Preparing for the Singularity - Pluralism

"The Singularity" refers to a hypothetical time when AI surpasses humanity's ability to contain it. If such a future awaits us, no nation, religion, or community will meet it alone. If we fail to learn the art of peaceful coexistence, the only identity that will still matter, will not be a human one. Pastor Joshua presents Pluralism as part of his UU values series.

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And today I'm continuing in a series of talks about our UU values. The values included justice, interdependence, pluralism, transformation, generosity, and equity. Oh, there they are right there. Love. Unfortunately, someone pointed out to me the other day that it says just ice, which is horrible. And Eros. Yeah, no, I hope not. Anyway. So those are. There we go. But today series we're talking about pluralism. So when Tisha, let me let me do this. When Tisha, who's my wife and I, got together, she certainly, my wife is African American, by the way, for those who don't know. She certainly experienced, and she just got her PhD this summer, so yes. She's now Dr. Tisha Berg. When we got together, she uh 30 years ago, she certainly experienced microaggressions, even from my family. Um, and we expected this, um, but there was one reaction that I did not expect at all. And a reaction that, in fact, raised my awareness about the extent to which prejudice can and has influenced human consciousness. It happened soon after we got together. My own grandmother, my nana, as we knew her, she embraced Tisha. This is my mother's mother. They got along quite well. And soon my nana was saying how much she loved Tisha, and Tisha was saying how much she loved my nana. But I heard um from one of my cousins that my nana had confided in her. She confided in her that although she definitely loved Tisha, she was worried about what would happen if we had children. And I asked my cousin what specifically Nana said she was worried about. Well, it wasn't necessarily about how the world would treat our children of mixed race, although I'm sure that was also a concern. It wasn't even about raising them Jewish, although I'm sure that was part of it as well for my Nana, since you know I was raised Jewish and she knew Tisha was not Jewish and that I was not religious. But those weren't the concerns that she was talking about to my cousin. The specific question my Nana asked my cousin that day was this. If Josh and Tisha have children, will I be able to love them? She didn't wonder whether they should be loved. She didn't wonder whether she she should love them. She knew that she should. And she was concerned because given the prejudices with which she was inculcated and she had deeply internalized growing up, she questioned whether she would be capable of loving them. So when we consider pluralism, the value I'm talking about today, it isn't just a matter of combating individual or societal prejudices. It is understanding how prejudice and how hate can alter the way even the most well-meaning people think and feel, even unconsciously. It is recognizing that we all have prejudices arising from hypernationalism, ethnocentrism, any philosophy that designates one entity as more important or better or more deserving of respect than another, be it citizenship, be it culture, religious affiliation, gender, sexual orientation, race, or anything else. Mainana was raised to consider black people and non-Jews as somehow less than and therefore less worthy of love, was what was unspoken. And it wasn't even that her upbringing convinced her of this intellectually. Rather, it just seemed to have altered her very ability to love certain identities, or at least that's what she was questioning. My cousin paused, looked at my nana, respectfully responded to her concern. Shut up, Nana. Of course you can. You have to meet my cousin. But my nana agreed, of course I can. Unfortunately, Nana died before our daughters were born. So she never met them, although my younger daughter's middle name is Ruth, is Evelyn. I'm sorry, after my nana, Ruth Evelyn. But I have no doubt my Nana would have been able to love them and done so with abandon. And that story stayed with me because it illustrates something much deeper than the fact that my grandmother had prejudices. It illustrates how deeply categories can become embedded within us. We can be conditioned to see the world and we are through distinctions that we didn't even create ourselves often. And eventually those distinctions start to feel natural. They become part of how we understand who belongs, who is worthy, who is safe, who is lovable, and who is not. That is why pluralism is so important. Because practicing pluralism can literally change the mindset of humanity from one of us and them or us versus them to us with them. Now it is neither an assimilation into one identity, and it's not extreme separation. Pluralism is recognizing that difference exists and that we must respect all differences, all identities equally. Had my nana been raised with this value, there would never have been a question about whether or not she could love my children. If society truly and fully adopts pluralism, it won't just lead to an understanding that all deserve love. I think we all understand that. It will lead to an enhancement of our very ability to love all. So, as I did with the other values in this series of talks, I will share how we might live pluralism. For the value of interdependence, I suggested the crane ritual, some something that connects intentionally and mindfully with another person. For equity, I talked about targeted universalism, where we jointly set a mutual goal, we remove the fences separating us from that goal, and then we consider how different identities might be able to reach that goal and how we can facilitate that. And for transformation, I suggested acorn foraging or developing a better way of doing things, even if it takes us out of our comfort zone. So for pluralism, my suggestion for how to do it is just to have some humility. Let me explain with a specific example about myself. In my 20s and 30s, many, many moons ago, I was an ardent atheist. I'm still an atheist in that I don't believe in creationism, but in those years I was convinced that religion was the single most harmful thing to society. Whether it was merely an opiate of the masses, as Karl Marx wrote, or whether it was actively destroying society's ability to think and to function rationally, it was harmful, in my opinion. I evolved from that thinking over time into a toleration of other people's beliefs. Tolerance was the term de jour for signaling that you were not prejudiced. And I've since moved even further to understand that mere tolerance of others is not enough. It is not enough to say people exist, they do, who think and believe differently than I do. And all I know I accept that there will never be a time when everybody thinks the way I do, my beliefs are still the right ones. No. Pluralism requires more humility than that. It is an understanding that there is difference in identity, in thought and belief, and that one's personal identity is no better than anyone else's, and one's personal belief system is also never without its flaws. It is remaining open-minded and deferential even when you cannot comprehend or you completely disagree with another person's point of view. You are still remaining open-minded and deferential and respectful of maybe why they came to that view, what their needs are, what their feelings are. It doesn't mean you have to believe something that you don't believe, or it doesn't mean you have to agree with another person's claim. You probably won't. It means recognizing that their belief and their claim is just as worthy of consideration as yours, and accepting that your disbelief can also be a result of your own inability to understand how another perceives something from another's perspective. This is a tough thing, especially for someone with a strong and often arrogant conviction in my own understanding of the world, as many of you use. For instance, I have anxiety at the prospect of talking to my orthodox Jewish and politically conservative brother. Because, first of all, he never stops talking. And second of all, many of his positions I find just indefensible. But there's no doubt he is an intelligent, caring individual. And he's just as worthy of respect as me. And although we actually don't agree much, there are things on which we can agree. And more importantly, there are mutual goals within our family and within the world towards which we work together. We want to work together. So recognizing this, our mutual humanity and our mutual worthiness prevents passing along prejudices that create a circumstance where I can no longer love him, or worse yet, that my children don't believe they can love him. Just as my nana questioned her ability to love my children because she was forced to adopt the prejudice of generations that preceded her. This is where pluralism moves beyond simply a nice idea about getting along with one another. It becomes a practice of resistance. Every time we refuse to reduce someone to a category, every time we choose curiosity over certainty, every time we recognize the humanity of someone with whom, even with whom we profoundly disagree, we are interrupting the process by which them becomes less human in our minds. Pluralism, it's especially important at this moment in history. I'll give you one example. An idea depicted in the movie The Terminator, the series of movies, and an idea that was brought into the popular consciousness by the inventor and futurist Raymond Kurzweil is the phenomenon of the singularity. You heard of this? No. The singularity refers to a hypothetical future point where artificial intelligence surpasses human control and understanding. In fact, some believe that this future is no longer hypothetical and is already in its early stages. I don't know, not trying to scare anyone, I'm just trying to be realistic. And as its name suggests, the singularity is in many ways the opposite of pluralism. Singularity refers to oneness, to a single dominant truth and a centralized power. Just about everyone rightfully fears a future where power is centralized in one place in this manner with regard to technology. Pretty much everyone can agree with that about technology. But many people today are perfectly fine, even enthusiastic, about a single dominant truth and centralized power within humanity, within, for instance, our government. The efforts of the current regime in Washington to assimilate everyone into some fantasy American cultural identity that is white and Christian. So pluralism honors multiplicity, requires that power is shared, and it respects diverse viewpoints. It is not only an accurate representation of the world that we actually live in, but it enables people to work together across differences to, for instance, prevent the singularity. Or if a more powerful and an independent AI is our inescapable destiny, it allows us to at least work together to learn to control and regulate its power and influence. We have to come together to do that. No group can do it alone. If we are separated by prejudice and fear and hatred into communities that war with each other and can't work together, there's no way we can unite against anything, let alone something that's so powerful that also could care less about our diversity and of identity in its relationship to humanity. To AI, we are all equally human. We either develop a level of humility that enables us to work together, or a very different type of humility will be forced upon us. Could be. Expanding that idea to all efforts of pluralism, not just religious pluralism, more than just understanding and practicing humility and dialogue, action, as we know, is key. We have to engage with each other based on that humility, in an effort to enact equity and liberation. Because ultimately, pluralism is not about simply agreeing that differences exist. No one few people would argue that differences exist. Pluralism asks what we are going to do with those differences. Will we foolishly try to erase them or will we or will we welcome them? Will we use them as a reason to divide ourselves, to rank one another, to determine who belongs and who does not belong? Or will we understand differences and diversity as an invitation? Not a problem to solve, but an invitation to learn, to listen, to challenge our assumptions, and to become more fully human. My Nana's question, will I be able to love them, reminds me that this is not an abstract question. The consequences of our prejudices are deeply personal. They can shape families, they can shape communities, they do. They can shape nations. And if we allow them to, they can shape the future of humanity itself. And perhaps that is what preparing for the singularity really means. It may mean preparing ourselves not simply for more powerful machines, but for the possibility that humanity will need to cooperate in ways we have never been capable of cooperating before. And we can't wait until that moment to learn how to do it. We have to practice now. We practice by developing the humility to recognize that our way of seeing the world is not the only way. We practice by refusing to turn difference into hierarchy. We practice by seeking mutual goals, even with people whose beliefs we find difficult, even offensive to understand. We practice by learning to see the person before we see the category. And we practice by expanding our circle of concern until us is large enough to include everyone. My Nana didn't need a lecture on pluralism. She just needed my cousin to remind her of something she already knew. Of course, you can love them. And perhaps that is the work before all of us. To keep reminding ourselves and one another that we can love across differences, that we can respect even without agreeing, that we can remain ourselves without requiring everyone else to become like us. Because the opposite of singularity is not simply plurality, it is relationship. It is us with them. And if the future brings us to a point where humanity must stand together against something more powerful than any of us, I hope we will have spent enough time practicing pluralism that we know how to do it. Not because we have eliminated our differences by any means, but because we have finally learned that our differences do not prevent us from belonging to one another. And that to me is the promise of pluralism. And perhaps it is also how we prepare for the singularity.