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Why Is the Vatican at a Tech Conference? (bbc.com)
An anonymous reader shares a BBC report: As Bishop Paul Tighe sat down for our interview, he joked that not only is he probably the only priest at South by Southwest, but also the only person with grey hair. His presence here marks the first time the Vatican has attended the South by Southwest Interactive conference, and their panel - titled Compassionate Disruption - is one of this year's most talked about events. "In a world where increasingly [we're] not invited to part of conversations, I think if people are interested in having us, we're delighted to be here. "I want to learn and get a feeling for what are the things that are driving a generation of people who are in many ways shaping the world as we know it. He glanced around the room. "Really deep down, I see a lot of people looking for some sort of connectivity." That's certainly true -- though I get the sense for delegates here that means good wi-fi, rather than a strong sense of faith. So Bishop Tighe's mission is to get this industry to find real value in both.
The Catholic Church is a huge global organization with millions of 'employees' and 'customers'. Like any similarly large multinational organization, be it a corporation or an aide group or a supranational governmental body, it will have significant information technology needs. Of course they'll have an interest in technology and tech conferences.
Religion is a huge net negative for our species.
I don't think that's a supportable opinion. If religions were not useful for propagating a people and culture into the future we wouldn't have so many religions that have endured for thousands of years. And areligious people tend to not have children, so their culture dies out. Religion must have been a net positive (even if locally negative for those who don't conform to the predominant religion) because otherwise, the areligious would have had an evolutionary advantage over the religious and would have dominated and killed them off millennia ago. Instead just the opposite happened.
We don't have a state-run media we have a media-run state.
Are they? Look at how many adults fawned over communism/absolute-capitalism/nazism/whatever, how many believe right now that their state is "the good side", etc etc.
Avantgarde Hebrew science fiction
In the tech area, I get the feeling that a LOT of computer scientists and engineers don't contemplate the moral implications of the software/hardware they are designing. Weather its GPS apps designed so badly using them while driving would definitely cause a crash, programmers working on data mining analytics for credit card companies, or smarter and smarter cars that are increasingly insecure and easy to hack, I think more thought about consequences needs to be done by the people making this software/hardware and not just pushing moral authority/decisions on middle or upper management. I'm not saying I want these designers to convert to a particular religion, studies show that just talking about the ten commandments can effect peoples decision making minutes later.
So maybe having a member of the congregation in the corner will subtly influence people in good ways
This first-of-its kind SXSW discussion will shed light on how the world's oldest and largest community is adapting to and leveraging new media to encourage a new form of disruption: one guided by understanding, empathy and compassion.
or...more realistically, this was shoehorned in at the behest of an investor, program director, or local community/government representative because Jesus saves and this is Texas.
Isn't SXSW in Austin, which is basically the southernmost neighborhood of San Francisco? Not exactly a bastion of the Bible Belt.
Besides, over 64% of Texans are evangelical protestant while on 21% are Catholic (most likely Latinos). The Vatican doesn't have a whole lot of pull. I see this more and another factor of the modernization to Catholicism that Francis is pushing right now. While Carlin's priest in Dogma was obvious satire, he is correct in that the Church is looking to modernize as a lot of it is out of date and out of touch. A softened stance on divorce for church members, increasing acceptance of LGBT, open musings on allowing married men into the priesthood, Francis washing the feet of Muslim refugees, and now this. Religions have to change (at least in terms of how it operates, but also occasionally in ancillary beliefs as well) in order to remain relevant, or they die. There's nothing wrong with modernization.
The only thing necessary for evil to triumph is for it to be pitted against a slightly greater evil
The Vatican uses GNU/Linux both for their library servers,
as well as some info terminals.
“The philosophy of Free and Open Source Software (FOSS) is based on cooperation, common good and mutual benefit, and is in many ways consistent with the Catholic Church’s preferential option for the poor.”