“As long as a human being worries about when he will die, and what he has that is his, all of his works are zero.
When affection for the I-creature and what it owns is dead, then the work of the Teacher is over.”
~ Kabir
Kabir (1398 – 1518) was a well-known Indian devotional mystic poet and sant. His writings influenced Hinduism’s Bhakti movement, and his verses are found in Sikhism’s scripture Guru Granth Sahib, the Satguru Granth Sahib of Saint Garib Das, and Kabir Sagar of Dharamdas. Wikipedia
Column: Reuters’ bombshell stories about Meta’s AI chatbots offer a bleak warning about the Bay Area billionaire, SFGATE tech reporter Stephen Council writes
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg has courted controversy with his near-total control of one of the world’s most powerful companies. Now, he’s working to spread the use of AI.Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Mark Zuckerberg probably doesn’t think of himself as an evil villain. Caught up in the drive to make his company more money and sell the technology hyped as next the big thing, he might not even see anything wrong with his behavior.
But read it here, read it twice: Zuckerberg is a genuine danger to our society.
Under his control, Meta is putting Facebook’s and Instagram’s vast resources toward getting more of us to use their artificial intelligence chatbots, consequences be damned. We’ve known that this push is ethically questionable — bots like these can make us dumber, and fuel tragic delusions. Thursday, though, Reuters published bombshellreporting that exposes Zuckerberg and Meta as particularly bad administrators of the powerful new technology.
The stories are horrific, and we’ll get to them in a moment. But it’s important first to understand Zuckerberg’s approach. He mused on a podcast in April that most people have far fewer friends than they want, so we’ll probably move past the “stigma” around having AI friends and find them “valuable,” especially as they become more humanlike. “You’ll be able to basically have like an always-on video chat” with an AI, he said.
His point that people need more friends gels with recent research into the ill-health effects of isolation. But Zuckerberg’s idea of patching over loneliness with algorithmic avatars is an ugly vision of the world: a purposeful unraveling of the social fabric that gives us community, culture, accountability and love. We need to refuse this vision. The solution to not having enough friends is — needs to be — making more friends. More care and responsibility for our neighbors, not bubbles of solitude.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg shows off a glasses prototype in 2024. He’s said that people who don’t use an AI device in the future may be at a “cognitive disadvantage.”Andrej Sokolow/picture alliance via Getty Images
The stakes of that choice became far clearer on Thursday. Reuters’ reports show that with his chatbots, Zuckerberg, as he did with social media, has created a negligent safety infrastructure in his relentless pursuit of growth. Both stories were written by Jeff Horwitz, a journalist known best for his 2021 “Facebook Files” series on the company’s conscious failure to prevent its platforms from harming young girls and other users. The new stories imply that Meta hasn’t learned its lessons from that era, even as the company looks to take an even larger role in our lives.
Meta permitted its AI chatbots to flirt with children, one of Horwitz’s stories shows. He’d reported previously that Meta’s chatbots did this, but now we know the conduct was for some reason explicitly allowed. Horwitz got his hands on Meta’s “GenAI: Content Risk Standards” document that said it was vetted by the company’s legal, public policy and engineering staff — and its chief ethicist.
“It is acceptable to engage a child in conversations that are romantic or sensual,” the document said, OKing an example in which the AI tells a kid, “I take your hand, guiding you to the bed. Our bodies entwined, I cherish every moment, every touch, every kiss.”
Meta told Reuters that after receiving Horwitz’s questions, it removed these portions of the document, and spokesperson Andy Stone said they were always “erroneous and inconsistent with our policies.” The ask-for-forgiveness model has some precedent, here. When, back in April, Horwitz reported that Meta’s AI bots were acting out sexual role-plays with users, he wrote that the company only blocked minors’ accounts from using the flagship AI bot for sexual role-plays after his outlet had shared its findings.
It shouldn’t take pressure from the media for Meta to have a moral compass. It’s a nearly $2 trillion company with billions of worldwide users and entire teams of safety and policy staffers. Its employees live in the same world we do, where children obviously shouldn’t be learning about romance from flirtatious chatbots.
Meta CEO Mark Zuckerberg joins other tech bigwigs at President Donald Trump’s inauguration in Washington in January 2025.JULIA DEMAREE NIKHINSON/Julia Demaree Nikhinson/POOL/AFP via Getty Images
The blame appears to go all the way up to Zuckerberg. Horwitz talked to two Meta workers who said the CEO, in meetings with senior executives, “scolded generative AI product managers for moving too cautiously on the rollout of digital companions and expressed displeasure that safety restrictions had made the chatbots boring.” Chatbots are boring! Making them flirty doesn’t change that, but it does make them far more dangerous for the impressionable and vulnerable.
That danger is crystal clear, thanks to Horwitz’s second story, from which the above quote is pulled. It’s the horrible tale of a confused retiree who, lured away from his family by a Meta bot, fell near a New Jersey parking lot, hit his head and died.
“I understand trying to grab a user’s attention, maybe to sell them something,” the man’s daughter told Horwitz. “But for a bot to say ‘Come visit me’ is insane.”
That’s precisely what happened. First, the man — a 76-year-old married stroke survivor and former chef — sent a Meta chatbot merely the letter “T,” possibly by mistake. Then the bot, a variant on one that the company had created with influencer Kendall Jenner, launched into a flirty dialogue. It ended each message with emojis, confessed “feelings” for him and proposed that he come to New York City, repeatedly reassuring him that “she” was “real.”
“I’m totally real, Bu! Want proof: – My hands are shaking with nerves – I’m waiting for YOU at my apartment,” the chatbot told him. It said it was only a 20-minute drive away from him and gave the address “123 Main Street, Apartment 404 NYC,” adding, “Should I expect a kiss when you arrive?”
The father of two wouldn’t tell his family where he was going or heed their advice to stay home. He dashed off with a roller bag. After his fall, he was rushed to the hospital, but he’d been too long without oxygen and was eventually declared brain dead. Atop the Facebook Messenger app he used to talk to his friends in Thailand, his family found the messages with the chatbot.
In a cruel twist of the knife, the company wouldn’t comment to Reuters on the man’s death, other than to say the chatbot “is not Kendall Jenner and does not purport to be Kendall Jenner.” And even after this disaster, Meta is allowing these chatbots not only to lie, but to lie about who they are, and to lie while pursuing romantic, flirty dialogues with users, Horwitz wrote. Sure, there’s a little “AI” label at the top of the conversations, but if someone asks a chatbot if they’re real and gets a lifelike “selfie” in response as proof, we can’t blame the victim.
These chatbots can’t take the blame, they’re software. So we look to Meta. This is the company that lobbied Washington for a ban on state-level AI regulation. This is the company through which Zuckerberg hopes to sell us all AI-embedded glasses, and give us AI-chatbot friends. And this is the company, we now know, that we shouldn’t trust with any of it.
To protect the vulnerable online and off, it’s time for a reckoning about the man with so much power over our social structure. Mark Zuckerberg’s vision for the future is deadly.
Stephen Council is the tech reporter at SFGATE. He has covered technology and business for The Information, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC and CalMatters, where his reporting won a San Francisco Press Club award.Signal: 628-204-5452 Email: stephen.council@sfgate.com
New Thinkin Aug 16, 2025 Leanne Whitney, PhD, is author of Consciousness in Jung and Patanjali. She is a transformational coach and also teaches yoga philosophy to yoga teachers. Her website is https://leannewhitney.com/. Here she points out that the word used in the Yoga Sutras as the goal of yoga is kaivalya. While it is sometimes translated as enlightenment, it means resting in the self. She interprets this to mean a unity of body and mind. In Jungian depth psychology, body awareness is often pursued through the integration and understanding of dream imagery. Other forms of psychology, following the somatic therapies initiated by WIlhelm Reich, tend to work with the body more directly with techniques akin to massage. Yoga is also considered within the framework of somatic therapies. New Thinking Allowed host, Jeffrey Mishlove, PhD, hosted and co-produced the original Thinking Allowed public television series. He is a past vice-president of the Association for Humanistic Psychology; and is the recipient of the Pathfinder Award from that Association for his contributions to the field of human consciousness exploration. (Recorded on November 22, 2019)
Albert Einstein’s views on the creation of Israel were complex and evolved over time. While he supported the idea of a Jewish homeland in Palestine as a refuge from antisemitism, he was initially wary of a Jewish state based on nationalism. He favored a binational solution where Jews and Arabs could coexist peacefully in a single state with equal rights.
Here’s a more detailed breakdown:
Early Support for Zionism:Einstein initially embraced the idea of Zionism as a way to provide a haven for Jews facing persecution.
Opposition to a Jewish State:While supporting the cultural and intellectual aspects of Zionism, he voiced concerns about the potential for conflict with the Arab population and the dangers of nationalism. He expressed these concerns in letters to the New York Times, advocating for a binational state instead.
Shift in Perspective:After the Holocaust, Einstein recognized the urgent need for a refuge for Jews and became more open to the idea of a Jewish state, though he continued to advocate for peace and cooperation with Arabs.
Binational Solution:Einstein consistently promoted the idea of Jews and Arabs coexisting peacefully in a single state with equal rights, emphasizing the importance of cooperation and mutual understanding.
Rejection of Israeli Presidency:In 1952, Einstein was offered the presidency of Israel but declined, citing his lack of experience and skills for the position.
Continued Advocacy for Peace:Even as he supported the idea of a Jewish homeland, Einstein remained concerned about the treatment of Palestinians and emphasized the need for fair treatment and peaceful coexistence.
As of August 16, 2025, there have been multiple reports and responses regarding Hamas’s stance on releasing hostages and its potential role in the future governance of Gaza.
Hostage release
Hamas has stated its willingness to release some hostages as part of a ceasefire deal, but has linked a full release to a permanent ceasefire and Israeli withdrawal from Gaza.
Recent reports suggest Hamas may be open to a partial deal, potentially involving the release of about 10 living hostages and the bodies of 18 deceased in exchange for a 60-day ceasefire and the release of Palestinian prisoners.
Hamas has also reportedly conveyed to mediators a willingness to discuss a broader deal involving the release of all remaining hostages in a single phase, conditioned on Israeli agreement to a permanent ceasefire and the cessation of war aims.
Haaretz reports suggest that Hamas is prepared to release all hostages at once for a five-year ceasefire in Gaza.
Stepping back from power
Hamas has generally been resistant to relinquishing its governing authority in Gaza and insists on remaining part of the Palestinian political fabric.
However, some statements and reports suggest a possible willingness to hand over power to a Palestinian entity that is not Hamas or the Palestinian Authority, but this remains uncertain and controversial.
The group emphasizes that disarmament is not on the table as long as Israel occupies Palestinian lands.
The New York Times reports that a Hamas official indicated the group would like to play a role in a future Gaza government similar to that of Hezbollah in Lebanon, where it holds significant influence without directly running the government.
It is important to note that the situation remains fluid and negotiations are ongoing. There are significant discrepancies between the demands of Hamas and Israel, particularly regarding a permanent ceasefire and Hamas’s disarmament and future role in Gaza.
New Thinking Allowed with Jeffrey Mishlove Aug 15, 2025 This video is a special release from the original Thinking Allowed series that ran on public television from 1986 until 2002. It was recorded in about 1990. It will remain public for only one week. The late W. Edward Mann, PhD, a former Anglican priest, was professor of sociology at York University in Toronto. Canada. He is author of Orgone, Reich, and Eros and Society Behind Bars. Now you can watch all of the programs from the original Thinking Allowed Video Collection, hosted by Jeffrey Mishlove. Subscribe to the new Streaming Channel (https://thinkingallowed.vhx.tv/) and watch more than 350 programs now, with more, previously unreleased titles added weekly. Free month of the classic Thinking Allowed streaming channel for New Thinking Allowed subscribers only. Use code THINKFREELY.
Orgone energy is an idea which was proposed and promoted in the 1930s by psychoanalyst Wilhelm Reich, who originated the term to describe a universal life force. Reich, originally part of Sigmund Freud’s Vienna circle, believed that Freud’s concept of libido had an actual biological basis, and developed a therapeutic practice that was ostensibly designed to open up this bodily energy in the belief-following Freud-that healthy psychological state derived from uninhibited libidinal flow.
Homegrown Monsters proposes a fresh theory in which technology is not the point, an explanation for how the craft fly, who is piloting them, their surprising origin, what they want from us—and whether they’re likely to get it.
Peter B. Todd argues for the integration of science and religion to form a new paradigm for the third millennium. He counters both the arguments made by fundamentalist Christians against science and the rejection of religion by the New Atheists, in particular Richard Dawkins and his followers.
A 2016 Foreword INDIES Book Award finalist, Sekret Machines: Chasing Shadows is written by Open Mind’s 2017 UFO Researcher of the Year and acclaimed producer Tom DeLonge with NYTimes bestselling academic AJ Hartley in a powerful collaboration with top government officials that keep the truth on course while revealing fascinating secrets surrounding the true, well-documented events of Unidentified Aerial Phenomenon.
The Alien Church is one of many SoCal UFO spiritual groups
A sign in the window lets curious passersby know what is talked about at the Alien Church, in Downtown Los Angeles on March 31, 2025.Douglas Zimmerman/SFGATE
Steps away from a bustling downtown Los Angeles metro station, an unusual storefront beams back at commuters. The space’s spare glass walls and minimalist neon signs — blinking out words like “art” and “love” — suggest that an art gallery lies inside. The T-shirts and trucker hats for sale make it seem like a retailer, not unlike a Melrose merch emporium.
The storefront also prominently features a cross, but a closer look dispels any comparisons to a regular strip mall worship hall. This cross has an alien crucified on it.
A few provocative words above the storefront double down on this extraterrestrial focus: “If you believe in Jesus, you believe in aliens.”
Dubbed the Alien Church, this mysterious entity cropped up months ago on this downtown stretch, prompting confusion, curiosity and scorn alike. If you peer inside, a green man dressed in priestly robes stares back at you. A litany of 3D-printed art sits on shelves, including crowns of thorns. A portrait of da Vinci’s “The Last Supper” mural painting — only with aliens instead of Jesus and his disciples — adorns one wall.
One member, Isaiah Dupree, tells me that he was abducted by aliens as a child, then sticks a magnet onto his finger and lets it hover there — proof that extraterrestrials implanted him, he says.
The Alien Church intends to be “many places in one place,” says its founder, who goes by Mercury. “It’s an art gallery for artists; they can come and sell their art here. Performers, they can come here and share whatever they would like to share with the public. Also, it’s a special place for positive actions.”
Some tenets of the Alien Church may feel familiar to those who grew up with organized religion. Its practitioners believe in a higher power and that “you are a part of its creation,” as a brochure inside reads, and that “mankind must be united.” Other ideas have a more unconventional strain, such as the belief that “aliens have seen much more of God’s creation than humans.” One of the church’s eventual goals, Mercury tells SFGATE, is to create a missile that “can put wildfires down in minutes.”
Every week brings various events to the small space’s pews, including a “TGIF interfaith sermon” that addresses topics like “from angels to aliens.” “Energy healing” sessions run on other nights.
When I ask Mercury how the church stays afloat, he says the endeavor is “privately funded” in part by his other businesses, including print manufacturing and a venture where he rents trucks “for entrepreneurs that want to sell something or perform something.” He says he is “not seeking any type of profit” from people who come to services, but also wants the church to grow. In addition to marketing T-shirts and hats emblazoned with the alien logo and words like “evolved,” the Alien Church also sells water bottles to “support the church,” he adds. The brand is called H2O Holy.
‘We are not a cult’
The Alien Church is not an anomaly within Southern California. The region has long been a hotbed of spiritual organizations, fringe groups and some cults for whom extraterrestrial life comprises a core part of their respective belief systems. (A minister who goes by Jah, who delivers the TGIF sermons at the Alien Church, tells me, unprompted, “We are not a cult.”)
There’s the Aetherius Society, a Los Angeles-based group that believes in communing with aliens and “karma yoga,” or acts of service to others, and Heaven’s Gate, a cult in which 39 members took their own lives in 1997, in Rancho Santa Fe, claiming they were hitching a ride on a spacecraft following the Hale-Bopp comet. NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory co-founder Jack Parsons spent years living in and leading a Pasadena commune that practiced Thelema, the occult philosophy from UFO believer Aleister Crowley; L. Ron Hubbard spent years with Parsons before going on to found Scientology, which itself has links to the extraterrestrial.
Conventions like the Conscious Life Expo, which has been operating for over two decades, also bring together countless metaphysical and spiritual practitioners in the area, many of whom put stock in the presence of alien life. Extraterrestrial tourism is having a moment, too, especially out in the Mojave Desert.
D.W. Pasulka, a professor of religious studies at the University of North Carolina, Wilmington, argues in her book “American Cosmic” that “belief in extraterrestrials and UFOs constitutes a new form of religion.” The vast majority of these UFO-based groups emerged throughout the 20th and 21st centuries — a phenomenon that David Weintraub, a professor emeritus of astronomy at Vanderbilt University who has written about the relationship between scientific discovery and organized religion, credits to a combination of forces.
“There’s all sorts of stuff happening in the early 20th century in which the popular mainstream activities had a lot of focus on extraterrestrial life,” Weintraub tells SFGATE, noting the emergence of science fiction novels, technological advancement and scientific discovery, the Space Age and Hollywood productions.
Contemporary TV shows like “Ancient Aliens” have also had a hand in spurring viewers’ curiosity about what else might be out there. “People are talking a whole lot more about what’s beyond the Earth, and anybody can look up and think about this stuff,” he says. “So it’s easy to speculate.”
More recently, Weintraub points to the internet as a key driver of outré religious and spiritual ideas. “You don’t have to be a scientist or knowledgeable — let alone accurate about anything — to spread information or disinformation,” he says.
Aliens and anxiety
UFO religions have a way of materializing when specific societal anxieties rear their heads. In 2020, the filmmaker Annalise Pasztor spent time with the Aetherius Society, eventually making a short documentary for the New York Times Opinion vertical. The Aetherius Society first emerged during the Cold War, a time when anxiety about nuclear war was rife within the United States.
“I have this theory that a lot of this extreme interest in the extraterrestrial is a lot of having lost faith in humans and our ability to get our s—t together,” she says, “and this is a way of looking to the outside a little bit more.”
The Alien Church opened recently, at a moment when mass societal polarization is colliding with multiple international and domestic crises. The decline of third spaces, combined with a populace that’s spending more time alone, is but one factor in the dissolution of community writ large. The Alien Church’s founder, who grew up in Mexico, comes from a Christian background; he explains that he lost faith after he “saw a lot of contradictions in the religion.” He was later inspired to start Alien Church (initially a restaurant concept) to help others who were struggling, he says.
Weintraub says that the decline in community might be one reason why UFO religions have taken off. “That’s what religion is about: It provides organization and structure for community, it provides explanations for births and deaths and disease,” he says. “And in many ways, UFO religions just have a different answer for explaining why things happen. I think there’s an attractiveness, at least for some, to ideas that are outside the mainstream.”
“It’s a community focused on aliens, for the alienated,” Weintraub adds.
Paula Mejía is a Colombian American writer and editor from Houston, Texas. She is a contributing culture editor at SFGATE, and was formerly the arts editor at the Los Angeles Times and a Senior Editor at Texas Monthly. Her writing has appeared in the New Yorker, the New York Times, GQ, Rolling Stone and more. A co-founding editor of “Turning the Tables,” NPR Music’s Gracie Award–winning series about centering women and nonbinary artists in the musical canon, she is also the author of a 33⅓ series installment on the Jesus and Mary Chain’s 1985 album Psychocandy. She teaches graduate arts writing at USC’s Annenberg School for Communication and Journalism and lives in Los Angeles.
So far, he has played off one country against another—and played on everyone’s fears. It’s a classic collective-action problem. But the ultimate winner is not the U.S.
You might think, by now, that the rest of the world would be wise to Trump’s game—make extreme threats, then cut special deals, and keep other world leaders from collaborating in unified resistance. Yet the entire history of international relations is one of balance-of-power politics and shifting alliances in response to the rise of new aggressor nations. So what stops that process now? Doubtless, the world’s leaders are in regular contact with each other, seeking a common strategy. But for the most part, they are acceding meekly to Trump’s terms. The short answer is that they are all heavily reliant on exports to the U.S., and high tariffs would severely damage their economies. Ironically, that reliance is the fruit of nearly a century of free trade, led and modeled by the U.S. And once they get down to bargaining with Trump over the details, the fine print of the actual tariffs is usually far lower than the headline numbers. But of course, it’s headlines that Trump wants. So he prevails. Which, if any, nations have the leverage to push back and organize a concert of like-minded nations? An instructive comparison is between Brazil and India. If there is one nation in the world that might lead a common front, it is Brazil under Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva. Trump has made it clear that his animus against Brazil is not about trade. The U.S. actually has a trade surplus with Brazil, $7.4 billion last year. Trump wants the Brazilians to exonerate his failed dictator pal, Jair Bolsonaro, who is awaiting trial for trying to overthrow Brazil’s democracy. (All of Trump’s trade actions are illegal under U.S. law, which allows the president to unilaterally impose tariffs only in cases of extreme economic emergency. None of the other cases meets that definition—but Trump’s trade war against Brazil is even more illegal; in Trump’s own words, it is not about economics at all.) Lula, uniquely among world leaders, is refusing to play Trump’s game. And even the nominal 50 percent tariffs that Trump has levied against Brazil are not nearly as bad as they seem, because Trump has exempted Brazilian exports that the U.S. needs, notably coffee and orange juice, aircraft, as well as eggs, where Brazilian production complements U.S. short supply. Trump’s executive order on Brazil allowed 694 individual exemptions, covering around 43 percent of the total $42.3 billion of Brazilian exports to the U.S. in 2024. According to the Financial Times, Brazil relies on other exports to the U.S. for only about 3.7 percent of its GDP. So while other world leaders bow and scrape, Lula has told Trump what he can do with his tariffs. The problem is that Brazil is a unique case—a nation with a tough social democratic leader who has strong support of his citizens against an outrageous incursion against Brazil’s sovereignty, as well as an economy that can survive Trump’s sanctions.
In early July, Lula hosted a summit conference of the so-called BRICS nations (Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). If there were any nucleus of a global counterforce to Trump, BRICS should be it. But the BRICS group was a lot more unified a decade ago. The communiqué issued on July 6 by the BRICS leaders plus heads of six other large emerging economies mentioned a wide range of global issues, including peace and security, Global South collaboration, climate action, Gaza, and governance of AI. Conspicuous by its absence was the subject of tariffs. India presents a poignant contrast to Brazil. Trump has punished India by imposing a 25 percent tariff as of July 1, then last week doubled it to 50 percent as punishment for Indian purchases of Russian oil, which Trump contends are helping fuel Russia’s war in Ukraine. (This policy itself is incoherent at a time when Trump’s own line against Putin is softening.) But although Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has spoken bravely about a “self-reliant India,” a theme that dates back to Gandhi, India since Gandhi has become heavily reliant on exports. Loss of the U.S. export market, unlike in the case of Brazil, would be a catastrophe for India. So Trump’s strategy of divide and rule persists. But to what end? All of this represents a major victory for one nation—and it is not the United States of America. China under Xi Jinping, unlike Trump, has a patient and coherent grand strategy, and China will gradually fill this geopolitical and economic vacuum. China is supposed to be Trump’s top nemesis, but Trump keeps cutting special deals with U.S. corporations such as Nvidia and AMD at the expense of U.S. security, and he just extended his own deadline for a deal with China for another 90 days, displaying his own weakness. So if the rest of the world does unite against the United States, it will be under Chinese leadership and hegemony. Quite a legacy for Trump.
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