Simon Barrow

Writer | Poet | Politics, ethics, beliefs | Art | former director @Ekklesia_co_uk | NUJ | @TUG_SNP | Music: @MusicTippett @YesSolidMental

[Simon Barrow @simonbarrow]

'Transforming Christian-Muslim relations', with Rowan Williams, @monasiddiqui7 & @simonbarrow Videocast now online https://t.co/lEO7tqT2cO

[Maria Popova @themarginalian]

We hold still. We hold hopes. We hold our pain and the world’s pain. We hold each other. We hold up our values and hold down our tasks. We hold on, and this might be the single most defining feature of human life. We hold on.

Women Holding Things https://t.co/iYStqa4sIG

[The Atlantic @TheAtlantic]

If we confuse generative AI’s ability to produce text with consciousness, we risk assigning moral responsibility to chatbots—and not to their makers, Ted Chiang argues. https://t.co/Cptx3aWppI

[Maria Popova @themarginalian]

"Whoever is in your life,
those who harm you,
those who help you;
those whom you know
and those whom you do not know —
let them off the hook,
help them off the hook."

Leonard Cohen on the antidote to anger and the meaning of resistance https://t.co/yWRuaDJiNC

[James Barnes MSc., MA @psychgeist52]

In my latest @PsychToday post, I examine @AwaisAftab's attempt to rescue psychiatry on pragmatic grounds after conceding longstanding critiques of its foundations.

I argue the defence fails—and it leads not to reforming the psychiatric paradigm, but to moving beyond it.

https://t.co/7NdhEoeR0W

[Thea @TheaEuryphaessa]

Projections change the world into the replica of one's unknown face.

— Carl G. Jung CW 9ii

[Daniel Steinmetz-Jenkins @daniel_dsj2110]

Jill Lepore: “Leo XIV’s new encyclical, “Magnifica Humanitas,” presents a remarkable case for placing moral concerns, and not profit, or competitive advantage, or efficiency, at the center of any discussion of artificial intelligence.”: https://t.co/vCyny265sH

[Simon Barrow @simonbarrow]

“Whether one agrees with Eliot or not, this feels increasingly relevant in an age of algorithms, trends, and shrinking attention spans. A culture that forgets yesterday's language may eventually struggle to remember yesterday's ideas.” — @AdamZakeriya.

[The Book Land @the_book_land]

'We cannot, in literature, any more than in the rest of life, live in a perpetual state of revolution. If every generation of poets made it their task to bring poetic diction up to date with the spoken language, poetry would fail in one of its most important obligations. For poetry should help, not only to refine the language of the time, but to prevent it from changing too rapidly: a development of language at too great a speed would be a development in the sense of a progressive deterioration, and that is our danger to-day.'

T. S. Eliot,
'Milton II'

[Simon Barrow @simonbarrow]

Important thread. Category confusions abound in discussions of AI, not least among supposedly sophisticated thinkers.

[Jason Blakely @jasonwblakely]

This article muddles key philosophical distinctions!

"Things do not matter to a computing machine... [it] does not experience disappointment, shame, triumph when executing operations." The "gap between semantics & syntax isn't narrowed" (We Built Reality) https://t.co/rGWVfzsFt6

[Maria Popova @themarginalian]

How to be a tree – notes on the resilience of letting go https://t.co/lMZTJkGf6A

[Sophia Proneikos @Pergament_F]

"I lived when simply waiting was a large part of ordinary life: when we waited, gathered around a crackling radio, to hear the infinitely far-away voice of the king of England… I live now when we fuss if our computer can’t bring us everything we want instantly. We deny time.
We don’t want to do anything with it, we want to erase it, deny that it passes. What is time in cyberspace? And if you deny time you deny space. After all, it’s a continuum which separates us.
So we talk on a cell phone to people in Indiana while jogging on the beach without seeing the beach, and gather on social media into huge separation-denying disembodied groups while ignoring the people around us.
​I find this virtual existence weird, and as a way of life, absurd. This could be because I am eighty-four years old. It could also be because it is weird, an absurd way to live."
Ursula K. LeGuin

GN

[Rook @Cpt_Rook]

“The weight of the world is love. Under the burden of solitude,
under the burden of dissatisfaction the weight, the weight we carry is love.”

- Allen Ginsberg

[Paroles d'auteurs @Paroles_auteurs]

"Pour s'implanter, le Totalitarisme a besoin d'individus isolés et déculturés, déracinés des rapports sociaux organiques, atomisés socialement et poussés à un égoïsme extrême."
Hannah Arendt, Les Origines du totalitarisme : le système totalitaire

[Carole Cadwalladr @carolecadwalla]

The BBC is now run by the man who rolled out this journalism-killing technology across Europe, the Middle East & Africa.

It’s a trap. Opting out is a protest vote but Google’s AI summaries are news outlet serial killers that’ll get you either way

[Maria Popova @themarginalian]

The best thing ever written on how to live with the fundamental fear of loss that haunts all love https://t.co/vFMCDBF6ce

[Tanjil Rashid @tanjil_rashid_]

For decades Craig Raine has been one of my favourite, and one of the world's best, poetry critics. Delighted to have him in the latest @NewStatesman with this original reading of the great Sylvia Plath
https://t.co/G5AAHNwqTI

[Jason Blakely @jasonwblakely]

"Even the most sophisticated machines engineered to date lack an experience of meaning or purpose as integral to their actions. The central feature of specifically human intelligence is things *matter* to a human being. By contrast, things do not matter to a computing machine"

[Earth @earthcurated]

Scotland’s free “Top Up Taps” network has reached a major sustainability milestone: public refill stations have now prevented the use of around 20 million plastic bottles, reinforcing the country’s reputation as a leading eco-friendly travel destination.

With over 130 free refill points available across cities, parks, and hiking routes, travellers can easily stay hydrated using some of the world’s highest-quality tap water without relying on single-use plastic.

A big step forward for sustainable tourism.

Would you travel with a reusable bottle?

[Alexandra Wilson @amwilson_opera]

On using AI to write. "But really – what’s the point? Where’s the wonder? Where’s the excitement? Where’s the humanity? What do you learn about yourself? If you’re going to do that, why not just stay at home and do something else?" Precisely.

https://t.co/JVUflR31zH

[The News Agents @TheNewsAgents]

"She's been gagged, but we haven't!"

Facebook whistleblower Sarah Wynn-Williams was forced into silence onstage in the UK this weekend - by her former employer.

Last year, she told us her story from 10 years inside Facebook....

[Emma Mitchell 💙 @silverpebble]

A couple of cornflowers in a field near Wicken, Cambridgeshire and a little leafcutter bee gathering pollen for her babies from a cornflower in my garden. As ever my photos & videos are designed to dial down stress & lift your mood-a break from angst while you scroll 🌿: