Matt (00:01.352)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. It is so good to have you with us this week. I'm your host, Matt, with me as always is Sean and a special guest this week, Mark is joining us. Mark oftentimes will dress up for the podcast. Today, all I got was a pipe and then a 3D printed Shrek that goes on your toothpaste tube.

Shawn (00:15.022)
You

Marc (00:25.077)
and out of the backside of the Shrek.

Shawn (00:25.166)
You

Matt (00:28.968)
I feel, yeah, a Rubik's Cube, yeah. I feel bad that I'm not in the know of the cool things I should 3D print. I would have never thought to have the Shrek toothpaste cap for a, but it's a good item. All right, we're gonna open up the mail bag. One listener wrote in and said, I was so surprised when Sean said that hardly anyone in the church thinks of polygamy as an eternal principle. Maybe I need to go.

Shawn (00:29.262)
Ha ha ha ha!

Marc (00:30.595)
Most of

Marc (00:45.24)
bubble.

Matt (00:57.872)
and read the Gospel Topics essay, but honestly, I've always thought it was an eternal principle or at least an eternal option, I guess. Pretty sure I had Sunday school classes where the gist was that we don't practice polygamy anymore, but it's okay eternally. I mean, Sean, President Nelson is sealed to both of his wives, so won't he practice polygamy in the next life? But we do not seal women to multiple husbands here on earth. The disparity is very uncomfortable for a lot of LDS women that I know.

Marc (01:22.3)
. .

Matt (01:26.182)
And the idea that polygamy is acceptable in the eternities is also something that I've heard many women struggle with when it comes to their testimonies of the church.

Shawn (01:35.106)
Yeah, my guess is that if you look at the doctrine, there's never been a single spot in doctrine that says that polygamy is an eternal thing that will be practiced in the celestial kingdom. That chapter, that verse in the D &C, that chapter is not talking about polygamy. It's talking about the new and everlasting covenant. And the question was asked about polygamy, so they talk about that a little bit. But I would be shocked personally, based on what we know in scripture about how God

Marc (01:48.62)
.

Shawn (02:04.442)
used polygamy, I'd be shocked if President Nelson is sealed to two women for the rest of eternity. I don't think that's going to happen.

Matt (02:11.248)
Now I have to go to Doctrine and Covenants section 132 because I just read this recently. I'm a little bit ahead of the come follow me stuff. But hold on, okay, verse 18.

Marc (02:20.104)
you you

Matt (02:30.728)
This is a little tedious, maybe a little deep for our podcast. And again, verily I say unto you, if a man marry a wife and make a covenant with her for time and for all eternity, if that covenant is not by me or by my word, wait, wait, I've got to go to the one before that. Yes, verse 19, the next one.

Marc (02:49.961)
And again I say unto you, if a man marry a wife by my word, which is my law and by the new and everlasting covenant, and it is sealed unto them by the Holy Spirit of promise, by him who is appointed unto whom I have appointed this power and the keys of this priesthood, and it shall be said unto them, he shall come forth in the first, well, we'll just skip to the head, the point is they're together forever.

Matt (03:13.244)
Yeah, I liked the way Mark was reading it. then you got to skip down. says, shall be a full force when they are out of the world and they shall pass by the angels and the gods, which are there set there to their exaltation and glory and all things as have been sealed upon their heads, which glory shall be a fullness and a continuation of the seeds forever and ever. So if a person is sealed to a woman by the new and everlasting covenant, then they're going to be together forever and ever, Sean.

Shawn (03:13.71)
That was beautiful.

Marc (03:43.219)
And I doubt myself that President Nelson or President Oaks will be forced to between their two wives.

Matt (03:49.608)
Yeah.

Shawn (03:49.848)
Yeah, yeah, I don't think, well, but I don't think that just because, no, agree, the doctrines of a ceiling, absolutely. But I don't think that that means that we ignore all the scriptures throughout Old Testament, New Testament, Book of Mormon, Doctrine and Covenant of Paul, Great Price that say in the Lord, there's one man and one woman. And so to fulfill the measure of your creation, that is the union that will be, is most God-like and is what likely will be. So in a situation where,

President Nelson being sealed to two women, I don't think they are all, those three of them, gonna agree, like, let's continue this. That's my personal opinion. It's not my place to judge or no, of course, but I don't think it's the order of the celestial kingdom according to just the multitudes of verses in scripture that say in the Lord, there's one man and one woman. And so I just would be shocked if those three people were like, yeah, let's just stick in this situation. I don't think they will. I don't think anyone will.

Marc (04:46.787)
Plural marriage. Plural marriage versus polygamy. Polygamy is just, hey, let's all get in the bed together. Plural marriage is one man and one woman, and then the same man and one woman and one man with one woman. So if a plural marriage happens by the

Shawn (04:55.406)
What?

Shawn (05:05.579)
Marc (05:10.129)
law of the Lord and the man has three different wives, polygamy would just be horrific, sweaty something or another. But poor marriage, according to the Lord's law, it is still one man and one woman. He's just having to do it three different times, but it's three different families, three different marriages, three different eternities put together.

Shawn (05:33.742)
I mean, we can never read, talk about this subject in D &C 132 and just pick out these singular verses. The entire chapter gives us so much context. For example, you go to chapter 24, says, this is eternal lives. To know the only wise and true God in Jesus Christ whom you have sent. Lives, like rarely do we hear God say this is, we say this is eternal life. But all throughout this chapter and a few verses in the Pearl of Great Price, he talks about eternal lives. Like what you have in store for you Matt is eternal lives.

And the concept there is that there's this idea around exaltation, not salvation, but exaltation, where we will have the ability to eternally create, and as God does. So I guess if President Nelson's plan to have eternal lives and his wives who choose, or his wife that chooses to do that, I guess it's a possibility that they will choose that. I just don't, I'd be shocked if parties choose it.

Matt (06:29.224)
But I'm surprised, Sean, that you say that you've never heard anybody say this. Like, to me, everybody in the church says that there's plural marriage after this life.

Shawn (06:37.102)
I've heard Bruce R. McConkie say it. I've heard like people in the past say it. Never ever once have I heard it preached in our congregations. Never, ever. And then you haven't either. No one's preaching that.

Matt (06:49.384)
actually when Mitt Romney was governor of Massachusetts and he signed a law defining same sex or defining marriages between a man and a woman he said in my church we believe that marriage is between a man and a woman and a woman and a woman so I heard Mitt Romney say it

Shawn (07:03.63)
That's hearsay. That's hearsay.

Matt (07:06.76)
I'll play the quote for you. Not during the podcast because listeners can just look it up on their own.

Marc (07:12.453)
I bit Romney by the way and just throw that out there.

Matt (07:16.2)
Mark, have you ever heard people in church talk about plural marriage continuing after this life? Mark, you're a convert to the church. You joined the church in adulthood. Do you remember the first time you heard that people believe that plural marriage continues after this life?

Marc (07:22.034)
Yeah.

Marc (07:33.106)
I don't, but I know it just makes sense to me.

Matt (07:36.934)
Yeah, I was just wondering. Yeah, it just seems to me like if Mark, who joined the church in adulthood has heard it, it's not like an old wives tale that like ancestors passed them.

Shawn (07:47.092)
No, I'm not saying that. Well, hang on though. But it's a difference between understanding plural marriage and interpreting D &C 132 is to say this is the order of the celestial kingdom. That's a big difference. And the D &C 132 is not about plural marriage. It's about the new and everlasting covenant and the ceilings that it's talking about. No, that was...

Marc (07:48.648)
It does make this

Matt (08:07.932)
which was plural marriage. Well, that was about the new and everlasting covenant of marriage is plural marriage.

Shawn (08:14.124)
No, it's not. Why would you say that? Show me any verse that says it's that. There's absolutely not it. Show me one piece of evidence. Go ahead, Mark. I would love it.

Marc (08:21.913)
I'm both correct on that because if you take the Revelation and say it's only about plural marriage, then, well, we don't have much of a leg to stand on beyond 1890, but it does really, it's definitely hitting on plural marriage because you've got, now I can't find the verse, but Joseph.

Shawn (08:39.438)
But when it comes to plural marriage, I've got 15 verses that tagged that clarify that plural marriage is only in a case where God chooses or commands it. And in any other instance, it is not even allowed. In fact, it is an egregious sin. It is adultery.

Marc (08:58.281)
that if God and then people move on to the next life, is he going to say, okay, you have to pick between one of these wives or wife?

Shawn (09:06.318)
We don't know that, but from what I've studied, to me, if President Nelson is sealed to two wives and these two women are going, okay, what are we going to do here? And they look at the order of God and everything that's been preached in Scripture that says one man, one woman, I feel like they're going to work it out. They're going to work it out. There's going to be a solution there that to me more closely aligns with, I think, the pattern of marriage that is preached throughout all of Scripture.

Now look, if there's some eternal law or some eternal thing that says that for whatever reason there are more females than there are men, maybe that's a different story, but I don't know that that's possible, right? Because that's one reason why polygamy has been used in the past amongst Israel, but I don't know that that's gonna be an eternity.

Matt (09:54.566)
Yeah. Yeah. Well, I'm going to just say, I'm not trying to advocate for plural marriage or say that it's an eternal principle, but I do think there's plenty of scriptural evidence. And when we get to doctrine and covenants, one 32, it'll be really fun for people to go through because I read it recently and it was talking about plural marriage and it was saying this is the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. And so perhaps I just read the doctrine of covenants too quickly, but it seemed pretty clear to me that that's what it was talking about.

Marc (10:05.848)
you

Shawn (10:24.59)
But you're leaving out in 132 that it is talking about the 300 covenants that are a part of the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. if one of those covenants, if one of them for point, well, however many, I'm just saying there are, the new and everlasting covenant is a combination of a bunch of covenants, right? A bunch of ordinances and covenants.

Matt (10:37.448)
300 covenants on 300

Matt (10:46.236)
No, this is very specific, the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. It says in verse 130,

Shawn (10:51.086)
Of marriage. There's the new and everlasting covenant and then there's the new and everlasting covenant of marriage.

Marc (10:53.352)
So,

So that was the mailbag.

Matt (10:59.112)
Let's talk about General Conference.

Shawn (10:59.199)
hahahaha

Hahaha!

Matt (11:04.785)
What did you guys like from General Conference? What surprised you guys?

Marc (11:07.909)
I love that we have a promise of being sealed for eternity so that President Nelson will be with both of his wives.

Matt (11:13.205)
No.

Shawn (11:13.706)
my gosh. Did you, Mark, yeah, thank, good job, Mark. Mark, did you like all the discussions about the 30th anniversary of the proclamation of the world to the family and how that talked about the nature of marriage as being one man, one woman? Did you like that?

Matt (11:16.334)
Mark closed the mail back and reopened the mail back.

Marc (11:31.941)
I like the canonized scriptures the most where it's like, hey, get in there,

Matt (11:35.816)
My favorite part of journal conference was elder was his last name Brown from Jamaica Where he says a agency he was my favorite of all

Shawn (11:42.798)
Yes it was! That dude was so cool!

To me that was just, I loved his energy and the message and yeah, that was one of most powerful talks. That was incredible. Elder Holland, the son was incredible. I loved how he talked about, so the beginning of his talk, he says he would go into the military and he talked to the chaplain and the chaplain would show him, here's the symbol I use for Protestants, you know, the cross, or here's the symbol I use for the Jews. He goes, well, what would you use for us? And he pointed to an altar.

That was so cool. To me, it's like, yes, that's beautiful. Yeah, I thought that was incredible. Yeah, Elder Brown, Testimony focused on the spirit and focused on how agency affects us receiving the spirit. Man, that was a powerful doctrine. Man, that was just awesome. So much.

Matt (12:26.781)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (12:35.869)
Yeah.

Matt (12:39.932)
What did you like, Mark?

Marc (12:41.671)
Well, obviously Elder Brown and Elder Holland, the Elder and uh, President Oakes. I was initially texting the friends like, ah, this is kind of disheartening about no new temples. And then the actual talk gets going and woo baby. Love that one. So I've even printed out an illegal transcript. We have to teach it this Sunday in Elder's Quorum. So I kind of need it, but uh, it's beefy.

Shawn (13:02.157)
Hahaha

Matt (13:10.354)
Yeah, I liked it. I thought that I've never seen President Oaks get emotional before and watching him get emotional talking about his grandpa and the way they came together as a family to take care of themselves. And I thought that was really, really touching.

Shawn (13:23.918)
That was powerful too, yeah. That was incredible.

Marc (13:27.642)
It'll be fun to teach a singles ward about family for an hour straight.

Matt (13:33.36)
Well, I wonder what you think about this, Mark, because oftentimes when they talk about the proclamation, they talk about maybe same sex attraction or they talk about transgender stuff. This one where he talks about young people kind of wanting to have money to buy things they don't really need and not really focused on like struggling as a family. Do you think that your generation and perhaps younger is too materialistic?

and not, they're kind of delaying children and things like that so they can have more money before they have that stuff, family, kids and stuff.

Marc (14:00.999)
You're talking 40-year-old man sitting in the closet of Revolutionary Warthogs.

Matt (14:16.2)
Well.

Marc (14:17.583)
Yeah

Shawn (14:19.95)
Which is cool, man! I don't know the tone. I'm not sure the tone you're insinuating there, but it's amazing.

Matt (14:21.809)
It's fine.

Marc (14:24.55)
You know, sure, not going to carry family legacy.

Matt (14:24.764)
Yeah.

Matt (14:31.216)
You are Mark, you're gonna get him married one of these days. You're doing your... Last time I talked to you, you had many dates lined up.

Marc (14:34.919)
You know what?

Marc (14:38.778)
I did, and I'll try it again, but we had a rough moment there.

Shawn (14:43.265)
Matt (14:43.356)
I'm sorry, Mark.

Marc (14:44.879)
at half.

Shawn (14:46.094)
It's worth the wait and the labor. It's worth it.

Matt (14:48.632)
Mm-hmm. I mean, I wouldn't know. I didn't wait that long. So I wouldn't know if it's worth the wait, but it'll work out.

Marc (14:57.008)
plug my phone real quick.

Matt (14:58.534)
Yeah, I really liked Elder Uchtdorf's talk. thought there was a lot more talks about moral agency than I'm used to in general conference. yeah, I actually didn't think that there would be a lot of big announcements or anything like that. So I was sort of like, this is kind of what I expected. I expected that they would just have the general conference that President Nelson had planned before he died and there wouldn't be any big changes.

Shawn (15:25.346)
And I'm actually really pleased every conference now that it is just so doctrine rich. And every time I leave conference and go on, yeah, the restored gospel is in full effect. Like this is pure good clean doctrine. For example, now is this blasphemous to say that I am predicting that Elder Bednar is a robot? Is that okay to say?

Marc (15:46.589)
I'm you've already said enough blasts me today about.

Shawn (15:49.902)
I just love, like Elder Holland is my favorite. He's just passionate. I loved Elder Brown because he was so passionate. And Elder Bednar is even keel. He's not passionate. Like he's just so... And so usually I have a hard time listening to him. I loved his message so much. And I'll just give you the quote that I loved so much. He says, how grateful we should be that our sins and wicked deeds will not stand as a testimony against us if we are truly born again.

That's awesome. Like Elder Bednar including himself in the statement, our sins and wicked deeds, as if, like it was fun. I had mission prep class the next day and the kid raised his hand. He's like, okay, I get that we can have faith and repent and come to Christ, but what happens when we sin the very next day? And I was able to pull open this, what like you think Elder Bednar is a pretty faithful righteous guy, I'm assuming, but he calls himself a man of wicked deeds.

and how grateful he is that he won't be judged by those wicked deeds because he's come to Christ. Anyway, it's just powerful. I love that talk.

Matt (16:55.644)
Yeah, and I liked Elder Cook pointing out that in the last three years, we've had as many convert baptisms as we did in like the first 110 years of the church. That's pretty good.

Shawn (17:04.354)
Whoa, pretty awesome. That's great.

Marc (17:07.028)
And it was a historic too, because this is the first general conference since John Taylor died. It was just the quorum of the twelve of the entire conference.

Shawn (17:18.851)
Mmm.

Matt (17:19.078)
Yeah. Yeah. Okay. Well, let's move on to some more secular things.

Because the, the doctrine stuff makes me feel uncomfortable after a little while I say, let's move on to like.

Shawn (17:34.443)
No

Marc (17:34.567)
the

Matt (17:37.316)
you

Shawn (17:38.392)
Matt, you love triggering me with like political stuff. Why can't I trigger you for awhile with doctrine stuff?

Matt (17:44.752)
You can't, but you know, it's been a little while. Let's get into, okay, I don't know if you guys have heard of this. It's called Polymarket. It's a website where you can go and you can place wagers on what you think is going to happen. You can bet on politics. You can bet on like sports things. You can bet on all kinds of things. So right now you can put a place a wager on the length of the government shutdown. So the question I have is like, Sean does not like public opinion surveys.

Shawn (17:48.334)
Okay, balance.

Matt (18:14.456)
is this a better way to figure out what the public thinks? Like, for example, are the bets placed on who's going to win the New York city mayoral race, which you can bet on right now. Is that a better way to figure out public attitudes than a survey? Mark says, yes. Why?

Marc (18:31.271)
Yeah.

Shawn (18:32.703)
why?

Marc (18:33.679)
money talks baby. The thing is if you call me up on the phone and say you know what how do feel about President Trump's job and mom's in the other room and she knows I gotta be like well gosh it's terrible and secretly I'm like yeah go get it.

Matt (18:35.965)
But.

Marc (18:53.427)
don't give the full honesty when they're just talking, but when it's just them on their phone putting some money down, it's like, oh shit, I'm putting 20 bucks down on whatever, Zidani, Mohammed Zidani, whatever.

Shawn (19:06.07)
Mark, you feel like people are gonna be more honest in their opinions because it matters, because it affects their money.

Marc (19:12.089)
yeah.

Matt (19:13.628)
Yeah, but what about this? I might place a wager on who I think is going to win a football game, but that doesn't say who I want to win the football game. It just says who I think is going to win the football game.

Shawn (19:24.28)
This is what I think. Yeah, I agree with you, Matt. I think that it's a game that most people are bad at, some people are very good at, but yeah, it's a strategy as opposed to a real reflection of who and what, yeah, of outcomes.

Marc (19:42.012)
But which one is if we all want the I don't know peace in the Middle East. We know it's not going to happen even if we want it.

Matt (19:52.467)
Sure, that's true. But for example, I might place a wager that says, think Trump's going to send National Guard troops into Portland. But that doesn't mean that I want him to send troops into Portland. That just means I think he's going to do it and I want to make money off of

Marc (20:06.384)
the new woman.

Matt (20:08.68)
because I want to make money. Oh, I see what you're saying. The fact that I place money on it means that I want that outcome to happen or else I wouldn't bet for that outcome to happen.

Marc (20:17.406)
ever so slightly. You're sure it will happen. And now that you've put money, you do want it to happen. Because if you really didn't want it to happen, you not only would pay against it, but you'd be out there with your sign about, off my Oregon.

Matt (20:31.048)
So I try to rather than placing a bet that it's gonna happen. I would be out there trying to prevent it from happening Huh, that's that's it. That's pretty good Sean

Shawn (20:42.356)
That is pretty good. Matt, help me understand though, your faith in the polls. Yeah, the polls and the surveys. You don't claim that they're 100 % accurate or even close to being accurate, or do you claim that? You have way more experience and I will default to you. I get a little bit defensive on these things because I'm like, they're so often wrong. Why would I trust them? what's your experience? What percentage do you trust?

Matt (20:50.45)
public opinion surveys.

Shawn (21:11.404)
Why do you trust them?

Matt (21:13.52)
Yeah, well, it depends on the survey. It depends on the question they ask, how they ask it, and who they sample. And if you ask a good question that, like, let's say we've been doing it a long time and we know that that question answers kind of the question we think it's answering, and you have a good sample, then I'm gonna trust the results of that public opinion survey. So for example, these consumer sentiment surveys where you ask people,

Do you think the economy is gonna get better or you think it's gonna get worse? I have really high confidence in those surveys because they've been doing them for 50 years and they're pretty predictive of like what people think is happening in the economy or presidential approval surveys. But I think what's happened to the survey industry, there's two things that have happened. One is people have come in and said, let's use public opinion surveys to try to make predictions about what's going to happen in an election. That's not what you should use a survey for.

They're not designed to make predictions. And then the other thing is they become so cheap and easy that people will just create surveys about anything and sample anybody. And then they'll say, you should believe my survey. And so if it's not well done and it doesn't have a good sample, I don't believe it. If you're using it to try to predict who's gonna win, I don't believe it. So I think like gambling markets are probably really good at predicting what's gonna happen. At least they're as good at that as they are predicting who's gonna win a football game. But I don't think that

surveys are supposed to be that way, right? Surveys are supposed to tell us what Americans think broadly. And they're pretty good at that if you do it the right way.

Shawn (22:48.11)
Wow, that answer has given me a whole perspective change on it. So you're saying qualified surveys and polls are pretty accurate. would just have to, I mean, there's no way, Matt, that I would know which polls I should trust or not trust. So I'm relying on you, my political scientist, to tell me which polls are trustworthy. I'm assuming the ones you bring into this podcast are always trustworthy.

Marc (22:48.228)
You know.

Matt (23:03.868)
Right.

Matt (23:11.336)
That's right, I don't bring in garbage poles. Right, Mark?

Shawn (23:13.742)
Yeah

Marc (23:14.656)
you know, my thoughts are I said something very similar sounding back in the day. I said, we ought to get rid of the 17th amendment so that the people stop electing their senators. Cause that's the ideal is that the state legislature chooses them. But that just turns into corruption and so on. And so I got shouted down pretty quickly by, I believe it was a BYU Idaho professor that may or may not be.

Shawn (23:39.468)
What was his name? What did he look like?

Marc (23:43.066)
Gosh, he was a pleasant fella. Something about Russia was involved. The point is that idealism and hope and just wide-eyed joy and it just doesn't really work out. Doesn't really work out. It's a falling.

Matt (23:59.208)
Yeah, no, I think there's some truth to that. I think there's truth to that, Mark. I think you can only take them so far, right? There's, yeah.

Marc (24:07.949)
I'd say all these things and just follow the money and that's the end of it.

Matt (24:13.128)
I guess what I would say is triangulate, right? If I really care about the answer, I'm not gonna just seek public opinion surveys. I might find other ways to collect information that helps me have that. Like I would triangulate. I would use more than one data source to figure it out. If I really cared.

Marc (24:31.215)
That's what I meant to say.

Shawn (24:32.366)
I love it. Okay, but just before we get off this, so you're saying that this upcoming New York mayoral race, people are betting on it. They're betting on it and betting on it. Do you know what direction, is it public information on like who's betting on what?

Matt (24:32.508)
Yeah.

Matt (24:45.308)
Well, if you go to that link on the polymarket, can see the the guy's name that Mark said some the Muslim dude, I don't know his name.

Marc (24:54.486)
Omar's a dummy, I think.

Matt (24:56.562)
Yeah.

Shawn (24:56.748)
Is he favored to win or favored to lose in the polymarket?

Matt (25:00.218)
I think two thirds of the money is on him to win.

Shawn (25:04.27)
two thirds of the money. Okay, so.

Matt (25:05.682)
Hold on, let me follow the link real fast.

Marc (25:08.313)
And Eric Adams already dropped out, so...

Shawn (25:10.84)
But again, if betting, if gambling was a sure science, then it would...

Matt (25:16.412)
Yeah, it's not right. Like everybody who put money on Penn State to win the football game over the weekend lost a lot of money, right? Because UCLA out of nowhere beat Penn State. But going into the game, you probably would have thought, okay, UCLA is going to lose this game. Penn State is probably going to win, but anything can happen. And you you can say the same things in elections. These betting markets said that Trump was going to win the 2024 presidential election. And, and some people put like a million dollars on that.

Shawn (25:41.975)
It did?

Matt (25:45.768)
because they were so sure that it was gonna happen. Right? So yeah, I think to Mark's point, when people are putting money on it, they're gonna like be sort of sure that they're right about it. Not everybody, but like if you, I can't go to the website right now because BYU Idaho server blocks me from going to polymarket. But when I was looking at it at home, like the stuff is pretty, like a couple of days ago, the question was,

Shawn (25:45.87)
You're kidding. That's incredible.

Shawn (25:58.198)
Interesting.

Matt (26:13.874)
Who's that environmental rights activist woman from, yeah, yeah, she was in, she had a boat near Israel or something like that. And it was like, will Israel take over her boat? And it was like 78 % of the money was on, yeah, they're going to take over her boat. And then sure enough, they did take over her boat, right? Like I didn't know anything about the topic, but I looked at the poly market. I'm like, Hmm, I think this is probably going to happen based on where the betting money is.

Shawn (26:17.07)
Greta Thunberg.

Shawn (26:30.126)
You

Shawn (26:40.088)
Who spends their life in polymarket? That is the craziest thing to me.

Matt (26:44.25)
I'm not even kidding, hundreds of thousands of bets. There's over, on some of these, there's hundreds of millions of dollars that are being bet on these things.

Shawn (26:51.95)
I mean, I get it, society gambles. They love casinos. They love gambling, but what a weird, it's so crazy. Why?

Matt (27:00.71)
I'm just hoping that Donald Trump doesn't find out that there's so many things on here about will Trump do this or Trump do that because he could certainly sway. He can certainly buy cheap. Like when people like there's no way that's going to happen. Right. And they, you can buy it for 2 cents. So basically if you put in a 2 cent bet, whatever the bet is, right, you put, you put a bet on the yes. And then the, number of cents that you put in on the yes, whatever happens, if it happens, then you get a dollar for that. Right. And if it doesn't happen, you lose all your bets.

Marc (27:09.595)
.

Matt (27:29.65)
They usually start at around two cents. And so he could come in and put in at like a hundred million dollars at two cents. And then he makes it happen. And then he makes all kinds of money because he made.

Shawn (27:38.19)
So you're saying Donald Trump is basically the mafia boss in Pulp Fiction, the movie Pulp Fiction.

Matt (27:44.872)
He could be. I mean, this has the potential for that. I don't know. The polymarket is regulated in any way.

Marc (27:47.917)
That's a.

Very good movie.

Shawn (27:53.9)
Hahaha

Matt (27:54.44)
Okay. I'm actually giving Sean and Mark the points for bringing up a rated R movie and talking about how great it is. Is that the, is that the movie where he quotes scripture before he shoots people in the head? Okay. I've never seen it. I just heard, read about that somewhere.

Marc (27:59.861)
Hey! I'm giving you-

Shawn (28:05.89)
Yeah, that is right.

Sure, sure, sure man.

Matt (28:16.232)
All right, Dutch artist, Eileen van der Velden, that was Eileen van der Velden, created an AI actor named Tilly Norwood and Hollywood is not amused. Tilly, appears in AI generated sketches and social clips has reportedly been in talks with real talent agencies, sparking backlash from SAG-AFTRA and major movie stars.

Shawn (28:21.56)
Try it again, try it again. There, very good.

Matt (28:43.218)
SAG-AFTRA, for those of you who don't know, is the union that represents the Screen Actors Guild and the writers. Or no, maybe it's just actors. They see her as a threat to working actors and to the integrity of human storytelling. It's the latest flash point in the debate over how far AI should go in replacing real creative work. So here's my question, because we talk about AI all the time, but this is what I want to know. At what point does it become morally wrong to use AI for human work? Is there a point?

Shawn (29:12.034)
Matt, here's your answer. Here's your answer. One of your favorite films or at least the music in your favorite film is a Disney film with a dragon in it called Peace Dragon. You love it, right? Right. Do you feel that it was immoral that they hired a cartoon dragon? They should have used a human in a dragon outfit.

Matt (29:13.426)
Okay.

Matt (29:24.584)
Pete's Dragon. I love that song so much.

Matt (29:37.704)
No, no, look, it comes to movies and cartoons, I don't care if it's a real person or an AI-generated person, but there are jobs where it should not be AI, where you should not, for example, Sean, would it be morally wrong to have an AI-generated prophet of the church?

Shawn (29:39.626)
in order to it's immoral math they took away human jobs

Matt (30:01.456)
right? That would be morally wrong.

Shawn (30:01.486)
That's such a hypothetical that would never happen. Who's morally wrong for doing that? Since God is the one that chooses prophets, who's morally wrong for doing that?

Matt (30:06.768)
Of course that could happen!

Marc (30:07.405)
So,

Matt (30:14.14)
You're the one who just called Elder Bednar a robot. right? We say that it's wrong to use AI generated content for church talks. Well, Elder Bednar says that and Elder Gong says that and Elder Suarez said that. Yeah.

Shawn (30:16.961)
Hahaha

Shawn (30:24.576)
No, we don't say that's wrong.

Do they? They said it's wrong, morally wrong? They said don't do it. We advise you not to do it. They didn't say it's morally wrong. Okay, yeah, good point, good point. All right, all right, yeah.

Matt (30:35.304)
I I think that perhaps you would think it's wrong. Like, let's say that that elder Oakes gets to a point where his cognitive functioning is impaired and he were to be like, let's just have chat GPT write my general conference talk. We would say, no, that's a morally wrong choice. He shouldn't do that.

Shawn (30:52.846)
think it's strategically wrong, but I don't know that it's morally wrong.

Matt (30:56.016)
It's morally wrong, Sean. I don't believe that the Holy Ghost can work through chatbots to give us like guidance on spiritual things. all right. So maybe there's no point in which Sean says it's morally wrong to use AI generated stuff.

Shawn (31:04.866)
yeah i don't know who i don't think it's just it's a habit of the never happen

Shawn (31:11.662)
In realistic situation? All right, fine, we'll run with your example. Yeah, okay, fine. It would be morally wrong if the Quorum of the 12 Apostles decides we are going to have an AI prophet. Is that the situation?

Matt (31:23.546)
Yeah. I, well, I want to know is, is there anything else? I think we all agree about that one, Sean. I didn't know it'd be so hard to get you on board with that one. Are there other situations where AI should not be doing human work?

Shawn (31:31.394)
Yeah.

Marc (31:38.316)
I mean if AI is simply taking away the jobs of Hollywood actors, I'm fine with that, but other people, real people, that's a problem.

Shawn (31:46.542)
Like, what kind of real people?

Matt (31:47.912)
Actors aren't real people. That's what I heard Mark say.

Marc (31:50.996)
It will actually contribute to society like McDonald's employees.

Matt (31:56.164)
Okay. What about politicians, Mark? Should we have elected officials?

Shawn (31:58.07)
You feel like it's morally wrong?

Marc (32:00.748)
I'm morally right if we get rid of the politicians, maybe, but for sure the Hollywood people. Just get rid of them, that's fine.

Shawn (32:10.926)
But hang on, Mark, you're saying that it's morally wrong if I run a McDonald's and I get rid of three employees because I have a little computer there and AI is interacting with them to take their orders?

Shawn (32:24.481)
Okay.

Matt (32:24.742)
Yeah, Sean, don't be so serious. But I want to know from you, Mark, is it morally wrong to have an AI-generated President of the United States?

Shawn (32:27.32)
OK, sorry.

Shawn (32:35.022)
You

Matt (32:38.172)
Yeah. I like.

Marc (32:39.615)
I think politicians I would keep as humans and church leaders I think should stay human. Yeah, yeah. Really anything that requires actual judgment and deliberation should stay humans because the fear of being wrong is what helps people be more correct. So a judge will not just throw anyone in jail because I might...

Matt (32:46.15)
Bishops?

Shawn (33:04.054)
Okay, but Matt, you talking about, now let's nerd out a little bit, agentic AI, like self-acting super AI? Or are you talking about, like in the example you gave with this actress, Eileen Vander Velden is really the one telling Tilly Norwood what to do, what to say, how to act, where to go. So there really are humans behind Tilly Norwood. So are you suggesting that we shouldn't have a president if there's five people behind them?

an AI president and there's five humans behind them making the president do what they want him to do. That's different from an agentic AI that doesn't exist yet. Like someone who, an AI that is, what is it called? Super AI that, yeah. There's a difference, right?

Matt (33:45.606)
Yeah, can yeah, the super AI is what they call those. Well, sure there is in practicality, there's a difference, but I just think there's whether it's agentic or whether it's a person working behind the scenes using AI to do it, or it's a basically what you're going to see with these Hollywood people is they're going to create multiple actors and there's going to be a company that creates these AIs and uses them right the way that we use cartoons or something like that. But there are some jobs where we would say.

Marc (34:06.571)
So,

Matt (34:14.588)
We don't want you interacting with this interface that looks like a person, sounds like a person, talks like a person, but really it's being pre-programmed to respond to you in certain ways based on whatever coding that the creator of it decides to put in it, right? The reason I'm asking, well, because we're doing this survey right now where we're asking members of the church if it's appropriate to use AI for certain things. like members of the church's responses are all over the place.

Shawn (34:30.39)
And your list is...

Marc (34:35.851)
So,

Matt (34:43.654)
Right, so for example, like, should I use AI to confess my sins?

Shawn (34:49.838)
What? What does that mean?

Matt (34:50.992)
Right. There are people that like go to AI to talk about like their human problems. Right. And so.

Shawn (34:58.171)
you're saying go to AI and say, I'd like to repent. And I want to confess my sins here.

Matt (35:02.49)
Yeah. And some people say that's totally okay.

Marc (35:03.642)
I mean, I.

I think you could use it to get some insights like, Hey, do I need to go to the Bishop about this topic? Maybe get some insights on that.

Matt (35:15.72)
There's, so 50 % of members of our church say it's inappropriate to use AI to discuss personal worthiness. But there's about 20 % that say it's okay.

Shawn (35:27.032)
Wow, that's interesting.

Matt (35:29.19)
Yeah. Right. it's or like if you have like, if you need like a life coach, right? There's like, I'd say over there's about 30 % that say you should use AI for us a spiritual, a partner or coach to support spiritual growth.

Marc (35:44.082)
.

Shawn (35:47.65)
Matt, have you concluded at this point though? Are there any positions or any cases where it would be actually immoral? It would be a sin to do this? Or are you still just asking the question?

Matt (35:55.9)
I it's immoral to use AI to aid in moral decision making or to take the place of the Holy Ghost.

Shawn (36:05.87)
Oh, okay, here's the cool Matt Miles perspective. All right, all right. You're saying this becomes a source of truth or guidance, a false idol in essence, because instead of relying on our prayers and doing the hard work, the wrestle before God, we will just go to someone else telling us. It compromises our agency and our faith, where our faith is placed. Ooh, Matt, I said those words as if you were saying them and they are true and powerful.

Matt (36:21.576)
We just.

Matt (36:32.804)
I like that you said them. I'm giving you the points for saying them because I didn't say them. You said them and I agree with them. Let me, let me ask you this question. This is like tangentially related. We asked this question about if it's okay to use AI to help find converts, potential converts, right? Because right now missionaries spend a lot of time doing social media missionary work where they're interacting with people who say there's some ad on social media and they say, I want to know more about the church.

Shawn (36:37.294)
Ha

Matt (37:02.024)
And then the missionaries reach out and say, what do you want to know about the church? And then they answer a question or try to set up a meeting with them or something. What if you had an AI chatbot? That's just like an elder. I don't know. It's just whatever. It's just an elder chat, a chatbot missionary, missionary chatbot that filters through all of that stuff and finds people for missionaries to teach, but they only interact with the person with the missionaries after they've gone through the chatbot process.

Marc (37:04.809)
So,

Marc (37:27.363)
I don't like that.

Shawn (37:29.4)
Hahaha

Matt (37:29.866)
okay.

Marc (37:30.793)
I like missionaries and I like for missionaries to have that little bit of the occasional nut job or pushback or anti just keeps you humble.

Matt (37:40.456)
grow their faith a little bit.

Marc (37:41.936)
Yeah, be proven, as Elder Eyring would say.

Matt (37:46.948)
I like that. What do you say, Sean?

Shawn (37:48.482)
Matt, it's a good question because right now many, many, many businesses are considering this idea that, okay, if we do a good job at marketing and we get 200 people reaching out to us, but because we're busy, we can only get back to a hundred of them, then we're losing opportunities. And so a lot of them are saying, well, let's include AI workflows in order to make sure 200 people get responded to and we're capturing more, it's more efficient. And you're saying, well, why not apply that to missionary work?

I think at this point, as of today, I'd say, yeah, apply it. Like if it's just a foot in the door to get people to make sure where someone's responding, whereas a sleeping missionary might not respond and then that person on Facebook loses interest, do it. Yeah, do it, why not? But then I like what you said, or I like what I said, where it crosses a line if you start relying on it to teach the gospel or to, yeah, then it's a problem.

Marc (38:23.953)
.

Matt (38:40.592)
Right, like we all had experiences on our missions where there was somebody we thought would be no way interested in the gospel and then they were. And I think there's some value in like missionaries talking with people that they otherwise think would have no interest in the church.

Marc (38:54.269)
And you can usually tell if it's a robot talking to you. And so if someone's really wanting to ask the questions of the soul and they realize this is just templebot.ai talking to me, then well, they got, they don't even care about me at all, do they? And they're seven times the devil before they start.

Matt (39:12.327)
Yeah.

Matt (39:15.708)
Yeah. Well, okay. We're going to move to the big question. Okay. So this is a new thing that's happened in the Trump administration. By the way, I will just full disclosure. I've been advocating for the U S government to do this for at least 15 years, but Trump. Yeah. Trump has finally started doing this. I think it's the, businessman in him.

Shawn (39:15.714)
Hahaha

Shawn (39:29.871)
are you serious?

Marc (39:34.427)
gonna bomb

Shawn (39:36.312)
Wait, Matt, so this is one of the elements of the second Trump presidency where you're going look back and go, he did a great job here.

Matt (39:46.01)
I definitely approve of this, but it raises a very interesting question. So the US Energy Department just reworked a $2.2 billion loan with Lithium Americas to take a 5 % equity stake in both the company and its Thackerpass lithium mine in Nevada. The move adds more than $100 million in new equity to help stabilize the project after falling lithium prices. This is something completely new in the United States under the Trump administration.

Shawn (39:47.969)
wow.

Matt (40:14.396)
The government is now asking for an ownership stake in companies they bail out. So this isn't the first time. This is at least the second and possibly more when the Trump administration is bails out an industry, they say, just like they would do on the shark tank. We would like a percentage of ownership in your company in exchange for the money that we're going to give you. So the big question is, is this socialism? Marx defined communism as people owning the means of production.

Pure socialism is defined as a system where all of the means of production are owned and run by the government and or a cooperative or nonprofit groups. So my question is, is this newest use of government power, sorry, is this newest use of government power leading the United States to greater socialism?

Marc (41:04.432)
Yes. 100%.

Shawn (41:05.346)
Yes, yes, yes. It's anti-capitalist, it's anti-free market, it's...

Matt (41:08.252)
Wow.

Marc (41:11.921)
I think it's anti- don't know, but maybe it's... anti-Catholic, anti-Mormon, I don't know, the whole thing's bad. I think it stinks.

Shawn (41:15.149)
Anti what?

Shawn (41:18.7)
Yeah.

Matt (41:21.372)
You don't like this at all, Mark? The one thing Trump does that I love you hate.

Marc (41:25.391)
That sounds about right.

Shawn (41:26.904)
Good job, Mark. Good job, Mark. I'm agree.

Shawn (41:34.58)
Matt (41:34.862)
No.

Matt (41:39.585)
I didn't like the insincerity with which he said it.

Shawn (41:43.688)
judgmental, judgmental.

Marc (41:43.714)
I that was just the Lord, but my God.

Matt (41:49.384)
So wait, you guys have to tell me how this is socialism.

Shawn (41:55.534)
It's not socialism, but it's socialistic principles. It's on its way to socialism. And it just violates the idea that government exists to protect our rights and to give us the freedoms. It's not here to babysit. It's not here to control. It's not here to meddle. It's not here to be involved in the free exchange that we as humans thrive in. Like it's horrible. To me, it's horrible.

Marc (42:19.471)
Part of life is freedom to fail and part of capitalism is freedom to fail. So if lithium fails, okay, a lot of people might be hurt, but we will find something else because humanity will. Thank you. Thank you. You get some points for that.

Shawn (42:28.526)
you on Mark.

Shawn (42:32.034)
Well, sad mark.

Matt (42:36.456)
But lithium is a precious metal that we need to build batteries and all of these sorts of things. And so if this mine fails, then the Chinese are likely to purchase the mine. Somebody else is likely to purchase the mine. Other countries that don't mind being socialist will purchase the mine. So why shouldn't the United States bail out a company on our line?

Shawn (42:53.646)
that. Elon Musk, Elon Musk, Elon Musk will go purchase the mine. It'll be fine. Like if there was a real opportunity there and it was really worth saving, there is some Sam Dark. Sam Dark, the capitalist would go in and use his ingenuity and his capitalist passions and he would solve it. If there's value there to be had, he will. If there's not,

Matt (43:17.0)
Well, maybe that's what our business person president is doing. He sees value there and he does want to just take it for himself because that's selfish. So he says, let's save it. Let's have the entire American public benefit from the wealth that's going to be generated from this. And we can all share the wealth as that company grows. The US can sell its shares in that company and pay back the loan and pay back all of the debt and we'll all be happier.

Marc (43:17.158)
Mm.

Marc (43:40.668)
I think we all know I have a personal fondness for a certain World War II dictator, but I recognize the evil. And one of those things is this kind of where it starts.

it's a foot in the door for socialism because if the government will bail it out and fix it and save it, it de-incentivizes the people to work hard to think of new solutions. It stagnates, what's the word I want to use, ingenuity. And I just, I don't like it. No sir.

Shawn (44:11.116)
No sir, I'm with Mark. Why?

Matt (44:11.368)
You guys make me feel bad. I'm happy. it's like, finally the conservative on the show can say something he likes about Trump and then all of the Trump supporters will be like, see, he is a conservative. And then you guys have to go and make it sound like I'm like a some liberal socialist or something like that.

Marc (44:27.991)
I would never assume-

Shawn (44:30.606)
What you're advocating for is, yeah, it's on the path to socialism. but when has Trump ever been conservative Republican? When has he ever been traditional conservative Republican? He's not. He's not at all, especially fiscally.

Matt (44:35.323)
The Trump administration policy. Okay.

Marc (44:37.541)
terrible.

Matt (44:50.086)
I'll let Markie.

Marc (44:50.127)
You like these? There's a lot of them.

Shawn (44:52.718)
hahahaha

Matt (44:55.272)
Well, this has been a very interesting show, you guys. We started with polygamy, heavy, heavy, heavy in polygamy, and ended up talking about Trump as a socialist. That's kind of fun.

Marc (45:03.077)
We bring back polygamy and then all of Trump's ex-wives can be wives again. It'll be great.

Shawn (45:04.014)
And Matt is a socialist.

Shawn (45:11.862)
gee.

Matt (45:13.32)
We're gonna let that be the last word. That was great. Thanks you guys for joining us. Hey listener, thanks for joining us this week. Let us know what you think about some of the wild and crazy things that Sean said, because he's the only one saying wild and crazy things this week.

Marc (45:15.909)
Hey.

Marc (45:26.661)
I just said, not really, not really. Kind of, hold on, cut this out, cut it out.

Matt (45:33.712)
Not happening. Talk to you guys again next week.

Shawn (45:37.198)
See ya.