Matt (00:01.425)
Hey everybody and welcome to the Latter Day Lens. I'm your host Matt. With me as always is Sean and we're glad to have Porter back with us. Welcome Porter.

Porter (00:09.442)
Thank you.

Matt (00:11.057)
Porter just finished another semester at BYU-Idaho. He's going strong.

Shawn (00:14.553)
congrats. Congrats.

Porter (00:16.609)
Yep, just one left.

Matt (00:17.423)
Yeah, he finished one of my classes. That's kind of a toughie. Was it tough Porter? Or was it not so bad?

Porter (00:24.525)
When you described it at the beginning, I understand why you said that it was tough because I'm sure a year ago it was very tough. But because of the focus on coding in that class and because of advances in AI, the class is very easy now. So.

Matt (00:43.857)
Good. I love to hear that. I can push people in other ways now. Hey, Porter. Hey, did you learn anything from the interviews you did at the end of the class? I was surprised as I was listening to some of those interviews. The variety of attitudes about the Middle East right now. you, cause you talked to what? Like 10 or 12 people about the Middle East. Were you surprised at all?

Shawn (00:47.094)
Ha ha ha ha ha ha ha

Porter (00:48.641)
Yeah, you can just make people write more.

Porter (01:04.897)
Yeah.

I was not surprised by people's responses to that question. For context for listeners, we did a project where I just surveyed a bunch of people about political attitudes about stuff. most people I talked to did not have strong opinions about the Middle East.

Matt (01:25.041)
That surprised me.

Porter (01:26.952)
I wasn't that surprised. What I was surprised by was people's inability generally to say the first three to five words that come into their head. You'll say one of the, couple of the questions are what are the first three to five words you think of when you think of Democrats or Republicans or Donald Trump? And people would get paralyzed at that question. I think it's because what they heard was explain your opinion about Democrats in three to five words, but

Matt (01:28.932)
okay.

Matt (01:36.069)
You

Shawn (01:37.216)
Yeah.

Matt (01:54.817)
yeah.

Porter (01:55.916)
So they would think for a long time and try to give me something like really good, but one or two people were like, yeah, blue, donkey.

Matt (02:03.783)
Yeah, a lot of people. Yeah, it just sort of surprises me that, right, we could be at war with the country and that people have just such mild attitudes about it. That sort of surprised me.

Porter (02:16.02)
Yeah, yeah.

Matt (02:17.339)
Yeah. Well, we'll talk about that a little bit later on in the podcast. So we'll start out with this listener. So I started posting more stuff on YouTube and so I'm, you know, I'm trying to read comments from the YouTube because I like to make those listeners feel heard. So this guy at Joshua Hill, nine zero six three says, neither party has ever been fully aligned with the teachings of the church. I personally am more conservative and politically libertarian.

And I feel that this is more aligned with Christ's teachings than full of Republican or Democrat. Is that how you would describe yourself, Sean? Like I don't know, you're a conservative and maybe a libertarian.

Shawn (02:48.746)
Hmm.

Shawn (02:54.646)
probably. Yeah. More, more libertarian than, yeah, I guess so. I mean, there's lots of liberal ideas that I think are more aligned with gospel, but yeah, mostly libertarian.

Matt (03:05.411)
Yeah, to me libertarian is when Sean like rails against lukewarm people to me that's libertarians. They're just so lukewarm. Like, let people do whatever they want to do. I'm like, that's a way of saying nobody should take responsibility for other people's behavior. And that's like lukewarm. And when it comes to government, right, this idea of just like, let people do whatever they want, as long as they don't hurt somebody, as if that's an easier way to like define it just feels so lukewarm, Sean libertarian.

Porter (03:10.346)
You

Shawn (03:31.124)
you're saying that a libertarian political stance seems lukewarm. Is that what saying? yeah. Okay, I'll have to think about that. Cause you're right. I think scripture is abundant against lukewarmness. Wow. You think, okay. So that's going to cause me to do some deep thinking. You think libertarians are, have a laissez faire lukewarm attitude. man. Yeah, you've rocked me, Matt. Okay. I got to think about that.

Matt (03:35.267)
So lukewarm, yeah.

Matt (03:42.439)
Yeah.

Matt (03:52.815)
I'm right, right Porter?

Porter (03:54.471)
Yeah, yeah, I think you are. haven't thought about it like that before, a lot of libertarian, like, it ignores the things that we could accomplish, you know, as a people with the government, that I think is, you know, hot or cold, whichever one you want to say.

Shawn (04:13.814)
Man, now I gotta think deeply about that.

Matt (04:14.279)
I mean, I said it just a little bit to poke at you, Sean. I don't want to like throw you off your game, but there is a little bit about like when I talked to libertarians, it sort of feels like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof, right? Where he's like, you're right. And then somebody says something opposite and they're like, you're right. And then they're like, well, they can't be both right. And he's like, you're also right. No conversations I have with libertarian about like something they're like,

Porter (04:19.912)
No.

Shawn (04:32.415)
That's not a libertarian.

Matt (04:39.251)
let them do what they want. And you're like, but that could cause some harm. Like, well, you're also right. Then that maybe would be wrong if it's going to harm people. Like, we can't have it both ways. You're right. Yeah, you can't have it all. Yeah, it just feels to me like that's what libertarians do in political conversations. They're just like,

Shawn (04:43.668)
you

Shawn (04:51.816)
I can't speak for libertarians, but I can speak for myself. Have I ever sounded like that to you? I've never been like that. There you go. Okay.

Matt (04:54.823)
No, no, you're not that way, Sean. 100 % you're not that way.

Shawn (05:01.322)
maybe I'm the better representation for libertarian.

Matt (05:04.526)
Yeah, I have a real... Okay, so back to what... Go ahead.

Shawn (05:06.72)
But the problem, well, quick, the problem with your analogy is you would suggest that when the Lord says in Revelation, I know they works, they're neither hot nor cold. I would that they're hot or cold and not lukewarm. You're suggesting that who's the hot and the cold in that scenario, Matt? Is the Republican hot or cold?

Porter (05:12.901)
.

Matt (05:21.295)
It doesn't matter whoever comes in hot on let's say the Democrats come in hot, the Republicans come in cold and the Libertarians just hop right in the middle and say, yeah, you know, the Republicans are probably too far and Democrats are maybe too far. We're just right here in the middle.

Porter (05:34.286)
I don't know if that's accurate. My favorite libertarian think tank is the Cato Institute. And they'll put out stuff that sometimes solidly super aligns with what one party or the other is trying to do. More often, I feel like it's critical of what one party or other is I feel like libertarians throw a lot of criticism.

Matt (05:41.105)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (05:48.327)
Mmm.

Shawn (05:56.97)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I don't think we're lukewarm. I don't think we're lukewarm, Matt. I think we're very opinionated, mostly against what both the Republican and the Democrat parties do, which is we want to use government like you said it, Porter. You said it right there. We can do lot of great things with government. And I think the libertarian stance is there are very few things that can be done well with a collective government. Very few. And most of the things that both sides do are problematic and cause problems. Yeah.

Matt (05:57.371)
no solutions.

Porter (06:25.336)
Yeah, I can get behind that.

Matt (06:25.413)
Well, and so that's why I think this listener says Jesus would be a libertarian because we just go back to the old war in heaven, agency is so important. But it ignores the idea that Jesus said he was going to create a kingdom. He said, my kingdom is not of this earth. The church is the kingdom of God. Jesus is into government and he's into ruling and agency should be respected. But I think Jesus is a king and that doesn't sound like a libertarian to me.

Porter (06:35.908)
See.

Shawn (06:55.83)
can't mix the way that... We're talking about a secular government versus an internal government. You can't mix them.

Matt (06:57.841)
Thanks.

Porter (07:00.131)
Thank

Matt (07:00.837)
That's right. Well, tell the ancient Jews that right? Tell them that the Messiah was about religious stuff and not secular stuff. They won't believe you. And I don't know. I remember when they were saying, Hey, King Saul, let's have a king. And he's like, no, no, God is your king. You have the judges system because God is your king. Like, it didn't sound like he wanted like a separation of church and state back then. And I don't want to, we want to

Shawn (07:27.958)
And how did that all work out for King Solomon's government? How'd that go?

Matt (07:32.803)
It's all, it's all leading, Sean. It's all leading to the one world government of Jesus, the King, one King to rule them all. Something like that.

Porter (07:44.654)
Hahaha

Matt (07:46.735)
All right, well, hey, thanks Joshua Hill for writing in. We'll move on to the thought provoker this week. Okay, so first up, I read in the news that the US government is soon going to start registering men ages 18 to 25 for the military draft automatically instead of having them sign themselves up through the Selective Service. Men will have their names added to the list using information from other government databases. While the White House has not yet ruled out the possibility of a future draft,

Any decision to actually start one would still require authorization from Congress. The question I have is would a military draft be morally wrong?

Shawn (08:27.318)
Dude, what a crazy, what are you talking? Like when I read this, I'm like, seriously? Like they're gonna compel a draft and okay, good, there's process for that. They have to go through Congress, but what?

Matt (08:37.127)
Well, you know, do you know what else has to go through Congress through the Constitution, Sean? War. So, I mean, anytime somebody says it has to go through Congress, I doubt that anymore because Congress just seems to rubber stamp whatever the president wants to do. But yeah, this, so it used to be, Sean, when you and I were younger, you had to sign up for the Selective Service. And if you didn't, there was a, it was a felony. And now the government has announced we're going to automatically sign everybody up for the Selective Service, which is, yeah, for sure. Yeah, you can't.

Porter (08:42.082)
you

Shawn (09:02.614)
Did you sign up for the Selective Service? When and how? How?

Matt (09:06.823)
When you're a senior in high school, like there's this form, they bring it to school and you had to like fill out this form and then you, you did it, Sean. If you didn't do it, then you would have been charged with a felony by now. But this

Shawn (09:11.606)
I never did that. I don't remember that.

Shawn (09:18.112)
So you agreed to be drafted before your mission.

Matt (09:22.117)
Yeah, you have to give them your name and address and your contact information so that if they if they ever decide to instate a draft, they can they already have the database of everybody who's eligible to be drafted.

Shawn (09:33.396)
But you weren't consenting to be drafted.

Matt (09:36.005)
Sure. I mean, that's what that is. It's like, if they decide to implement a draft, then yeah, I could have been drafted.

Shawn (09:37.92)
Dude, this is crazy.

So did Porter consent to be drafted?

Matt (09:43.857)
Yeah.

Porter (09:44.575)
I signed up for Selective Service because they made me.

Shawn (09:45.654)
Do you remember that Porter?

Matt (09:48.005)
Yeah, they make you.

Porter (09:49.696)
Yeah, it was on the computer by the time I did it, it, and it was pretty quick. I don't see a big difference between automatically signing people up and forcing people to sign up under penalty of law.

Shawn (09:59.68)
forcing you to consent. Yeah, what's the difference?

Matt (10:03.783)
No, the question is though, they haven't, yeah, yeah, they haven't done the draft yet, but they've, but this process makes it so that it's much easier. Like should Trump decide, hey, next week we're going to start drafting people and sending them to war. They could do that, right? Super easy.

Shawn (10:07.112)
is a draft in general, moral.

Shawn (10:20.022)
I'll play ball here, dude. I'll take the stance that it's absolutely completely immoral. Sure.

Porter (10:27.359)
Thank

Matt (10:27.473)
Tell me why, Sean.

Shawn (10:29.748)
Alma 43, 45, right? They were fighting for their homes and their liberties. They were fighting for their wives and their children. And it was their duty to defend themselves from death and bondage. Well, a draft is not a form of bondage, perhaps. Like if I choose to defend myself against an outside invader or something like that, it's in the name of I'm defending myself against death and bondage. But if my own government comes to me and says,

I'm going to force you into bondage to go serve in Vietnam. Is that not the same thing? I have a right to defend myself against death and bondage, whether it's against my government or an invading country. No?

Matt (11:02.171)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (11:10.023)
Would you agree with him, Porter?

Porter (11:13.489)
Moroni, the same guy who wrote the title of liberty, did a draft. He compelled the king men to defend their country or be put to death. Here's what I think. I don't think a draft is by itself immoral, but I think wars can really be immoral. I think instituting a draft for a war that's not moral.

It's extra super special, immoral. That's very bad. So when you think about like Moroni, when their homeland was being invaded and he compelled people to defend it so that they could all survive and protect their liberty, I don't think that's wrong. It's a necessary organizational step to preserve everybody's life and freedom. And I think we've seen that like in World War II.

Shawn (11:59.382)
Okay.

Matt (12:08.273)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (12:08.534)
But Porter, I think you've made the case why it's immoral because what you're basically saying is someone needs to pass judge. Like you're saying a draft is okay only if the war is a moral war. And there's only one entity that decides whether a war is moral or not. And that is your federal government. Those are the same, your government, right? And those are the same people that are drafting you. So to me,

Matt (12:28.263)
Congress.

Matt (12:32.071)
Yeah.

Shawn (12:36.816)
I think in your answer, you're saying it. If you are willing to submit to an all-powerful government to decide what war is moral and not moral, and you're also saying a draft is okay, then you're submitting to their moral choices.

Matt (12:51.877)
I'm going back to the social contract, Sean. We choose to give up individual liberties in exchange for the benefits and things that government can provide for us. And if my government decides that they need my help in order to defend our country, then I think that a draft is totally moral as long as. So to me, is the as long as is as long as everybody is treated equally. So sometimes with a draft,

Shawn (12:54.463)
Eww.

Matt (13:19.663)
If you're rich enough, you can pay to have someone else serve in your place. Or if you know the system well enough, you can get an exemption or you can have like, you could say, it's against my religion. So I don't want to fight. So as long as you say everybody, everybody, there's no exemption for anybody. Everybody is, has to go serve. and as long as people in the military are treated equally, then I think that a draft is fine because that's what we agree to.

Shawn (13:43.36)
So would you... Okay, so the anti-Nephi-Lehi's who said we shed blood our whole lives, we've made a covenant with God, our religion, to not do this. And so people are coming to invade us and we decide to bury our weapons of war and we'd rather die than do this. You would sit, no, you wouldn't say that's okay. You would say, no, you guys have to fight because everyone's an equal draft, everyone is held the same, you guys have to fight.

Matt (13:59.047)
That's okay.

Matt (14:08.901)
Yep. You have to fight or you have to leave the country or go to jail.

Porter (14:10.508)
Well, with.

Shawn (14:14.078)
So you would have done. Yeah, go ahead.

Porter (14:14.231)
Well, with a draft, the draft, this this is a, this becomes a matter of life and death. This is where the social contract, where the rubber meets the road with the social contract. So I can, you know, sign, I can live in the United States, be a citizen, sign up for selective service. And then, and when a draft comes down, ultimately you've got to decide.

how much you trust that going and complying with the draft is right, how much that's gonna put your life at risk and make the rational decision. And we've seen this, like in World War II, people really trusted their government and trusted that that was a worthy reason to be drafted and go fight. And for the most part, people did that. And then you get to Korea.

and people lose a lot of that faith. then you get past Korea to Vietnam and you have thousands and thousands of people burning their draft cards. They get drafted and they say, no, not worth it. You can put me in jail if you want. And so it really becomes, it's where like the most basic element of rational decision-making has to take place no matter what it was on paper before that.

Matt (15:36.519)
The other reason I think it's moral, Sean, is that if we as a country decide we're going to go to war, that it's somehow, right, the question of the morality of the war, you said it's decided by the federal government. It's not. It's decided by the people who share the burden of the war. And so that's why a draft is completely moral because when you have to sacrifice your son and I have to sacrifice my son, then we as a people start to decide, wait,

Should we be doing this or should we not be doing this? Whereas if it's just the people that are doing it for a job fighting in the war, as a country, we're not shouldering that burden. We're not bearing that load. So a draft is the only way to equalize the burden that everybody shares in a war. so then as a people, do. So Porter's example of Vietnam, Americans decided it's not worth it. And so the president was voted out of office in the middle of Vietnam. In World War II, we were like, this is worth it. And so.

FDR got re-elected time after time because we were as a nation supportive of World War II. So that's why I say a draft is actually, think you should, if you declare war, a draft should be automatic and you should have to have a draft because if you're gonna go to war, then everybody should share that burden. And if you're not willing to say everybody shares the burden, then don't go to war.

Shawn (16:54.678)
Matt, but what you're saying is literally you want to give the power to Donald Trump to say, all right, Matt, your kids, your kids are going to Iran. That's what you're saying. it would, but, and it sure, would take another four years for us to vote him out of office, but for four years, the entire country, including your kids are in Iran?

Matt (17:12.231)
Power is in Congress's hands, right? And so if America doesn't want their kids in Iran, then they will write to their member of Congress and Congress, they have elections every two years, and they'll do something about it. Like to me, that's, in my mind, that's the way the Constitution was written. That's the way it was set up, is that the power, that war should rarely happen. And so you give it to the institution that is accountable most directly to the people. And then the people are the ones that decide, should we be doing this or should we not? And we've got it all reversed.

Porter (17:40.69)
And for that reason, I think because we have a Congress, I think a draft in the United States is at least institutionally more moral than Captain Moroni's draft of the Kingman. Because he, yeah, he had to make the unilateral decision to fight right now or I'll just kill you. And I don't think that that was immoral for that context.

Matt (17:57.495)
Join or die.

Matt (18:04.454)
Yeah.

Porter (18:11.051)
I think Captain Moroni was in the right or at least justified, but this all hinges on our system operating how it was designed to where members of Congress are affected by laws and by congressional actions in the same way that everyone else is. Like you were saying, that you need, you know, most of our, all of our congressmen are too old to be drafted at this point, but

that like their kids or their grandkids are getting drafted if they institute a draft. And if that's the case, then yeah, I feel like it's pretty, pretty more.

Matt (18:41.681)
have to go. Yeah.

Shawn (18:48.246)
But Matt, what's the history? At what point was it after World War II where the military decided, wait a minute, if we can just make joining the military selectively a compelling life career, then we can actually grow a really powerful military. Someone made that decision and it moved in that direction and it's been that way for a long time. I like that, right?

Look, I'm willing, I am willing to risk my life in defense of my country in exchange for a good career and a retirement that supports my family. That's how it is now, right?

Matt (19:20.423)
To me, that is more immoral because that's allowing somebody the career choice to kill people, right? You can say for a job, I want to sign up, but you're basically hiring mercenaries. And in my opinion, war...

Shawn (19:23.353)
Why though? That's free market.

Shawn (19:34.354)
Why is that less moral than forcing me to kill people?

Porter (19:34.386)
Thank

Matt (19:38.299)
because you should only go to war out of necessity. So fine, train them up, right? If we want to say we don't want to like have our citizenry not be trained, fine, like train people up or something like that. But it should never be like you get mad, Sean, when we say, people choose for a career to be a politician, but we're never outraged that people can choose for a career to kill people, to train on how to like use destructive murderous devices, right?

Shawn (19:56.138)
Nom.

Shawn (20:00.52)
I'm.

Shawn (20:04.822)
But it boils back down to Porter's original comment of whether you trust your government to make the right moral decisions to go to war or not. Right? Like you're not, like your son is not, you don't judge your son for joining the military because you're like, you're just gonna kill people for money. No, that's not what he's doing. It's a career offering. The chances of him going to have to do that are pretty low and it's a great choice.

Matt (20:14.063)
Yeah, well, so...

Porter (20:14.418)
But it gets a little...

Matt (20:22.087)
for a career. Right.

Matt (20:31.217)
Yeah, I have no problem with my son joining the army and what he's doing in the army. But I think that if I'm judging the morality of the situation, it is less moral to say we're going to have an army of hired military soldiers than it is to say we're going to have a military that like the Constitution sets up the commander in chief when called into service by Congress. We have we don't have a standing militia in the United States. It's supposed to be a militia of the National Guard that's ready to go.

when called into service. But this idea of a career military, a person who's a commander in chief all the time, that was never envisioned by our founders. And so to me, that's less moral to say, we're gonna have a standing army, we're gonna have the most mighty military in the world, and they're gonna be professionally trained, than to say, we're only gonna go to war when we need to, and when we need to, everyone's gonna shoulder their fair share. That to me is the more moral approach.

Shawn (21:17.737)
You're a cop.

Shawn (21:25.821)
You see you're a Calvinist. You're a Calvinist. The idea the idea that that use the government can play God and say we are going to force you all. We were just going to choose which of you is going to go and kill people or die and which of you won't we will choose for you as opposed to God's plan, which is hey, listen, we've got an issue. We've got a choices here. There's opposition in all things and you need to exercise your agency. I give you this God God like power.

to choose to go and defend or risk your life or not to or die.

Porter (21:58.677)
Well, the more the moral difference is not between voluntary or compelled compulsory military service. The moral difference there that Matt was making, I think, is between having a militia style military that we only have one when we really need one or a standing army that's active all the time, killing people all over the world without Congress knowing about it, that we don't know like

When has the military not been active out there doing something since World War II? And how many times have we, like, as the people of the United States, even known about what they're doing? We've got, like, millions of members of the military. What are they doing right now? When there's, a war happening, we know what they're doing. They're going and fighting that war. But when there's not, what in the world is that used for, you know?

Matt (22:45.478)
Mm-hmm.

Matt (22:54.791)
Porter gets the points, because he said what I was saying better than I did. Who you giving the points to, Sean?

Shawn (23:04.178)
I have to stand my ground. I'm giving it to myself. don't think you can argue that it is moral to compel people. Like the scriptures are abundant. Men are free to choose liberty and eternal life or to choose captivity and death. Yeah, I don't think the Moroni story is a gospel doctrine lesson in how to treat war. I think it was contextual to the time. Maybe there's situational ethics involved there, maybe.

Matt (23:07.227)
Come to yourself.

Porter (23:08.268)
Hahaha!

Porter (23:13.516)
Do you think Moroni was wrong?

Shawn (23:33.448)
I would need to know more about why and how and what. I would say at the surface level, yeah, I don't think that was the right thing to do. I don't think you can force people to kill other people.

Porter (23:41.375)
Well, he gave them the choice. He gave them the choice that you just said, which was you can fight and be free or you can die. You can choose liberty or death. But also with the, with the King men was a little bit different. They were like rebelling. And so their, their activities were going to endanger everybody else. So it was like either. If we do nothing.

Matt (23:53.969)
Matt, do you want to give Porter the points,

Shawn (24:05.898)
That is a way different situation. That's right. Yeah.

Porter (24:09.055)
then we're all gonna be killed because of you knuckleheads. So either we're gonna kill you now and hopefully have a better chance or you guys can help.

Shawn (24:18.174)
Yeah, I have no problem saying in that situation, I don't think the right choice would be to force people to go to war and kill other people or be dead. Yeah, I don't think that was right. No, I don't think that's right. I don't think that violates the doctrine.

Porter (24:28.063)
This would be like if World War II had happened right in the middle of the Civil War and we said to the South, all right, you can either stop with this nonsense and help or we can just kill you so we can focus on this other thing.

Matt (24:28.401)
Okay.

Shawn (24:40.978)
that's interesting. Yeah, we can talk about that. I mean, that would be a different discussion, but I think generally I get the points because the principle of agency Trump, your, your love of government controlling our lives.

Matt (24:47.111)
All right, Sean gives himself the points.

Porter (24:48.529)
Hehehehe

Porter (24:53.098)
spoken like a libertarian.

Matt (24:53.456)
Alright.

Alright, so the next topic, Anthropic recently released a powerful new AI tool called Claude Mythos, but they are keeping it private because it is dangerously good at hacking. The tool can find hidden flaws in almost any computer system, which could allow criminals to shut down power grids or banks. The developers worry that if this AI falls into the wrong hands, it could allow almost anyone to hack into critical systems like power grids or hospitals. So here's the question, is AI developing into a realm

in which the government ought to restrict who has access to the technology, just like what we do with nuclear weapons.

Porter (25:33.989)
Now I have a I have an important detail that I found out when reading about this Anthropic did release this model to like 40 large companies and some significant like software developers so So so that they can use that technology to uncover

Shawn (25:51.264)
For what purpose? Hang on, for what purpose?

Matt (25:51.452)
Well there.

Porter (25:58.139)
their own vulnerabilities and improve their security before other people get ahold it. But I think the importance of that detail is people who should not have this are going to have this eventually. you can't let the cat... Imagine if nuclear weapons were invisible and could be wirelessly transmitted by anyone at any time over the internet.

Matt (26:13.947)
Well, nuclear weapons.

Porter (26:25.402)
How effective do you think we would be at regulating nuclear weapons?

Matt (26:30.791)
You're saying it's impossible to regulate this.

Porter (26:34.214)
100 % the government can try to regulate this. Good luck. They can't even regulate healthcare or guns or...

Matt (26:41.831)
Wow.

Stop! We regulate nuclear proliferation. We stop people from getting...

Porter (26:48.876)
Nuclear, but nuclear weapons require like massive factories, decades of technological advancement and engineering, mining to be able to extract nuclear materials. The infrastructure required to build a nuclear bomb is so easy to identify and prevent. The infrastructure needed to download a program that already exists out in the world.

and 40 plus companies already have access to it, it's completely undetectable. The government will be able to do absolutely nothing to stop people from getting a hold of it.

Matt (27:27.367)
I can't create a device that monitors everything somebody does on their computer. And if ever I see somebody downloading something like this, then I just send in the Gestapo and then I grab them and say, hey, you can't download that.

Porter (27:33.214)
No.

Porter (27:41.76)
If you want, okay, yeah. So if you want, if we want like a big brother situation where every computer that's like manufactured in the United States has to have government spyware on it.

Matt (27:56.008)
has to be registered. That's right. This is of course it's possible to do this Porter. You're just not thinking like creatively enough. Of course.

Porter (27:58.658)
Porter (28:03.244)
Then people will just people just build people just build their own computers.

Shawn (28:03.254)
You're not thinking like a Marxist, Porter. Think like a Marxist.

Matt (28:09.767)
We do this with nuclear weapons. see, you watch the components like new egg goes away. You can't just like if you're buying, we notice, you're buying a computer chip. and by the way, RAM's like in demand. somebody bought some RAM. Let's see what they're doing with that RAM. Like we could, this is as possible Porter.

Porter (28:27.904)
You can't, they can't even do that with guns in America.

Shawn (28:28.256)
Okay, but you have to, okay, but your question, Matt, is not whether it's possible or not. It's whether or not the government ought to. Let's assume that it's possible or not possible, but should the government attempt it?

Matt (28:35.056)
It should have.

Matt (28:41.563)
Yes, the answer is yes.

Porter (28:42.339)
Sure, yeah, sure. I think because it's impossible, it's a waste of time. If it was possible without, you know, disintegrating democracy in the process, then maybe.

Matt (28:45.125)
Yeah, that's right. Porter gets the point.

Ha

Matt (28:56.103)
You

I am so concerned about a fourth grader hacking into the hospital database and shutting down life support machines because they're playing around in their computers class. They just learned about this new AI tool and they're like, whoa, look what I can do.

Shawn (29:00.283)
Who's in the middle? Who's the?

Shawn (29:13.376)
So Matt, Matt, but why do you care so much about the social contract and some things and then now in this you don't care about the social contract? Like you read yourself in the question that Anthropoc was like, hey, we're really concerned about this. yeah, Porter, I'm sure the contracts they have with these 40 companies really restrict their ability to do anything with it. They literally are giving it to him and saying, please test this, find where it's insecure, find where it's dangerous. Not only that, but I don't know if you guys know what OpenClaw is, but this...

Matt (29:21.35)
No, this is-

Shawn (29:42.186)
groundbreaking AI technology created by this one dude goes nuts for the last like three or four months. And it is insecure and it is dangerous. immediately within a month, I get daily apps of companies saying, hey, look, OpenClaw you can sign up for, but here's all the insecurities. We've now created a secure version. Like in the marketplace, the marketplace comes along and says, like, yeah, imagine

Imagine they actually put this into the public. Immediately there will be companies coming out and saying, hey, yeah, look what Anthropic just did. This immoral company who is putting our world at risk, come, abandon them. And the free market says, look what we've created. We've created something safe that is just as useful and powerful. The free market will handle it.

Porter (30:30.605)
Here's the thing, I watched it, everyone should watch it, I watched a really good video maybe a month ago from Veritasium about an incident that took place, I wanna say like 15 years ago with Linux. People don't think as much as they should about Linux, but every device that you've ever used that's not made by Apple and isn't running like desktop Windows runs Linux. So it's very important.

Matt (30:31.219)
Porter (31:00.952)
It was almost.

completely compromised, by like one guy who, just with a little bit of social engineering, just about like gain access to half the internet. the complexity of software engineering, what really that video did for me was open my eyes to the complexity of software security. It's not as simple as

this product's not safe? Look, I made a product that's Like it is unfathomable. It's without fathom. How many components of software created by so many people go into these things? I don't think that any of these companies that got access to cloud mythos would intentionally leak it. But how secure are those companies? You can go onto the dark web right now and buy exploits.

vulnerabilities in every single one of those companies that they've probably known about for a while, but it just takes so much time and they know about so many of them that they haven't gotten around to patching them. And that's the thing is when they get access to cloud mythos and they can identify more vulnerabilities, that doesn't mean that they can patch them faster. I think, and thank goodness, Anthropic developed this first and not like Grok or, or open AI that they

Matt (32:23.185)
Right.

Matt (32:29.445)
Open AI, right. That's my tip. Yeah.

Porter (32:33.247)
made yeah that they took the initiative and are like we're going to try to use this for as much good as we can before it eventually gets out because they know it's going to and and causes a lot of problems.

Matt (32:45.457)
Well, so that's my problem, Sean, about the marketplace, right? Because this is maybe six months old. The Department of Defense in the United States announced that they were no longer, they were canceling their contract with Anthropic because the Department of Defense wanted Anthropic to do some things in their new contract that Anthropic said that violates our ethos as an organization. so OpenAI is like, okay, well, we'll take the contract instead. So my concern is that even in this marketplace,

is that the good actors get punished sometimes because they're not willing to go. They're not willing to push the limits and do things that they would perceive to be immoral. So I don't want a marketplace that, that makes it profitable to do immoral things, right? Doing the wrong things with this technology will always be profitable for somebody.

Shawn (33:30.186)
But but you just I love but I love the example you gave was the government awarding someone and that is what causes the the bad behavior being being rewarded. But but but but listen in the free market like let's let's. But listen, this is why when anthropic let's say they launched this, let's say someone uses it to hack the energy grid or whatever like that.

Matt (33:41.127)
That's... well... yeah.

Porter (33:46.461)
why we need to not have a standing military show.

Matt (33:49.072)
You

Shawn (33:58.282)
That is grounds for such an enormous lawsuit that it will destroy, completely destroy Anthropic. That's the free market, that's the free market working. That is the free market working. Because then what happens is now the guardrails can be put up by other companies because the other companies go, holy cow, we really need to create value for community, not just free technology and go nuts that could damage our society. We really do need to be better citizens and create stuff. Otherwise we're dead, we'll get destroyed.

Matt (34:03.451)
Yeah. No. No, this-

Matt (34:25.703)
I'll explain it in a different way. Right now, Iran charges $2 million per ship to go through the Straits of Hormuz, right? What I'm concerned about is a programmer at Anthropic or a programmer at one of these other 40 companies that are testing it right now, and Iran comes to them and says, we're going to give you $40 million for access to this AI thing. now, now Iran has it. Iran doesn't care about the marketplace. Iran...

wants to wreak as much havoc on the global economic system as they possibly can. So I'm not worried about the market, right? The market can't control for the incentive for one person to sell it to one bad actor and then have them use it to just wreak havoc on the world. That's why governments have to say some things are not allowed.

Porter (35:07.991)
Well

Shawn (35:09.362)
But Matt, I'm equally as concerned or more concerned about the US government becoming the Iranian government who says, I'm going to charge you $2 million to run your AI company. Like you can't, you can't, I'm just as concerned about that.

Matt (35:24.081)
Hmm. It's a good point you make, Sean. It's a combined point with you and Porter. Porter says you can't do it, and I say you can, and Sean says, the cost that it comes to individual liberty is too great. yeah, hmm.

Shawn (35:37.91)
And I just think let the free market punish those who act poorly and not create value for the rest of us. They will punish them.

Porter (35:45.257)
Well, when you get into the market of open source computer programming, it is absolutely free. This is an anarchical market. It's in the world of hacking. the market isn't something that like you can make decisions about what you want it to be. The market is inevitable in the world of software. People will get this and use it.

for personal gain. That's what everyone wants it for. Companies might want it to use it for legitimate reasons, personal gain. can improve their, you know, they can pump out software faster and they can, you know, improve their bottom line. Some people will use it to hold companies for ransom, sell data, sell exploits. It is just going to happen. And I think what we need to do is pray.

Shawn (36:35.805)
and

Porter (36:43.352)
and hope that the world doesn't end. I think my take on this is we need to be way more afraid. This is not good.

Shawn (36:43.644)
Look, Porter.

Shawn (36:52.086)
Porter, though, I think that there's no one that ever says any capitalist would never say that the free market will always produce good actors and good things. A part of the free market is you will always have people acting in anarchy or self-interest that hurts other people. The thing with what Matt loves about capitalism is there's this thing called the invisible hand and the invisible hand says that if I try to profit off of you, Porter, by slitting your throat,

I won't be able to profit further than the one person that I hurt because the

Matt (37:26.555)
That's okay.

Porter (37:26.711)
100 % Sean that is not what the invisible hand.

Matt (37:29.703)
$40 million one time is good enough for some people. I'm going to split my points with Sean and Porter because you're both scaring me. Neither one of you make me feel better about this for different reasons. And I'm persuaded there is no solution to this. This is like you've both persuaded me about this. And so you split the points. I'm actually terrified at the moment. At the moment, I'm a little bit afraid that like

Shawn (37:35.828)
Yeah, I know, but...

Shawn (37:40.863)
Yeah

Shawn (37:50.038)
So you're being lukewarm. Good, good for you.

Matt (37:58.692)
I really, this sounds weird, but I want to pull all of my cash out of banks and put it in my mattress. cause I'm afraid.

Shawn (38:05.162)
Ha

Porter (38:05.387)
You need to pull it all out and invest it in Anthropic.

Matt (38:09.223)
No, because Anthropics going to get hacked by their own technology.

Porter (38:13.782)
Here's my legitimate suggestion that none of us can do anything about this, but I think it's important for the government, you're going to like this, Sean, to not stick their hand into this one because the only thing that is protecting the AI world from starting the apocalypse is companies that have some moral standing.

Shawn (38:15.282)
Hahaha!

Porter (38:43.583)
programmers and software engineers who are good people, who are developing this stuff faster than what the bad guys are capable of doing. So I think this is like an Avengers situation where you've got to have like, you've got to just kind of let these people do and hope that they can save us. And if they can't, then we're doomed and Ultron will kill us all.

Shawn (38:55.158)
That's

Matt (38:58.247)
A bunch of superheroes.

Shawn (39:10.698)
Wow. The most millennial ants reporter. Sorry, Matt. Go ahead.

Matt (39:10.895)
If I had this tool and I wasn't worried about.

If I had this tool and I wasn't worried about my own personal salvation, the first thing I do is hack into the treasury department and I start crediting my bank account with millions of US dollars and it goes to some offshore account that's untraceable. That's the first thing I would do. That would be, and I don't know why, like I would imagine everybody else would have a similar inclination to that. You could become a millionaire overnight.

Shawn (39:36.726)
Yeah, but then you'd get caught and go to jail for the rest of your life, Matt. Your self-interest isn't to do. And you would definitely get caught, Matt. You would get caught.

Matt (39:41.946)
I- I-

Porter (39:42.195)
Not if you can skip.

Matt (39:44.999)
You

Do you think that there is a law against crediting your own bank account with US Treasury money?

Porter (39:52.837)
Yeah, you know, I worked at a bank and I could have done that pretty much. I had access to the system. I could just move money around and I thought, hmm, forget like the cash that's in the vault. It'd be really easy to just credit my bank account right now with like a quarter of a million dollars without approval from anybody.

Matt (40:00.136)
You

Shawn (40:15.382)
sure you wanna.

Matt (40:15.687)
And that's illegal to do that? You're not allowed to do that?

Shawn (40:18.006)
Yeah, and you think you would have gotten away with that? I'm glad. Yeah, yeah. Amazing.

Porter (40:20.666)
I'd have to probably check the manual, but...

Matt (40:24.239)
All right, well, I'm sure that any AI tool that would allow me to hack into it would also allow me to create something that's a little bit untraceable. A little bit. I mean, I don't know. I'm not a criminal mastermind. I just podcast. So don't know.

Shawn (40:34.75)
Okay. Yeah. Okay. If you think you can get away with it, that's ridiculous.

Matt (40:39.503)
No, no, no, and I care way more about my salvation. Morally, that's wrong. And so that's why I would never do it. Who needs money anyways?

Shawn (40:44.662)
Yeah, but you're hypothetically, not even hypothetically, you're talking about the people that Porter are calling out as the evil side, right? What'd you call them, the Voltrons? What's your millennial talk? The Ultrons.

Porter (40:52.85)
Ultron, Ultron. But keep in mind Ultron was made by Tony Stark trying to do a good thing.

Matt (40:52.871)
You

Shawn (41:00.486)
I won't do that, dude, because I don't want to talk in your millennial Marvel analogy there. Gen Z, sorry.

Matt (41:01.703)
Ha

Porter (41:07.249)
I'm Gen Z.

Matt (41:09.127)
All right. Next topic. I hope all of our listeners have had a chance to hear what Trump said on Easter Sunday. Cause I don't want to repeat it, but Trump said, let's just say some threatening things against Iran and, Pope Leo the 14th strongly criticized president Trump for threatening to destroy Iran. He called the remarks morally wrong and unacceptable. The Pope asked people around the world.

to talk to their leaders and demand an end to the war and also warned that attacking innocent people and important city buildings goes against international laws. So this is the question, is the Pope correct? Is it morally wrong to make such remarks even if they are a negotiating tactic? I watched Fox News for like 20 minutes this weekend and that's what I learned Fox was saying. They're like, he was just negotiating. So even if that's all it was, Trump was just trying to negotiate.

Shawn (42:00.586)
Hahaha.

Matt (42:03.981)
Is it still morally wrong to say that?

Shawn (42:09.75)
Uhhhh...

I can go with yes, Matt. I don't expect Donald Trump or most politicians to make the morally right decision in that case. It is so easy with that much power in your hands to justify saying and doing immoral things because of the greater good. So yeah, I can go with you and say that's immoral. Yeah, I can go with you there.

Matt (42:15.58)
Cut.

Matt (42:30.951)
Matt (42:34.363)
Yeah, with great power comes great responsibility, right?

Shawn (42:37.566)
is that a Tony Stark? Wait, are you Gen Z too? Is that a?

Porter (42:39.899)
No.

Matt (42:41.753)
Is that Tony Stark? I don't know.

Porter (42:42.959)
No, that was, that's Spider-Man.

Matt (42:46.051)
I thought there was a scripture that says, where much is given, much is expected. Okay.

Porter (42:52.046)
Yeah, yes, I think I think I can answer this with two quotes from my favorite world leader of all time Jesus Christ He said But behold I say unto you love your enemy Bless them that curse you and he said in another instance But let your communication be yay yay nay nay for whatsoever cometh of more than these is evil You know

That second one requires a little bit of interpretation on the part of people listening, because obviously Jesus isn't saying you can only say the words yes and no. But I feel like Trump's threat to end an entire civilization, if it was a negotiating tactic, certainly falls outside the scope of let your communication be yay-yay and nay-nay. So I feel like, pretty clearly it's wrong to threaten to

in the genocide.

Shawn (43:52.298)
That's two, Matt, that's two. You the third?

Matt (43:52.584)
That's awesome. Yeah. No, I agree. Porter. I couldn't say it any better than what Porter did. yeah, Porter gets the points. That was awesome. I, I thought about, because, know, Artemis two came back to earth yesterday and I thought there's nobody in this world. know that hates the space program more than Sean and loves it more than Sam. And so I thought we could have a topic where all we do is talk space program just to like be mean to Sam. I thought, no, let's talk about Trump for just a little bit.

Shawn (43:59.574)
Good. Nice. Porter, you get the points.

Matt (44:20.871)
And I'm glad we all agreed about that because yeah, well said Porter. But Sean, were, you're in San Diego. You probably heard the sonic boom as the spacecraft entered the atmosphere. You probably were out there with the millions of San Diego people watching the fire bolt come out of the sky and land in the ocean, right? You were there for all that. You didn't even know it happened, did you? You weren't even aware until I mentioned it. okay.

Porter (44:40.693)
He was watching it.

Shawn (44:44.374)
No, it was not.

Shawn (44:48.182)
No, I knew it happened. no, of course. Everyone's talking about it. I knew it happened.

Matt (44:51.579)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (44:54.32)
Did you watch did you at the same time have two screens open one you're watching a star go supernova and the other one you're watching the Artemis land

Matt (45:01.655)
I honestly, I did for 30 minutes, watch the Artemis land. watched, I was just, um, yeah, I love it. I love it. Um, what I love about, what I love about this particular mission is it's, it requires a lot of people to coordinate and work together for years and years and years to make it happen. Like that the spacecraft is going 25,000 miles an hour.

Shawn (45:07.166)
Did it inspire you? Did it make you like, it did it? Why?

Matt (45:26.181)
And within 15 miles, slows down to 20 miles an hour, just as it like drops into the ocean and that the people can get out of that and like everything about it, like humans should not be in space. Humans should not be able to return from space and to make it happen requires a lot of like dedicated people. So it's the comradery and the cooperation and all that, that inspires me.

Shawn (45:45.302)
So from your latter-day lens, you feel like man has progressed, right? We believe in eternal progression if we are obeying God's laws. You believe that this is a step for humans, eternal progression. We have become more God-like because we flew around the moon and took really nice pictures. Those were good pictures, man. Those are nice pictures.

Matt (46:03.431)
No, I feel like when humans come together, they can accomplish remarkable things. And to me, the space program represents the best of that.

Shawn (46:16.426)
The best of that, the best of that.

Porter (46:18.922)
I tend to agree. I went on a scout trip once when I was a teacher and we went, we canoed like 75 miles down the Colorado River across a couple of days. And that excursion, much like sending people around the moon is, it's superfluous. Like we didn't need to do that. We didn't.

Matt (46:19.024)
I mean-

Shawn (46:42.368)
Same thing.

Porter (46:48.679)
Like, it had a material cost to do it and not that much material benefit. But I definitely felt the rowing together with my fellow priesthood brethren. Even though what we were doing was not necessarily spiritual activity, I think togetherness and accomplishing things together is inherently a spiritual activity.

if you make it that.

Matt (47:17.479)
There you go, Sean. There you go. Yeah. Well, this is what I'll say. I'll translate it into language Sean understands. Sean, you know how sometimes you're with your band and you just play something and it just sounds so good and you're like, wow, I couldn't have done that alone. And we had to do that all together.

Shawn (47:21.025)
Interesting, interesting. Okay, I'll have to think about that Porter. I'll think about it.

Shawn (47:33.942)
sure. So, okay, so if this is the reason, then give me the $20 trillion to join a bigger to make a bigger band. I'll make it I'll make 3 million bands and we can have the same experience that you are sharing.

Matt (47:41.384)
All right. Here's the big question. So the person who has an office next to me, her name's Andrea Radke-Moss. She just published an article in the Journal of Mormon History describing that in the 19th century, many Latter-day Saints believed that having more than one wife was necessary to reach the highest degree of the celestial kingdom.

Porter (47:41.833)
No!

Matt (48:10.833)
To follow this religious rule while living as a monogamous couple on earth, they performed temple ceremonies to seal husbands to women who had already died. This practice allowed them to stay connected to friends in the afterlife and ensure that deceased women could receive the religious blessings associated with that. And then I found this quote also from Brigham Young. He said that this type of marriage should be based on religious principles rather than physical desire.

And its primary purpose was to build an eternal family and to have children. So to me, this suggests that like the specific quote from Brigham Young is like, if you're marrying more than one woman out of like carnal desire, that's wrong and God will punish you. that's, it should never be about that. It should just be about like eternal progression. So to me, this suggests that LDS beliefs about marriage have changed a lot in the last hundred years. So here's the question.

Porter (48:45.224)
Okay.

Matt (49:04.411)
Do we expect, or if you were to project in the future, the next hundred years, do you think attitudes about marriage among church members are going to continue to shift in the next hundred years or so, the way that they did in the last hundred years, or do we now have a complete understanding of the doctrine of marriage? Which is the right?

Shawn (49:21.216)
Well, let's make that clear. The doctrine hasn't changed. So whatever someone believed 150 years ago doesn't change whatever the true established, universal and absolute doctrine is. And I think that doctrine has been pretty clear. It's been pretty clear throughout scripture. I think it's been very clear throughout scripture.

Matt (49:32.583)
Mm-mm.

No.

Matt (49:39.227)
The doctrine of marriage has been clear?

Shawn (49:42.09)
more clear than most doctrines, absolutely. When there are 100 references to marriage being one man and one woman, all throughout the Bible, all throughout the Book of Mormon, all throughout the New Testament, or mean the DNC and the Prophets, literally, God's law is one man, one woman. And then we have beautiful Jacob who says, then what?

Matt (49:44.207)
Okay, well, well.

Matt (50:02.649)
No, no, no. Okay, wait. you're saying the doctrine of marriage. So I just have to first define when you say the doctrine of marriage that hasn't changed. The doctrine of marriage is that a man and a woman marry each other. And let's just say they had temple ceilings back in the day gets sealed to each other and then they can be together forever and ever. You're saying that as a doctrine that is unchanging or has never changed.

Shawn (50:25.278)
I will not, I won't bore our audience, but I have 36 tags that say that exact thing. 36 scriptural tags that literally say, husbands love your wives, one man, one woman.

Matt (50:32.486)
No, I know, but-

Matt (50:36.231)
But I can choose an example from the Old Testament. I can choose an example from the Doctrine and Covenants. I can choose an example from in the New Testament. not in the New Testament. Of marriage that's not between one man and one woman.

Porter (50:43.417)
Pretty much just those two.

Shawn (50:46.088)
Of what? Of what?

Shawn (50:50.858)
Right. So the great beautiful context of Jacob is like so clear, right? The word of the Lord, for there shall not any man among you have save it be one wife and concubines you shall have none. I've learned delight in the chastity of women and whoredoms and bouquet. Wherefore the people shall keep my commandments. And for, for if I will say the Lord have raised up a seed unto me, I will then command my people. Otherwise they shall, they shall keep the flaw.

Matt (50:56.528)
Right,

Matt (51:13.415)
Okay, but 100 years ago, but 100 years ago that he had commanded people otherwise, apparently. And so the if you were to go to Sunday school and say, let's talk marriage, then they would say, well, marriage is a man between a woman and a woman and a woman. And if you were to say no, no, no, no, no,

Shawn (51:28.244)
No, I think you're wrong there. That's an assumption. I think that's an assumption you're making. I don't think that's right. don't, like what per, yeah, but what percentage of the members of the church actually practice polygamy?

Matt (51:33.925)
Well, that's what this article shows.

Matt (51:40.977)
She doesn't talk percentages there, but it was a majority of the church was practicing polygamy by 1880s.

Shawn (51:45.398)
That's not true.

Matt (51:48.922)
Okay. All right. wait, but okay. So what you're saying, Sean, is the doctrine hasn't changed. And in a hundred years from now, will people still believe the doctrine as you just described it, that they still interpret it that way in a hundred years.

Shawn (52:03.766)
Yeah, absolutely, because the doctrine is clear. And I think there have been some people who misunderstood the doctrine and the doctrine misunderstanding and D &C 131 and D &C 132 are, are, yeah, are pretty, pretty clear. There's, there's no way that you could read through that, that polygamy is the new and everlasting covenant of marriage. It doesn't say that it's never said that if someone misinterpreted and misunderstood that that's wrong. That's on them. It doesn't say that.

Matt (52:29.639)
But in this article, in this article, it's James E. Talmadge who gets sealed to someone that he had taught. He like tutored her in English or something. They were never married in this life. They didn't have anything to do with each other in marriage in this life, but she gets sealed to James E. Talmadge after he's dead. So like there's clearly, clearly somebody, or maybe lots of people that are thinking that it was important for her

to get sealed to James E. Talmadge, even though they were not married and they weren't gonna be married in the next life. But there was like that that sealing for her and him was like an important thing for them.

Shawn (53:06.368)
I mean.

Shawn (53:11.67)
Unless there's something that only the profits are privy to, I would argue that that probably wasn't the right move to do that. That doesn't make sense.

Matt (53:19.953)
But it was common. This article is about how that was a really common thing that people were doing. In the time period between the manifesto, and I'd say that like the first 30 years after the manifesto, as members of the church are trying to come to terms with what does the manifesto mean, they're like, okay, the manifesto means like, okay, we have to live monogamous relationships because that's the law of the land requires. But that's not the celestial law.

Shawn (53:41.302)
I'm very skeptical that it was common. I bet you could probably find 32 instances. Okay, 200 instances. That's not common. Like it would be in my mind, extremely rare to find, like if you found 200 times where people did that, I can go, okay. Again, I'm not privy to what the prophet knows, but I would suggest that the doctrine says, yeah, you probably are wrong in that guys. You're probably not doing that right. That's not right. You're misunderstanding.

Matt (53:50.182)
Okay.

Porter (53:50.785)
Thanks.

Matt (54:09.338)
Okay.

Porter (54:09.417)
I think, I don't think it matters that much if it was, you know, one person who did this or if every single member of the church did this and thought this. I don't think, I don't think that matters at all to what the doctrine is. And I think your question, I think you said, will,

attitudes about marriage continue to shift in the next hundred years do we now have complete understanding? I think shift is the wrong word because I don't think it was shifting then God I think marriage is possibly the most important the most celestial component of What God wants us to understand and become?

throughout eternity. And I think that it's a difficult thing to teach humans about something that's so celestial. And I think it's taken thousands of years to build line upon line this understanding. You know, because if we go back to our Old Testament reading, their understanding of marriage was incredibly different with, we were just reading about

Matt (55:31.973)
Yes.

Porter (55:33.98)
You know Jacob and tamar and his sons and they're all marrying each other and she's disguised as a harlot and god said actually that was okay like because he wasn't performing his societal responsibility it's I think Yeah, what did I say? yeah juda juda tamar and and then I take a lot of my thoughts about

Matt (55:49.457)
Judah, right? Judah and Tamar. Jacob. Yeah.

Porter (56:03.046)
ordinances from a talk from Elder Renlund a couple years ago where he talked about baptism and he said something so important that we just kind of glossed over I think he said he thought as a child that the waters of baptism wash away sins and that that is not true and the lesson that I took from that is that ordinances even the ordinance of marriage and temple sealing is not magical sealing two people together in the temple does not

make them together forever. What it is is instructional about covenants that you're entering into. And that's the reason why we take it so seriously that we do them exactly, because we don't want the instruction to drift from what the Lord wants us to learn from it. So I think the institution of marriage that God has given us from the beginning until forever will continue to

line upon line teach us more and more about what it means to be sealed to somebody eternally in the celestial kingdom. So I think it won't shift, but it will continue to grow as every aspect of the doctrine of Jesus Christ does.

Matt (57:17.553)
So you're saying you wouldn't say that our current understanding of marriage is complete, but what you would say is that our current understanding of marriage is the process of thousands of years of line upon line teachings by God. And as we continue to learn line upon line, we might think of it differently in a hundred years than we do now, but it's not a shift. It's a growth, maybe more than a shift.

Porter (57:40.125)
Yeah, and I think a good analogy for this is, you know, we can look back at, look at the new For Strength of Youth pamphlet and the, you know, just one generation ago, you know, things that were taught and understood very differently in the church then than they are now. The understanding of people grows over time when you stack these generations on top of each other. Maybe everybody in the church thought that you needed to be married to more than one person.

You know in the late 1800s, maybe they thought that that's okay. The Lord was giving them line upon line and helping individuals to come to a greater understanding and the great thing about our gospel is that learning doesn't end at the end of this life, you know, if you had an understanding you do have an understanding about every gospel principle that's incomplete by the time you die and we have eternity to make that understanding complete and I think that's the point of this

progression of what we've learned about the doctrine of merit.

Matt (58:43.761)
I think that we can tell what matters to God by what is regularly emphasized in teachings of the current living prophets, right? And I think that, I think over the last 30 to 40 years, the importance of marriage has been a consistent, strong, powerful message from the church leaders. And I think that it's a really important thing about how we think about marriage today because of that. Whereas let's say maybe like the importance of like, I don't know,

food storage or other sorts of things. Yeah, playing cards or whatever. So I think that what happens in the next hundred years is going to depend a hundred percent on what the living prophets and apostles teach about based on, I honestly think, whatever Heavenly Father tells them to emphasize. So it could change based on what they choose to emphasize. But I think as I was thinking about this, this is the idea that kind of came to me. For me, a lot of what feels like

Shawn (59:14.656)
Tight, tight, tighting, right? Yeah, yeah.

Matt (59:42.28)
problems the church has today come from positions the church has on family and marriage. That there are a lot of people that are offended by that doctrine or feel left out or hurt or whatever by that doctrine. And I sort of think Heavenly Father had to have known that that was going to happen when he started emphasizing family and marriage 40 or 50 years ago. And so it seems kind of weird to me today to get upset about the church's teachings on marriage.

because they really don't fit with like broader society in America right now. It sort of feels like in some ways maybe God knew this was exactly what was gonna happen and chose to emphasize what he chose to emphasize when he did, knowing that this was gonna happen. And what happens in the future, I can't predict, but it will be, in my opinion, based on whatever God chooses to emphasize.

Shawn (01:00:31.222)
That's interesting. You're saying that the proclamation of the family in the 90s coming out, it just seemed like it came out of left field for all of us. We're like, yeah, okay, whatever. You're saying that that was prepping us for today's relevance. And I like your stance, Matt. You're saying, faithfully look, I know Matt, you have this awesome faith in living prophets. And so you're like, look, God's telling them what to emphasize. So right now, currently, we focus on this. And maybe in 100 years or 30 years, God's going to lead them to emphasize something else. But right now?

Matt (01:00:38.759)
Mm-hmm.

Shawn (01:00:59.752)
marriage is what they're emphasizing.

Matt (01:00:59.943)
Yeah, yeah, I think and I think that what mattered a hundred years ago is like the polygamy question mattered a lot a hundred years ago and so that's what they were talking about, right? And then marriage as we think of it today, that's what matters now. But it really could shift. It really could be like, wow, they might in a hundred years be laughing at the way we did the Sabbath day, right? They might be laughing at the way that we did, who knows? But whatever it is, it's going to depend on what the living prophets and apostles feel like they should be emphasizing.

Shawn (01:01:29.974)
But I also think, Matt, in DNC 132, for example, they had that 100 years ago. They had DNC 132. And to be able to have such clarity about the idea that marriage is one man and one woman, and on occasion, I have a calling for certain people to practice, for example, polygamy. And he gives all these examples. Why Solomon did it? Why David did it? Why Jacob did it? Why? He gets very specific and says, I called them for specific purposes.

Matt (01:01:35.461)
Yeah.

Matt (01:01:55.036)
But I know, but he doesn't go into all of the, I know, but there's so many of the, in the Old Testament, there's so many just crazy marriage things in there. I know, I know that you feel like it's consistent, Sean, but I'm going to go with Porter on that one. That it's a line upon line sort of thing. Cause it's hard for me to believe that those children of Israel as they came out of Egypt had any semblance of marriage the way that God intended it to be.

Shawn (01:02:03.753)
But isn't the...

Shawn (01:02:18.582)
Because they were slaves for that many, their whole social life was so messed up, that's why.

Matt (01:02:23.781)
And the Old Testament's offensive to me the way it talks about marriage. It's like, yeah, penjaleh. He's like, yeah, go ahead.

Porter (01:02:24.408)
Yeah, go read go read the story of Hagar and and Ishmael and how she had to leave her Starving to death child under a bush so that she wouldn't have to watch him die because Abraham because Abraham's other wife Didn't like her But an angel comes and says look I'm gonna take care of you. We're figuring

Matt (01:02:34.809)
Right. Yeah.

Porter (01:02:54.38)
Humanity is figuring this out. We're teaching you guys a little bit at time. That's not what he says, but I feel like that's that's part of the broader intent that we can see across the thousands of years that we've been trying to learn this very difficult thing about about What it means to be to be one flesh with somebody to be an eternal companion We have so much to learn I think and I I hope I hope that my kids

Shawn (01:03:20.446)
I don't know.

Porter (01:03:23.904)
And grandkids will look back at the way that we taught and learned about that stuff and say, wow, like they really just didn't get it and hope that.

Shawn (01:03:33.622)
I don't know Porter. don't know man. I have to disagree. The Lord goes out of his way in D &C 132 to explicitly say, like again, I can read, we won't, but I can read 68 instances where we talk about marriage is one man, one woman, really clear. And then he goes out of his way. For example, in D &C 132 and goes specifically about, okay, here's who Abraham had as a wife and a concubine. And in that case, it was within my law. I approved it. was set unto him for righteousness.

Matt (01:04:00.998)
Yeah, but Sean, Sean, there are so many, there are so many things of like, if a man has sex with a virgin that he's not married to, then you got to give her dad some compensation or something like that.

Shawn (01:04:01.108)
Now let's go to Jacob. He goes step by step out of his way to explain why those happen.

Shawn (01:04:12.438)
Matt, many years, what percentage was the law of Moses in existence and applied relative to the rest of the church in the history of the world? This much, this much.

Matt (01:04:20.901)
Yeah, but we don't know.

Porter (01:04:23.191)
But that's one of the lines, that's one of the lines upon another line. It is.

Shawn (01:04:25.992)
It's not. It's not. No. The children of Israel under Moses, the law of Moses, were specifically for them. We won't live the law of Moses. We will never live the law of Moses. The majority of the Christians on this earth will never even have anything to do with the law of Moses. That was for them and specifically for them.

Matt (01:04:41.743)
No? Book of Mormon. Book of Mormon had to the law of Moses.

Porter (01:04:43.009)
But we, yeah, and we.

Shawn (01:04:46.166)
only during a specific time.

Porter (01:04:48.661)
Yeah, but that's a long time from when Moses lived to when Jesus died was a really long time.

Matt (01:04:53.927)
Yeah.

Shawn (01:04:54.643)
But relative to the rest of the history of the world and the church,

Porter (01:04:57.941)
That's millions of people, but we still study, we still have a lot to learn, is what I'm saying, and we can learn from what happened before. Just because the law of Moses was fulfilled doesn't mean, Jesus explicitly says it wasn't destroyed. We have so much to learn from what they built off of.

Shawn (01:05:05.078)
It's not that long of a time compared to the history of the rest of us.

Porter (01:05:25.702)
And I'm saying that their understanding of marriage was not as advanced as our understanding of marriage spiritually because they didn't have thousands of years of people learning about this gospel. And this especially happens when we have a contiguous...

Shawn (01:05:39.286)
They did? Sure they did. No, I disagree. They had thousands of years. Adam and Eve had the fullness of the gospel. They had thousands of years. think you guys are...

Matt (01:05:47.385)
I know, but I don't know if-

Porter (01:05:47.528)
But fullness of the gospel doesn't mean perfect understanding. That doesn't mean perfect understanding. And that's the whole point. That's the whole point, I think.

Shawn (01:05:53.462)
Yeah, but you're applying a small percentage of the history of the Church under the law of Moses, and you're applying it to everyone.

Matt (01:06:02.855)
But don't know what it was from Adam down to Abraham.

Shawn (01:06:07.99)
We know that most of the elements of the gospel that we live, they lived, they had.

Matt (01:06:13.991)
But we don't know, we don't know what the laws of marriage were. Right. When, when lots of daughters, when lots of daughters sleep with him to have children, we don't know any like, was that a sin or not a sin? There's a lot about

Porter (01:06:15.412)
But we don't know what they thought about it either. We don't know what their understanding was.

Shawn (01:06:21.098)
the script.

Shawn (01:06:26.102)
you

Porter (01:06:28.39)
think it says in the scriptures that that was a sin. And the Joseph Smith translation, it says they did an evil unto Lot by doing that. Just to clarify for our listeners, that is wrong to drug your father and procreate with him.

Shawn (01:06:31.702)
I think we know who that was.

Matt (01:06:31.845)
Ha ha!

Matt (01:06:39.015)
Yeah.

Matt (01:06:43.117)
You

Shawn (01:06:45.91)
You

Matt (01:06:47.623)
My favorite thing of that story is that's the child was named Moab. Like people love Moab, Utah and they don't think about, Moab, that's the name of the child that Lot's daughter had. All right. Well, we're not going to solve the big question, but listeners, let us know what I love about Sean on this topic. Sean is undeviating, undeviating. And I love that about Sean. Sean is

Porter (01:06:54.257)
The

Shawn (01:06:56.724)
named after.

The incest child,

Shawn (01:07:04.256)
Ha

Shawn (01:07:12.35)
I just love the scriptures and the scriptures are clear. If we spend time in scriptures, they are clear on this.

Matt (01:07:17.657)
If Peter was the rock because he was immovable and solid and strong, Sean is definitely the rock. So good job. I love it, Sean. Hey Porter, thanks so much for joining us as well. And listeners, thank you for joining us. We hope you'll reach out and let us know what you think. You can comment on YouTube if you want to, but you're also welcome to just send us a text message. Also, this is new. You can actually send us a voice message. So if you're listening to the podcast and you want to like type the voice message and shout at us.

Porter (01:07:27.877)
Thank you.

Matt (01:07:45.403)
Good, shout out to us. We can hear all the emotion in your voice when you do it. Let us know what you think. We'll talk to you again next week. See you later.