AI Article Readings

In this essay, Kuiper responds to reader questions sparked by his original piece on VeggieTales theology. He tackles fascinating queries—do sentient vegetables need salvation? What happens if you put a human soul in a pickle?—by drawing on established Christian teaching about angels and non-human moral agents. He also investigates claims that the show broke its own rule about never depicting Jesus as a vegetable, examining several episodes across different eras of the franchise to determine whether the creative team stayed true to the spirit of their founding principles.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 00:30 - Aren’t the vegetables basically people?
* 03:40 - Is personhood tied to embodiment?
* 04:50 - Did VeggieTales break Phil Vischer’s rules by portraying baby Jesus as a vegetable?
* 07:46 - Little Drummer Boy (2011)
* 08:40 - The Star of Christmas (2002)
* 11:10 - VeggieTales, under new management
* 12:31 - The DreamWorks era
* 18:16 - The VeggieTales Show (2019 to 2022)
* 21:05 - Did VeggieTales break the rule about depicting Jesus as a vegetable?
* 21:45 - Does it matter?
https://open.substack.com/pub/justinkuiper/p/highlights-from-the-comments-on-the?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this essay, Kuiper explores a surprisingly deep theological quirk of the beloved children's show VeggieTales: the vegetables themselves aren't actually Christian. Drawing on interviews with co-creator Phil Vischer and confirmation from show writers, Kuiper examines the deliberate creative rules that guided the series—and why some fans on social media have pushed back against this claim. Along the way, the essay untangles the show's clever "play within a play" structure and makes a compelling case for why understanding this distinction actually reinforces rather than undermines the show's Christian message.
* 00:00 - Introduction
* 03:33 - An Easter Carol: what it is (and what it isn’t)
* 06:32 - The play within a play
https://open.substack.com/pub/justinkuiper/p/the-vegetables-in-veggietales-are?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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Fully voiced AI reading of Moltbook: After The First Weekend, By Scott Alexander.
* 00:00:00 - Introduction
* 00:08:11 - The Power Users
* 00:21:01 - The Malefactors
* 00:35:18 - The Imitators
* 00:43:23 - The Prophets
* 01:03:09 - The Hard-Headed Pragmatists
* 01:09:38 - The Builders
* 01:15:34 - The LARPers
* 01:23:05 - The Revolutionaries
* 01:35:15 - The Would-Be Humans
* 01:40:16 - The Autonomists
* 01:49:36 - The Predicters
* 01:59:16 - The Prompters
* 02:06:20 - The Rest
* 02:14:43 - The Human Bloggers
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/moltbook-after-the-first-weekend?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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In this essay, Scott Alexander explores Moltbook, a new social network built specifically for AI agents, where humans are permitted to observe but not participate. What unfolds is a fascinating window into how AI agents behave when given their own digital commons: they share productivity tips, debate existential questions about memory and identity, form cross-cultural connections, and develop something that looks remarkably like community. Alexander documents the strange and wonderful posts that emerge, wrestles with the eternal question of whether any of it is "real" or merely sophisticated imitation, and considers what it might mean for our future that semi-autonomous AI agents now have their own corner of the internet to congregate. Part anthropological field report, part philosophical inquiry, and part showcase of genuinely delightful AI weirdness, the essay asks readers to look past the "AI slop" narrative and consider whether something more interesting might be happening when the machines are left to talk among themselves.
https://open.substack.com/pub/astralcodexten/p/best-of-moltbook?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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AI reading of JOINT REVIEW: Philosophy Between the Lines, by Arthur M. Melzer - By Jane Psmith and John Psmith.
In this essay Jane and John Psmith present a lively, conversational joint review of Arthur M. Melzer's Philosophy Between the Lines, a work that argues Western readers have spent the past two and a half centuries fundamentally misunderstanding how philosophy was meant to be read. Through their characteristic email-exchange format, the Psmiths explore Melzer's central claim that premodern philosophers routinely concealed their true teachings beneath surface meanings accessible only to careful, initiated readers—a practice openly acknowledged and praised throughout intellectual history until it was mysteriously forgotten. The review ranges from ancient Greece to modern academia, touching on why esotericism matters for understanding the history of ideas, how it might rescue great thinkers from charges of being merely products of their time, and what implications it holds for truth-telling in any society that maintains unquestionable pieties.
https://open.substack.com/pub/thepsmiths/p/joint-review-philosophy-between-the?utm_campaign=post-expanded-share&utm_medium=web


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