Society

We are often told these days, most recently in James Marriott’s much talked about book The New Dark Ages, that the world has a problem with reading. During such an emergency, then, it could be quite invidious to claim that some manifestations of this problem may be more or less bad than others. But it is difficult not to bemoan especially one crisis that cannot be blamed entirely on bloated screen times: the decline of biblical literacy. I have observed this first-hand when teaching history undergraduates at Oxford. These are the brightest and most hard-working young historians in the world. But it is not an uncommon occurrence to be met with blank stares when I mention the prophet Jeremiah or question them on the Exodus narrative.

Sydney Sweeney is at it again. After causing a collective coronary for some very silly people last year by appearing in a sexy ad for American Eagle jeans, she’s appeared in another ad. This time, it’s for Novig – a sports “prediction” betting app. And this time, Sweeney is naked. As I write this, almost two million people have watched the ad and only a minuscule minority will be traducing the use of Sweeney’s body to sell a very unsexy tech product Well, not quite naked. She’s partly concealed by various sports accoutrements as she gazes into the camera and repeats the word “sports” over and over again. In so doing, she’s driven some men wild and some women even wilder – but for very different reasons.

Two big stories are driving interest in artificial intelligence this week. The first is the resignation of Jacob Coxon, a researcher at Anthropic (maker of Claude) who used to work for OpenAI. He said in a statement on X: https://twitter.com/hilbertspaess/status/2097476196791709843?s=20 Coxon went on to say that “the people building AI earnestly believe that it could kill us all by the end of the decade”, and that employees at Anthropic are aggressively driving forward because they believe they are in the only company capable of managing the technology safely and ethically. At OpenAI, “many have not deeply internalized the civilizational stakes.”  Scary stuff.

Reporting of the war in Ukraine suffers from the tendency of journalism to exaggerate a trend. The most recent one has been Ukraine’s success in drone attacks on key energy and strategic sites deep inside Russia. These are indeed innovative and prodigious. The Russian summer offensive has also failed to break through. This leaves too little room, however, to cover fully the dramatically worsening plight of Ukrainian civilians. Olga Rudenko, editor-in-chief of the Kyiv Independent, said this week: “Even if you think you’re used to everything, you are not.” Russia has switched tactics from big, one-off aerial bombardments to almost continuous drones. In Kyiv one day last week, the air-raid sirens signaled 13 different attacks.

In January 2023, Lindsay Clancy strangled her three children in her basement and then tried to kill herself. On August 20 this year, several hundred women dressed in pink lined the street outside Plymouth Superior Court, where she was being tried for murder. Some called out “I love you,” as her lawyer went past. One of them shouted, “Team Lindsay.” Many mothers have frightening thoughts; very few become killers like Clancy The gathering had been organized by Renee Kimball, who had never met Clancy and had driven down from Maine. She had been following the trial via a livestream. She told Court TV it was neither a protest nor a rally, and that the point was “to show Lindsay support; to show her peace, to show her calm.