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.

Comments

Because the tech industry is soulless

[Anonymous Coward]

Hard to put it any other way. Kudos to the Vatican for making the attempt, but a lot of developers aren't Christian or interested in their message.

Re:Because the tech industry is soulless

[meta-monkey]

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.

Re:Because the tech industry is soulless

[meta-monkey]

Religion (NOTE - not the belief in God) is all about control of women.

So, yeah there's solid evidence that religion has been a net loss for man in general.

How do you figure control of women is a net loss for man? You're begging the question here that control of women (or men) is bad for mankind. Can you support that?

Seems to me that left to their own devices men without women are dangerous. They don't care about the tribe because they have no genetic future without children, and they may even be hostile to the tribe because if they can overthrow the existing order they may have access to women. Left to their own devices, women don't care about any of this and will mate with the highest status men (pareto rule).

So I would say uncontrolled women leads to uncontrollable men which leads to violence, mistrust, and civilization collapse. Controlled women leads to controlled men whose otherwise destructive energies can be harnessed towards productive activity in support of the women, the tribe, and the children (their future).

Why do you think control of women is bad, and a net loss for man?

Re: Because the tech industry is soulless

[meta-monkey]

And I'm saying that since that didn't happen in any major culture on the planet, it's unlikely to be true. If you consider each nation as an internal system religion beat areligion in every case, and the Catholic Church is still here after 2,000 years. Jews seem to be doing fine, the Muslims are still expanding like mad. On the other hand western Europe seems to have given up on Christianity and become areligious and they now have catastrophically low birth rates after only 50-80 years of secularization. Their people and culture will be replaced in the next hundred years by Muslims from the middle east and Africa. Whether Islam is true or not is irrelevant. It'll keep going for thousands of years while areligious communities can't survive a few generations. Something beats nothing every time.

Re: Because the tech industry is soulless

[Grishnakh]

If you consider each nation as an internal system religion beat areligion in every case, and the Catholic Church is still here after 2,000 years.

Religion beat areligion because religionists are violent and enforced their delusional views on everyone, with the penalty for nonconformance frequently being execution. The Catholic Church was a big instigator of this: they frequently burned people alive who didn't agree with their theology. Remember the Spanish Inquisition?

The religionists are also the instigators of many, many wars. In the past, it kinda worked out because humans didn't have that much destructive power. Nuclear weapons change that equation.

Finally, as for areligious people not having any kids, China seems to contradict that assertion. They're becoming more dominant in the world every day, and they're not religious at all. They sure aren't in danger of being rendered irrelevant by Africa.

Re:Because the tech industry is soulless

[ScienceofSpock]

Except that religion DOESN'T actually explain ANYTHING, least of all the "why". Religion puts forth ideas (often blatantly wrong), not supported by any kind of evidence, and then chastises/persecutes you when you question those ideas.

As for the Scientific Method coming from the church, that is a stretch at best. Francis Bacon formalized what we know as the Scientific Method, inspired by the work of Roger Bacon and others (Copernicus and Galileo). Just because Roger Bacon was a friar doesn't mean that the Scientific Method came from the church, and considering the treatment that Galileo received from the church over heliocentrism, claiming that the Scientific Method has it's origins in the church is intellectually dishonest.

Ideas about separation of church and state have been around since before Christianity, so saying that it is a Christian thing is just plain wrong. I'll give you the University system though.

Re:Because the tech industry is soulless

[drinkypoo]

How do you figure control of women is a net loss for man? You're begging the question here that control of women (or men) is bad for mankind. Can you support that?

If you value obedience most, then you might stand on one side of this argument. If you value something else, then you might stand somewhere else. Men subjugate women so that they can be assholes and still have women around. What if I told you that if you're not an asshole, women will just naturally want to be around? What if I went on to tell you that it actually feels better to be nice and to have other people be nice to you than it does to be an asshole to people and have them do things because they fear you?

uncontrolled women leads to uncontrollable men

But controlling women leads to unhappy women, which leads to men doing more to control them. It's a vicious cycle in which the women are suppressed into being less than they could be. I, for one, prefer to be around women who are being themselves. If no women that I find interesting want to be in my presence, then that's a sign that I need to change either my behavior or my expectations. It doesn't validate forcing women to do what I want.

What a dumb submission.

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Is it a tech conference?

[chispito]

I thought it was more of an arts/entertainment conference. The Wikipedia page says it focuses on "music, film, and interactive."

Or am I the only one that wouldn't call that a tech conference?

Information about talk itself

[xxxJonBoyxxx]

Speaking of whoring karma for the afterlife, here's the talk itself (missing from the reliably crappy article summary):

http://schedule.sxsw.com/2017/events/PP67508

When your community numbers over 1.2 billion people and you’ve been in operation for over 2,000 years, there’s a lot to consider when it comes to integrating new media and technology. The Vatican's iterative engagement of the "Digital Continent" stands in contrast to the velocity of mainstream technology adoption. Yet its unique approach to Twitter, Instagram and digital video have helped make the Pope the most influential world leader online.

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.

MAR 12, 2017 | 12:30PM – 1:30PM
Primary Access: Interactive Badge, Platinum Badge
Secondary Access: Film Badge, Music Badge
Format: Panel
Event Type: Sessions
Track: Brands & Marketing
Level: Advanced

Re:Information about talk itself

[dunkelfalke]

Not quite for over 2000 years. It is nitpicking, before the Council of Jerusalem (circa 50 CE) Christianity was just one of many Judaism sects, and the Roman Catholic church actually came into existence in its current sense of the term after the East - West schism in 1054 CE.

Proselytizing

[sjbe]

"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.

Translation: He's proselytizing or laying the groundwork to do so.

Re:Proselytizing

[lucasnate1]

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.

Re:a more pragmatic reason this is happening

[Maritz]

I didn't think catholicism was popular in the south. Not psychotic or literal enough.

Reaching out to Change Makers

[krisbrowne42]

For anyone who's been paying attention, the new pope has been working hard to put the service and social commitments back to the front of the Church's mission... Reaching out to people who can and do make disruptive waves can mean a lot. There's so many cases where an app with the right niche in mind has revolutionized life for remote communities, and so many places where even small incremental changes can mean life or death for people...

They have a lot of skepticism to overcome, but I would like to believe they're trying to help the right people reach the right needs.

Re:So they can hide their pedos better

[Anonymous Coward]

"Age of consent in Vatican city was recently raised, to fourteen. Only priests live in Vatican City."

Which is probably why they didn't bother updating it until 2013. According to Wikipedia: "When the Vatican City was first formed, it adopted the then-Italian age of consent of 12 as per the Lateran Treaty of 1929. Until July 2013 it had the lowest age of consent in Europe, but after that month, when the Pope made his decree, it became the highest."

Could use a little more religious influence

[jediborg]

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

Re:Could use a little more religious influence

[Grishnakh]

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

The people making this stuff don't have that authority. They're nothing more than hired guns. If they don't do the job the way management wants, someone else will. That doesn't quite excuse them in extreme cases, but most of the things you complain about are things that low-level engineers have no control over or even any visibility into; they have to be part of the requirements, and that's something that only management has real control over.

The things you complain about are products of hierarchical organizations. The only power people at the bottom have is to leave, and generally that only happens when the wrongdoing is blatant or illegal. Making something less secure against hacking than someone thinks it should be really doesn't qualify here. If you want things done better, you either need to do a better job as a consumer, or you need to advocate for governmental policies to effect change.

This is not unusual

[dlleigh]

It's not unusual for large religious organizations to send representatives to tech conferences. As other have mentioned, they have technology needs too.

I remember having a nice chat with a priest from the Vatican Observatory when we attended an astronomy conference, At a conference on human-computer interaction, I spoke with a gentleman from the Mormon church's genealogy arm.

These were actual technology conferences with peer-reviewed publications, unlike the more arts and entertainment focused SXSW.

Re:a more pragmatic reason this is happening

[Nidi62]

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.

Catholic Church and media...

[DeplorableCodeMonkey]

Sorta off topic, but sorta related...

I see a lot of people on the left angry about accusations of fake news directed at the media, but the Pope is a good example of that.

As a victim.

I am a Protestant and don't have heaping doses of respect for this Pope (his predecessor was significantly better IMO), but come on. The media frequently deliberately misquotes this Pope to make him sound like the Pope they want him to be.

We're entering a point where the state will have to start prosecuting the media directly for the content of their speech because they are damn near demanding a right to do stuff like this:

Headline: Mr. Smith and so hates $GROUP
His quote: I can see why some might want to harm them, but I don't believe in killing them.
Their summary: Mr. Smith said "[I]... believe in killing them."

Re:Catholic Church and media...

[JustNiz]

>> We're entering a point where the state will have to start prosecuting the media directly for the content of their speech

Since the media continually demonstrate their utter incompetence at professional reporting and self-regulation, I totally agree. However any legislation needs to be designed/applied VERY carefully.
We need accurate reporting but we also need to eliminate any chance of the media becoming just another pro-government propaganda mouthpiece, otherwise then what we have is a totally conformist media that looks like N Korea's.

Re:Vatican denies evolution while undergoing it

[bsolar]

Vatican does *not* deny evolution: it actually stated it doesn't conflict with chatolic faith in 1950 and accepted it as "more than hypothesis" in 1996.

Reminder of Origin

[cwarrior]

Slashdot was founded by students at a Christian college on a Christian college campus ... Hope College in Holland, MI.

Re:Vatican denies evolution while undergoing it

[bsolar]

Post doesn't assert that the Vatican denies evolution. Post doesn't even mention evolution.

The post's *content* might not, but the post's *title* surely does.

Post asserts that Vatican is under threat from knowledge. Something you've just illustrated with your reference to the theory of evolution. At least I guess it's a reference to the theory, rather than the facts of evolution.

That's absolutely *not* the case: the Vatican's position is that science and the scientific method are absolutely valid and compatible with faith since it consider science and faith to pertain inherently different domains. Actually it consider scientific discoveries to be an important challenge to the faith and humanity to better understand itself.

The "threat" to the Vatican is not from knowledge, it's from not understanding social changes until it's too disconnected from the people it preaches to. It's a danger well known to an organization thousands years old which might be conservative, but in context it *did* change a great deal to adapt to completely different societies since its inception. Technology is definitely a player in such changes, which is why the Vatican wants to study them.

Seems obvious.

[Gravis Zero]

Because they Vatican. ;)

Vatican runs GNU/Linux

[xororand]

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.”