{"id":173,"date":"2023-04-24T04:00:52","date_gmt":"2023-04-24T04:00:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/?p=173"},"modified":"2023-04-24T04:00:52","modified_gmt":"2023-04-24T04:00:52","slug":"andy-crouch-lecture-notes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/24\/andy-crouch-lecture-notes\/","title":{"rendered":"Andy Crouch Lecture Notes"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image size-large\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"859\" height=\"1024\" src=\"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-859x1024.jpg\" alt=\"\" class=\"wp-image-175\" srcset=\"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-859x1024.jpg 859w, https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-252x300.jpg 252w, https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-768x916.jpg 768w, https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-1288x1536.jpg 1288w, https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-1717x2048.jpg 1717w, https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/AndyCrouch-1-624x744.jpg 624w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 859px) 100vw, 859px\" \/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<ul><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Andy Crouch came to speak in my town a week ago, on the subject of his most recent book, <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/The_Life_We_re_Looking_For.html?id=sSyOEAAAQBAJ&amp;source=kp_book_description\"><em>The Life We\u2019re Looking For<\/em><\/a>, which is a more general and philosophical book on the same topic of tech he previously addressed in <a href=\"https:\/\/books.google.com\/books\/about\/The_Tech_Wise_Family.html?id=BhHeDAAAQBAJ&amp;source=kp_book_description\"><em>The Tech-Wise Family<\/em><\/a>.&nbsp; Here are some of my notes from the evening, plus a little commentary.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>If tech makes something <em>easy<\/em> or gets labeled <em>\u201csuperpowers,\u201d<\/em> Crouch says that\u2019s <em>magic. <\/em>Magic is <em>changing the world without having to change yourself.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He argues that we need to flee from the modern temptation to distract ourselves at the slightest hint of boredom.&nbsp; Crouch tells his children, don\u2019t run from boredom: creativity is on the other side of boredom.&nbsp; As someone with a number of artistic hobbies myself, I really appreciated this point, and it aligns with what I mentioned in <a href=\"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/17\/attention-to-the-sky\/\">my first post<\/a> about finding myself less engaged in creative endeavors the last few years as I got more into consuming blogs and podcasts.&nbsp; Honestly, this is a hard habit to walk back on, but creativity <em>ought<\/em> to make it worth it for me.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>On the subject of <em>unaligned AGI<\/em>\u2014for those of you not familiar with that phrase, just think \u201crobots taking over the world\u201d\u2014Christians already have a word for this!&nbsp; If future humans summon <em>spirits we can\u2019t control<\/em>, only one community will have the experience to know what to do\u2014the Christians. Crouch argues that the fact that the West doesn\u2019t believe in demons is actually Christianity\u2019s<em> credit<\/em>, because Christians dispelled demons from the West.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>I found the Q&amp;A particularly helpful, because in Crouch\u2019s writing (and talk) it feels like he\u2019s painting a picture of what the good life can look like <em>generally<\/em>, but it feels like it really falls short on practicals.&nbsp; I was pleasantly surprised about the amount he had to say on practicals when asked about it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For example, someone asked, how do we decide what tech is worth the tradeoffs?&nbsp; Crouch\u2019s response was that we should ask the questions, <em>What is lost? What is gained?&nbsp; Does it free us up to care for others, or free us from the obligation to care for others?<\/em>&nbsp; He gave a really helpful couple of potential examples\u2014though someone might disagree with his take, it helped me picture what he\u2019s getting at.&nbsp; His first example was the <em>dishwasher<\/em>.&nbsp; He talked about how grateful many housewives are to be freed up from the toil of washing dishes, which gives them more time for other things.&nbsp; On the other hand, he puts the <em>microwave<\/em> on the other side of the line.&nbsp; The microwave saves <em>a little<\/em> time over cooking, but it feels like something human is lost to eat, for example, microwave dinners\u2014there\u2019s something human about actually preparing a meal.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>He talked about the Biblical dichotomy of work and rest vs. the modern dichotomy of toil and leisure.&nbsp; Rest is glad contemplation of the fruit of your own work, but leisure requires others to work for you (e.g. entertainment).&nbsp; Work itself is oriented towards fruit, but toil might be oriented towards idolatrous ends.&nbsp; Crouch likes the word Mammon, for the demon behind the idolatrous pursuit of wealth (Matthew 6:24) and argues that this really defines our society.&nbsp; In toil, Mammon wants you to care about numbers, not fruit.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone asked, \u201cWhat should we care about caring for the world, if God is going to destroy this world and replace it with a new one anyway?\u201d&nbsp; I find it frustrating how often this question gets asked in the Christian world.&nbsp; Crouch gave a great answer: When Jesus came He cast out demons\u2014why would we not follow His example?<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Someone asked him directly and generally about how we apply all this.&nbsp; He said the answer is not political (national), but not individual either\u2014it is communal: most of all we must work on building communities with the right priorities.&nbsp; We must together live an \u201cunboreable life of care for others\u201d.&nbsp; This \u201cnot political or individual, but communal\u201d third way matches a conviction I\u2019ve been growing about what it looks like to see change.&nbsp; Not national, because most of us can\u2019t impact that and policy tends to be superficial; but not purely individual, because though we need to work on inner character first, that plays out in our relationships with others who are pursuing common goals.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Andy Crouch came to speak in my town a week ago, on the subject of his most recent book, The Life We\u2019re Looking For, which is a more general and philosophical book on the same topic of tech he previously addressed in The Tech-Wise Family.&nbsp; Here are some of my notes from the evening, plus [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"episode_type":"","audio_file":"","cover_image":"","cover_image_id":"","duration":"","filesize":"","date_recorded":"","explicit":"","block":"","filesize_raw":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"Andy Crouch Lecture Notes","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[1],"tags":[7],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=173"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":176,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/173\/revisions\/176"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/attentiontothesky.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}