Latest / Random Heathen Ramblings / Heathenry In The Age Of AI [RHR S7, EP20]

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Heathenry In The Age Of AI [RHR S7, EP20] · Random Heathen Ramblings

• 0:00
  Hello everyone, and welcome to the Random Heathen Ramblings
• 0:02
  podcast where we discuss all sorts of things Germanic
• 0:05
  Heathenry related. My name is Jesse and I'm your
• 0:08
  host. Let's get into it.
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  and discover the beauty of Mountain Spirit.
• 1:04
  All right everyone, welcome back to another episode of Random
• 1:08
  Even Ramblings. It's great to be back putting
• 1:11
  out some more ramblings for you all to to watch or listen to.
• 1:15
  It's been a few weeks since I've been on here, so I hope you've
• 1:20
  all been doing well. If you've seen any of the posts
• 1:26
  that I've made, which I haven't been a lot on my Patreon, I know
• 1:29
  there was one couple of weeks ago where I basically just turn
• 1:35
  the camera on and like, what am I even doing?
• 1:38
  You know, just kind of it's kind of like a journaling method, if
• 1:43
  you will, for me to, to sit in front of the camera and speak.
• 1:47
  I like writing. I like documenting things in
• 1:49
  that sort of way, but. I also like using.
• 1:52
  The convenience of modern technology to record either my
• 1:57
  voice or a video and then if I post, post it somewhere it it
• 2:01
  gets posted or if not, then I just keep it for my own
• 2:06
  reflection and things like that. So there's been a lot that I've
• 2:12
  been going through in the last almost a month, last few weeks
• 2:16
  at least, where I've been forced to face things about myself that
• 2:21
  I needed to face, that I've been either ignoring or suppressing,
• 2:29
  being in denial about. I'm not going to go into all
• 2:32
  that. Suffice it to say, took a break.
• 2:36
  I'm back, and we've got a hot topic to get into today.
• 2:45
  Before I do though, I do want to.
• 2:48
  Give a very. Special thanks and shout out to
• 2:51
  my patrons on Patreon of all levels or tiers of support so
• 2:57
  everybody from you know the. Carl tier up to the ACR tier.
• 3:03
  You guys and gals out here that want to support the product, the
• 3:07
  the the podcast or my, I said my product, right, like my digital
• 3:10
  products in this way is greatly appreciated.
• 3:16
  And you know, as a result of a lot of things that I've been
• 3:18
  facing, some of you that are at the higher tier levels, you
• 3:24
  know, especially the Chieftain tiers.
• 3:26
  I do, I just want to make a very special acknowledgement to those
• 3:29
  of you who are the Chieftain tier or above, right?
• 3:31
  So the, you know, we got Michael Thacker, Adam Cage, Michaela,
• 3:36
  Chris Martino. Think that's everybody right now
• 3:39
  that's at or above the the Chieftain tier.
• 3:44
  Oh, a scaldic works. I think too, maybe, I'm not
• 3:46
  sure, but anyway, for all of you chieftains tears, I know it's
• 3:51
  been a couple of months since I've sent out the the monthly
• 3:54
  rune readings again with everything I've got going on.
• 3:57
  It's not an excuse. It's just for me being
• 3:59
  transparent with you, that aspect of you know, the benefit
• 4:06
  that you get for pledging your support at that level has been
• 4:09
  put on the back burner. I'm going to get back into it.
• 4:13
  Apologies for the delay in that, but it's coming.
• 4:18
  It's coming back soon. You know, I just needed to take
• 4:21
  some time and and re evaluate some things.
• 4:23
  So appreciate everybody's understanding.
• 4:26
  If you're watching this or listening to this on Spotify,
• 4:31
  this is one of the first video podcast episodes that I've
• 4:34
  released on on that platform in a while.
• 4:36
  I don't know if I'm going to continue to do it that way.
• 4:39
  I noticed that the video that I posted of me just talking to the
• 4:43
  camera and and going, you know, what am I even doing?
• 4:46
  It got a lot of. Response.
• 4:49
  You know what I mean it. Got a higher view rate or or?
• 4:51
  Higher engagement rate, which I'm always interested in to see
• 4:54
  how the type of content that that I put out, how people are
• 4:58
  engaging with it. So the fact that, you know, that
• 5:02
  episode or that piece of content got, you know, triple the amount
• 5:06
  of engagement that, you know, double to triple the amount of
• 5:09
  engagement that previous pieces of content have is I don't know,
• 5:14
  you know, it's made me think, you know, is that what more
• 5:16
  people enjoy or more people like I'm still going to be putting
• 5:19
  videos out here on Patreon for the podcast.
• 5:22
  So again, please continue. If you want to support the show
• 5:26
  monetarily, here's where is the best place to do it.
• 5:32
  And you can always just join for free.
• 5:33
  You might not get to see the video stuff, but you will get to
• 5:36
  see. A lot of.
• 5:37
  Things that I'm working on and sharing but again joining at the
• 5:42
  Carl tier that $3 pledge goes a long way.
• 5:45
  So anyway, you can find those links down in the, you know,
• 5:50
  show notes or description area wherever is that you're watching
• 5:54
  this or listening to this from. But yeah, I know.
• 5:59
  So I, I, I've been doing a lot of reflecting, you know,
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  integrate integration and soul searching and what, what a lot
• 6:12
  of maybe newer neo pagans and and stuff nowadays like to call
• 6:16
  shadow work. But so much of of that, as you
• 6:23
  know, I've I've I've gotten off of social media almost entirely.
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  I still have the YouTube channel.
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  I still have my Instagram, but I'm off Facebook.
• 6:30
  Thankfully. I, you know what, that's one of
• 6:33
  the things that I think I've talked a little bit about here
• 6:37
  before about, but I'm, I am so thankful that it happened the
• 6:42
  way it did. It kind of sucked up front.
• 6:43
  You know, it was one of those get the rug pulled out from
• 6:46
  under you, under you kind of experiences.
• 6:48
  And it's very disorienting. And you know, you, you, you
• 6:53
  think about it so much, or at least I did.
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  And you know, I lost all of these things and blah, blah,
• 6:58
  blah, blah, blah. But really in the, in the
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  interim, it was the best thing to have happened for me.
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  So I don't get to engage with people or have connection to
• 7:08
  people that I, that I once did. I've, I've become very
• 7:13
  restrictive to who I allow into my life.
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  And social media was, was a way that I could allow a lot of
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  people into my life with very little vetting.
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  You know what I mean? People couldn't send a message.
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  I can answer it or not. And I always did or, or many
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  times I did, you know, maybe I didn't, you know, add them as
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  friends. But Facebook was taking up more
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  of my attention than it should have for a long time.
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  So getting off of there has been a blessing to say the least.
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  But where I'd where I'd have found myself perusing a bit and,
• 7:53
  and becoming a bit more engaged with is on a platform platform
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  called Folk realms. You can find me there.
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  It's, it's, you can get it. You can download a mobile app
• 8:03
  for it if you just go to the App Store on whatever device you're
• 8:07
  on. So you know, the Google Play
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  Store, the Apple Store, it's called Folk Realms.
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  Dannheim is the founder of this platform.
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  He's got a bunch of moderators that kind of keep peace in the
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  realm, as it were. And so I'm over there.
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  You can find me by Midgard Musings if you do that or if you
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  just, if you're on like a computer and you want to go and
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  you want to download an app, it's Folk realms.com/midgard
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  Musings and it's a very community based social platform.
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  They police it. And I use that term not in a way
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  that is derogatory. I mean, they, they, they
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  moderate. The moderators are, are great.
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  They they they moderate. This place or they police the
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  place pretty pretty heavily. Pretty strictly.
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  When it comes to the use of artificial intelligence or AI
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  technology, I've been hit a couple of times with, well, more
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  than a couple of times. I've been hit several times when
• 9:07
  I've shared either the music that I've worked on that is AI
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  generated. I've been very transparent about
• 9:12
  that. When I say that you know it, it
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  raises alerts to a lot of pagans or heathens or people because it
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  is such a touchy subject. And that is the subject of
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  today's episode. It is Heathenry in the age of
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  AI. And getting a chance to see all
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  right, clearly the things that I have posted or shared on folk
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  realms that are generated by AI, you know, broke a rule.
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  Got my, got my guts go, hey, no, no, no, that's a no, no, don't
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  do that. You know, it gets flagged, all
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  these types of things. But then there's been other
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  things that have happened where, you know, I, I've written.
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  Lyrics for all of these songs that are enhanced by the by AI
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  software. They you know this, The music
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  itself is not. Me playing a guitar or anything
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  like that, yes, I have contributed to like rhythm drum
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  beats, other other auditor, you know, audible things like that.
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  But I'm not composing songs with instruments myself.
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  I'm working very hands on with the AI to give it prompts to
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  build something that I'm trying to fit, you know, so I don't
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  just give it a prompt and then shit out the first thing that it
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  comes up with. I, I work on the lyrics myself
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  based on my experiences in the world and my understanding of,
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  of Heathenry, right? So a lot of the songs that I
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  write have a very heathen worldview or focus on it.
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  If you've listened or you've seen any of the music that I've
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  shared, like on YouTube or the album that I just released back
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  in May, Till the Final Twilight Dies, you, you understand what I
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  mean by that. But the lyrics?
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  Are not AI, the lyrics are for me.
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  I've fed those lyrics. Into the AI so that way they you
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  know the thing knows what to say during the song.
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  But they are my original intellectual.
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  Property and I've been stricken on folk realms with when I share
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  a piece of those lyrics as is this text that you're sharing is
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  detected as AI generated and I've.
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  Fought back about that I've stood my ground like no it's not
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  you're and and the irony of it all is is you know maybe I don't
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  understand everything about everything well there's no maybe
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  about. It I do not understand
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  everything about everything. What I do know is that when it
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  comes to things that can detect or that are used to detect AI,
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  right, Apps, tools, systems, that in itself is AI.
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  That's not a literal person analyzing it and going I think
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  this is a 97% probability of it being AI.
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  It is another artificial intelligence system that is
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  detecting or determining based on code or based on on previous
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  things that it's learned that it is what it's seeing or what it's
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  reading or what it's hearing or what it's, you know, detecting
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  is, is, is AI generated or not? And I'm like, look, it's you,
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  this is your platform or you're moderating a platform by some
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  from somebody. So, you know, it's your house,
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  your rules, you do what you want with it.
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  But it is ironic to me that you're going to have a rule that
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  says absolutely no use of AI here.
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  And you're going to use a system that is for all intents and
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  purposes, AI to detect whether or not something is AI.
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  So I'm, you know, I've worked in IT for almost 10 years, long
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  enough to, to understand that these things have a purpose and
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  they have a useful purpose. What we're going to talk about
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  today in this episode, Heathenry in the age of AI is looking at
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  what AI is for, what it can be used for.
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  And you know what it's good for even what it's not good for what
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  maybe our ancient ancestors finding some sort of connection
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  with that from a, from a, from an older worldview, and then
• 13:15
  finding a place in some of those ancient worldviews that can be
• 13:20
  applied in modern context. Because we are clearly inundated
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  no matter where we go with this modern new thing called
• 13:31
  artificial intelligence AI. You can't Google anything
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  nowadays without the browser giving you an AI summary of what
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  it is that you're searching for in a Google web browser.
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  And I know you can use certain browsers that don't do that.
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  You can fight against the current pretty well to avoid any
• 13:53
  use of AI, but it's it's everywhere where we're saturated
• 13:59
  by it. So the way that I, and, and I
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  want to preface what I'm saying in this episode with the
• 14:07
  statement, sort of a disclaimer, wherever this episode gets
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  picked up, I, I would, would be willing to, to bet that people
• 14:18
  on folk realms are going to listen or watch this episode
• 14:22
  because I'm going to share this episode on that platform.
• 14:27
  I've already talked about cleaning off the microphone dust
• 14:30
  is sort of, so to speak, this and, and putting out a new
• 14:32
  episode. So it's going to be shared on
• 14:33
  that platform because it's a platform where people really
• 14:36
  want to connect. They want to learn.
• 14:38
  It's like I said before, it's, there's no bots that, that, you
• 14:43
  know, are, are spamming people with stuff.
• 14:44
  It's it's real people doing real things.
• 14:48
  It's one of the most wholesome examples of of a social media
• 14:52
  platform that I've personally encountered in a long time.
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  All the big ones like Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, even the fuck
• 15:00
  that anyway, YouTube. You know, all of these so-called
• 15:04
  social platforms are trash. They only exist to serve the
• 15:11
  algorithms. What's popular, what's trending,
• 15:16
  what gets under people's skins? It it causes dissension and
• 15:19
  division. Folk realms is not like that.
• 15:21
  So anyway, the reason why I wanted to say what I'm about to
• 15:24
  say is that if you know when people see this or no matter
• 15:27
  where you are, these are my views.
• 15:32
  Usually try to say this on almost every episode, but you
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  know, this is my perspective. What you're going to be hearing
• 15:37
  today is my perspective on this thing, this this topic called
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  AI. It's not an intent for me to try
• 15:44
  and sway you to think the way that I think or see things the
• 15:47
  way that I see them. It's just presenting a
• 15:50
  perspective that I have. Maybe others have to, maybe you
• 15:54
  haven't considered and it's something it's food for thought,
• 15:57
  so take it with a grain of salt. Open for discussion wherever
• 16:01
  this episode lands. If there's a comment section,
• 16:04
  feel free to jump down there, especially for those of you on
• 16:07
  Patreon, you have a comment section that, you know, if
• 16:10
  you're watching this and you're at the Coral or above tier, jump
• 16:13
  down in the comments and share your thoughts.
• 16:15
  So now that we've got all that out the way, let's go.
• 16:19
  Here's the way I see things. When we talk about an ancestral
• 16:24
  way, a folk way, Germanic Heathenry, we have to, I think
• 16:33
  take into consideration that, you know, for literally
• 16:36
  thousands of years before us, we're, we're living in a modern
• 16:40
  time and we're trying to especially here in the United
• 16:43
  States where Heathenry and, you know, paganism is not native
• 16:46
  with these, these are traditions.
• 16:48
  These are things that come from our ancestors across an ocean,
• 16:51
  in a different country, on a different continent.
• 16:54
  But but, but but for thousands of years before us, human.
• 16:58
  Beings have been seeking wisdom outside of themselves in what
• 17:04
  sources they had available to them, whether it be from their
• 17:08
  elders, from their ancestors. That clearly this is a very
• 17:14
  important part of our Germanic heathen traditions is the
• 17:18
  ancestors of our line are are actively a part of our living
• 17:23
  existence, even though they're not physically around.
• 17:26
  So we seek wisdom, we seek guidance, we seek information,
• 17:29
  we seek learning from sources like them, obviously the gods,
• 17:37
  skulls or bards and poets, right?
• 17:39
  The looking at the source material that we have, which is
• 17:45
  edict poems, scaldic poems, sagas, you know, and that had
• 17:54
  that has always been a thing. It's still a thing.
• 17:58
  And today we have millions upon millions of people, increasingly
• 18:06
  you, you know, using a tool to seek answers from so that they,
• 18:11
  they may be including the things that I just mentioned, whether
• 18:15
  it be, you know, their ancestors or the gods or, or, or whatever
• 18:19
  sources. But now.
• 18:22
  We see millions of people employing the use of artificial
• 18:25
  intelligence as well. And whether we like it or not,
• 18:30
  whether you agree with it or not, AI is becoming one of the
• 18:33
  most, if not the most influential forces that are
• 18:36
  shaping human thought today. You don't have to like it, but
• 18:41
  it's, it's hard to gain say that truth.
• 18:44
  That's a reality that is pretty, you know, you can't really argue
• 18:51
  it. So what does that mean for us as
• 18:53
  heathens nowadays, right? What does it mean that, you
• 18:59
  know, we are modern people looking at ancient world views.
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  What do those world views? What does what does that have to
• 19:08
  say about a technology or process or an innovation that is
• 19:14
  capable of producing so much for us?
• 19:18
  Whether it's stories, whether it's advice, I know people that
• 19:22
  use, you know, AI to have you can say that conversations.
• 19:28
  I mean, it's it's crazy to think like, you know, you can have a
• 19:32
  conversation with this non person.
• 19:34
  You know, this, this thing where you ask it something that comes
• 19:37
  back with a response. The people are using it for
• 19:41
  stuff like that. They're using it for, I mean,
• 19:45
  music, art of any sort, knowledge, right, philosophical
• 19:52
  and spiritual guidance, I'm sure.
• 19:58
  So what can we take away from this?
• 20:04
  What can we take away from looking at it from like an
• 20:07
  ancient world view or something that maybe if our ancestors were
• 20:10
  around and that it was available, you know, to them,
• 20:13
  where can, what can we, what can we pull from?
• 20:15
  So here's here's what I've been able to kind of like an onion
• 20:18
  peel the layers back from as I've been thinking about this
• 20:22
  over the last couple of weeks. Compiling my thoughts, making
• 20:26
  notes and if I'm looking towards, you know, not in the
• 20:29
  camera, that's why I'm looking at some some notes that I've
• 20:32
  been making. One of the things that I came up
• 20:39
  with is that, you know, any ancient worldview doesn't have
• 20:44
  to necessarily be dramatic heathenry or whatever, but any
• 20:48
  ancient worldview is not anti technology.
• 20:55
  Now I'm going to pause and give you a moment to think about that
• 20:59
  ancient the ancient world in any culture was not anti technology
• 21:08
  because I think one of the modern one of the mistakes that
• 21:11
  that we as modern people make is is is assuming that traditional.
• 21:18
  Societies non, you know, the the non modern world, right?
• 21:23
  Traditional customs and all this.
• 21:25
  That they opposed. Innovation, they were against
• 21:30
  it. And if we face the truth and and
• 21:37
  and we look at historically, OK, and since this is a heathen
• 21:42
  podcast and then, you know, I am on many things, but since this,
• 21:46
  you know, dramatic, he let's look at, you know, dramatic,
• 21:51
  let's look at the dramatic peoples.
• 21:54
  Plenty of examples of them eagerly adopting, you know,
• 21:58
  customs and and and things that were innovative for these
• 22:01
  people. The the whole ironworking,
• 22:04
  shipbuilding, advanced metallurgy, navigational
• 22:11
  techniques, the networks of trade that they, you know,
• 22:17
  engaged in to keep themselves fed and for sources of of
• 22:24
  economics and things to to to continue.
• 22:29
  We know this because we can point.
• 22:31
  To or not archaeological evidence which shows that.
• 22:41
  Yeah. I mean, whether it was, you
• 22:42
  know, maybe not, you know, more on the continent, yes, somewhat.
• 22:46
  But especially in the farther, farther N you know, the Norse
• 22:50
  Scandinavians, they were very quite often technologically
• 22:57
  adaptive or adoptive to things rather.
• 23:00
  Than against it opposing it so. I don't think that the question
• 23:11
  is that nowadays we have these new tools, OK, and I'm going to,
• 23:17
  I'm going to pause, I'm going to.
• 23:19
  Take a a little detour here on this, on this journey that we're
• 23:22
  going on. I'm going to ask all of you to
• 23:25
  think about when it comes to academics and and scholarly
• 23:31
  work, OK? Because because my, my, my, my
• 23:34
  initial question or my initial key note is, is that, you know,
• 23:38
  the, the question that we should be asking is not whether or not
• 23:41
  new tools should have should exist, new exciting technology
• 23:45
  should exist AI, right? I don't think the question is
• 23:48
  that whether it should exist. The question really is, is that?
• 23:54
  What are we doing to ensure that we are not being, that we're not
• 23:59
  becoming the tool that that we're not being mastered over,
• 24:03
  you know, by them, but that we are exercising the mastery of
• 24:07
  the tools that we have at our disposal?
• 24:10
  So to that point, I want to point to or, or, or point, you
• 24:14
  know, direct your attention to modern academia.
• 24:18
  How long ago was it? In my lifetime, I'll be. 42,
• 24:24
  right? What year is it?
• 24:28
  No. How old am I anyway?
• 24:32
  I'm in my 40s. And in my lifetime, the Internet
• 24:42
  has come into existence. The World Wide Web, WWW.
• 24:47
  What? Whatever has wasn't wasn't a
• 24:49
  thing when I was born. At least not in everybody.
• 24:53
  'S homes, you know what I'm saying?
• 24:57
  And academia, learning what was done in textbooks, in classrooms
• 25:06
  with professors and higher learned minds, people who spent
• 25:12
  years. In those classrooms and reading
• 25:14
  those textbooks. And coming up with their own
• 25:19
  lessons on things, their own dissertations, their own
• 25:24
  formulas, right. All of the things that I grew up
• 25:26
  learning was in books that somebody else figured out first.
• 25:35
  Libraries where almost, and I don't want to be like
• 25:39
  sacrilegious, but you know, sacred places.
• 25:43
  You went to a library because it was this Mecca of knowledge you
• 25:48
  had. And they're free to the public.
• 25:50
  You know, you get a membership card, a library card and you can
• 25:53
  check, check out books and you can borrow.
• 25:56
  And learn things. Or you can spend your day in the
• 25:58
  library. You can do studies in a quiet
• 26:01
  environment without a bunch of distractions, right?
• 26:05
  And then the Internet. Showed up and over time over the
• 26:15
  last 40 years we have. These stupid things, right?
• 26:19
  Remember you, you know that watches or listens to this
• 26:22
  podcast, went to public school and got told by a teacher at
• 26:25
  some point in time you're not going to always have a
• 26:26
  calculator in your pocket. You need to know your math.
• 26:29
  Guess what, bitch, I've got it. And and and look.
• 26:32
  At at what we've. Become, as a result of it, the
• 26:35
  convenience of things, the ease in which.
• 26:37
  We are able to retrieve. And achieve a goal on something.
• 26:41
  We don't have to go to a library anymore.
• 26:43
  We don't have to take time out of our day to leave and go
• 26:45
  somewhere to find an answer for something because we've got.
• 26:48
  It in our in our damn pockets. Do you think that the academics
• 26:54
  of the last 50 years who spent. Hours and upon hours, years of
• 27:02
  their lives. In libraries, in studies, in
• 27:05
  books and in classrooms. Do you think that they opposed
• 27:10
  the introduction of the Internet when it came out and and they.
• 27:13
  Started to see what it's capable of, what it was capable.
• 27:15
  Of doing do you think that there were professors and and other
• 27:20
  academics or whoever that that posed that that sort of
• 27:26
  technology without knowing for sure?
• 27:28
  I'm almost willing to bet again ABS so freaking lutely they were
• 27:34
  the ones of that time like the ones of today who are so
• 27:36
  vehemently against the use of AI and the overuse of AI right.
• 27:41
  Maybe they didn't understand this is a this is an affront to
• 27:47
  to higher. Learning it's, it's making it
• 27:49
  too easy. You're not earning anything as a
• 27:51
  result of it. You're not having to sacrifice
• 27:53
  as much. You know what I mean?
• 27:56
  So. But yet here.
• 27:58
  We are and look at what amazing things have happened as a result
• 28:02
  of it. Not all great.
• 28:03
  OK, I'm, I'll be honest and I'll be upfront and to say that, you
• 28:06
  know, the, the advances of, of the modern world have arrived at
• 28:12
  such an accelerated rate. I never would have thought when
• 28:18
  I was a child that I'd be able to do the things that I can do
• 28:20
  now at my age. It seemed like something out of
• 28:25
  science fiction. It seemed like something.
• 28:26
  And I'm sure if we're all still here and this world hasn't
• 28:29
  imploded by that time and we haven't purged this, you know,
• 28:32
  our mother hasn't hasn't just done a hard reset on things.
• 28:36
  If we're here in another 40 or 50 years, the children of this
• 28:39
  generation of that that are kids now that are experiencing things
• 28:43
  now will be experiencing things that they didn't think were
• 28:46
  possible at this time. So it's, it's one of those
• 28:51
  things that I got to thinking about like, sure, there's going
• 28:55
  to be people that oppose it and they're going to be people that
• 28:57
  embrace it. Is there something that is a
• 29:00
  wider question that we should be directing our attention to not?
• 29:05
  Whether the tools should exist, but whether we.
• 29:08
  Remain controlled and masters of them.
• 29:12
  So when we look at parallels of things, examples throughout
• 29:20
  mythology or sagas or lore, whatever, the case may be,
• 29:23
  right? That could help us arrive at
• 29:30
  what? Was going on at the time one of
• 29:32
  the most classic examples that I can think of.
• 29:34
  One of the probably the first things that I can think of is is
• 29:37
  Odin and his obsession with knowledge, wisdom, wanting all
• 29:43
  the answers, sacrificing himself to himself on the ignorance seal
• 29:47
  for the mysteries, for the runes, giving his eye at Meemer
• 29:52
  as well for a draft or for a drink to gain that knowledge and
• 29:59
  you know. That's a classic.
• 30:02
  Example in our own lore in Germanic or Norse myth that we
• 30:09
  see Odin is constantly seeking information.
• 30:13
  He's never satisfied with one answer, one version of an
• 30:18
  answer. He's he's, he's, he's
• 30:21
  overthinking a lot of times. He's, he's overanalyzing.
• 30:23
  He's obsessed with getting all of the answers for all the
• 30:29
  things. OK, you can.
• 30:32
  You can find that in, you know, as as central of a source or as
• 30:37
  central of a piece of literature as the Hovamo.
• 30:40
  Or any array of broader etic corpus you know.
• 30:46
  He sacrifices an eye, hangs on the tree, consults the dead,
• 30:50
  speaks to the Cirrus. He's never sitting around still
• 30:56
  for very long. He's always wandering, he's
• 30:58
  always travelling, he's always going somewhere.
• 31:02
  So Odin himself never rejects knowledge because it's
• 31:08
  dangerous. He pursues it because of its
• 31:14
  inherent danger. There's a lot of parts of, of,
• 31:19
  of Odin that I, that I get, you know, this, this more than just
• 31:22
  a duality, but it's like, yeah, sure, he pursues it because it's
• 31:24
  dangerous, but he also understands that every gain,
• 31:32
  everything that he gains costs him it.
• 31:37
  It comes with a price. Every gain has a cost.
• 31:46
  I wrote a song about this. The lyrics for the song until
• 31:50
  the final twilight dies. The the name of the song is no
• 31:53
  God leaves whole and it's a song.
• 31:57
  The lyrics that I wrote are this sort of two, two person.
• 32:02
  It's it's you know, parts of the lyrics are from the perspective
• 32:05
  of Odin. Parts of the song are lyrics of
• 32:08
  from the perspective of Mimir and it's Odin at Mimir as well.
• 32:11
  They're going to Mimir as well, you know, And there's a line in
• 32:14
  that song where it's, you know, Odin is like, now I walk marked.
• 32:19
  By what I. See, you know, and Mimir tells
• 32:24
  him, you know what's the line? That I wrote it.
• 32:29
  He he 1 of Mimir's responses in the song is you know you asked
• 32:36
  to know not to be spared. Now, Carrie, what you have
• 32:40
  forced me to share? You want to know something?
• 32:47
  Get ready to pay the price. For the knowing you know.
• 32:52
  So knowledge alone, the information itself is never
• 32:56
  portrayed as as enough. The.
• 33:01
  Acquiring of said knowledge the wisdom that one has to carry the
• 33:07
  information that we have to. To live with.
• 33:12
  Requires sacrifice, it requires discernment, it requires
• 33:16
  responsibility. We can't just as a species, as a
• 33:22
  as a, as a, yeah, as a species, we can't just be all Willy nilly
• 33:26
  about this and, and and careless about it.
• 33:30
  Goes back to the whole thing with AI.
• 33:31
  And this is a bridge that I wanted to kind of allow to, to
• 33:37
  connect us into this next portion of my talking points.
• 33:46
  AI knows things because of humans.
• 33:49
  It exists the way it exists. And it does what it can do on
• 33:52
  any, on any spectrum of, of how it can be used because it can do
• 33:56
  more than just, you know, write some song lyrics and give you
• 33:59
  some funny answers to things or, or make some goofy pictures.
• 34:04
  There are dozens if not hundreds of applications that AI is
• 34:10
  leveraged for. Sure.
• 34:12
  It knows things. It knows things because it's
• 34:15
  been trained to know things. Doesn't make it wise, you know.
• 34:22
  Because what is wisdom I've always maintained.
• 34:26
  A personal approach that wisdom is, you know, the, the, the
• 34:31
  right application of the knowledge that you've
• 34:33
  accumulated. You can know a bunch of things.
• 34:39
  You can know all the ingredients to make a Baked Alaska dessert,
• 34:45
  pretty complex type of dessert. And I've never made it, but I
• 34:50
  know that it's, you know, it's not just a couple of eggs and
• 34:53
  some flour and La, La, la, no, there's, you know.
• 34:58
  A process to it. You know all the ingredients to
• 35:01
  It takes wisdom to know how to make it right.
• 35:04
  That's my take on it. And now you know, other people
• 35:08
  can have their own. So if you have your own take on
• 35:11
  wisdom, we've made it this far in the in the podcast.
• 35:13
  What is what do you think is wisdom?
• 35:15
  What is wisdom to you? How would you define wisdom?
• 35:20
  So as far as the accumulation of knowledge and knowing things
• 35:23
  right? Is AI wise?
• 35:27
  Well I don't think so, because what can AI do?
• 35:31
  Well, it can give you the summary.
• 35:34
  Of a of of any sort of. Text A Book A.
• 35:37
  Video, right? Any sort of content.
• 35:39
  It can answer questions, it can imitate even expert opinions on
• 35:45
  things and give you seemingly pretty deep philosophical
• 35:50
  responses to things. We've seen it do amazing feats
• 35:55
  of of creation with with regards to content like photos and
• 35:59
  videos. My wife's cousin sent me a video
• 36:04
  the other day. She texted me a video the other
• 36:06
  day of this guy and girl. And it was like this, you know,
• 36:10
  Viking sort of themed music really, you know, Nordic
• 36:16
  ambient, you know, something like, you know, Peyton Parish
• 36:20
  and that kind of thing or whatever.
• 36:22
  But I'm like, yeah, I know it sounds kind of cool, I said.
• 36:26
  But just so you know, right, everything that you just sent
• 36:29
  me, everything in that video, from the images to the video to
• 36:32
  the people in it. Music, all of it.
• 36:35
  AI, the people, the. Human beings quote UN quote in
• 36:39
  the video, the guy and the girl completely AI generated not a
• 36:42
  real person in there, not a real voice in the sense that there's
• 36:47
  no humans actively in it. Sure, the AI is taking sounds
• 36:51
  and voices and and imagery from real people and creating these
• 36:55
  things, but that's all they've done.
• 36:59
  And she was like, are you kidding me?
• 37:01
  I'm like, no, I'm not kidding you.
• 37:03
  It's this is everything about this is, is AI so it can do
• 37:07
  things like that, you know, and, and, and many, many more.
• 37:14
  Hell, you can even you can even go to ChatGPT or to Gemini.
• 37:19
  Or or whatever. And you know, ask, ask it to,
• 37:22
  to, to give you the framework of a, of a, of a ritual, something
• 37:27
  spiritual in nature. And it'll do it.
• 37:30
  It'll give you answers. It'll, it'll frame something
• 37:34
  that you can, can work off of. Right.
• 37:37
  So this is all knowledge. These are all things that it can
• 37:39
  do. But does that constitute wisdom?
• 37:42
  Does it possess any sort of wisdom in, in, in what it's
• 37:45
  doing? Because with wisdom, what is,
• 37:52
  what is, where does wisdom come from?
• 37:54
  I mentioned before, my personal thing is wisdom is the
• 37:56
  application of the knowledge that we've accumulated, keyword
• 38:00
  or operative word being the application of it, knowing what
• 38:03
  to do and how to do it, which means that it requires things
• 38:11
  like experience, right? So I think that, you know, when
• 38:17
  we look at where we are now and where we've come from, our
• 38:21
  society or people, right? When we look at the wisdom, the
• 38:26
  learning that comes from any culture, but let's look at, you
• 38:29
  know, the Germanic peoples, these traditions, these things
• 38:33
  that we that we can reflect upon, that we can look to and
• 38:36
  try to reconstruct and build into our modern.
• 38:39
  Practices. They suggest that.
• 38:46
  This experience suffering, ordeal, adversity, sack you know
• 38:52
  what I mean? And and, and right relationship
• 38:54
  with things being connected in relational space, you know, also
• 39:04
  you talk about the things that you've done right, you get out
• 39:07
  of it what you put into it. And then and that goes for
• 39:11
  things that are good or or beneficial.
• 39:13
  But it also. Goes for things that are I'll.
• 39:18
  So consequences, right? You want to mess around?
• 39:20
  You're going to find out. You want to be a certain way.
• 39:23
  That that is. Nefarious or villainous or, you
• 39:28
  know criminal and what sort of what what not you're going to
• 39:33
  reap the consequences of that too.
• 39:36
  I mean there's there's you know whether it's consequence,
• 39:41
  whether it's whether it's reward, whether it's, you know,
• 39:44
  sacrifice or deal. Look at Odin again.
• 39:47
  Go. Back to to and it's easy to go
• 39:50
  there because there are so many examples throughout our our
• 39:53
  sources that. That, that we don't have to
• 39:57
  really look too deep beyond it. It's, it's a great starting off
• 40:01
  point and there's other things that we can learn from there.
• 40:03
  But I mean, think about the fact that Odin, you know, when he
• 40:05
  hangs from Igdrasil for 9 days and nights, he doesn't get a
• 40:08
  file that he can download or first of all, he doesn't come to
• 40:11
  Igdrasil and then he doesn't. Get like, well, what's the
• 40:13
  password? And he you know can download a
• 40:15
  file or you know what I mean and or no he.
• 40:17
  Has to. He has to go through that
• 40:19
  sacrifice. Of nine days and nights.
• 40:22
  He has to sacrifice himself to himself.
• 40:24
  He has to be pierced by his own spear.
• 40:26
  He has to suffer hunger and thirst and loneliness and
• 40:29
  madness. And you know, all of the things
• 40:34
  that you can either read about or come up with in your own UPG.
• 40:37
  That of, of what it must have been like to be alone, not
• 40:42
  knowing what the outcome of things that we're going to be,
• 40:44
  but just knowing that this is what I'm here for.
• 40:46
  You know, I find myself pondering like that as well,
• 40:51
  right? Well, did Odin know that it was
• 40:52
  going to be 9 days and nights that he was going to have to
• 40:54
  hang from that tree when he got there?
• 40:57
  But did he just? Trust the process.
• 40:58
  Or you know how many times throughout that nine day and
• 41:02
  night period that he questioned himself and the process like Get
• 41:08
  Me Out of here, fuck it, I don't even care anymore kind of a
• 41:10
  thing. But he had to earn the
• 41:15
  mysteries. He didn't just get to download
• 41:19
  them off of a, you know, a server somewhere.
• 41:23
  So similarly, or if we want to, you know, again, do a parallel
• 41:29
  or a comparison AI in any sort of way, right, it can gather
• 41:33
  information faster than any human could have imagined in
• 41:38
  recent time or in ancient time or at any point in time, again,
• 41:42
  in my lifetime. There's, you know, I never would
• 41:48
  have thought that this technology would have existed in
• 41:51
  my lifetime. I didn't have any sort of point
• 41:54
  of reference for it to even appear on my on my radar.
• 41:59
  And I'm, you know, experiencing it and I'm working around it and
• 42:02
  I'm working with it. And it's, you know.
• 42:05
  A part of of life. As it were, you know, for for so
• 42:09
  many people. But that's what it has.
• 42:15
  Done It has been able to retrieve information or gather
• 42:20
  information or provide information faster than any
• 42:23
  human being could ever imagine. You know what hasn't done?
• 42:27
  You know what it's never going to do?
• 42:30
  It's never going to it's it's never going to bury a brother.
• 42:39
  It's never going to carry a brother out of the Funeral Home
• 42:42
  in front of his widow and and and children.
• 42:52
  It's never sworn an oath. It's never sacrificed anything.
• 43:04
  What it can do and what it has done is is, you know, you can
• 43:09
  call it amazing and whatever, but it isn't us.
• 43:12
  It's not human and it's not going to be able to feel the
• 43:14
  things and do the things that we as humans have been designed to
• 43:19
  do, have been created to do, have been blessed with, to do
• 43:23
  for one another and for ourselves, you know?
• 43:37
  Let's talk about. Doing right, connecting, being
• 43:44
  connected, I think of. Connections as a network, right?
• 43:48
  We talk about the Internet. WWW, right?
• 43:51
  World Wide Web. It's a network like a web.
• 43:57
  It, you know, strands and then this and that right it's a
• 43:59
  network. One of the most vivid things
• 44:05
  that we could come up with for, for heathens is, is the imagery
• 44:08
  of, of IGRA seal, you know, this world tree that connects the
• 44:12
  realms and it's often interpreted as a cosmic network.
• 44:20
  You, you see modern imagery, artist paintings and then
• 44:24
  drawings and representations of this, this mighty tree with, you
• 44:29
  know, different realms that have in and around it that are all
• 44:34
  connected through the tree. And it reflects that across, you
• 44:42
  know, it. It connects everything, I guess
• 44:44
  is what I'm trying to say. You know, the gods, humanity,
• 44:48
  our ancestors, the land whites and and our very own, the weird
• 44:54
  itself. WYRD weird itself it is, It is
• 44:59
  all. Intertwined and and and the part
• 45:01
  of this cosmic tree and and and information is shared.
• 45:12
  I believe you know. If it's if it's considered or or
• 45:16
  popularly seen as a sort of cosmic.
• 45:21
  Network, then that means that information gets shared between
• 45:25
  places where the nor near where the weavers where this where the
• 45:31
  shapers if you're intercontinental like.
• 45:33
  Saxon heathenry where the shapers what they carve, what
• 45:37
  they shape, what they weave. Is is a big, big tapestry,
• 45:47
  right? It's countless interconnected
• 45:52
  actions and, and and outcomes on things just like the modern
• 45:59
  Internet, just like what we, you know, what do you think an
• 46:03
  algorithm is? You think algorithms do what
• 46:07
  they do, right? The more that that thread gets
• 46:11
  fed information, the more of that information is going to
• 46:14
  appear in. The feed of.
• 46:17
  Of you know what I mean, they asked what an algorithm is there
• 46:19
  for it. It's, it's, it's learning, it's,
• 46:22
  it's shaping A narrative for the people, for the person that's
• 46:29
  that's experiencing it. And and, and also obviously it
• 46:38
  it's creating social connections, right?
• 46:41
  I've, you know, talked earlier and and talking about, you know,
• 46:44
  the folk realms social platform as has as much of an improvement
• 46:49
  as I've seen with that as opposed to the other major
• 46:53
  quote, UN quote social media sites or platforms, you know,
• 46:57
  but their networks that are connecting people, you know,
• 47:03
  where that's what they were intended for, you know, is, is
• 47:08
  you can have conversations in real time with people that are a
• 47:13
  world apart from you. Literally, I could be talking to
• 47:17
  somebody right now if they were awake in Australia, I'm in the
• 47:21
  United States, somebody else in Australia, if they're awake, I
• 47:23
  could talk to them right now in real time and they're 16 hours
• 47:29
  ahead of me. You know, I'm recording this
• 47:32
  right now and it's almost 9:00 PM my time.
• 47:35
  It is on, on on a Wednesday night, you know, it's it's noon,
• 47:40
  it's almost lunchtime in Australia right now on, on on
• 47:47
  the next day, you know, but I'm talk.
• 47:49
  I could talk to them in real time.
• 47:50
  I don't have to wait for a letter to get to them.
• 47:51
  I don't have to wait at all. So there's that comparison,
• 48:01
  there's there's that, you know, realizing, wow, look at what
• 48:05
  this modern, you know, tool, this thing that probably got,
• 48:10
  you know, opposed, you know, within my lifetime, again, you
• 48:14
  know, in the last 40 to 50 years, people were probably
• 48:17
  opposing it for the idea of what it could be and, and what it is
• 48:20
  and not fully knowing what it could become.
• 48:23
  But just like, yeah, you know, so yes, I can do that.
• 48:27
  But what it can't do is, you know, there's no these are these
• 48:31
  are just things that exist to to allow for us to play with and
• 48:36
  then to work with even, you know, doesn't have any sort of
• 48:39
  inherent wisdom. AI doesn't, the Internet doesn't
• 48:43
  right? It's just a tool.
• 48:45
  There's no. Real sacred purpose.
• 48:47
  Behind any of these things, yes, it can amplify a lot of things
• 48:56
  and you know, it could how many people, myself included
• 49:03
  nowadays, because again, I got sent that that text with a video
• 49:06
  from my from my wife's cousin and she didn't know that
• 49:09
  everything that she sent to me was all AI.
• 49:12
  She's like, are you kidding me? I had no idea.
• 49:14
  It's so hard to detect these days, right?
• 49:17
  So yeah. These tools, you know, these
• 49:19
  things that are available to us now, they amplify both the truth
• 49:23
  and the falsehood of things. And it's up to all of us to be
• 49:29
  human enough to be present enough to discern that.
• 49:37
  And that's, that's to me, that's really where we've got to focus
• 49:43
  our attention on. The danger is an AI.
• 49:45
  The real danger is an AII. Get it with the data centers
• 49:49
  being erected, you know. As quick as they could possibly
• 49:52
  do it, it's it's. Killing resources of our natural
• 49:55
  earth. It's, it's doing harm to the
• 49:58
  Earth. We're we're experiencing a lot
• 50:00
  of phenomenons in, in nature, whether it's, you know, extreme
• 50:03
  heat, drought, floods, this thing, that or the other, right?
• 50:06
  Because as a result of these data centers being built
• 50:09
  rapidly, uncontrollably, all because it's, it's for the sake
• 50:14
  of innovation, for the sake of growth, right?
• 50:16
  I get that. I, I, I, I understand, but I
• 50:24
  don't think that the danger is in the tool itself.
• 50:29
  The danger is in the dependency that we have created us people.
• 50:37
  We've created this dependency on this thing.
• 50:39
  We have created the demand because we want a stupid damn.
• 50:43
  Photo of ourselves. You know, riding a freaking
• 50:46
  Unicorn or whatever, you know what I mean?
• 50:48
  Or we want this cool music video that has no people in it.
• 50:50
  We want we want these things. We want to do these things and
• 50:54
  you know. As a result, the demand has has
• 50:58
  reached the the powers that be, the powers that exist.
• 51:04
  To line their pockets. They see this is cha ching
• 51:07
  right? I can get really rich.
• 51:10
  Stupid rich, insanely rich, sickeningly rich.
• 51:16
  At what cost? So the danger to me is not in
• 51:22
  the tool itself. The danger is, is is in its is
• 51:24
  in our dependency on it. OK, back to Odin.
• 51:31
  He's constantly seeking knowledge, constantly seeking
• 51:34
  answers. But has he ever did?
• 51:37
  Do do we see? Examples of him ever
• 51:39
  surrendering his own agency. It's not at any cost.
• 51:43
  It's at a lot of costs, right? He sacrifices an eye, not both.
• 51:48
  He doesn't go fully blind just to know things, because what
• 51:53
  good would that do? He wouldn't be able to navigate,
• 51:54
  you know? He gathers the knowledge and
• 51:59
  then acts upon it. He learns the mysteries and then
• 52:02
  shares them, you know? We we've, we have, regrettably.
• 52:15
  Modern people, I mean, you know, we have regrettably outsourced
• 52:19
  basic human functions, thinking, memory, creativity, even
• 52:28
  discernment, you know what I mean?
• 52:31
  People are literally using an AI tool to have conversations with
• 52:39
  because why? Well, I don't know the kind of
• 52:42
  people that I could have this conversation with.
• 52:45
  Oh, so you're willing to outsource your own cognitive
• 52:51
  discernment on things and then be fed this information from an
• 52:55
  AI? That isn't wise.
• 52:56
  That's just pulling information from other sources.
• 53:00
  Human sources, by the way. And other AI sources, right?
• 53:05
  There's no discernment about it, so I.
• 53:11
  Don't Again, I just want to repeat, if I have to say it
• 53:15
  again, I said at the beginning of the episode, this isn't me
• 53:17
  trying to convince you to think the way that I think, but I
• 53:20
  believe and, and I'm, I'm willing and I'm open to hear
• 53:24
  conversations about this. I'm willing to hear your
• 53:26
  thoughts about this because that's where learning comes
• 53:30
  from. This is, this is how we learn as
• 53:32
  we hear other people's perspectives on things.
• 53:34
  My perspective is that the danger is not artificial
• 53:36
  intelligence itself. If you want to have a platform
• 53:40
  that brings people together and then create a rule that says
• 53:42
  absolutely no AI, that's not the problem.
• 53:46
  That's not the problem that should be focused on the the
• 53:48
  problem or the danger is that natural intelligence is becoming
• 53:51
  passive, trying to control or police the tool itself instead
• 53:55
  of the people that are misusing it.
• 53:58
  And I know you can't control. People, you have to respect
• 54:00
  people's sovereignty, but let's face the real facts of truth is
• 54:04
  that we have created this problem.
• 54:08
  By being too dependent upon the tool.
• 54:13
  OK, that's my thing on it, you know, And if we look at examples
• 54:22
  where outsourcing wisdom is, is warned against or warned about,
• 54:31
  Oh, then it means, well, you know, if you want to listen to
• 54:35
  the song, it's you know, I'll, I'll put a link in the in the
• 54:38
  podcast somewhere, because the album is still up for streaming
• 54:40
  listening, at least on my YouTube.
• 54:42
  It's I did a live stream of it and the video is still out
• 54:44
  there. Don't know how long that's going
• 54:46
  to be because I don't know how long YouTube keeps live streams
• 54:49
  up, but the but the full album is, is available for digital
• 54:54
  download. I'll, I'll, you know, all that
• 54:56
  link is, is all that information is going to be in, in the
• 54:58
  episode. But let's talk about, Oh, then
• 55:01
  it mean as well in the context that we're talking about now
• 55:05
  with with regards to outsourcing wisdom.
• 55:09
  OK, Odin arrives at Mimir as well to get a drink.
• 55:15
  Wants the wisdom, right? He wants the knowledge.
• 55:17
  He wants what he wants that Mimir as.
• 55:19
  AS AS is able to offer, but he has to pay for it.
• 55:24
  He had There's a cost at this. Look at it maybe as an
• 55:28
  investment even. You know you, you now must
• 55:32
  carry. With you an.
• 55:34
  Eternal Mark that reminds you of this, the sacrifice.
• 55:41
  You know he's never going to not be known as one eyed.
• 55:48
  Because that's what he did to get that, to get that, to get
• 55:54
  that. Drink.
• 55:57
  Another example, if you guys are familiar with the saga of the
• 56:01
  Folsoms, well, the Volson, the saga right back near the dragon,
• 56:08
  he acquires immense and incredible amounts of wealth,
• 56:12
  gold and treasure. And the treasure corrupts him,
• 56:17
  turns him into this dragon who is greedy over it and doesn't
• 56:20
  want to share, doesn't want to give it up every single coin.
• 56:23
  He must have it. He's obsessed over it.
• 56:30
  You know, every the Internet, Yeah, we look at those just as
• 56:36
  those those two sources, just those two poetic sources.
• 56:40
  You know, Odin at me, Mir as well.
• 56:41
  And then, then the Fafni Small, right?
• 56:45
  Or or or. The Volsung saga with Fafnir and
• 56:48
  the dragon and all this, every powerful tool, whether it's
• 56:52
  ancient or modern. So talk about modern, right?
• 56:54
  The Internet, AI, all these things, every powerful tool
• 57:02
  risks becoming a master of the one who wields it, or the one
• 57:08
  who possesses its, you know, agency or whatever.
• 57:16
  They all run the risk of becoming a master instead of it,
• 57:19
  of a servant, of being a tool that gets used instead of a tool
• 57:22
  that Lords over us. Whether it's gold.
• 57:29
  Money, technology, AI, power title, I mean.
• 57:36
  Whatever it is, it's not about. Us having these things, it's not
• 57:41
  that, you know, the issue is not possession, the issue isn't use
• 57:48
  of things. It's the pen, the dependency of
• 57:52
  it, hammer on head of nail, drive it in.
• 58:02
  So you know, I've, I've, I've again, I work in IT.
• 58:10
  I'm exposed to to the advancements of AI more so than
• 58:15
  the average person, unless you're working in the same type
• 58:17
  of field, right. So what I'm talking about, what
• 58:19
  I'm saying is not just my own. I'm not just blowing smoke.
• 58:24
  I'm not just, you know, out here to think the way I think
• 58:27
  because, you know, I make songs and I want people to listen to
• 58:30
  my music. No, I don't care if you do or
• 58:33
  don't. If you like it, great.
• 58:35
  If you don't grade to you know, to each their own.
• 58:42
  But what else is AI out here capable of, of, of doing right?
• 58:50
  Look at it from like a practical heathen or Pagan perspective.
• 58:54
  Can AI write a ritual like I mentioned before, you give it a
• 58:58
  prompt or something and it and it and it give you a really, you
• 59:01
  know, detailed framework of, of, of a ritual to perform Yeah,
• 59:05
  sure, maybe you can do that. I mean not maybe definitely
• 59:07
  yeah. If you give it the right
• 59:08
  prompts, it'll it'll write something so it can help you
• 59:12
  with that. Can you use AI to?
• 59:19
  In your research, whether it's sources, the lores, sagas,
• 59:23
  absolutely. Norse imports, Norse magic and
• 59:27
  beliefs Thor, what's his name? I think you all know who I'm
• 59:31
  talking about and if he hears this I'm sorry for not
• 59:34
  remembering your last name. But you know the business side I
• 59:37
  think is Norse imports and is the channel and the social media
• 59:41
  is Norse magic and beliefs. He himself is using AI and
• 59:47
  actually building out a bot or or building out an agent, an AI
• 59:52
  agent to help with resources and and research and things like
• 59:57
  that. So yes, AI can absolutely help
• 59:59
  with research on things. Can it help us preserve
• 1:00:03
  knowledge of things? Sure, absolutely.
• 1:00:09
  But can it replace the community, can replace people,
• 1:00:12
  can replace again? Can it do the things that I very
• 1:00:16
  emotionally? Referred to earlier.
• 1:00:20
  Nope. Can't replace community, Can't
• 1:00:25
  replace our ancestors, Can't replace our relationship with
• 1:00:31
  the gods? Absolutely not.
• 1:00:40
  So there's a. There's a guy who I never heard
• 1:00:50
  of until recently. As I'm as I'm poking around and
• 1:00:52
  as I'm becoming aware of where I want to.
• 1:00:56
  Go with this with this episode. I believe he.
• 1:01:00
  Was a Canadian philosopher not very old, like in terms of a
• 1:01:04
  long time ago for you know, you know, then the last, my
• 1:01:10
  generation or two. Anyway, his name was Marshall
• 1:01:13
  Mcluhan wasn't heathen, not Pagan, but he had a saying he
• 1:01:20
  had, he had said something. And I found this phrase, I found
• 1:01:24
  this quote from him and it and it, it made me think about
• 1:01:30
  learning more about him and what his work was framed around.
• 1:01:35
  But he had an idea. He had a phrase and it says we
• 1:01:37
  shape our tools and thereafter our tools shape us.
• 1:01:46
  And I was like, man, oh man, if that don't belong in this.
• 1:01:51
  Episode, if that. Does not have a relevant place
• 1:01:54
  in what we're talking about, and I don't know what else does.
• 1:01:56
  Not a heathen, not not a Pagan, whatever.
• 1:01:58
  Just philosophically, right? Wisdom is wisdom wherever it
• 1:02:03
  comes from. And this guy, again, nail on
• 1:02:09
  head. Drive it down.
• 1:02:11
  We shape our tools, and thereafter our tools shape us.
• 1:02:15
  It's a warning. It's an awareness.
• 1:02:19
  We've we've created. These things that are becoming
• 1:02:21
  our demise that we've become so dependent upon and it and it
• 1:02:24
  goes even beyond technology people.
• 1:02:26
  It goes into, you know, your tummy rumbles, you have a little
• 1:02:32
  stomach ache because you didn't, because you missed breakfast and
• 1:02:35
  now you have to eat lunch and dinner, right?
• 1:02:41
  Watch your ancestors that ate one meal a day or three meals a
• 1:02:44
  week. Because they had to.
• 1:02:45
  Ration their food so they didn't die in the middle of the winter
• 1:02:48
  when food was scarce. About that.
• 1:02:50
  What about connecting in that sort of way to understand?
• 1:02:53
  Like, I'm not saying you should starve yourself, don't get me
• 1:02:56
  wrong. I mean, you know, and you know,
• 1:02:58
  and we've become such a 1/6 society in general, right?
• 1:03:02
  There's a lot of illness that that that makes itself manifest
• 1:03:05
  in different ways. This is not a moment of the show
• 1:03:08
  that I'm trying to make people feel bad about the medical
• 1:03:11
  conditions that they are dealing with.
• 1:03:13
  So I'm going to divert. That's not what that was about.
• 1:03:16
  What I'm trying to point out is that our dependency on things
• 1:03:22
  I'm so I, you know, my tummy rumbles a little bit.
• 1:03:24
  My stomach hurts because I haven't eaten breakfast.
• 1:03:25
  And I can go into the pantry. I can open the refrigerator
• 1:03:27
  door, I can open up a cabinet, and I can find something to
• 1:03:30
  snack on that's going to hold me over until my next main meal or.
• 1:03:37
  If it's safe. If you're not in any sort of
• 1:03:40
  medical emergency, by doing so, you can be present with these
• 1:03:46
  feelings and go, So what? I'm hungry, I'll be OK.
• 1:03:50
  I can wait until breakfast tomorrow or I can wait until
• 1:03:54
  dinner later. I don't need to gorge myself or
• 1:03:58
  to feed myself constantly. It's reconnecting with an older
• 1:04:04
  way of thinking that our ancestors thrived on.
• 1:04:08
  They were maybe didn't live as long of a life in terms of years
• 1:04:11
  because of illness or sickness or things that again, because of
• 1:04:14
  modern technology, they didn't have the means or the
• 1:04:16
  whereabouts to to be able to treat.
• 1:04:20
  But the dependency on things is where I was trying to go with
• 1:04:22
  it. So without getting too far into
• 1:04:25
  the weeds, that's my point. It was what I was trying to make
• 1:04:27
  up or, or, or trying to focus on.
• 1:04:31
  So. We've.
• 1:04:34
  Gone pretty. What is it now?
• 1:04:35
  Over an hour, not counting or counting the the introduction on
• 1:04:42
  things and getting close to time to wrap things up.
• 1:04:51
  But I don't want to do so without first bringing us to a
• 1:04:55
  place of you've heard me ramble on about this.
• 1:04:58
  Maybe it's planted a seed. Maybe it's giving you some
• 1:04:59
  things to think about. Let's all let's let's gather
• 1:05:03
  around the fire. Come on here and sit around here
• 1:05:06
  with Uncle Jesse and let's let's face a hard truth.
• 1:05:11
  Let's look at, you know, the harsh reality of things.
• 1:05:14
  If if AI disappears tomorrow, you wake up tomorrow and and
• 1:05:18
  ChatGPT shit the bed and and Gemini is out to, you know, got
• 1:05:22
  got heated out into another Galaxy or whatever.
• 1:05:27
  If AI disappeared when you wake up the next day.
• 1:05:33
  Do our practices. Remain, you know, do our rituals
• 1:05:39
  continue? Do our ceremonies still?
• 1:05:41
  Are they retained? Are traditions still alive?
• 1:05:46
  Are any oaths that we've sworn or any alliances that we formed,
• 1:05:51
  will they still matter? You know what our ancestors
• 1:05:57
  become any less important? If AI disappeared today,
• 1:06:02
  tomorrow, would the gods themselves cease to exist?
• 1:06:14
  And I like to think that everybody that heard this, their
• 1:06:22
  answers is a resounding no. And if that's the case, then
• 1:06:30
  this AI, this, this wonderful thing, this, this incredible
• 1:06:34
  thing, this this amazing thing that's capable of doing all the
• 1:06:39
  things that it can do. It's not the foundation of our
• 1:06:44
  of our spirituality. It's just a tool.
• 1:06:48
  The real things that matter, if AI poof gone, the real things
• 1:06:53
  that matter aren't affected by that.
• 1:06:56
  And I like to think, I would like to think that.
• 1:06:59
  That's everybody that's listening to this episode.
• 1:07:03
  So it's a. Tool.
• 1:07:05
  We're not dependent upon it. We use it because it's
• 1:07:08
  available. And that's a choice to, you
• 1:07:12
  know, again, I'm not here to try to convince you to change your
• 1:07:16
  perspective on things. If you are in your own
• 1:07:19
  sovereignty, convinced that the use of any sort of AI is is in
• 1:07:24
  violation of your own ethics and world views or moralities or
• 1:07:27
  things, stand by it. Don't let me or anybody else try
• 1:07:29
  to convince you otherwise or change it.
• 1:07:32
  This is just a kind of a one perspective, OK, that I've had.
• 1:07:40
  It's not a justification. It's just a perspective.
• 1:07:43
  Open up for discussion in the comments.
• 1:07:46
  If it if it's there for you and you want to engage in that sort
• 1:07:49
  of. Way share your thoughts, but you
• 1:07:53
  know, let's let's face the reality.
• 1:07:56
  Of things, even if it means shifting our approach and I'm
• 1:08:02
  I'm I'll be the one to say the same thing too.
• 1:08:04
  You know, if everything that I've said over the last hour
• 1:08:08
  gets debunked or I, you know, I hear something and I have to
• 1:08:11
  rethink it and I, you know, then I'll shift accordingly.
• 1:08:16
  But let's let's all think of this too, right as as we close
• 1:08:19
  things up any of these old ways that that we want to.
• 1:08:24
  Refer to old traditions, old practices, old ways.
• 1:08:33
  They started out somewhere. And they are what we know them
• 1:08:37
  to be as a result of survived migrations and survived
• 1:08:43
  conversions, even survived shifts in leadership, the
• 1:08:48
  kingdom's industrialization growth, all sorts of things have
• 1:08:59
  happened. And we we, we still have at
• 1:09:06
  least some semblance of of what these old ways where we, we have
• 1:09:10
  a launching off point. We can reconstruct things well
• 1:09:13
  enough, so if they've survived all of those things, everything
• 1:09:20
  from migrations, conquests, conversions, the Internet, OK.
• 1:09:25
  If our old ways have survived all of that, then it'll survive
• 1:09:29
  AI too, whether it sticks around for the rest of our lifetimes
• 1:09:33
  or. Whether it evaporates?
• 1:09:36
  Tomorrow. So my question is not whether AI
• 1:09:41
  is, is, you know, Heathenry in the age of AI, does that mean
• 1:09:47
  that AI is changing Heathenry? I don't think that that's where
• 1:09:51
  the question needs to be pointed to or directed to.
• 1:09:54
  I think the question is whether or not whether or not we as
• 1:10:01
  people will retain and remember the differences between what
• 1:10:06
  knowledge and information is over wisdom, because that's
• 1:10:13
  where it's going to, you know, what we're doing to teach our
• 1:10:16
  children, what we're doing to teach our neighbors, our our
• 1:10:20
  families, our, our extended communities or how we are, you
• 1:10:24
  know, presenting all of this. That's what I think is where the
• 1:10:30
  focus is. You know, Odin sacrifices his
• 1:10:33
  eye for wisdom and we look at that from the perspective and
• 1:10:43
  now we're we're living in modern times, right, where information
• 1:10:47
  is basically nearly free. You don't have to you can pay
• 1:10:50
  your phone bill and you have a walking encyclopedia.
• 1:10:54
  You know, you mean you have a walking computer in your pocket
• 1:10:59
  at all times. So in some ways is as as easily
• 1:11:10
  accessible as things are, it makes the obtaining of that
• 1:11:14
  thing both easy to find and hard to find.
• 1:11:20
  Because what are you getting when you find something?
• 1:11:23
  Is it real? Is it true?
• 1:11:24
  Is it accurate? Is it something that you can
• 1:11:29
  actually learn from? And it's, it takes real human
• 1:11:33
  work to do that. So there's my, there's my spiel.
• 1:11:44
  There's where, you know, I've been out for a few weeks, no
• 1:11:50
  episode. And I came back and we've got
• 1:11:54
  this monstrosity to chew on, you know, So I want you all to think
• 1:12:01
  about it. If, if it speaks to you and you
• 1:12:03
  want to share your thoughts, feel free to comment wherever
• 1:12:06
  you can. If you can comment on the
• 1:12:08
  platform that you're catching this on, feel free.
• 1:12:10
  If you are. Not able to comment on the
• 1:12:13
  platform but you want to share your thoughts?
• 1:12:14
  You can e-mail me. The e-mail address is
• 1:12:17
  midgardmusingstn@gmail.com. You can also call into the
• 1:12:22
  hotline and leave a voicemail and your voice can be shared
• 1:12:26
  anonymously if you want on a future episode.
• 1:12:30
  But that phone number is 615-671-9832.
• 1:12:35
  It's a Google Voice number. You've got like a 3 minute
• 1:12:37
  limit. I know some people that have
• 1:12:38
  called it and then called back a few times because they have so
• 1:12:40
  much they say and they get cut off.
• 1:12:42
  But anyway, if you want to leave a comment and you can't, there's
• 1:12:46
  a couple of ways in which you can do so, e-mail or the
• 1:12:49
  hotline. So I hope you all enjoyed this
• 1:12:51
  episode. It was something that I feel is
• 1:12:54
  timely to share my perspective on.
• 1:13:01
  And let's go forth from here. Let's continue to do the work.
• 1:13:05
  I'm glad to be back and I hope to continue to put out some more
• 1:13:08
  content for all of you each week.
• 1:13:10
  We'll see how that goes. Again, as I mentioned before, I
• 1:13:13
  I am focusing on things that are more important than just the
• 1:13:17
  other world stuff, the outer world stuff.
• 1:13:19
  So if I don't go every week, you know why?
• 1:13:22
  But I'm going to hope to be able to do that.
• 1:13:24
  And I hope you all enjoyed this. If you did, feel free to engage
• 1:13:28
  in any way that shows your support.
• 1:13:30
  Thank you for your all of your support up to and including
• 1:13:33
  today, and until we talk to each other again, may the gods
• 1:13:37
  continue to notice you and may your ancestors smile upon you.
• 1:13:41
  See you in the next one.