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For decades, the singularity belonged to works of science fiction. It has been described as the moment when artificial intelligence would become smarter than its creators, begin improving itself, and set humanity on a path that no one could predict. It was the premise behind films like The Matrix, Terminator, Transcendence and countless Star Trek episodes. It was the […]
A few years ago, I sat in a church hall in a country town in New South Wales while someone I’ll call Val counted the heads in the room. Val got to nineteen, then told me, with no bitterness at all, that when Val was a child, this same room held two hundred people, there […]
Review: Noah and the Flood in Western Thought, Philip Almond, Cambridge University Press In his fascinating book on the influence of the biblical Flood story, Philip Almond suggests that it is supremely relevant for our time of ecological crisis and rising seas. Yet the story has been read in various ways over the centuries, as […]
The older I get, and the longer my list of unfinished games grows, the more I appreciate a small, contained experience. The Mermaid’s Mask is set almost entirely onboard a particularly homely submarine (one with a particularly mishmash design aesthetic) and sets you up with a relatively straightforward task. Tsub’s captain, Magnus Mortuga, has been […]
A few weeks ago we attended the Mid-winter festival at Ngununggula art gallery in Bowral in The Southern Highlands. A dusty pink sky with a few shy stars winking at me told us it was dusk. I could feel the cold settling in and I wrapped my blanket tighter around me. When we walked into […]
Tonight is Census night. Across the country, households will sit down, some at kitchen tables and some on their phones between other tasks, and answer a question that has appeared on every Australian Census since 1911. What is your religion? For a growing share of the population, the answer will be ‘no religion’ at all. […]
Review: Why Sounds Matters, Damon Krukowski, Yale In the womb, we hear the outside world before we see it. Through life, music and conversation are wonders and delights. Nurses tell us – I don’t know how accurately – that our dying relatives can still hear us when they seem lost to the world. But one […]
There is something frustratingly ironic about being a “young person” and leader in our church. On the one hand, our movement supports young leaders once they have been identified through programs that are often spearheaded by the killer team at Pulse. But on the other hand, the historic and systemic decision making at the heart of our movement has at […]
As Christians, how should we regard and relate to Jewish people? And how should we view the Jewish State, the State of Israel? This is a reflection having wrestled with these issues, so I offer my thoughts for your consideration. I have sought to hear God’s Word through the readings from Romans and Matthew. In […]
Almost everyone I meet is trying to prove something. We’re proving we’re competent, so we answer the email at eleven at night. We’re proving we’re worth loving, so we perform a curated version of ourselves for people we barely know. We’re proving we’re on the right side, so we post the right opinion in the […]
