The Thing That Never Says No

I'm going to start someplace quite different.

It's probably going to get me into some trouble, so I apologize ahead of time.

And in about half an hour, I might think that was a dumb decision, but we'll see how it goes.

Today I'm going to start with a story that is about streaming video pornography.

For all of you who've had horrible experiences with pornography, just put that aside for a second.

This isn't about that.

And I'm going to skate past some of the more complex parts of this topic to get at something that's really, really important.

And it has to do with how we interact with technology.

Now imagine for a second, there's a 20-year-old young man who he's let's say he's straight, because I know that one.

He's 20, so his hormones are like out of 13.

He just started work.

He's got a new job in a new company.

And he wants to, he feels this desire to sexually connect with a woman.

That's he's again, he's straight.

So woman.

Nothing wrong with this.

This is all just completely natural, normal parts of human biology and sociology and relationships.

But his desire is to connect with someone.

He's feeling that like, I want to be sexual with someone.

And so when his buddies at the end of the day come to like, hey, we're going to the bar.

Do you want to come with?

Suddenly he has to think quite deeply.

This could be the beginning of something that he wants to do, right?

He could say, Yes, I'll come to the bar with you.

And you know, we'll go to the bar, and maybe when I'm at the bar, I'll meet or see a woman there.

Again, he's straight, that like I'm attracted to.

Let's hope they don't say we're going to a gay bar, because then he's like, Oh, I'm screwed.

So let's just say they go to a straight bar so they can connect with women, and he sees, let's just say, assuming he sees a woman there that he's attracted to, and let's assume that she gives him some signal that she's also open to him approaching, and then he has to pull up his big boy pants and walk up to a complete stranger.

And in some version of suave, charm, safe, mysterious, I don't know, because clearly I don't know.

He's gonna approach her, and that that first line has got to work, and she's gotta say, like, hey, you're pretty cool.

And then he's gonna navigate the next part of the conversation with all the safety and complexity of that, and then he's maybe gotta somehow get into the conversation.

Hey, I'd like to be sexual with you tonight.

Would you like to be sexual to me tonight?

Would that be something fun for you too?

And then he has to navigate consent at about 16 different levels, and then he's gonna figure out how to get her someplace that they both want to be sexual at.

And this is with a complete stranger, so it's not like somebody you've had sex with many times where you kind of know how it works.

This is a complete stranger, and for all you know, the tacos you had at the bar are not sitting well for one of you, and that night ends with one of you in the bathroom, the other one's like, get the hell out of here.

But it could go well, it could go well, and they could have this beautiful connection and enjoy it and both enjoy the sex together and feel this incredible connection.

Wouldn't that be lovely?

But the number of things that could go wrong.

Hi caramba, and so as the guy sitting there, you know, he's like he's sitting there at work, and they're like, Hey, do you want to come to the bar?

He's playing all that out in his head.

Well, maybe and could and possibly, and what if I duffed that and oh, that might not work?

And like the number of ways this can go wrong is just legion.

It's a biblical term for many.

Sorry, I shouldn't, that was jargon.

I shouldn't use that one.

Many.

Or because in his brain he's also thinking, or I could go home, turn on my computer, my phone, connect to a streaming video porn service.

I can find the person, the woman that I want to connect with that checks any number of a million boxes that I have.

They exist.

Consent's taken care of, the approach is taken care of, she will not say no.

It is a sure thing.

And so as he sits there, as his friends say, Hey, do you want to go to the bar?

He's looking at these two options of like super, super complex, a million things could go wrong, super simple technology, sure thing.

Now, if those were same same sexual interaction with a real woman and sexual interaction through a streaming uh video service, if those were the same thing, this is a no-brainer.

He's not going to the bar, folks.

If they're the same, the amount of work and the amount of risk the bar takes doesn't make any sense.

But the reason he's sitting there, I think, and you might disagree, but I believe the reason he's sitting there is because fundamentally these are not the same thing.

The technology isn't the same as reality.

Let me say that once more.

The technology is not the same as reality.

And yet, how often do we mistake technology for reality?

Anyone go on social media and see a picture like this first one?

Uh sorry, can you throw up the first picture for me?

Yeah, that's a picture of me, by the way.

That's what I look like without my shirt.

Whatever the picture is, do you feel good about yourself when you see a picture like that?

Do you think, wow, I am crushing it?

Or is it like, no, I gotta get back to the gym?

That is not real.

That is technology.

You don't even know if that's real people these days.

And yet, it has the ability to make us feel less than, insecure.

Is that not technology mistaken for reality?

What about when your buddy posts this picture?

Show up the next one for me, Isman.

Suddenly your 2007 Nissan XTERA with rust all over it.

Not that I know what that truck looks like, but suddenly it doesn't look so good, does it?

And yet that's not real.

This is a photograph.

But it sparks feelings.

It sparks insecurities.

Is it real?

Do you see how easily our brain tries to mistake reality for technology and technology for reality?

When I pointed out in the guy in streaming porn versus going to see a real woman, we're like, well, of course that's different.

Duh.

And yet you look at these pictures and you're like, ooh.

Maybe I am.

Now this series, I'm exploring technology from a spiritual lens.

And one of the things I said last week is I take technology as a tool.

I started by talking about the Hiroshima bomb.

It was it wasn't, but let's just say it was a cup of uranium put through a suit and technology where it releases all of its energy instantly.

Over 140 people died as a result.

That same technology can also be released slower, and it can ch it can um fuel the energy needs of 3,100 homes for an entire year.

The technology is a tool.

How we use it.

Ooh, that matters, doesn't it?

And so this whole series, I'm exploring not technology is good or bad, I'm exploring how do we use it.

How do we how do we use the tool?

Is it taking us to health?

Because I believe one of the core things I always write a sentence on my board, in this case a few sentences, but a sentence on my board downstairs of the kind of the heart of the series.

And I wrote this healthy people make healthy worlds.

And the corollary, unhealthy people can use the tools of technology to destroy this world.

And so my question is: how do we use technology to create health?

Now your brain might want to go to black and white thinking.

It's all bad, all good.

If you've had bad experiences or painful experiences with streaming video pornography, you're like, okay, let's just ban that.

Friday, I was at my workshop collective because my truck was making a funny sound.

I jacked it up.

The back wheel went like this.

Kajunk, kajunk.

For you car people, your wheel is not supposed to be able to pull out by a few inches and then push back in.

It's like bad.

Had to replace a rear wheel bearing on a 2007 Nissan.

Do I have that all memorized?

No.

What does everybody who fix cars do when they want to trigger figure out how to fix cars?

YouTube.

Streaming video car repairs.

The technology isn't black or white good.

And we are not going to go into black or white thinking because that's our brains trying to make this simple.

It is not simple.

This entire conversation is complex.

And when your brain wants to go to simple, just take a minute, tune me out for a second, be like, okay, take a deep breath.

I'm feeling overwhelmed.

My brain's trying to conserve energy.

It's all good, all bad.

Just take a break.

It's okay.

I am going to help you navigate through this journey with the nuance that I think this conversation is needed.

Then again, would you guys let me do it black and white anyways?

No.

You'd call me on that in a second, wouldn't you?

The final thing about technology I want to say is this, and this is why.

Can you throw up the relational development model for me, Esmond, when you have a minute?

Winemaking is a technology.

It's actually a natural technology.

We harnessed it to make wine.

What it does is it takes calories and it converts them so you can store them long-term or longer term without refrigeration.

That's why we started to make alcoholic beverages, wine specifically.

Now, for some people, wine is a delicious beverage you have with steak.

And for some people, that same technology has destroyed their lives and the lives of the people around them.

So even as I see technology as a tool, I'm not going to take it black and white.

I'm not going to make it bad.

Who we are matters, I think.

Technology is not the same for everybody.

How we use it, what is healthy for me, might be different from what's healthy for you.

And so part of this journey is navigating who am I?

We are going to focus on that bottom left quadrant.

Once you can figure that out, you can start to bring this into the larger part of your life.

The people around you, the world around you.

Last week I talked about technology, again, not good or bad.

The technology of idols.

And I said, where do we use technology to distract ourselves?

Has anyone ever gotten bored and flipped open social media?

Has anyone ever had a tough day and went on YouTube and started down some rabbit hole that made you forget about everything?

For 16 hours, straight?

Where do we use technology to distract ourselves?

You know, I thought I had thought deeply about it leading up to that message.

After that message, the number of times this week I've felt myself pull up my phone and I'm like, Kate Clausen, what are you doing?

And I'm like trying to distract myself.

What am I trying to distract myself from?

Oh sadness, boredom, powerlessness, overwhelm.

Technology has a tool.

It can do all kinds of things.

Distract us from dealing with the emotions that are important to us.

It can do that too.

Today we're going to take that same technology and idle.

We're going to take it into another direction.

I want to show you how streaming, video pornography, and idols can teach us something today.

How's that?

I bet you thought you were done with streaming porn, didn't you?

No, right back in the deep end, Clausen.

Well done.

Friend Church believes that we need to be honest about what can be proven.

If you're new to Friend Church, this is a weird concept.

For those of you, just remember, we believe that being honest about what can be proven is part of our values here.

Which means I don't say God is.

Because God is something that can't be proven.

That word, that conception, none of it.

I can't prove it.

I would even say neither can you.

We've had thousands of years of people trying to figure that out.

And so instead, to be honest, we say we can connect with something more.

Some people use the word God.

I often use the word the more than.

But we say it this way: I have a conception of God.

I have a set of beliefs that I call God.

What it does is it backs us off a little bit and lets us talk deeply.

It also does something really important, it lets me talk about the entire spectrum of the Bible.

Because the author of the story that I told last week talks about a conception of God that I'm guessing none of you hold.

Remember, the story was there's a the people of the Bible are together, they're freaked out, they're feeling abandoned because their leader who connects them to God.

That's how they conceive of God, has gone up to a mountain where gods live, because anytime you climb a mountain, you experience something divine, right?

He's up there and he's been gone too long, and they start to freak out.

And so they create this technology to say, God is here.

Now, here's what happens: the author writes this the character God in the story sees what's going on down there with the idol.

And this is what he says.

Can you throw it up for me, Esmond?

Leave me alone.

He's talking to the leader.

His name's Moses.

Leave me alone, Moses.

I'm gonna go down and in my anger kill every one of them.

That's the author's conception of God.

Kill every human being because they made an idol.

Ouch.

Now their conception of God, the technical term is capricious, erratic, unpredictable.

They're always in this phase of like, we believe there's a God, this character up there, and we never know what's gonna happen.

One day it might be like kittens and rainbows, and the next day it's like fire and brimstone.

They never know.

They never know if God's gonna show up or completely ignore them.

And for them, ignoring them means bad things are gonna happen.

That's how they conceive of the world.

So now let's let's let's take the story back to the people.

Their conception of God is this entity out there that like think of like this might get me in trouble, but like the worst drunk.

You never know if they're gonna be on a bender or if they're gonna be the friendliest person in the world.

That's how they conceive of God.

And so they're freaking out because they're going, we don't know what's gonna happen.

And the author is saying, we don't know what's gonna happen.

And so what they do is they make a statue.

Can you throw up the video for me, husband?

Now, if you're scared of a capricious God, and your life is or focused around this idea of like, I never know if I'm gonna get destroyed or if it's gonna be abandoned or what's gonna happen, and you create a statue that looks like that.

Hello, kitty.

Hi, do you not feel safer?

Does it not feel like something you don't have to run away from?

Be scared of?

Can you see how the statue itself does something?

But here's the thing: there's a group of rabbinic writings, uh, rabbis are Jewish scholars.

Called uh they put together this thing called the Talmud, it's in the third century.

The Talmud about this story says the rabbi really wanted us to pay attention.

They said, once the character God comes back into the story, the people instantly got rid of the idol.

You can take it down, Asmuth.

Why?

For the same reason that 20-year-old who just got invited to the bar is contemplating whether or not he should roll the dice and see if he can find sexual connection with some woman that night.

Or if he's gonna use technology.

Because they are not the same thing.

The idol isn't the same thing as real life.

And they know that.

The question though is, do we know that?

What does mistaking technology for reality do to us?

At this point you're thinking, wait a second, where'd I do that?

Can you throw out the first picture for me, Esmond?

I showed you this one already.

Mistaking technology for reality, doesn't it create unreal expectations?

I was just talking to Dave.

We both like motorbikes.

I was watching the best Enduro motorcycle in the world, motorcyclist in the world, and thinking, oh, if only I could do what he can do.

Do you think that I can ride a bike as good as Manny Lettenbickler, the world's best motorcyclist?

But when I watch him on video.

Mistaking technology for reality.

Next one for me, Esmond.

How often do we mistake social or interaction online through technology as real interaction with humans?

It's gotten so bad that some of the social media providers take down the likes because people have become addicted to that as the source of their validation in their lives.

And even if we're not there, how often does oh someone commented on my post or someone liked something?

I feel connected.

Is that not technology for reality?

And what happens when you're going through a dark time and you can't post the perfect picture, the can't post the rosy thing.

Do you feel those people around you?

That's when it gets painful, doesn't it?

I thought it was so connected.

No.

Technology.

Not reality.

Next one, Esmond.

This one.

We think this is real life.

How often do you see things through technology that feel like real life?

Are they real life?

Do you ever stop and say, wait a second, is that real life?

Now, if you see a dog riding a bike in the rain, you know that's not real life.

That's AI.

Those are easy.

Is this one AI?

Is this real?

When technology and reality starts to blend in our minds, we think uncritically, well, that's how people live.

That's how friends of mine live.

That's how I should live.

And our sense of value in our life starts to drop.

Can you throw up the next one, Esmond?

Oh, here's a great one.

How often do we see a small group of people protesting through technology and assume it's consensus?

That is everybody.

Everybody thinks that.

I'm bad for this one.

I follow along certain kind of groups of people through an algorithm that sends me certain things into my brain.

If I I have to work really hard to say that's not them.

That's just the feed of them that I get.

That's me mistaking technology for reality.

It's the simplest when you, a friend of mine scared of bears.

They're like, you're in the mountains all the time.

How often have you been attacked by bears?

I'm like, I've seen a bear in Alberta once in 30 years of being in the mountains every weekend.

Once.

But she read an article in the paper, Technology, that said somebody got rushed by a bear.

And what does her brain do?

Bears are everywhere.

Technology, reality.

Next one for me, ismond.

Oh, here's a great one.

Who are we canceling now?

Does anyone follow this?

I can't keep track.

Sydney Sweeney was in there for a bit.

I think Ed Sharon's on the block right now.

I blink, and it's gonna be someone different, right?

We think this is technology, social media canceling, and yet we assume that's the same as like healthy relationships.

Does that teach you how to make mistakes and repair them?

Because that's real relationships.

Does that teach you to navigate differences of opinion?

No, we go, no, no, no.

I did I'm I'm relationally healthy.

I canceled them.

Technology?

Reality?

Okay, I think I get two more.

Go for this.

Oh, here's a good one.

Beware the reality TVs or the Unibomber documentaries, those kind of things.

Because your brain will start to say, and we actually have our brains are wired to do this.

If you see something a few times, your brain extrapolates it to the everything.

You see enough shows of bad people, and you start getting worried about going outside.

Technology has shaped how you feel safe in your world.

Last one, Desmond.

Oh yeah.

How often do we pick up our phones, watch a 30-second reel of something, and we're like, oh yeah, I'm growing relationally.

I'm growing as a human being.

Did you do anything with that?

Did you do sweet anything?

Did it change your behaviors?

One iota.

But I watched a video.

Did I fact check it?

No.

Did I do anything with it?

No.

These are all ways we take technology and say they're reality.

Are they?

And what happens when we do this?

Look at all the problems in our minds.

Look at all the problems relationally.

How dare you behave that way, this person that I love?

Look at the people over there.

They don't do that.

When the nation, the biblical people came together, they built a technology, laughing cat.

Made them feel safe.

Made them feel like their conception of God was close to them and it wasn't angry with them.

Now, the conception of God that the author writes this through says, I'm gonna kill you all for this.

Not my favorite conception of God, to be honest.

If you hold it, that's yours.

That's fine.

Not one that I hold.

And yet I think there's a metaphor there.

Beware mistaking technology for reality.

The consequences can be existential.

The consequences can lodge things in our minds that are not true.

The consequences is we can have a beautiful life that we can't even enjoy.

The consequences is we can't be with the people we used to be with because those people are not our people.

This isn't just social media.

When we started taking pictures, people said you're stealing their soul.

And in some senses, I understand that.

Because that picture doesn't even exist.

So as you leave her today, I ask, where are you inadvertently confusing technology with reality?

And more important, what's it doing to you?

What's it doing to your sense of self?

Your sense of people around you.

When you start to see this, it's a bit scary, isn't it?

Now before we leave, I've said all the way along, I don't think technology is good or bad.

So let me give you something.

Last time I gave you an AI prompt to help you figure out your emotions.

Today I'm gonna do a different one.

Go on to any social media platform that you may or may not follow.

Find somebody from Calgary.

If you don't have just hashtag Calgary.

And then find a public spot that they've posted.

I did this.

This is the picture that came up for me.

This is the Peace Bridge.

Does the Peace Bridge ever look like that?

I wonder how much was Photoshopped out of that sucker.

But here's what I want you to do.

Wherever you find, go there.

Drive there, take a day off.

Next time you're in the evening, get a coffee there, wherever it is.

If they show you a picture of that, you know, whatever the food they ate, that's like, you know, Instagram to like 6,000 meters.

I always take pictures of Instagram influencers getting their b-roll shots where there's like they're not set up properly.

I take pictures of them because it's so funny watching them get so freaked out about the perfect picture.

But when you see their picture, it looks better than anything you could ever have.

Go there, experience it, enjoy it.

Deep in your soul, realize this picture is not real.

Real is real.

Technology that doesn't create health for us as a tool.

I think it's hurting us and the world around us.

Just like those people realized, the idol is not our conception of God.

May we realize that what we see through technology is not reality.

Sometimes it's better, sometimes it's worse, but it's not real.

May that be clear to us from today on.

Amen.

Okay, let's lighten it up a little bit.

Come on, let's go get some social media and let's show the world that like life is good, being in real life is good, people are good.

And then let's post it on social media, shall we?

Have a great week, everybody.