For thirty-five years I helped build the systems I now ask questions about.
I sat in the rooms where these decisions got made. I sold the platforms. I wrote the strategy decks. I finished as a Chief Information Security Officer, which means I know precisely what an organization can learn about a person, and precisely how little stands between the knowing and the using.
I am not a professional academic. I am a practitioner who reads, and the writer I keep returning to is a Trappist monk who read Marshall McLuhan with a pencil in his hand in 1964, from a hermitage in Kentucky, while the machinery was still being assembled.
The autonomous revolution will not be stopped, and I have never argued that it should be. I argue that it has to answer four questions.
- People. Who does this make larger, and at whose expense?
- Planet. What does it cost the ground we stand on, and who is sent the bill?
- Purpose. Does it enlarge what a person is for, or narrow it?
- Prosperity. For everyone, or for a few?
Four tests, not four values. A value is something you hold. A test is something you can run on Monday, on a hiring system, a data center, or a parish app.
And that is Wisdom Speaking.
New writing
Essays most weekdays on Thomas Merton, Marshall McLuhan, Catholic social teaching, and what the machines are doing to the human person. Julie Peller, Ph.D., writes Green Junction here on the environment, which is the Planet test with a chemist doing the arithmetic.
- The Novice Master and the Minister of CultureLiberation theology, libertarian theology, and the question neither side is allowed to stop asking. By thirty-two, he was known as a poet, an artist, and a writer in two countries, and he traveled to Kentucky planning to stop writing altogether…. Continue Reading →
- Fifty-Two Million Characters Why the autonomous revolution needs comparative religion more than another ethical framework In 1236, Korea’s government had relocated to an island. Five years earlier, Mongol cavalry crossed Korea’s northern border. King Gojong’s court fled the mainland capital for Ganghwa, a… Continue Reading →
- The Electric VillageWhat can Highland Aluminum Works tell us about the factory’s age? They laid them to rest where they fell, on a knoll above the water, marking each grave with concrete—the only material the land offered in abundance. Twenty-two graves stand… Continue Reading →
- Cardijn’s Red HatWhat would Thomas Merton say to a Franciscan’s charge of patriarchal clericalism? In March 1925, a Belgian priest boarded a train to Rome, certain he was heading toward his own downfall. At forty-two, the son of a Schaerbeek coal merchant… Continue Reading →
- How Many Dollars Does Your State Spend Picking Up Roadside Trash? By Julie Peller, Ph.D.Green Junction Garbage along highways can endanger drivers. The Alabama Department of Transportation (ALDOT) spent nearly $10 million of its budget to clear garbage from the roads in 2024. The state’s website includes strong statements about the unfortunate use of… Continue Reading →
- The Canaries of LattimerAs the US prepares to celebrate Labor Day, remember the holiday’s true meaning. The man at the head of the column carried an American flag. He was Slovak. He worked underground for a company that owned his house, employed his… Continue Reading →
- The Pews Filled Up AnywayA priest in Quincy, a monk in Minnesota, and a chaplain in Brussels all asked the same question: what does the distance from the altar to the street reveal? Thomas Merton helps answer it, and the story begins in Quincy,… Continue Reading →
- Words For The Wind by Fr Charles NiblickMy friend, a well-known pastoral theologian in the public sphere here in the greater Chicagoland area, used to write a column in the parish bulletin titled “Words for the Wind.” Since retiring, he has decided to revive this column here… Continue Reading →