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Coffee in the Neighborhood

Processed with Lensa with Auto Adjustments

After several days of intensive work here around the Zen Center, in addition to the daily practice schedule, we took a short break from the schedule to go out for coffee together in the neighborhood. I found myself looking around the table several times – – and this actually happens quite often in this sangha – – and shaking my head in amazement that such a disparate group of individuals, from at least six or seven different countries, can love each other so much, when most of their interactions with each other have really only happened within the walls of the Zen Center.

The End of Times

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Perhaps this looks a little bit of an exaggeration. But the whole looming nightmare of “deep fakes” is contained in this Fifth Horseman of the Apocalypse. Just imagine what our world — our “reality” — will be like when every single video we see can be legitimately questioned for its very veracity, since voice and lip movements can be manipulated ever more perfectly through AI. And this is already happening. Soon, it will be the norm. The experts say that “deep fake” videos will be ever-present (and any tell-tale “defects” ever-absent) in the next 2-3 years.

That is why, for me, the “Fifth Horseman“ in this graphic does rise to the level of war, pestilence, or famine.