, so it was perhaps not unusual”, I won’t give this one the 0.1 they assign it, especially since thrones feature prominently in the Bible in multiple places. This one gets a 1.

Royalty exists, with attendant palaces, courts and nobles

Yes, of course royalty exists. I see no reason to give this anything better than a 1.

Royal or elite marriages for political purposes

Since Dale and Dale note that “Joseph might also have been aware of the political marriages in the royal houses of England and Europe”, I give this one a 1.

Feasting for political purposes

Feasts have been a common feature in civilizations across history. I rate this a 1.

Gifts to the king for political advantage

Currying favor is an obvious feature of politics everywhere. Dale and Dale rate this is a 0.5, but I rate it 1.

Political factions organize around a member of the elite

Dale and Dale note that “in the early 19th century, the party system had already been born, and the party often pivoted around a key political figure like Thomas Jefferson or John Adams, so this idea was not unusual to Joseph”, so I see no reason to give this any credit, no matter how specific and detailed it is. It’s simply too obvious a feature of humanity to miss. I give it a 1.

Foreigners move in and take over government, often as family dynasties

Again, this is a common feature of humanity, and places like the Bible have stories of people moving in and taking charge. Dale and Dale give this a 0.1, but I give it a 1.

City administrative area with bureaucrats and aristocrats

This, too, seems like an obvious feature of human government, and anyone with any passing familiarity with how humans organize would describe cities like this. I give this a 1.

Records kept specifically of the reigns of the kings

The Bible keeps records of kings, so why not the Book of Mormon as well? I give this a 1.

Native leaders incorporated in power structure after subjugation

The Bible appears to feature this kind of power structure, so I don’t rate this as unusual. I’ll give it a 0.1.

Tribute required of subjects

Since Dale and Dale note that “it is possible that Joseph had heard about this practice either through the Bible or other sources”, I give this a 1.

Limited number of important patrilineages

Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith might have picked up this idea from reading the Bible (that is, the tribes of Israel)” but consider this “very unlikely”. They don’t explain why. Considering how familiar Smith was with the Bible, and considering how common it is for a limited number of hereditary elites to be in charge of things, I give this a 1.

King and “king elect”

Kings are common to the Bible, and elected leaders were common to Joseph’s environment. This is not specific enough to count in favor of the ancient America hypothesis over the 19th-century hypothesis. Dale and Dale give this a 0.5, but I give this one just a 1.

There are captains serving kings

Where would Joseph Smith have come up with the idea of having people serving kings? Presumably from common sense. I rate this a 1.

Political power is exercised by family dynasties

This appears to be a restatement of the detail of having a limited number of important patrilineages. Since it’s redundant, it counts as no better than a 1.

Kings rule over subordinate provincial or territorial rulers, some of noble blood (subkings)

This is a natural feature of aristocracies. I rate this as no more specific than a 1.

“Seating” means accession to political power

The Bible makes numerous references to seats of power, judgment seats, and sitting on thrones. Someone copying the Bible would use this kind of language. I give this a 1.

Separation of civil and religious authority

This was common in Smith’s environment, and someone in that environment trying to come up with a civilization’s details might easily have given this specific detail. Since it doesn’t stand out from Smith’s environment, I give it no better than a 1.

Those of noble birth aspire to power

Dale and Dale themselves note that “seeking after power seems to be part of human nature”, so why should this count for anything special? I give it a 1.

Royal courts imitate their enemies

This one does seem odd to me, and to Coe, so I’ll go with Dale and Dale’s rating of 0.1.

Royal courts function as “great households”

Unlike Dale and Dale, I don’t think this is specific enough to count for anything. I give it a 1.

Candidates for high office had to possess hidden knowledge

Here, I disagree with Dale and Dale’s take on the Book of Mormon. Their argument is that phrases like “he caused that they should be taught in all the language of his fathers” from Mosiah 1:2 imply some secret knowledge passed from father to son. I say that this kind of language is too common in the Book of Mormon to imply any such thing. Consider 1 Nephi 1:1, which begins with “I, Nephi, having been born of goodly parents, therefore I was taught somewhat in all the learning of my father”. Being taught in the language of fathers is presented as part of a good education, not a secret one. Since this detail doesn’t actually feature in the Book of Mormon, it gets no better than a 1.

Abrupt breaks in dynasties

Since Dale and Dale note that “Joseph might well have known about the many European wars, with multiple rulers bent on deposing each other”, this one is not specific to the Book of Mormon. I give it a 1.

Subservient peoples are said to “possess” the land while ruled by a dominant power

Speaking of “possessing” a land seems to be quite common in the Bible, as Dale and Dale note when they say that “that same word possess was the relationship the Israelites were to have with their lands of promise, under God’s rule”. This fits well with the hypothesis that Smith copied the Bible, so it doesn’t count as specific to the ancient America hypothesis. I give it a 1.

Possible ancient origin of Mesoamerican cultures

Here, again, I disagree with Dale and Dale’s take on the Book of Mormon. They argue that the Jaredites fit well with the model of an especially ancient culture inspiring later ancient American cultures, but the Jaredites destroyed themselves before they had the chance to pass anything on to the Nephites. Since this doesn’t match well with the Book of Mormon, I give this a 1.

Active interchange of ideas and things among the elite

Active interchange of ideas is common to all humans, not just ancient elite ones. Dale and Dale give this a 0.02. I think they’re being absurdly generous to Smith here. I give it a 1.

Foreign brides for elites

As Dale and Dale note that “Joseph might have been aware of the intermarriages among the royal houses of Europe, where elites also had foreign brides”, this feature of the Book of Mormon does not stand out. I give it a 1.

Slavery practiced

This is all too common to humanity, including humanity as described in the Bible. I give it a 1.

Different languages found in pockets

Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith might have reflected on the intrusion of English into the French peoples of Canada, or on the immigration of so many Germans during the Revolutionary War” and then immediately write this off as “unlikely in the extreme”. I say that they are not justified in writing this off as unlikely. I give it a 1.

In their creation stories, a great flood caused by human wickedness

This is very common in ancient creation stories, including the Bible. I give this one a 1.

Possible settlement of the Americas by seafarers

Joseph’s own ancestors settled America by sea, so he had ample inspiration to draw on for this one. I give it a 1.

Steep decline and disappearance of an ancient culture a few hundred years BC

Here, again, I disagree with Dale and Dale’s take on the Book of Mormon. The Jaredites suffered more than a steep decline; they had a massive civil war of extinction. Dale and Dale give this a 0.02. Since it’s not that great of a fit with the Book of Mormon itself, I give this one just a 0.1.

Strong class distinctions based on noble birth, wealth and specialized learning

Another detail that’s all too common to humanity. I give this a 1.

Sacrifice of children and others to Maya gods

As Dale and Dale note that “the practice of sacrificing children and infants is described in the Bible”, I say that this is not good enough to separate the ancient America hypothesis from the 19th-century hypothesis. I rate this a 1.

Multiple correspondences with Egyptian culture and concepts

Here, I greatly disagree with Dale and Dale. They note that there are similarities between the Maya and the Egyptians, but I say that these similarities imply commonalities between all human cultures. If these massively separate cultures could come up with the same idea, Smith could come up with it as well. I give this a 1.

Mobile populations, founding new cities

As Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith and his family were themselves part of a highly mobile American frontier population”, this one once again does not differentiate ancient America from 19th-century America. I give this a 1.

Menial workers, extreme inequality, ignorance and oppression

Once again, this is all too common to humanity everywhere. I rate this a 1.

Marketplaces exist

Yes, in fact, they do exist. They exist everywhere. I give this a 1.

People driven from their homes wander searching for a new home

This is common to Smith’s history (Europeans leaving their homeland for a better home abroad) and to the Bible, starting with the creation story of Adam and Eve being driven from their first home. Dale and Dale give this a 0.02, and I think they’re being absurdly generous again. I give it a 1.

Wasteful architectural extravagance

This is common to rich people everywhere, and it can be found in the Bible. To be ignorant of this feature of humanity, Smith would have had to be ignorant of the very existence of rich people. He was not that ignorant. Dale and Dale again give this 0.02, and I once again disagree and give this a 1.

Large northward migrations specifically mentioned

Dale and Dale call this a “a specific, detailed and unusual correspondence”, but I disagree. Having a generalized north land to flee too is not detailed or unusual. They give this one a 0.02, but I only rate it a 0.1.

Constant migrations

Since Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith and his family were part of a mass westward migration of Americans that had been going on for a very long time”, this one fits just as well with the 19th-century hypothesis as it does with the ancient America hypothesis. As such, I give it a 1.

Cities and lands named after founder

This one seems too common to humanity in general to be worth mentioning. I give it a 1.

Maya say their ancestors came from the west, beyond the sea

Joseph’s own ancestors came from the west, beyond the sea, so once again, it’s not a distinguishing detail. I give it a 1.

Their sacred writing has poetic parallelisms, repetitions

This one merits some special examination. Dale and Dale note the existence of chiasms in Maya literature and in the Book of Mormon, but they give a lot of credit to the Book of Mormon for having chiasms and not much credit to possible inspirations for having similar chiasms. They claim that “Hebrew chiasms and poetic parallelisms in the Old Testament were largely erased by the scholars who translated the King James Bible into English”. The people at https://www.chiasmusxchange.com/ disagree. They point to the existence of dozens of chiasms throughout the Old and New Testaments, even in the existing English translations. Smith, being familiar with the Bible and wanting to emulate it, could have easily imitated this poetic form deliberately or by chance.

Dale and Dale pay special attention to the large chiasm in Alma 36. Other people don’t see that one as compelling evidence. In Alma 36: Ancient Masterpiece Chiasmus or Modern Revivalist Testimony?, Robert M. Bowman Jr. makes the case that Alma 36 is a poor example of chiasm. I find Bowman’s case more compelling than anything cited by Dale and Dale, undercutting their case that these details are “unusual in the extreme” as they claim.

Dale and Dale think that they are generous by giving this one a 0.02 as opposed to a higher weight such as one in a billion. I say that they are being too generous to Smith again. I rate this one as a 0.1.

Corn first among grains

Dale and Dale note that even View of the Hebrews mentions the primacy of corn among the Native Americans, so this one can easily be explained by Smith’s environment. I give it a 1.

Multiple wives/concubines especially among the rich

Again, this one is common across cultures and found in the Bible. I give it a 1.

Important to trace one’s genealogy to a prominent ancestor

This one is common to monarchies and aristocracies everywhere, and it features in the Bible. Dale and Dale rate this as a 0.02, and I again call them absurdly generous. I give it a 1.

Genealogies kept very carefully by the priests

If doing genealogy work has taught me anything, it’s that churches are excellent sources of ancestral records. They kept them in Joseph Smith’s day just as they had kept them for centuries before in Europe. Detailed genealogies are also found in the Bible. I rate this one as a 1.

Homosexuality probably practiced

Another feature found across all of human culture, and the best that Dale and Dale can say is that “the Book of Mormon’s reference to homosexual practices is veiled, but clear enough”. It fails to stand out from any environment. I rate this as a 1.

Arcane sacred or prestige language

Once again, I disagree with Dale and Dale’s take on the Book of Mormon. Being taught in the language of fathers best fits the pattern of receiving a good education in the Book of Mormon’s context. It is not referenced as secret knowledge, and Dale and Dale are wrong in describing it as such. This detail is missing, so it gets a 1.

Practice of repopulating old or abandoned cities

This one does strike me as unusual, but there does seem to be some precedent in the Bible of repossessing cities, such as the taking of Jericho. Still, the way this is presented in the Book of Mormon doesn’t quite seem to match anything that I’m aware of in Joseph’s environment. I will concur with Dale and Dale in giving this a 0.1.

World divided into four quarters or quadrants

The Bible speaks both of the four quarters of the earth and the four quarters of heaven, and other traditions reference the four corners of the world. I give this a 1.

Maya fascinated by ancient Olmec culture

This feature is common to humanity. Joseph Smith and his contemporaries were fascinated by ancient Biblical culture and by the ancient culture of the supposed “mound builders”. Smith seems to have simply given the Nephites a detail that he had in himself. I rate this a 1.

Lineage histories dominate the written records

This detail again seems to be common to the Bible. I give it a 1.

Central role of temples (ritual centers) in society

Dale and Dale say that “Joseph Smith might – perhaps, possibly, conceivably – have gotten the idea from View of the Hebrews” but I think it more likely that Smith got the idea from the Bible, with the tabernacle and the temple being so central to worship in the Old Testament, not to mention being a central site of Jesus’s ministry in the New Testament. I give this a 1.

Strong Christian elements in Maya religion

Here, I very strongly disagree with Dale and Dale’s take. They note certain resemblances between Maya and Christian practices, but I say that the Book of Mormon makes such a strong claim here that these resemblances do not go far enough. The Book of Mormon claims that its ancient peoples were explicitly Christian, not just Christian-like, and it features many aspects of Christianity that were common to Smith’s day. Alexander Campbell, in his book “Delusions”, notices that the Book of Mormon discusses “all the great controversies – infant baptism, ordination, the trinity, regeneration, repentance, justification, the fall of man, the atonement, transubstantiation, fasting, penance, church government, religious experience, the call to the ministry, the general resurrection, eternal punishment, who may baptize, and even the question of freemasonry, republican government, and the rights of man”. In other words, the Book of Mormon is much more explicitly Christian than the Maya ever were. Even worse, it describes a people who were explicitly Christian before the time of Jesus. As such, instead of calling this a lucky guess, I call it completely off the mark. Dale and Dale rated this one a 0.02. I do the exact opposite, and rate it a 50.

Change in popular cults; decline of a great city in the highlands in the Late Preclassic

I’m not sure what to make of this one, so I’ll leave it as Dale and Dale’s estimation in favor of Smith, as 0.1.

Close association of temples with sacred mountains/hills (pyramids)

The Bible makes this same association, with Isaiah explicitly referring to the “mountain of the Lord”. Dale and Dale give this a 0.02, claiming that Smith could only have gotten the idea from a “careful reading of the Bible” uncommon to his day. I say that Smith was clearly a careful reader of the Bible, so I give this a 1.

Seers and seer stones exist

Seer stones were a common practice in Smith’s environment. I rate this a 1.

Temple and other religious rituals involve bloodletting

Dale and Dale note that bloodletting practices “would probably not be unusual to a Bible-reading individual”. They give this a 0.5, but I don’t think it deserves even that in light of what they acknowledged. I give it a 1.

Belief in resurrection

Belief in coming back from the dead is common among human cultures. Dale and Dale claim that “doctrine of a literal bodily resurrection had been in retreat in Christianity for centuries”, but in so doing, they acknowledge that the claim was already there in Christianity, just as Alexander Campbell pointed out. Smith could easily have gotten this one from the Bible. I give this a 1.

Baptismal rite among the Maya

In Dale and Dale’s defense, they quote Coe in saying that “the Spanish Fathers were quite astounded that the Maya had a baptismal rite”. But were the Spanish fathers actually justified in being astounded? Baptism-like initiation ceremonies are common among many human cultures. As for where Smith got the idea, he was already committed to the idea that the ancient Americans were all Christians, even before the coming of Jesus, so why wouldn’t he say that they were practicing baptism? It would have been stranger if he claimed that they weren’t baptizing. I give this a 1.

Ritual walking in straight roads symbolizes acceptable behavior

The Bible says that “strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it”, so why should we be surprised when a book based on the Bible makes reference to straight roads? I give this a 1.

Humans obligated to abide by covenants, God usually involved

The idea of making covenants with God is written all through the Bible. Dale and Dale claim that “in the conventional Christianity of Smith’s day, the importance of covenants was very much downplayed if not absent altogether” but I think they’re completely wrong here. Christianity at any time has centered on making promises to God and doing God’s will. I give this one a 1.

Hereditary priests and Chief Priests

Dale and Dale make a poor case for the office of priest being hereditary in the Book of Mormon. As for how Smith guessed at a model of priests that didn’t quite match his day, he had the Bible for inspiration. I do not see how Smith’s description of priests is a poor match for the Bible or a good match for Coe’s description of Mayan priests. I rate this a 1.

Existence of opposites is an essential part of creation

In the article Alma 42 and the Atonement, the author makes the case that Smith got his ideas about “opposition in all things” from Greek philosophy. On this one, it’s hard to say what kind of inspiration Smith had access to here, but the author makes the case that many thinkers have said that opposites are an essential part of creation. As such, this one is not that unique to Smith, so it is not so strange that he wrote it. Dale and Dale give this a 0.02, but I argue that we should give this one a more conservative 0.1.

Pantheistic religion and idols

The existence of idol worship was a big deal throughout the Old and New Testament. It is no surprise to see a Bible-based book continue with that same focus. I give this a 1.

Sorcery, magic and witchcraft practiced

Dale and Dale note that “belief in the practice of evil magic… would probably not be unusual to Joseph Smith”, so this one again fits well with Smith’s existing environment. I give it a 1.

Ritual for the renewal of the community, including transfer of sacred objects

Others have made the case that Benjamin’s gathering of his people closely resembles a spiritual revival meeting. As for the transfer of objects, that has parallels both in royal coronations transferring objects such as a crown, or in Bible stories such as Elisha taking up the mantle of Elijah. Smith had plenty of inspiration for this one. I rate this a 1.

Blurring/combining priestly and political roles

This is another common feature in human cultures, and you can find it in the Bible as well. I give this a 1.

Divination: consulting oracles for secular guidance and assistance

Dale and Dale note that “this practice is also mentioned in the Bible (for example, Saul and the witch of Endor)” so it isn’t good enough to count as evidence only in Smith’s favor. I give it a 1.

Calendars kept by holy men/priests

This is not described in great detail in the Book of Mormon, as Dale and Dale acknowledge. I don’t think there is anything in the Book of Mormon to distinguish this kind of record keeping from that done priests and monks up to Smith’s time. I rate this one as just a 1.

Virtuous persons “confess”

Dale and Dale give this one a 0.02 on the grounds that “while confession is a prominent part of the Roman Catholic faith, it was not prominent in any Protestant tradition in frontier America”. I think they’ve got it all wrong. Confessing your sins and repenting of them has been part of Christianity from the beginning, as well as in other cultures. I give this a 1.

Extreme cruelty to enemy captives

This one is sadly common to humanity, and cruelty to captives is a thing that people often accuse their enemies of. We can find these kinds of accusations in The Late War, among other places. I rate this as only a 1.

Defensive earthworks with deep ditches, breastworks and palisades

Dale and Dale give great credit to the Book of Mormon in describing ditches and walls, concluding that “Joseph Smith was either a military genius himself, or he guessed it”. I say that you don’t have to be a genius to come up with the idea of ditches and walls, and that The Late War describes this exact sort of arrangement, with forts having walls in front of them and ditches around them. With The Late War as context, I give this one only a 1.

Walled cities, especially during wartime

Having walled cities is both Biblical and just good common sense. I give it a 1.

Thick clothing used as armor

What’s so unusual about thick clothing? This seems like another detail that you could arrive at by common sense. I give it a 1.

Fighting with “darts”

The Bible makes references to fighting with darts, so this one isn’t a stretch. Since it could be equally ancient America or 19th century, I give it a 1.

Endemic, internecine warfare destroyed the societies

Unless I’m mistaken, this one isn’t Biblical, but it was a common idea in Smith’s day, with people supposing that the “savages” living in the present had exterminated the great lost civilization of the mound builders. I give this a 1.

Warfare with ambushes and traps

Dale and Dale note that “the Indians of North America were also masters of ambush, and Joseph would have known this”, so I say that we’re not even justified in giving this a 0.5. I give it a 1.

Raids to take captives/slaves

I quote Dale and Dale: “Indians also raided the whites and each other to take captives/slaves. Joseph Smith would likely have known of this practice.” They proceed to give this a 0.1 for being specific and detailed, but it can be specific and detailed about Smith’s environment just as well as it can be specific and detailed about ancient America. I give it a 1.

Warriors dressing to inspire fear

As Dale and Dale note that “Indian warriors, for example, used war paint in part to inspire fear”, I give this one only a 1.

Stones and slings used as weapons for fighting

Slings are regularly mentioned as weapons in the Bible, so it’s no surprise to see them regularly mentioned in a text inspired by the Bible. I give this a 1.

Cannibalism practiced on captives

Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith may have heard of the ritual cannibalism practiced by the Iroquois”, and it fits all too well with the narrative of cruelty towards captives mentioned earlier. With that in mind, I give it a 1.

Deliberate destruction of the records/monuments

Dale and Dale ask where Smith might have gotten this idea, but I think it fits well with idea of “savages” destroying the advanced civilization. Still, I can’t find too many examples of it in Smith’s environment, so I’ll go with Dale and Dale’s weight of this one as 0.1.

Highlands and lowlands exist within the relevant geography

Having highlands and lowlands isn’t specific to any kind of geography at all. I rate this one as a 1.

Accurate description of a volcanic eruption

Dale and Dale give great credit to Smith for this one. I say that they’re wrong. Smith’s description matches pretty well with the kind of destruction described in Revelations (thunderings, lightnings, earthquake, great hail). It also matches well with a description of a dynamite explosion as given in The Late War. For both of these similarities, I give this one a 1.

Periods of terrible drought separated by decades or centuries with resulting famines

Years of famine separated by years of plenty are described in the Bible, and they’re common enough in human history. I give this one only a 1.

Venomous, aggressive snakes present

Aggressive snakes are described in the Bible as a plague sent by God, which is also how they’re presented in the Book of Mormon, so once again, this one can’t separate the ancient America hypothesis from the 19th century hypothesis. I give it a 1.

Easy to get lost, very thick wilderness, cities hidden in the wilderness

Being lost in the wilderness does seem to feature in the Bible (consider the children of Israel being lost in the wilderness for forty years) but the thick wilderness doesn’t seem to match the Bible, and I can’t find much in the existing literature that describes lost cities, so I’ll leave this one as is. I’ll stick with Dale and Dale’s 0.02.

Powerful, ancient central city and culture in the highlands

This one has me a little baffled, so I’ll leave it as Dale and Dale’s value without comment. They give it a 0.02.

Earthquakes present and important

Earthquakes are present and important in the Bible, just as they are in the Book of Mormon. I give it a 1.

Deforestation of large areas

As Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith and everyone around him were also busy deforesting the land”, this one doesn’t stand out from the 19th century hypothesis at all. I give it a 1.

Areas set aside for forest regrowth and/or timber shipped in from a distance

This one strikes me as specific and detailed, but not unusual, since setting areas aside for forest regrowth seems like a common-sense idea after deforesting an area. I give this a 0.1.

Precious stones exist (but they are not diamonds, rubies, and pearls)

Dale and Dale give the Book of Mormon great credit for not naming the precious stones used. I don’t think the book deserves any credit for not naming things, especially since the phrase “precious stones” appears very often in the King James Version. Since this could have easily resulted from copying the KJV, I give this one a 1.

Submerged cities

Dale and Dale note that “Joseph Smith may have known of the story of Atlantis”, but the thing that makes this detail not stand out to me is that it arises in the context of multiple cities being destroyed in different ways. Some sink, some are burned, some are shaken, and some people are carried away in a whirlwind. It sounds to me like Smith was just trying to find more interesting ways to describe the destruction, and he happened to describe the destruction in a way that matches some cities that were actually destroyed. With that in mind, I rate this as a 1.

Perishable writing materials

Dale and Dale note that “paper books and documents in Joseph Smith’s day would also burn or decay”, which really underscores how obvious this one is. I give Smith no credit for describing the obvious. This gets a 1.

Refined gold present

Dale and Dale say that “Joseph Smith may well have heard of the treasures of gold plundered by the Spaniards”. To that, I add that the Bible also mentions refined gold and silver, so anyone describing a Biblical civilization would probably mention refined gold and silver. I give this a 1.

Millions of inhabitants in the area

Dale and Dale note that “in 1830, the U. S. census gave a population of about 13 million”. So, in describing a population of millions, Smith was simply describing a population similar to his own. This fits within the idea that he was inspired by his own environment, making that explanation as likely in this case as the explanation of getting divine inspiration. I give this a 1.

Calendar kept by day, month and year

Smith’s own calendar was kept by day, month, and year. It may be that he simply couldn’t imagine any other way of tracking time. This gets a 1.

Multiple calendars kept

To support this detail, Dale and Dale cite 3 Nephi 1:1, which I quote in full: “Now it came to pass that the ninety and first year had passed away and it was six hundred years from the time that Lehi left Jerusalem; and it was in the year that Lachoneus was the chief judge and the governor over the land.” They also cite 3 Nephi 2:7-8, which I quote in full: “And nine years had passed away from the time when the sign was given, which was spoken of by the prophets, that Christ should come into the world. Now the Nephites began to reckon their time from this period when the sign was given, or from the coming of Christ; therefore, nine years had passed away.” Dale and Dale argue that these are evidence of multiple calendars being kept. I think that these are just instances of the same calendar being kept. 3 Nephi 1:1 is an instance of the author telling us how many years had passed away since a certain event had happened (specifically, since the reign of the judges began) and 3 Nephi 2:7-8 is the author again telling us how many years have passed since a certain event, and noting that the Nephites have restarted their calendar. This does not match the multiple calendar system that Coe describes at all. I count this one as evidence against the ancient America hypothesis, since we have no evidence of the Maya starting their calendar around 600 BCE or restarting it around 0 CE. To reflect the fact that this one counts against Smith, I give this one a 2.

Bee keeping, domesticated bees, honey

In pointing to this detail, Dale and Dale ask: “What Indian tribes did Joseph Smith know of that practiced beekeeping?” I say that they’re asking the wrong question. Beekeeping is a common human activity, practiced by people in Smith’s time and place. How did Smith guess this one correctly? I say that he simply inferred it from what he saw around him. I give this a 1.

Art including carving, painting, dancing, metalwork, music

Art is a feature common to all human cultures, including the culture described in the Bible and Smith’s own culture. I give this a 1.

Knowledge of the movement of the stars, planets and moon

Smith’s own civilization had knowledge of astronomy, and so did the people of the Bible. I give this a 1.

Writing is present, but its genealogy is complicated and poorly understood

Writing is common to the Bible and to Smith’s own time and place. Dale and Dale also try to make the claim that the genealogy of Book of Mormon writing is complicated and poorly understood, but the book itself claims all the way until the end that it is written in reformed Egyptian, based on Hebrew. I give this a 1.

Engraved writing on stone

Once again, writing was not unusual to Smith or to the Bible, nor was writing on stone (consider the tables of stone with the commandments written on them). I give this a 1.

Many books present, some were kept in repositories

Since the Bible is composed of many books, and since Smith’s time and place had many books, it would not be odd for Smith or someone like him to imagine a civilization with many books. This gets a 1.

Trading in a variety of goods

Trading is an exceptionally common human activity. I give this a 1.

Many merchants

This is just restating the past detail. This gets a 1.

Roads and causeways built

Many great civilizations built roads, so it would make sense for Smith to assign road production to a great lost civilization. I give this a 1.

Houses with attached gardens

This detail seems trivial. Houses in Smith’s day had attached gardens, so why wouldn’t he ascribe this feature to past civilizations? This gets a 1.

Foreigners/new rulers introduce/impose a new language/writing system on indigenous peoples

Dale and Dale’s reason for giving this a 0.02 is that Smith surely could not have seen any examples of this, since “European settlers in North America were not trying to impose a new language on the Native Americans, they were trying to take get rid of the Indians and take their lands”. To them, I say: look up the history of American Indian boarding schools. This practice has an unfortunate parallel in Smith’s time, so it does not stand out. I give this a 1.

Writing system changed significantly over time

Dale and Dale say that Smith “might perhaps have known about significant changes in spoken English from the time” but that he couldn’t have guessed that this would extend to written English. I don’t find this very convincing, but I may be biased against Smith here. I will leave this at a 0.1.

Buildings of cement

Dale and Dale again reference the practices of existing American Indian populations while forgetting that Smith was describing a great lost civilization. Smith himself obviously knew what cement was, so he could have easily learned about this one from his environment. I give this a 1.

Great skill in the working of cement (stucco)

This is just restating the previous point to try to get more points of it, and I will not allow that. I give this a 1.

Excellent workmanship practiced

I find it silly that Dale and Dale thought this detail worth mentioning. Of course Smith ascribed excellent workmanship to his great lost civilization. Everyone who cared about the “mound builders” thought that they must have been pretty great, and Smith was basing his version of them on the Bible, which regularly speaks of excellent workmanship practiced by its people. Dale and Dale gave this a 0.02, their maximum value of weight for a detail. I give it a 1.

Trade goods traveled by sea

Shipping was a common practice in Smith’s time, and Dale and Dale acknowledge that “Joseph Smith may have known something of the trade between the Iroquois and other northeastern tribes carried on by canoe”. They defend their focus on this detail by saying that this trade was over freshwater lakes instead of the ocean, but again, Smith had his own environment to draw inspiration from. This gets a 1.

Books stored underground in lidded stone boxes

Smith had an easy parallel to draw on for this one: digging for treasure. He was a known treasure digger, and such people believed that precious objects from times past were hidden underground. Finding a stash of plates of gold fits perfectly well with Smith’s environmental influences. I give this a 1.

Towers built, some very tall, possibly watchtowers

Towers are a common feature in the Bible, and they remain a common feature today, so this feature does not stand out. I give it a 1.

Multiple formal entrances to villages

This one hardly seems worth mentioning at all. Dale and Dale note that “small towns on the American frontier had more than one entrance”, so this again fits well with Smith’s environment. I give this a 1.

Fine fabrics and textiles, elaborate clothing

To this point, I refer you to what I said about excellent workmanship being practiced. This gets a 1.

That covers all the positive correspondences that Dale and Dale find between the Book of Mormon and the Maya. We now move on to the negative correspondences. For these matters, I would frequently like to give them a more negative weight than just 50, but Dale and Dale are already giving billion-to-1 odds against the Book of Mormon, so I’ll just copy them there and try not to pile on.

Horses existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite and Jaredite) times

It’s well established that horses did not exist during Lehite times. This one stays at a 50.

Elephants existed during Book of Mormon (Jaredite) times

Dale and Dale point out that “elephants may indeed have been killed off before the Nephites arrived”, so having elephant-like creatures among the Jaredites isn’t out of the realm of possibility. This one stays at a 10.

Iron existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite and Jaredite) times

If iron were used at all, we would find remains of it somewhere, and Dale and Dale acknowledge that we have found none. This one stays at a 50.

Steel existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite and Jaredite) times

I complement Dale and Dale for noting that steel technology is distinct from iron technology, and that we haven’t found any evidence for steel, either. I concur with them that this counts as a 50.

Copper existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite and Jaredite) times

Interestingly enough, there is evidence of the use of copper among the mound builders, and Smith may have been aware of that. Still, since we’re discussing the Maya specifically, we’ll go by Coe’s objection, and leave it at what Dale and Dale gave it: a 10.

Refined gold and silver existed during Book of Mormon times

I know less about this one, so I’ll stay with Dale and Dale’s evaluation of it as a 10.

Brass existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite and Jaredite) times

Once again, I agree with Dale and Dale in granting this one heavy negative weight. Like them, I give it a 50.

Chariots existed during Book of Mormon (Lehite) times

The lack of wheeled vehicles among the Maya is strange, as Dale and Dale notice, but the evidence is well-founded. They had no chariots. I agree with Dale and Dale in weighting this one as 50.

Sheep existed during Book of Mormon (Jaredite) times

Dale and Dale give this one low weight, but in their defense, they note that the “flocks” referenced in the Book of Mormon have no specified animal. I leave this one at a 2.

Goats existed during Book of Mormon (Jaredite and Lehite) times

I again agree with Dale and Dale in giving this one a weight of 50.

Swine existed during Book of Mormon (Jaredite) times

Given the possibility of using the peccary, I leave this one at Dale and Dale’s estimate. Like them, I give it a 2.

Wheat existed during Book of Mormon times

Dale and Dale curiously acknowledge that “the Lehite colony specifically mentions bringing “seeds” with them, so it is likely that Old World wheat was among those seeds” while also acknowledging that no wheat has been found in Mesoamerica. The Book of Mormon names wheat specifically twice, and it was apparently common enough that when Jesus came to teach the Nephites, he could reference wheat without anyone getting confused by it. I give this one more weight than Dale and Dale did. I give it a 10.

Barley existed during Book of Mormon times

Dale and Dale note that barley was the basis of the Nephite monetary system, but then say that it might not have been a principal crop. If it was important enough to be associated with their money, then it would have been fairly widespread. They give this a 2, but with what I just said in mind, I give it a 10.

Cattle (oxen and cows) existed during Book of Mormon times

I agree with Dale and Dale’s weighing of this. We give it a 50.

Silk existed during Book of Mormon times

Dale and Dale say that “silk” could be referring to some other kind of fine fabric, but if Smith meant some other kind of fine fabric, why not say “fine fabric” instead of specifically naming silk? They gave this one a 2, but I give it a 10.

Asses (donkeys) existed during Book of Mormon times

I agree with Dale and Dale’s assigning this one a full weight of 50.

Hybrid Egyptian/Hebrew language/writing system

Here, again, Dale and Dale argue that the language on the plates was “obviously not the common language”, and here again I disagree. They argue that Moroni 9:34, in which Moroni says that “none other people knoweth our language”, is evidence of this, but I say that this is simply an acknowledgement that their language has drifted away from its origins and become something that no other culture has now. Dale and Dale give this one only a 2, but I give it a 10.

Lack of Middle Eastern DNA in the New World

Here, I strongly disagree with Dale and Dale’s take. They cite Ugo Perego’s work on Book of Mormon DNA, but I point to Simon Southerton’s critique of Perego. The Book of Mormon makes no mention of people existing in America when Lehi’s group arrive, except for the last survivor of the extinct Jaredites. It heavily implies that the descendants of Lehi and Mulek were the most important inhabitants if not the only inhabitants. In spite of this, there is no trace of old Middle Eastern DNA among any indigenous American people. Where did it go? I grant this one the maximum weight of 50.

Now, I also want to add a few more negative correspondences between the Book of Mormon and the Maya. Oddly enough, Dale and Dale mention these in the context of View of the Hebrews, but not the Book of Mormon, even though they apply.

The ancestors of the American Indians observed the Law of Moses

The Book of Mormon states multiple times that the Nephites observed the Law of Moses until Jesus came. Dale and Dale note that there is no evidence that they did so. This one counts against the Book of Mormon as well as View of the Hebrews. It gets a 50.

They have acknowledged one, and only one God

Everyone in the Book of Mormon is either monotheistic or atheistic. I give this one the same weight against the Book of Mormon as Dale and Dale did against View of the Hebrews. This gets a 10.

Indians called on the name of Jehovah

The name Jehovah is mentioned twice in the Book of Mormon, once near the beginning and once near the end. It is reasonable to infer that the Nephites used the name Jehovah for God, but Dale and Dale note that they do not used this name. I apply this to the Book of Mormon with the same strength that Dale and Dale applied it to View of the Hebrews. It gets a 50.

We are now finally ready to multiply all the appropriately weighted positive and negative correspondences together. We get 0.02⁴ x 0.1¹¹ x 2³ x 10⁸ x 50¹² = 3.125 x 10¹¹

This counts as strong evidence against the Book of Mormon. I think this is a fair analysis. It counts only the evidence that Smith could not have gotten by blatantly copying his own environment, and it properly weighs the evidence that Smith got wrong by copying his environment. It does not give Smith any credit for trivial details, which is my biggest critique of Dale and Dale’s analysis.

This concludes my rough draft. How can I improve this piece? Please let me know in the comments.

Turning Horses into Zebras: The anti-trans crowd gets it wrong again

I recently came across a post on XTwitter, because it is wrong and a lot of people don’t seem to realize that it is wrong. At the risk of spreading wrongness, I will share the whole post below, and then respond to it:

There’s a saying in medicine that goes, “when you hear hooves, think horses not zebras.” Meaning always opt for the most plausible explanation first.

So let’s apply that to the enormous surge in adolescent girls identifying as transgender in the past decade.

Option 1: All throughout human history, there have been girls who showed no sign of gender distress during childhood who suddenly at puberty realised that they were actually boys, but modern medicine had yet to be invented so they had to suffer the lifelong agony of being trapped in the wrong-sexed body. Curiously, not one ever gave voice to this pain.

Then, only when the caring, benevolent medical industrial complex invented the concept of transsexualism and out of the goodness of their hearts made puberty blockers, cross-sex hormones and surgeries available were these tortured souls able to embrace their true authentic selves.

As well, miraculously, the modern trans rights movement began in 2014 and achieved immediate and complete societal acceptance of transgender people, so all of these boys trapped in female bodies felt comfortable coming out en masse starting in 2015.

Or, option 2:

It’s an internet-fuelled social contagion on steroids.

Incredibly, in gender clinics all over North America, doctors are still opting for zebras.

https://twitter.com/_CryMiaRiver/status/1720448308177490334

As of my writing this post, over four thousand people have “liked” the above message. This could be a lot worse (some anti-trans tweets get hundreds of thousands of likes) but still, four thousand people thought this was worth saying. Allow me to elaborate why I disagree.

Let’s start with the first sentence of option one – the “zebra option”, as it were. Mia claims that “there have been girls who showed no sign of gender distress during childhood who suddenly at puberty realised that they were actually boys”. This phenomenon is known as “rapid-onset gender dysphoria” (ROGD), in which an adolescent who did not display signs of gender dysphoria suddenly begins to show these signs around puberty. There’s one problem with talking about this phenomenon, though: it might not actually exist. The Coalition for the Advancement and Application of Psychological Science has this to say about ROGD:

As an organization committed to the generation and application of clinical science for the public good, the Coalition for the Advancement and Application of Psychological Science (CAAPS) supports eliminating the use of Rapid-Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD) and similar concepts for clinical and diagnostic application given the lack of rigorous empirical support for its existence.

There are no sound empirical studies of ROGD and it has not been subjected to rigorous peer-review processes that are standard for clinical science. Further, there is no evidence that ROGD aligns with the lived experiences of transgender children and adolescents.

CAAPS Position Statement on Rapid Onset Gender Dysphoria (ROGD)

Right from the beginning, option 1 isn’t describing reality. It proceeds to get worse. Consider this next sentence: “Curiously, not one ever gave voice to this pain.” Just do a little reading on transgender history and you’ll find plenty of historical instances of people who weren’t happy with the gender they were assigned at birth. You’ll also find plenty of history of women being punished for being too masculine (such as laws forbidding anyone from dressing as the opposite sex) so it’s worth noting that if many people throughout history weren’t voicing their pain, it was because they had good reason to keep their mouths shut.

Even without strong social norms, there was still another good reason not to give voice to gender-related pain: there wasn’t much you could do about it. As Mia notes, modern medicine didn’t exist for a long time, so switching genders wasn’t really an option. Why express your longing to be a boy when you had no way of becoming one? You might as well publicly wish for a unicorn for all the good it would do you.

Happily, things did not stay this way, but Mia again gets things wrong. She dismisses modern medicine as just an industrial complex and scorns the idea that they could do things out of kindness. She forgets that the “medical industrial complex” is made up of people, and many of those people are doctors, and many of those doctors actually have good intentions. They’re not just in medicine for the money; they’re in it to heal. That’s part of why doctors and medical institutions have been studying and developing transgender health care for multiple decades. They saw that there was a need, and they tried to fill it.

While getting the history of transgender health care wrong, Mia also gets the history of transgender culture and acceptance wrong. She claims that the modern trans rights movement began in 2014 and achieved massive social acceptance at that time. She should know that trans rights activists have been pushing for more trans rights over the past several decades, and she is already fully aware that we have not achieved “immediate and complete societal acceptance of transgender people” since she herself is part of the crowd of people who are pushing against that acceptance.

So where are we so far? As I see it, we have ourselves a horse that Mia has painted stripes on and called a zebra. She has made claims that fail to line up with recorded history, sound science, or basic human nature. And now, after all that, Mia presents her own “horse”: the theory that it’s all social contagion, a kind of madness of crowds.

I’m not an expert on social contagion, but I believe that for this to be true, there would have be a lot of pressure on women to conform to maleness so that the idea of becoming male could actually take hold and become contagious. Consider the case of contagious eating disorders: they spread when there’s a lot of pressure to conform to a certain body type. Is there a comparable pressure on girls to be boys?

Again, I’m not an expert here, but it seems to me that there is not! In fact, some people complain that the opposite is going on: Christina Hoff Sommers says that there’s a war against boys. I’m not going to claim that being a woman is all peachy-keen, but I think we can all agree that the situation for women could be worse, because it was so obviously worse just a few decades ago. Society has made huge progress on accepting women as they are, giving them options, and not pressuring them to be more male. If you want to be a woman without conforming to stereotypical femininity, your options are probably better now than they have been for the past hundred years or so.

In other words, Mia’s “horse” option comes off looking rather like a zebra, and her “zebra” option is a repainted horse. She’s got it exactly backwards… and four thousand people agreed with her.

A message of gratitude to John J. Stewart, author of “Mormonism and the Negro”

In 1960, John J. Stewart wrote and published “Mormonism and the Negro”, a short book meant to be, in the author’s words, “[a]n explanation and defense of the doctrine of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints in regard to Negroes and others of Negroid blood”. John Stewart was not a general authority of the church or an authorized spokesperson, but he did his best to state and defend the church’s official position, so his little book is worthy of our attention. Of course, at the time he wrote the book, the church’s official position was that Black people were not eligible to receive God’s priesthood or to be married and sealed in God’s temples, and that Black and White people should not intermarry, so his defense of the doctrine of the church isn’t something that you’re going to find too many people quoting today. Still, within his book, he managed to say something that gave me pause, and I wish to respond to it.

Near the beginning of the book, after announcing his intention to defend the reasonableness of the church doctrine of the time, Stewart names five points of view about the problem:

(1) Loyal LDS Church members, who deserve reassurance that all Gospel teachings are true and just.

(2) Interested Negro investigators of Mormonism.

(3) Other honest investigators of Mormonism, whose acceptance of Gospel truths may, as with group 2, be thwarted by their misunderstanding of this doctrine.

(4) Negroes at large, who are not investigators of the Gospel, but are nonetheless fellow human beings and members of our society.

(5) Skeptics or “Mormon-baiters,” whether inside or outside the Church.

p. 11

He has this to say about the fifth point of view:

This last group, the “Mormon-baiters,” we can dismiss in a hurry. They have already closed their mind to truth and reason. You cannot prove anything to anybody who is determined not to believe a thing.

Consider the foolishness and the hypocrisy of their position: They are denouncing the LDS Church for not allowing the Negro to hold the Priesthood, yet, they claim that there is no authenticity nor value in the Priesthood. So, if they were really concerned about the welfare of the Negro, they should be grateful that the LDS Church does not allow the Negro to partake of such humbugery [sic] as they deem the Priesthood to be.

pp. 11-12

As a skeptic of the church, I find this a little unkind, since I certainly don’t think that I’ve closed my mind to truth and reason, but I think that he does raise a good point. If you believe, as I do, that there is no authenticity nor value in the LDS church’s priesthood – in other words, if you believe that the church has no special connection to God – then you really should be grateful that the LDS church is excluding people from being associated with it. And so, today, I am here to express my gratitude.

To the many past leaders of the church, and to the members like Stewart who defended them, I say: thank you.

Thank you for excluding people from your church and its practices.

Thank you for crippling your own missionary efforts and preventing untold millions of people from joining your church or being born into it.

Thank you for making it clear that you were uninspired.

Thank you for exposing your own beloved priesthood for the humbuggery that it is.

Thank you for continuing to drive people out of the church when they discover all of the racist things you said and did.

Thank you for revealing that the church’s position was indefensible, even as you attempted to defend it.

Thank you for making it clear that you had no special connection to God or truth.

Thank you for sparing people from ever being a part of your fraudulent organization.

Thank you for making it possible for me to leave your church and never return.

If any of you were still alive, I’m sure that you would not appreciate my gratitude, but still, I offer you my thanks for your service. I am grateful.

The false certainty of spiritual experiences

(The following is written from a perspective heavily influenced by my Latter-day Saint upbringing, but I believe that it is applicable to people of all religious perspectives. I hope you find it useful.)

How do you come to know whether or not your opinion is actually true?

It’s a fair question, and if you ask some people, the answer is that you don’t. Philosophers have all sorts have concluded that uncertainty is the natural state of things, and that the best we can do is to shrink that uncertainty but never destroy it. (This little comic from Existential Comics, A Brief History of Philosophical Skepticism, gives a silly but still fair introduction to the many ways in which people have come to be uncertain.) Logic and the scientific method work well, but never perfectly.

Other people do not agree with this, and say that we do have a sure way of knowing what is true and what isn’t. They say that we can tap into the divine and receive pure truth. I quote from Lawrence Corbridge’s speech, Stand Forever:

How can we know the answers? There are different methods of learning, including the scientific, analytical, academic, and divine methods. The divine method of learning incorporates elements of the other three but ultimately trumps everything else by tapping into the powers of heaven.

Lawrence Corbridge, “Stand Forever”, January 22, 2019

He goes on to explain the gift of the Holy Ghost, which he says is the power by which we “may know the truth of all things”, quoting from the Book of Mormon, specifically Moroni 10:5. The tenth chapter of Moroni is worth focusing on, as it describes the divine method, with special emphasis on using the divine method to confirm the truthfulness of the Book of Mormon. Let’s take a look at the relevant verses:

Behold, I would exhort you that when ye shall read these things, if it be wisdom in God that ye should read them, that ye would remember how merciful the Lord hath been unto the children of men, from the creation of Adam even down until the time that ye shall receive these things, and ponder it in your hearts.

And when ye shall receive these things, I would exhort you that ye would ask God, the Eternal Father, in the name of Christ, if these things are not true; and if ye shall ask with a sincere heart, with real intent, having faith in Christ, he will manifest the truth of it unto you, by the power of the Holy Ghost.

Moroni 10:3-4

So, after studying, focus on God and open your mind to God, having full confidence that God will give you an answer and preparing yourself to act on God’s word, and God will reveal the truth to you. This is said to work for all things, and the church teaches that this is the only way to know the mysteries of God.

But what if you practiced this method and you got a wrong answer?

Before I continue, I want to emphasize that the LDS church teaches the importance of teaching by the Spirit. Whenever you teach the principles of God, you need to do so with the Spirit’s direction, “and if ye receive not the Spirit ye shall not teach.” (D&C 42:14) You are supposed to pray for and carefully follow God’s guidance, and if you do, God will guide you in your teaching so that you teach what is true. With that in mind, let’s look at some instances where some prominent church leaders didn’t seem to get God’s guidance while speaking.

Shall I tell you the law of God in regard to the African race? If the white man who belongs to the chosen seed mixes his blood with the seed of Cain, the penalty, under the law of God, is death on the spot. This will always be so.

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 10, p. 110

[D]o not ever let that wicked virus get into your systems that brotherhood either permits or entitles you to mix races which are inconsistent. Biologically, it is wrong; spiritually, it is wrong.

J. Reuben Clark, Plain Talk to Girls, June 8, 1946, reprinted in the August 1946 issue of the Improvement Era

We will never get a man into space. This earth is man’s sphere and it was never intended that he should get away from it. The moon is a superior planet to the earth and it was never intended that man should go there. You can write it down in your books that this will never happen.

Joseph Fielding Smith, stake conference talk, May 14,1961

The only men who become Gods, even the Sons of God, are those who enter into polygamy.

Brigham Young, Journal of Discourses, v. 11, p. 269

They set out to declare God’s truth and they got it wrong. How did this happen? Did they forget to study and pray? Did they just decide not to listen to the Spirit? I think that’s highly unlikely. It is more probable that these men were actually trying their best to listen to God and make known God’s truths, and that they spoke these words with full confidence that God was guiding them. They did their best, and they got it wrong. It is entirely reasonable to conclude that they got bad direction that felt like good direction. How, then, are we supposed to trust the divine method, when people who use the divine method come up with wrong answers?

It gets worse. Thus far, I have only focused on LDS members practicing the divine method. Latter-day Saints are far from the only ones who practice this method. Listen to people of other faiths and you’ll soon see that they claim to be receiving knowledge by this method, and what they’re receiving doesn’t match up with what Latter-day Saints are receiving.

Consider this advice from a convert to Islam:

May I suggest to the seeker of truth do the following NINE STEPS to purification of the mind:

1. Clean their mind, their heart and their soul real good.
2. Clear away all the prejudices and biases.
3. Read a good translation of the meaning of the Holy Quran in a language that they can understand best.
4. Take some time.
5. Read and reflect.
6. Think and pray.
7. And keep on asking the One who created you in the first place, to guide you to the truth.
8. Keep this up for a few months. And be regular in it.
9. Above all, do not let others who are poisoned in their thinking influence you while you are in this state of “rebirth of the soul.”

The rest is between you and the Almighty Lord of the Universe. If you truly love Him, then He already Knows it and He will deal with each of us according to our hearts.

Yusuf Estes, A Christian Minister’s Conversion to Islam

Yusuf followed his own advice and came to the conclusion that the Quran is God’s word. He’s not alone in this experience. Ask around and you’ll find plenty of people testifying that God told them to be Muslims. While you’re visiting that blog I just linked to, you might also check out the many testimonies of Catholics, or Baha’i, or Hindus. Lots of people are opening their hearts and minds to God and getting responses, but their responses aren’t consistent.

My own experiences with the Spirit have been inconsistent. I have received confirmation that the LDS church was true, and confirmation that the LDS church was false. They can’t both be right. So which one is it? What’s going on here?

Here’s what I think is going on: when people are opening their hearts and minds to God, they’re getting certainty in response, but not necessarily truth. Study and prayer will cause you to feel that something is right, but that feeling is independent of whether or not that thing is actually right.

When the various LDS prophets and apostles prayed for guidance, they got certainty – certainty, that is, that what they were going to say was right. What they didn’t get was actual revelation. When Yusuf Estes prayed to know God’s truth, he got certainty that the Quran is the word of God, but he didn’t get an actual message from heaven. When you or I pray and we feel that burning in our bosom in response, we’re getting certainty, but we’re not necessarily getting truth.

This is consistent with my own experiences. I’ve had several profound moments of feeling a divine presence in my life, but for now I’ll focus on just two of them.

The first was during my mission. I had been struggling for months with not much to show for my efforts. I was depressed and starting to seriously doubt. After several weeks of heartfelt prayer and diligent but fruitless tracting efforts, I attended an all-mission conference, in which a fellow missionary sang Sally DeFord’s “I Have Not Seen, Yet I Believe”, and it hit me hard. I wept and shook, and I felt a total certainty that I was doing the Lord’s work, and that I just needed to keep going.

The second was just a few years ago. I had read the CES Letter, and I was reeling from trying to process it. It made a case against the church that my rational mind could not ignore. The evidence against the church was too sound to ignore. But what was I going to do about it? What would happen if I left the church? And were my own spiritual experiences really as dubious as the letter implied they were? In the midst of all this serious doubting, I said this prayer: “If the Mormon church is true, I want to believe that it is true. If the Mormon church is not true, I want to believe that it is not true.” Just after saying that, I felt total peace, and I was sure that the church was not true, and I was ready to live like it wasn’t true, no matter the risks and costs.

So what’s going on here? I think that in both instances, I was craving certainty, and I got what I wanted in response to prayer, because that’s what humble prayer and faithful listening gets you. What I did not get was truth, because that’s not how it works. The divine method can give you strength to act on your beliefs, but it cannot give you actual knowledge.

I know that this will be hard to accept for many of you, but I urge you to listen. Listen to people who do not share your faith, hear their certainty that what they believe is true, and think about what that means for you. Consider the many testimonies in videos like this one, and realize that their experiences are just as profound as yours. Realize that they have had visions and revelations and mighty changes of heart, and yet they have come to conclusions that simply cannot match with yours.

You have prayed, and you have received certainty, but certainty without knowledge is dangerous. If you are certain that you’ve locked all your doors behind you, but they are in fact unlocked, then you will leave your house vulnerable to thieves, and you may not find out until it’s too late to protect your property. If you are certain that your gas tank is full, but it is not, you may find yourself stranded far from a gas station, unable to drive anywhere. If you want to make good decisions, you have to use methods that produce actual knowledge, and only then seek certainty. Certainty with knowledge is a good thing, but you have to seek knowledge first, and you have to be ready to change your mind when presented with sound evidence.

Voltaire said “Le doute n’est pas un état bien agréable, mais l’assurance est un état ridicule.” (Doubt is not a pleasant condition, but certainty is an absurd one.) I hope that you will have the courage to live with doubt, even when it is painful, and not retreat to the false certainty of spiritual experiences.

The big dumb problem with modern AI

A lawyer made the news over the weekend with his attempt at outsourcing a bit of legal work to ChatGPT. Steven Schwartz used the AI program to do some legal research and file a brief, and in the course of doing “research”, the AI made six citations to court cases that simply don’t exist. The lawyer got in trouble, as he should, but his misplaced trust in computers should serve as a warning to the rest of us, which is what I want to discuss now. As I see it, modern AI is uniquely dangerous in that it is a combination of hard-working and stupid.

Modern computers and programs are very hard-working, and they do certain things very well and very quickly. It sometimes seems that they are super-intelligent, at least compared to our own relatively slow brains. I am fond of a certain set of logic puzzle games maintained by Simon Tatham, and my computer can generate novel versions of each puzzle in less than a second while I struggle to find the solutions to these puzzles in several minutes. My fast and industrious computer dutifully applies its intelligence to keep me entertained. The trouble is that generating these puzzles is actually a limited display of intelligence. Ask them to do something more interesting, like writing a legal case, and computers stumble in the worst possible way: they work hard and produce a lot of bad results.

ChatGPT knows what citations look like, at least in the context of legal briefs, but it does not know what citations actually are, and it does not know that it does not know what these things are, so it does not know how to admit its shortcomings. When Steven Schwartz asked ChatGPT if its citations were real, the program insisted that they were all real. Why did the program make this mistake? Probably because all the made-up citations (like Varghese vs. China Southern Airlines Co., Ltd.) all sound like real cases, and the program only knows how to judge citations by how they sound. Ask the program to write a legal brief, and it will dutifully and quickly write its best impression of a legal brief, but it doesn’t know what a legal brief really is and it will not pause to check the shortcomings of its own work. It is hard-working, but truly and deeply stupid.

There’s an old saying, apocryphally attributed to various military officers, that goes something like this:

There are four types of officer: the clever and lazy, the clever and industrious, the stupid and lazy, and the stupid and industrious. The clever and lazy you make Chief of Staff, because he will not try to do everybody else’s work, and will always have time to think. The clever and industrious you make his deputy. The stupid and lazy you put into a line battalion, and kick him into doing a job of work. The stupid and industrious you must get rid of at once, because he is a national danger.

original source unknown

AI currently fits neatly into the “stupid and industrious” category, and it’s making its dangers known. We’re asking AI to write papers, to diagnose our medical conditions, and to paint our pictures, and the robots keep making stupid mistakes at a large scale. Kyle Hill is right when he says we need to slow down and figure out what these machines are actually doing, and see if we can actually teach them what a citations is before asking them to make citations. (It’s also worth watching Kyle Hill’s video about a flood of apparently algorithmically-generated content on YouTube.)

Artificial super-intelligence may one day be a problem, but today, we have to deal with large volumes of artificial stupidity, and that’s a big problem.

Invasion of the Transgender Cyborgs!; or, The gender-critical feminists and their allies are paranoid and deluded

I have been reading some of the writings of gender-critical feminists (usually referred to by their enemies as TERFs) and others who oppose transgender advocates, and my general impression is this: these people have lost their minds.

My primary exhibits today are opinion pieces from Women Are Human, a news-and-views site for gender-critical feminists. It didn’t make a good first impression on me with the title; transgender advocates are not making the argument that women aren’t human, so why imply that they are? But it gets worse from there. The site goes beyond implying that transgender people are anti-women, further implying that transgender people are oppressive colonialist agents of male patriarchal capitalist technocratic tyranny.

My first exhibit is a piece titled “American Racism in the Colonization of Womanhood”, written by Suzanne Forbes-Vierling with some editing by Donovan Cleckley. She starts off by saying: “Womanhood has become increasingly colonized by industries seeking to farm it for profit, much in the way that Africa, both its land and its people, has been made subject.” She proceeds to waste no time in telling us who is doing the colonizing:

The framework goes as follows: The white man declares himself a woman, but keeps his power and privilege, himself part of the ruling patriarchy. Then, he proceeds to erase woman to further possess her, what he sees as his – conquering her language, her organizations, and her spaces. He forces children to learn an ideology of madness, those who are then coerced and compelled into medicalization, including surgeries.

In other words, those seeking to become women are doing so not out of a desire for comfort or psychological well-being, but out of a desire to subjugate and conquer the very essence of womanhood itself. Let me pause for a moment here to wonder whether Forbes-Vierling and Cleckley have ever actually met a trans person.

But even if we accept this uncharitable interpretation of trans people’s motives, this still doesn’t square well with reality. Trans women do not keep their male privilege. The patriarchy treats them as freaks, unfit to live in a civilized society. It has not escaped my notice that the most stereotypically patriarchal voices – the people calling for outlawing of abortion, for instance – are also the loudest anti-trans voices. They are the ones accusing all trans people of being groomers and seeking to prevent trans people from accessing those surgeries that Forbes-Vierling was referring to. It seems to me that the quickest to lose all male privilege is to declare yourself no longer a male.

Alas, Forbes-Vierling is not done. She has much more to say about the colonization of womanhood by trans people:

White patriarchy, the point where male supremacy and white supremacy meet, has used everything that has been happening as a justification for its further colonization of womanhood. The use of Baartman’s body and the biased framing of ‘scientific’ findings laid the foundation for what we see today with man feeling himself justified in entering womanhood. He erases her and takes her body – and then her mind. The intimation has been that, due to anatomy and physiology, Black women have been barely human, more akin to animals. Often, it has been said that white women are the ‘standard’ and that white women ‘allowed’ Black women into womanhood. The argument, then, has been that, since white women apparently ‘let in’ a type of woman, already compared to apes and orangutans, and since ‘science’ has ‘proven’ that white men are more refined, softer than Black women, such men can be women.

Tell me, Suzanne: who, besides you, is saying this? Who, besides you, is making this connection? Among the transgender advocates today, who is still clinging to the old racist notions you cite? Who is actually attempting to make this argument, besides you?

Forbes-Vierling continues to find the least charitable interpretation of everything trans people do. Consider the following:

‘Black birthing bodies,’ like the old use of ‘breeders’ for enslaved Black women, continues a linguistic tradition of dehumanization. Words like ‘gestators’ and ‘hosts,’ more broadly applied to all women, alongside ‘uterus-havers’ and ‘vulva-havers,’ exhibit woman hating.

Now why use language like “uterus-havers”? It’s actually an attempt to be more inclusive; some uterus-havers consider themselves men, so simply using the word “women” would be exclusive of them and their experiences. Forbes-Vierling doesn’t consider this point of view, preferring instead to interpret trans people’s action as being motivated by misogyny and racism.

And then at the end of that paragraph, things take a turn. Forbes-Vierling says: “We must consider the continuation of prostitution and surrogacy in a legacy of oppression.” At this point, you might be wondering, just as I wondered, what exactly prostitution and surrogacy have to do with transgender people. We’ll get to that in a bit, but first, Forbes-Vierling is going to accuse her fellow women of being quislings:

And so, there are women feeling a shift in power, who then align themselves with power, effectively becoming collaborators. Whether it makes sense or not, whether it seems fair, there is power and survival, even at the expense of other women. Here we have the ruling patriarchy – white patriarchy – and, when it moves, a woman may sense to move with it to advance.

Let us consider the woman rewarded for repeating ‘sex work is work,’ at the expense of her sex – that is, other women. Or, she might be rewarded for saying ‘trans women are women.’ Maybe woman finds that men desire the ‘sex robots’ – or “pornbots,” as Kathleen Richardson calls them in the Campaign Against Porn Robots (CAPR) – typically made in the image of women and children, and that it would be most rewarding for her to comply, rather than resist. Many of those doing TED Talks promoting the global sex trade under ‘sex work is work’ and favoring the child ‘sex dolls’ are women. There are wealthy women, those of privilege, saying how ‘sex work is work,’ when they likely will never know the destitution facing women in prostitution. Women act in advertising industries that facilitate the subjection of women, namely prostitution, surrogacy, and transgenderism. We have women fighting the colonization of women, but we find many women supporting it.

Since Forbes-Vierling brought the subject of sex work into this, let me just say that many of the people saying “sex work is work” are sex workers, as openDemocracy has noted. These people don’t want to be “rescued”; they just want better pay and benefits.

But getting back to what surrogacy and prostitution (and sex robots?) have to do with this: it’s all part of the grand scheme to oppress women, especially women of color. The women who support these things do so probably because they want to be rewarded by the patriarchy. All is motivated by misogyny and racism.

Now, accusing the whole transgender movement of pervasive misogyny is bad enough, but it’s about to get worse. Donovan Cleckley wrote his own piece titled “Technopoly and Transgenderism”, and things are about to get weird.

Cleckley begins by talking about eugenics:

On the eugenists in his time, now often written as eugenicists, Chesterton writes: “They do not know what they want, except that they want your soul and body and mine in order to find out” (60). Men using the technology of eugenics needed human beings in the society, especially women and children, to play their part in an experiment, mainly for the men to play god – and primarily driven by money, which is power. In Eugenics and Other Evils, Chesterton titles one chapter “The Established Church of Doubt,” for one can be dogmatic and doubtful. Dogma for eugenics was most clearly defined by the irreconcilable and underlying doubt one had for the experiment’s results. The sense of something not being quite right, perhaps being very wrong, in fact, ended up being the itch that would not go away – and only worsened over time. This pattern charts the rise and fall of empires. Such a critique of eugenics might prove useful to us in the assessment of modern biotechnologies as related to surrogacy and transgenderism.

There’s surrogacy again. I’m not sure why they keep bringing this up. But perhaps that’s beside the point. Cleckley is here to talk about transgenderism, and the sinister role of biotechnology in our modern lives:

Far more than merely scientific, one might also say this fashionable thingification of the body as itself a consumable has become stylish. Biotechnology embodies a most peculiar and conspicuous consumption in the selling of disembodiment. One consumes only to be consumed – infinite consumption and, in the end, nothingness. A conversion, or more fittingly put, a transition, has been occurring, most rapidly in recent years: the making of the flesh into a meat. Our bodies no longer exist as ourselves, but rather as commodities to be consumed, to become things – the purchasable other than ourselves. Bodies, then, become things as corporations become people. The new “people” play with their new “things.” As corporate profits rise to heights never before seen, we become only capitalist playthings.

Are we still talking about transgender stuff? It feels like we got lost somewhere.

I do recommend reading the entire article to get a feel for it, but let me skip ahead to a more relevant part:

To Postman’s analysis, I add that invisibility and irrelevancy, when they do not work, must be supplemented by more extreme methods of social control. The body within the body politic becomes a frontier for colonization and occupation by technopoly. Consuming the consumer, technology occupies being itself. It exterminates any ideological opposition that poses a threat – whether imagined or real. Falsely positioning itself in opposition to what it sees as primitive “anatomy is destiny,” the new “Manifest Destiny” of technopoly mandates the death of the flesh. The technological ends its war against the traditional by devouring it – as the colonizer eats the colonized. Alienation becomes complete.

What I have written here applies to a reading of eugenics and man’s past technological colonization of nature. But this critique likewise can be applied to the present institutionalization of transgenderism, another “biocolonialism,” as Susan Hawthorne writes, which has relied upon an eerily similar logic of dogma and doubt.

There’s colonialism again. But this time, it’s not just womanhood. Transgenderism is out to colonize all of life itself, resulting in total alienation of ourselves from our bodies. Also, if you read the rest of the article, you will see that Cleckley says that big money from George Soros is driving transgenderism to “pay off institutions to make the body politic their playground and our bodies their playthings”.

Nowhere is the notion that people could want to transition just to be happier. Nowhere is the idea that trans people might have a good idea of what will make themselves happy. Instead, Cleckley and Forbes-Vierling have imagined a world in which gender-bending cyborgs are out to destroy divine femininity and subjugate all of humanity, and then they tell us that this mad vision describes reality.

I would advise the gender-critical crowd to take off their tinfoil hats and actually listen to the people they keep talking about. They might learn something.

“Gay Not Queer”? Good luck with that

I recently came across a Twitter account called “Gay Not Queer”. Look it up and you’ll see that there’s more than one out there. I was curious, of course, so I did some reading, looking into what they say. They commonly use hashtags like #gaynotqueer and #lgbwithoutthetq. They resent being lumped in with trans people, they distrust queer theory as a discipline, and they accuse pro-trans advocates of homophobia.

I have a lot of things to say about this line of thinking, but for now, I just want to say this to any “gay not queer” people who might be reading this: it doesn’t work that way.

In the eyes of your enemies, you are no different from trans folks. They still see all gay and bi people as sexual deviants out to corrupt the youth. You may say you’re not like the others, but they do not and will not believe you.

And why should they see you as all that different? After all, you are a little strange. Heterosexuality is the norm, and you have deviated from it. You are outside the norm… and that’s okay.

The message I hear from queer theorists and queer advocates, which I now hope to echo, is that it’s okay to be different. You don’t have to be normal to be good. You don’t have to be normal to be happy and healthy, and you shouldn’t have to be normal to be accepted. If you don’t fit into people’s boxes, the solution is not to build better boxes; it’s to invite people to step outside them. So don’t try to fit in. Dare to stick out a little. Dare to be weird. Dare to be queer.

(Also, saying that “queer” is a slur and insisting that we use “gay” instead is a little weird, since “gay” still gets thrown around as a slur quite a lot.)

How to Burn Down Twitter, part 2: Scare away all the money

In my last post, I briefly mentioned Elon Musk’s money troubles. I think it’s worth looking more closely at the financial trouble that Musk is in, so let’s dig in.

Elon Musk is very rich. Investopedia and Forbes both currently estimate him to be the richest person in the world. With over $200 billion to his name, spending $44 billion to buy Twitter shouldn’t be too much trouble, right? Not so fast: net worth is not the same as liquid cash. To get the cash needed to buy Twitter, Musk had to take out a few loans, so now he’s $13 billion in debt. He’s got a lot of principal to pay off and a lot of interest to deal with. This isn’t going to be easy.

On the plus side, Musk did just buy a company that makes money, so he can use that money to pay off the debts, right? Well, no. As the previous link to the NY Times mentions, Twitter is not making enough money to pay off the interest on its loans. Elon is in trouble now. He needs to find a way to make more money. So where is that money going to come from?

Twitter’s main source of money is currently advertising, which covers about 85% of its revenue. At the very least, Elon needs to hold on to this revenue source, or maybe even figure out how to get more money this way. So what is Musk doing to secure advertising revenue?

He’s scaring them away, that’s what. His ungraceful acquisition of the company and his open hatred of advertising have spooked the big brands. Elon has responded by publicly dissing them:

Twitter has had a massive drop in revenue, due to activist groups pressuring advertisers, even though nothing has changed with content moderation and we did everything we could to appease the activists.

Extremely messed up! They’re trying to destroy free speech in America.

Elon Musk, Nov 4, 2022

This is no way to talk about the people who pay your bills.

There are other ways to make money, of course. Twitter already has a subscription service called Twitter Blue, and Elon has proposed expanding what Twitter Blue offers (and also charging more for it). Now all he has to do is persuade Twitter’s users to buy in. And how has he done that?

Apparently, with bullshit like this:

In the face of people complaining about the cost of the new verification program, Elon has posted a Soyjak meme. Does that persuade you to give Elon your money?

I agree with Dave Karpf’s analysis: Elon Musk is on tilt, and making bad decisions. If he keeps this up, Twitter is going to collapse under its own costs. Start making plans right now for what you’ll do if and when the whole thing comes crashing down.

How to Burn Down Twitter: Fail to understand what the blue check does

Elon Musk has taken charge of Twitter, and things are not going well. There are plenty of mistakes he’s making, but let’s zoom in on just one: charging money for the blue check of verification. Why is this a mistake? Allow me to explain.

Twitter, like all social networks, is people-powered. People come for the chance to interact with each other. If you want to make money off of such a thing, you’ve got to have lots of people on it, all contributing in ways that other people like to see; then you can sell advertising space to companies who want to be seen by all those people, or sell services to make it easier to interact with people on the network. Now, how do you attract lots of people? There are many ways, but one good way is to get famous people onto your network and offer regular people the chance to interact with those famous people. You might consider paying some famous people to put content onto your network, so that you’ll then have a crowd of people to make money off of.

Now, with that in mind, imagine if famous people joined your network and started posting valuable content for free. Sweet deal! You now have a way to hook people in and you didn’t have to hire anyone; you just had to offer those famous people the same thing you offer everyone else. All you need to do now is not screw it up.

But wait! There is something threatening your lovely arrangement: people impersonating famous people. As the old saying goes, on the internet, nobody knows you’re a dog. Anyone can start an account as Bigname Author and start posting content that way, which makes it harder for honest fans to interact with the famous people they’re looking for. You need to do something about this. In this case, what Twitter did was to verify people. For those wanting to interact with the real Stephen King, Twitter gave Stephen King’s account an official verification so that his fans would know who to talk to. So far, so good: Twitter has now preserved the value of famous people on its network. If you’re thinking of starting your own social network, consider offering a similar service.

Then in walks Elon Musk, who proposes taking this service away unless the famous people start paying up.

What Elon has done is to take a relationship that was beneficial to everyone (famous people get to use social network without being impersonated, regular people get to interact with famous people without getting catfished, social network gets lots of valuable engagement) and threaten to take it all away unless someone pays up. He’s missing what makes those check marks worthwhile. As Chuck Tingle observed:

funny thing glossed over in blue check talks (because mostly big timers talkin on it right now) is that its not only service for buds who HAVE marks it is for buds who DONT. normal folks just want to find the right account. terrible idea to make feature disappear for CASUAL users

Chuck Tingle, Nov 3, 2022

Frankly, if Elon wanted to charge money for the verification marks, he should have considered charging ordinary users for the privilege of seeing which accounts are actually verified. This is still a dumb idea, but I think it’s less dumb with the one he went with. Famous people have already started grumbling about Elon’s ingratitude, and I think they’re worth hearing out:

I’m probably the perfect target for this, use Twitter a ton, can afford $20/mo, not particularly anti-Elon, but my reaction is that I’ve generated a ton of valuable free content for Twitter over the years and they can go fuck themselves.

Nate Silver, Oct 31, 2022

$20 a month to keep my blue check? Fuck that, they should pay me. If that gets instituted, I’m gone like Enron.

Stephen King, Oct 31, 2022

By demanding more money from these famous people, Elon isn’t just being ungrateful; he’s putting his own social network in peril. What happens when a new social network comes along and offers Nate and Stephen some nice verified accounts for free, or maybe even offers to pay them? Twitter’s not the only game in town, Mr. Musk. Famous people can afford to go elsewhere. Can you afford to lose them?

There’s more to say on Elon’s mistakes, but for now, let me just say that ingratitude is a sin, and it just might cost Elon a few billion dollars.

On Gay Partners, Meth Dealers, and the Critical Distinction Between the Two

I recently saw a post on Twitter in which the poster laid out his plan for dealing with a child coming out as gay. The original post is no longer publicly visible (some screenshots survive here) but the poster is not alone in the message he’s sending. I encountered a similar message years ago. Dallin Oaks and Lance Wickman, two prominent LDS leaders, gave an interview with the church’s public affairs department back in 2006 in which they discuss what parents should do if their children come out as gay or pair up with a gay partner. A brief excerpt:

PUBLIC AFFAIRS: At what point does showing that love cross the line into inadvertently endorsing behavior? If the son says, ‘Well, if you love me, can I bring my partner to our home to visit? Can we come for holidays?’ How do you balance that against, for example, concern for other children in the home?’

ELDER OAKS: That’s a decision that needs to be made individually by the person responsible, calling upon the Lord for inspiration. I can imagine that in most circumstances the parents would say, ‘Please don’t do that. Don’t put us into that position.’ Surely if there are children in the home who would be influenced by this example, the answer would likely be that. There would also be other factors that would make that the likely answer.

I can also imagine some circumstances in which it might be possible to say, ‘Yes, come, but don’t expect to stay overnight. Don’t expect to be a lengthy house guest. Don’t expect us to take you out and introduce you to our friends, or to deal with you in a public situation that would imply our approval of your “partnership.”

Interview With Elder Dallin H. Oaks and Elder Lance B. Wickman: “Same-Gender Attraction”

The whole interview is worth reading to understand the mindset of many Christian people towards same-sex marriage. I used to share this mindset. I have since reconsidered, but I can still understand the mindset, though I no longer approve of it. If you’re having trouble understanding this mindset, this post is for you.

Imagine, for a moment, that you are a parent of a child who you dearly love. Now imagine that this child comes home one day with a partner in tow, and they introduce you to their new significant other and inform you that they’re planning on getting married… and you discover that your child’s partner is a meth dealer. You are now placed in an awkward position. You love your child and you want to be supportive of them, but you cannot approve of their current relationship. What do you do? You’re either going to have to dramatically lower your standards or you’re going to have to disappoint your child.

Now, keeping that mindset in mind, go back and read the interview. Imagine that they’re talking about meth dealers instead of gay partners. It makes a little more sense, doesn’t it? You can empathize with parents wanting to love their children but not wanting to express any approval of their children’s choices. When viewed this way, it all makes sense.

Of course, you may have some objections to my little exercise. You might say that being a gay partner is not like being a meth dealer, so why compare one with the other? If this is your objection, then you’ve gotten to the very heart of the matter.

See, I agree with you. Being a gay partner is NOT like being a meth dealer. Having a gay relationship is NOT like making or doing hard drugs. Like I said earlier, I no longer share that mindset, and I regret having spent time thinking that way. But many people still share this mindset. So what do we do?

I don’t have a good plan for how to deal with this mismatch in views. I am not a salesperson, and I was never a very good missionary. But I think that part of the solution lies in showing people just how not meth-dealer-like gay partners are, and one way to do that is to just live your life and let people see that your partners aren’t hurting you. Let them see that you are finding happiness and let that happiness refute their objections. As others before me have put it, queer joy is a radical act. So be radical and let your joy changes people’s minds.

And if that doesn’t work (it often doesn’t) and nothing else works to change people’s minds, then it’s time to cut ties. You have better things to do with your lives than trying to please people who can’t tell the difference between a loving partner and an exploitative drug dealer.