Making AI Safe for Humanity: A Matter of Ethics or Religion?

AI, or models of computer machine-learning, may piggy-back on ongoing risks to humanity, such as from nuclear bombs, cyber-attacks, and biological weapons, including unleashing new pandemics, to render any one of them more likely. That firms in the private sector develop advanced models without a financial incentive to protect the public good exacerbates the risk. To be sure, tech-firm executives were sounding the alarm most significantly in 2026. However, in reaching out to religious scholars and clergy for insight on the ethics of AI in order to make the models ethical so their output would be only ethical, certain executives incorrectly conceived of religion in terms of ethics, and thus its criteria rather than those that are innate to religion. This category mistake could result in advice that results in unethical computer outputs.  Anthropic is a case in point.

 
The full essay is at "Making AI Safe for Humanity."

American Federalism: Idaho and Massachusetts on Guns

The proverbial expression, or retort, that the U.S. is not a France with a large back yard (i.e., simply more territory), or the equivalent—to say that the E.U. is not Texas with a large front yard—is oriented to the important difference between (early) modern empire-scale unions and states (i.e., polities) thereof. An empire is constituted by many (i.e., not just a few) polities that are culturally heterogenous (i.e., different from one another). Even though since at least 1871, Canada’s provinces have stretched across a continent, the number of provinces (10) does not meet the number qualification to be considered an empire even though Quebec and British Columbia are obviously very different culturally (including linguistically). In contrast, at 27 and 50 members, the E.U. and U.S. respectively qualify on both counts—interstate cultural/political diversity and the number of states. Even though the E.U.’s linguistic interstate diversity has greatly exceeded that which existed even in 2026 among the U.S. members, U.S. has its own dimensions of cultural difference that are palpable and salient between member-states, and particular pairs of states can even be said to be divergent on specific dimensions. It may even be that the E.U. states are more homogenous than are the U.S. states on such dimensions. For example, attitudes towards people having guns—including semi-automatic machine guns, so not just guns for hunting—differ between American states substantially and more so than between E.U. states.

The full essay is at "American Federalism."

The E.U. Investigates an Online Travel-Reservation Company: Consumer Protection in Hospitality

The case, or rationale, for government regulation and oversight of the “hospitality” industry (e.g., hotels, booking companies, etc.) is not merely made on the basis of monopoly or oligarchy in the industry at the expense of market competition, but also on issues concerning business ethics and managerial competence at not only hotel companies (as well as with franchisees), but also separate travel-reservation companies. The European Commission was therefore on solid ground in launching an investigation into a online travel-reservations company in 2026.

The full essay is at "The E.U. Investigates an Online Travel-Reservation Company."

Contact

In the fall of 2026, Chris Graney, an astronomer at the Vatican Observatory, argued that the universe of at least 2 trillion galaxies (according to a study in 2016 using the orbital Hubble Space Telescope) probably contains few, if any, planets capable of supporting intelligent life. This claim may come as a surprise, given the gargantuan number of possibly habitable exoplanets in the universe and the associated likelihood of alien life out there. The overlay of theology onto science, as if the latter’s criteria were nugatory and thus dismissible relative to religious doctrine, is problematic because the two domains are arguably distinct and even unique, even though they are related. Such a category mistake is highlighted in the film, Contact (1997), in which religious figures (who have related political roles in the White House) impose monotheist criteria in the selection of an astronaut for space travel, which is primarily a scientific enterprise.

The full essay is at "Contact."

U.S. Foreign Policy on Russia: On the Importance of an Educated Electorate

Shortly after the sudden and unexpected death of Lindsey Graham, South Carolina’s senior (and hawkish) U.S. senator, on 11 July 2026, the Congress passed, and U.S. President Trump signed, the Graham Act, which is legislation that gives the federal president discretion in adding economic sanctions and higher tariffs to weaken Russia’s military machine by hurting Russia’s economy—especially its lucrative oil industry—because Russia was still invading Ukraine. By Columbus Day, however, President Trump and Russia’s President Putin had made a deal wherein Russia would sell 300,000 tons of diesel to the U.S. and global markets immediately, with an additional 500,000 tons in November and then one million more. President Trump, using his discretion as allowed in the Graham Act, “issued a broad sanctions waiver for Russian diesel until April 2027.”[1] Euronews reported at the time that this move was “raising concerns in Ukraine and among its allies,” most notably the E.U. and in its state capitals.[2] The fact that the deal undercut the Western strategy of pressuring Russia economically so it would withdrawal its military from Ukrainian territory means that the diesel sale and broader waiver did more than raise concerns in Europe. Zelensky was probably hitting his head against a wall in utter disbelief at one point. For his part, Putin, formerly head of the KGB in the U.S.S.R., may have been relieved, and dumbstruck, that the Americans could be such suckers. As is often the case in foreign policy, domestic politics play a role in the motivation of key actors on the world stage. President Trump was facing an upcoming Congressional election in early November and whether Trump’s Republican group would continue to control the U.S. House and U.S. Senate was preoccupying the president in October because if even just one of the two federal legislative chambers would be under the control of the Democratic group, Trump’s legislative will would be compromised at best in getting through Congress. Trump’s political calculus had a lot to do with his knowledge of his base—the voters who would be likely to vote for Republican candidates in November. That base is often a “black box” to many Americans and Europeans alike, and this impedes accurate analysis of Trump’s political calculus in making a deal with Putin that would be sure to anger government officials both in Ukraine and the E.U.

The full essay is at "U.S. Foreign Policy on Russia."

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1. Jorge Liboreiro, “EU Decries ‘Concerning’ Trump-Putin Deak, Insists Sanctions on Russia Will Continue,” Euronews.com, 12 October 2026.
2. Ibid.

Political Wins as God’s Will

Albeit homo sapiens, which in Latin means the wise species of humans, we have a tendency to outdo ourselves on our petty, partisan perches in pontificating on God’s will, as if we know it even though we can merely believe in God, rather than know God, here defined as the Abrahamic deity—a supreme being within (immanent) and beyond (transcendent) Creation. This “beyondness” is of the sort that goes beyond the limits of human thought, perception, and emotions, and even intuition. Because God’s will is not based in Creation since God is the Creator, the matter of that will can only be a matter of belief rather than knowledge as far as we are concerned, and that belief must contend with the human discretion that is inevitable in interpreting scriptural passages, which, depending on the verse, may be literal, figurative, allegorical, or symbolic. Even within the Christian Trinity, only the Father knows when the Second Coming of Jesus Christ will occur. In the Gospel of Matthew (24:36), Jesus says, “But about that day or hour no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father.” Does this mean that of the three persons (Latin) or manifestations (Greek) of the Christian deity, only the Father is omniscient (i.e., all-knowing: knows absolutely everything)? It would seem so. The Holy Spirit may come through the Son, but only the Father is omniscient, and thus the Godhead. In verse 34, Jesus has just said, “Truly I tell you, this generation will certainly not pass away until all these things have happened.” Even if “that day or hour” is up to the Father, while Jesus only knows that the Son will come on clouds to judge the living and the dead sometime within the lifetimes of the people to whom he is speaking, omniscience would require even the exact second to be known; otherwise, the knowledge is not complete (i.e., omni). That Jesus is wrong concerning his prediction does not mean that he is with sin; only that he is represented in the New Testament as being of the god-man type. Now, if Jesus Christ in the Gospel of Matthew does not have complete knowledge of when the world will end at the final judgement by Christ himself, then human claims to know the contents of God’s will can safely be relegated as arrogance as if it were on stilts during a flood, for such presumption should be underwater rather than lording itself in pontificating to other mortals. With all this as context, the partisan rhetoric and genuine beliefs of the U.S. House Speaker, Mike Johnson, while he was campaigning in 2026 for Republican candidates for elected office in the U.S. House, can be situated and analyzed from well within the religious domain.

The full essay is at "Political Wins as God's Will."

Apocalypse Now

Imagine being an American soldier sent to Vietnam to fight the militarized Marxist Communists there. The Vietnam War provides many examples of such a plight. Now consider how much worse it would be to be sent into a seemingly constantly rainy, hot and humid jungle deep in Cambodia to assassinate an American colonel because he is a renegade Special Forces military officer who has gone insane. Just in case this is not dire enough, simply add in that he has the local village protecting their god with weapons. Surely safer secret military missions exist than to assassinate an insane former special-ops man with a small army of devotees. This is the central plot of the 1979 film, Apocalypse Now, directed by Francis Ford Coppola, who had directed The Godfather earlier that decade. Behind the plot of Apocalypse Now is a dichotomy wherein human nature itself is bifurcated into a dichotomy of good and bad. This is interesting because some of the characters may fall in between, suggesting that human nature has a gray zone in which most of us live.

The full essay is at "Apocalypse Now."

Changing Lanes: An Execution to Be Televised Prompts a Papal Statement

Although Pope Francis amended Catholic social ethics to exclude the death penalty rather than continue to accept the punishment in cases in which no other punishment is practical or available, Pope Leo decided in October, 2026 to make a public statement of his Church’s opposition to the death penalty in reaction to the decision of the Trump administration to televise an upcoming execution live on television. That a woman had recently survived execution attempts by two lethal injections may have primed the pope’s pump, as it were. The danger is that the foray into applied ethics by leaders of a religious organization could conflate ethics and theology. That the latter transcends, and may even violate ethical principles, can easily be forgotten when a religious leader speaks out a lot on ethical issues. In the case of Pope Leo’s statement on capital punishment, a distinctly theological rationale can be found, and, I submit, should have received more emphasis, lest the religious leader be reduced to an ethical critic, or conscience. To be sure, in 2026, the world was very much in need of a public conscience, especially because Russia’s invasion of Ukraine was still underway, as was Israel’s genocide in Gaza and wanton violence in the West Bank—all of this aggression was being done with obvious impunity.

The full essay is at "Changing Lanes."

His Girl Friday

In Intro to Film courses, Citizen Kane (1941) and His Girl Friday (1940) typically play major roles in the teaching of film-analysis. Hidden gems include novel camera angles in Citizen Kane and the use of dialogue and editing to quicken the pace of certain scenes in His Girl Friday. In the latter film, Cary Grant, who plays the newspaper editor, Walter Burns, hurriedly mentions Grant’s real name, Archibald Leach, in referring to another character during a phone call! Such a nugget points back to a director or screenwriter who knows his or her craft well enough that the finished product has multiple levels without breaking the viewers' suspension of disbelief (i.e., being engrossed in a film's story-world). Typically, films have both “task” and “romance” elements, which should in some way be connected, such by involving a protagonist’s “love-interest” somehow involves in the protagonist’s task-objective. His Girl Friday is both a crime drama and a romance film. This distinction is similar to Donelson Forsyth’s model of leadership in which behaviors of a given leader can be classified as either performance maintenance or relationship maintenance.[1] The crime-element of the film includes not only a man who did not mean to shoot someone due to be executed anyway, but also the mayor and police chief of New York City being utterly corrupt so as to stay in office by having the criminal executed even in the knowledge that the governor has cancelled the execution. The romance-element is perhaps just as harsh even though (and even because) it is centered on the phenomenon of falling in love.

The full essay is at "His Girl Friday."

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1. Donelson R. Forsyth, Group Dynamics, 5^th ed. (Belmont, CA: Wadsworth Cengage Learning, 2010), p. 253.

Reforming E.U. Governance: On the States’ Conflict of Interest

A conflict of interest is the privileging of the interest of a part, by that part, over a conflicting broader interest, such as the public good. In exploiting such a conflict, a part of a whole puts the part’s own interest, and therefore benefit, above those of the whole to which the part belongs. A state government in the E.U., for example, could veto governance reforms of the federal government because the state would benefit in some way, even just in terms of retaining its portion of governmental sovereignty, even though the E.U. itself would be harmed. Exploiting a conflict of interest is selfishness in governance. The underlying assumption is that the part is greater than the whole. Aristotle warns of such misordered concupiscence, which is the placing of a smaller good above a higher good.

The full essay is at "Reforming E.U. Governance."

U.S. President Trump Pressures the G7 to Release Oil Reserves

Is democracy more susceptible to being run by large corporations or to mob-rule? I contend that the police and military power of the U.S. eviscerates the risk of a mob of people making much headway against a government. That same power can be used by American governments to enforce policies that are in the financial interests of companies. In fact, some retail companies hire weaponized police employees to enforce not only municipal law (against shoplifting), but also company policies, as if they constituted law and therefore legitimate a police response rather than action by a security guard. To be sure, even security guards act sometimes as if they were police officers, and too many consumers fall for the presumptive ploy to intimidate. Security-guard companies even uniform their respective employees to look like police, even SWAT, officers, as if impersonating a police officer were not a crime. In terms of the American political economy, elected representatives of the American governments looked the other way in whether to invoke anti-trust law to break up large American companies even as gasoline and food prices soared—in the case of food, from 2020 when the pandemic enabled grocery stores to price-gouge, and in the case of gasoline, especially in 2026 when Iran was choking off the Strait of Hormuz. Those representatives as well as the media companies were silent on not only the need for market competition in consolidated industries, but also the excessive power of large corporations—even multi-national corporations, which are not loyal to any country—over elected representatives and their respective appointees. In too many cases, the companies being regulated actually write the law for Congressional committees—an obvious conflict of interest. Meanwhile, the American voters are typically titillated by superficial matters, essentially tricked, as if being oriented to symptoms were crucial to voting. The tricks can include ploys even by a sitting U.S. president to make the economy look better just before an election.

The full essay is at "U.S. President Trump Pressures the G7."

St. Francis of Assisi: On War and Greed

St. Francis of Assisi died 800 years before October 4, 2026, assuming that the days dropped in adopting the Gregorian calendar after his death have been incorporated in the calculation. It seems that not only gravity affects time; changing calendars does too. As time passes, how past heroes are viewed changes according to contemporary circumstances and values. Painting of Jesus during the late Roman Empire depict him as a young Roman, with short hair and clean-shaven. During the Middle Ages, when beards and long hair were in style for men, Jesus too was depicted in such terms as we recognize in modernity. Similarly, I contend that Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine and Israel’s genocide in Gaza and violence in the West Bank framed the 800^th death-anniversary of Francis in terms of peace and diplomacy being salient in his mission. I contend that this emphasis unduly relegates something more important to him: his strident stance against greed, and even money itself as a symbol of avarice.

The full essay is at "Francis of Assisi."

NAZA

While a student at Yale, I took Charlie Musser’s seminar on documentary films on a whim, after having taken two courses oriented to film narrative (not screenwriting). Because my studies were mainly in philosophy of religion, historical theology, and history at Yale, I think neither Charlie nor I knew quite why I was taking his course. At the time, I would not have thought that I would be writing on the genre thirty years later. The film, NAZA (2026), makes my earlier endeavor entirely worthwhile, and integrated into my main academic areas of study and research, which include ethics and political theory. The documentary “examines ‘the systems behind the mass killing of Palestinian civilians’” in Gaza, and as of October, the theatrical release was being extended due to so many sold-out showings.[1] The Venice Film Festival awarded the film with the Special Jury Prize, and the two filmmakers, Rachel Szor and Yuval Abraham, “received a record-breaking 25-minute standing ovation at the festival.”[2] The film can be interpreted as documenting the magnified harsh effects that unchecked power over other people can have when those others are dehumanized. It is interesting how close “NAZA” is to another word, NAZI.

The full essay is at "NAZA."

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1. David Mouriquand, “Gaza Documentary ‘NAZA’ Beating ‘Avengers Endgame” Encore’ at Box Office,” Euronews.com, 1 October 2026.

2.Ibid.

Forbidden

The early film, Forbidden (1932), asks the viewers to sympathize with a married politician and his mistress, who together have a “love child,” even though the politician, as a governor, finally follows his conscience and admits to the decades-long affair. Lulu, the mistress, selflessly remains alone and hidden from public view so Bob can climb the political ladder without scandal. At one point, Bob offers to leave his wife, Helen, and leave with Lulu for a shared life somewhere else, but Lulu refuses for the sake of Bob’s career in politics. She places his interests above her own. The film’s attitude toward the “cheater” and his mistress ethically is complex, as is human nature itself. The film presents the complexity that can go with some, but certainly not all, ethical controversies.

The full essay is at "Forbidden."

On Britain’s Possible Accession after Seceding from the Union

Secession is a nasty business. Both Britain and South Carolina learned that lesson. Whereas the American member-state failed to secede from the U.S., Britain succeeded in seceding from the E.U. The parallelism presented here is no accident, for just as the U.S. federal system has been charactered by dual sovereignty—both the Union and the members having at least some governmental sovereignty—so too does the E.U.’s federal system. In deciding whether or not they want Britain to become an E.U. state again, the British ought to keep this fact in mind. 

The full essay is at "On Britain’s Possible Accession after Seceding from the Union."