Marksism | Ep. 13: On Space Utopia, Artificial Intelligence, and More

By Mark Tooley & Marc LiVecche & Mark Melton on August 28, 2020

In this episode, Mark Tooley, Marc LiVecche, and Mark Melton first discuss a couple articles about artificial intelligence and whether banning killer robots or similar technology would be wise. LiVecche points to Daniel Strand’s recent Providence article that argues a ban would be ineffective and AI can be beneficial. Then Melton reviews Mark Royce’s article about space exploration that questions whether the US spends too much on these adventures while chasing utopian dreams, though LiVecche comes to the defense of idealist exploration. Finally, the editors cover US relations with Germany.

Christian Realism | Marksism Video Series

Mark Tooley is IRD’s president and editor of IRD’s foreign policy and national security journal, Providence. Prior to joining the IRD in 1994, Mark worked eight years for the Central Intelligence Agency. He is a graduate of Georgetown University and is a native of Arlington, Virginia. He is the author of Taking Back The United Methodist Church, published in 2008; Methodism and Politics in the 20th Century, published in 2012; and The Peace That Almost Was: The Forgotten Story of the 1861 Washington Peace Conference and the Final Attempt to Avert the Civil War, published in 2015.

Follow Mark on Twitter: @markdtooley

Marc LiVecche is the McDonald Distinguished Scholar of Ethics, War, and Public Life at Providence. He is also a non-resident research fellow at the US Naval War College, in the College of Leadership and Ethics.

Marc completed doctoral studies, earning distinction, at the University of Chicago, where he worked under the supervision of the political theorist and public intellectual Jean Bethke Elshtain, until her death in August, 2013. His first book, The Good Kill: Just War & Moral Injury, was published in 2021 by Oxford University Press. Another project, Responsibility and Restraint: James Turner Johnson and the Just War Tradition, co-edited with Eric Patterson, was published by Stone Tower Press in the fall of 2020. Currently, he is finalizing Moral Horror: A Just War Defense of Hiroshima. Before all this academic stuff, Marc spent twelve years doing a variety of things in Central Europe—ranging from helping build sport and recreational leagues in post-communist communities, to working at a Christian study and research center, to leading seminars on history and ethics onsite at the former Auschwitz-Birkenau Nazi concentration camp in Poland. This latter experience allowed him to continue his undergraduate study of the Shoah; a process which rendered him entirely ill-suited for pacifism.

Marc lives in Annapolis, Maryland with his wife and children–and a marmota monax whistlepigging under the shed. He can be followed, or stalked, on twitter @mlivecche. Additional publications can be found at his Amazon author page.

Mark Melton was the managing editor for Providence from 2020 to 2022 and was the journal’s inaugural deputy editor from 2015 to 2020. He earned his master’s degree in international relations from the University of St. Andrews, and his bachelor’s degree in foreign language and international trade comes from Mississippi College. Prior to moving to DC, he worked as a political science adjunct professor at community colleges in Mississippi and taught English in France.