Quakers and Technology

“The problem of fear cannot be solved by any scientific technology nor by any political organisation. For it is a problem in personal relations, and such problems are religious problems, and can only be solved by religious means. More than ever, in today’s world of turmoil and tribulation, we need courage and trust – a living manifestation of our faith in the power of love….”

“In place of a process which trusts technology and mistrusts humanity, we must learn and live out a process that builds trust between people and their institutions… From the earliest days of Friends, we have known that safety cannot be defended in our own strength, but only in God’s… And we don’t have to do it with tools of our own fashioning, ever more elaborate technological juggling acts, ever more devastatingly destructive bombs… [We can] learn to lay down carnal weapons, practising with weapons of the spirit: love, truthsaying, nonviolence, the good news of God’s birth and rebirth among us, imagination, vision, and laughter.”

“Just as early Quakers adapted their faith to meet changing conditions, today’s Quakers will also…. As all of us rely on our traditional practices of seeking unity among ourselves, we can rely on our more technologically comfortable Friends to help the rest of us find ways to participate in this new environment.”

“I find that Quakerism and research science fit together very, very well. In Quakerism you’re expected to develop your own understanding of God from your experience in the world… [and] you keep redeveloping your understanding as you get more experience. It seems to me that’s very like what goes on in the scientific method. You have a model of a star – it’s an understanding – and you develop that model in the light of experiments and observations. And so in both you’re expected to evolve your thinking. Nothing is static, nothing is final, everything is held provisionally.”

“Peace Trolls respond to violent language with genuine connection. The vision of the Peace Troll Movement is simple: social media platforms will become interconnected webs of good-natured connection, stretching between every home across the globe. Threads where verbal aggression lurks will be ‘infected’ with nonviolence, not by agreeing with the other person or keeping silent, instead by choosing to honour the common humanity of each person they respond to whatever their belief. A reminder that collaboration is a practical principle to live by.”

“Although data can transform how we live, work and think, its usage doesn’t happen in a vacuum — it relies on a model. In one sense, that model is a statistical approach. But in a deeper sense, it is a mental model: a way of looking at the world. So using one ‘frame,’ a rainforest is worth more when it’s cut for timber than when it’s acting as the lungs of the planet.”

“The future always belongs to us. It is neither the working of nature, nor that of fate. It comes by our resolution. Only a person who resolves not to be enslaved enjoys freedom. Only a person who resolves not to assert his own enjoys freedom. Only the person who resolves to love even at the cost of his own life can win love. The first ingredient of life is courage.”

“When it comes to tech, billions of lines of code have been open-sourced. The same cannot be said of the decisions that led up to them. What might a Github for choices and insights look like? How much better would actors act if they knew others could see — and how much more would we trust if people could see the inner workings of why, not just how, technology works as it does?”

“What does it look like for us to build a capacity for silence? What does it mean for us to exercise that muscle, to not be afraid to be bored, to let our minds wander without having input constantly? How could that shape us and help us to feel better, to be able to focus better, and be able to be present with ourselves and with one another, with the Spirit?”

“It is becoming clear that the exponential growth in the power of AI promises not only extraordinary wonders but serious dangers as well. These include complex ‘wicked’ problems and perhaps even existential threats just as significant as climate change, the sixth great extinction, and nuclear war.”

“No clear impressions, either from above or from without, can be received by a mind turbid with excitement and agitated by a crowd of distractions. The stillness needed for the clear shining of light within is incompatible with hurry.”

“It is a blessed thing to possess a cool, well-balanced, pure, healthy mind. But, it may well be asked, who does enjoy this noble possession? None, we may boldly affirm, by nature; for nature sends us perpetually streaming out on the surface of things, and wandering for the gratification of our senses by the way-side, where we are sure of being taken captive by every passing thought and thing.”

“What ChatGPT can do is a marvel. We are at the dawn of a new technological era. But it is easy to see how it could turn dark — and quickly. A.I. systems like this make the production and manipulation of text (and code and images and eventually audio and video) functionally costless. They will be deployed to produce whatever makes us most likely to click. But these systems do not and cannot know what they are producing. The cost of creating and optimizing content that grabs our attention is plummeting, but the cost of producing valuable and truthful work isn’t. These are technologies that lend themselves to cacophony, not community. I fear a world in which the business models behind them run on our attention or profit off our anger. But other worlds and other models are possible….”

“Quakerism allows us to remove ourselves from the cycle of quicker work: making more work for the sake of more work, with productivity as king. What I’ve learned working in a Quaker environment is the real power of reflection, of silence, of taking time to discern. I feel like when I do so, decisions are more thought-through, more grounded in reality, and more inclusive of the voices of others.”

“Quaker worship is not exclusively an activity of the rational, disembodied mind (albeit it is easy to receive this impression in some meetings). Our physical presence is not irrelevant to our participation in communal worship. Worship is the response of our whole being to the presence of God – a response which involves our bodies and the physical presence of our fellow worshippers at least as much as our words and thoughts.”

“We can connect to God and other people regardless of how close we are or how much technology is between us. When we’re ready to connect with the Holy Spirit and… we enter into worship, knowing other people are worshiping at the same time matters.”

“Over Zoom, there is a new intimacy to the gatherings. Faces and expressions are on full display. ‘I really see that they are deep in worship,’ Joan Malin said of her fellow Brooklyn Friends. ‘There’s a vulnerability when someone is doing that, and here they are putting it onscreen for us to witness,’ she said. ‘It helps me get there, too.'”

“We should face up to the fact that some of our old ways worked well for some people, but did not work well for others. Zoom has opened some new ways to include people, and enable more variety in how we do things. And we absolutely need to make sure we find ways that include people who don’t find Zoom works for them, too – there’s a balance.”

“For me, being a ‘whole person’ includes physical embodiment, emotional engagement and intimate relationships with family and friends, and in the physical place where I am. I therefore by definition cannot be a ‘whole person’ in social media. You only see a small (and to me relatively unimportant) part of the wholeness of body, place and relationships that is me. And in particular you only see the intellectual, rational, language-limited part of me…”

“For me, being a ‘whole person’ includes physical embodiment, emotional engagement and intimate relationships with family and friends, and in the physical place where I am. I therefore by definition cannot be a ‘whole person’ in social media. You only see a small (and to me relatively unimportant) part of the wholeness of body, place and relationships that is me. And in particular you only see the intellectual, rational, language-limited part of me…”

“The Quaker practice of corporate discernment can provide a crucial moderating force within the frequently polarized public debates about technology. On one side, champions of ‘accelerationism’ celebrate the benefits of technological advancement, emphasizing speed and innovation without sufficient regard for potential social or ethical consequences. On the other side, staunch opposition to technological change can highlight legitimate concern over displacement, dehumanization, or environmental harm, even as these arguments primarily serve to legitimize a diffuse and unexamined fear of change.” 

“The Amish are not completely opposed to technology. But they want to ask technology questions. And the primary question they ask of technology is, if we adopt you, what impact will that have on our core values? I think we can learn from the Amish; they’re putting technology on probation.”

“The Amish have managed to keep technology in check, and in doing so they have fostered a sense of community that many of us yearn for in our electronically tethered and frenetically paced lives. It’s not that we are not connected—280 million Americans out of a population of 307 million have a cell phone, not to mention Facebook and Twitter accounts—but we still find ourselves inwardly yearning for that something the Amish seem to possess in their lack and which we lack in our possessing: the serenity, the quietness, the sense of knowing where one belongs in a defined community….”

“I’m going on a technology fast…. I’m a little bit scared. There’s this fear that I’ll be disconnected and somehow some amazing thing will happen and I won’t know about it. And then, I don’t know, I won’t have any friends? I guess that’s my fear. It’s not that I don’t need friends, because of course I do, but friends are not who I am. My relationships cannot really address issues of loneliness and deep-seated questions of meaning.”