Technology

Despite the gloomy outlook, there are several reasons for hope this Advent season. This is not nearly the darkest period in American or global history, and there are good reasons to believe that the US still possesses all the tools needed to revitalize the country and stabilize the international system. The question is whether we will use them effectively.

I want to illuminate this conspiratorial approach, which I term “Christian Virtual Reality Politics,” by contrasting it with a more familiar approach, which I call “Christian Religious Politics.”

The real 2020 questions about the US-China contest lie in how they influence the context for global trade, technology standards, military tools, and power projection.

Left unchecked and unchallenged, China will continue to abuse emerging technologies such as AI and facial recognition to oppress people created in the image of God.

For all of the hand-wringing about the power technology holds over our society, it is indisputable that immense good has flown from such innovations.

The Right Side of History: How Reason and Moral Purpose Made the West Great, by Ben Shapiro (Broadside, 2019). This…