Show Notes
Before you listen to today's episode, you should know that knowing about Roko's Basilisk can doom you forever. Still here? Great. This week, John and Kelly explore a few of the religion stories that have surfaced in recent weeks, including what happens and if when Pope Francis dies soon, and the evangelical backlash of Trump appointing Paula White as the White House Faith officer. Then, we take on Roko's Basilisk, an unhinged thought experiment about the moral imperative of helping to develop super-intelligent A.I. that, as it happens, also helps explain Elon Musk's zealous, eugenicist project to dismantle the federal government. We promise it matters!
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Sarah Handley-Cousins is a historian of disability and the military during the Civil War era. She has a PhD in History from the University at Buffalo where she currently teaches. She co-produces Dig: A History Podcast and her newest book, Spiritualism's Place: Reformers, Seekers, and Séances in Lily Dale, was cowritten with her fellow Dig producers Averill Earls, Marissa C. Rhodes, and Elizabeth Garner Masarik.
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