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In Praise of the Beatitudes
robotelvis10

As you say (and I alluded to as a footnote) there are a lot of interpretations of what the beatitudes mean. 

My personal feeling is that those who emphasize the "spiritual" interpretations are often doing it as a dodge, to avoid the challenge of having to follow the non-spiritual interpretations. 

That said, I make no claim that my interpretations are what most Christians believe. They are definitely what some Christians believe, and they are the interpretation of the Beatitudes that I find personally valuable today, as a non-Christian.

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2gb
That feels a bit contrived. Do you really suggest that the most natural reading of something like "poor in spirit" is... non-spiritual? Turning away from materialism may sure derive from that, but to claim that it was the main focus seems quite a stretch.
In Praise of the Beatitudes
robotelvis10

Now fixed - missing beatitude added. That was awkward.

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In Praise of the Beatitudes
robotelvis10

Urgh. So you are right. Not sure how I missed that one. Probably because I counted to eight and the last one isn't always included in the list. I'll do a revision.

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1robotelvis
Now fixed - missing beatitude added. That was awkward.
How AI Will Change Education
robotelvis10

An interesting perspective. I'm not sure I agree, but I'm also not sure I disagree. 

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Simulate the CEO
robotelvis10

Maybe I should clarify that I consider the "extended CEO" to essentially include everyone whose knowledge is of importance at the company. If you asked Sundar how many servers of a particular type to put in, he'd forward you to the relevant VP, who would forward you to the relevant director, who would forward you to the relevant principal engineer, who would actually answer your question. That's what I mean by asking a question of the "extended CEO".

A similar principle applies to simple rules like "don't be evil" or "blessed be the meek". Yes Sundar and Po... (read more)

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3gjm
If you consider the "extended CEO" to include everyone whose knowledge is of importance ... surely you're no longer talking about anything much like simulating a person in any useful sense? How does "simulate the CEO" describe the situation better than "try to do what's best for the organization" or "follow the official policies and vision-statements of the organization", for instance? I think it's telling that your examples say "when I was in organization X we would try to make decisions by referring to a foundational set of principles" and not "when I was in organization X we would try to make decisions by asking what the organization's most senior person would do". (Of course many Christians like to ask "what would Jesus do?" but I think that is importantly different from asking what the Pope, the Archbishop of Canterbury, the Moderator of the General Assembly, etc., would do.) I think most Googlers, and most Christians, are like you: they are much more likely to try to resolve a question by asking "what do the 'ten things' say?" or "how does this fit with the principles in the Sermon on the Mount[1]?" than by asking "what would Sundar Pichai say?" or "what would Pope Francis say?". And I think those are quite different sorts of question, and when they give the same answer it's much more "because the boss is following the principles" than "because the principles are an encoding of how the boss's brain works". [1] I am guessing that you mean that rather than just the Beatitudes, which don't offer that much in the way of practical guidance, and where they do there's generally more detail in the rest of the SotM -- e.g., maybe "blessed are the meek" tells you something about what to do, but not as much as the I-think-related "turn the other cheek" and "carry the load an extra mile" and so forth do. (Disclaimer: I have never worked at Google; I was a pretty serious Christian for many years but have not been any sort of Christian for more than a decade.)