The Latter Day Lens

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is up first this week. One of the founders of WordPerfect, Bruce Bastian, died this week. The New York Times obituary described many facets of his life that are worthy of discussion. His company played a large role in making Utah what it is today. When he started WordPerfect, no tech company was headquartered in Utah, they showed the world the potential...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Shawn is up first this week. Annuit coeptus is a motto written on the great seal of the United States. It means God, or Providence prospered our undertaking. The idea is that God put leaders in place to establish a new order and form a specific constitution and create a country of certain laws and not men. Does God still prosper our undertaking? If not, when...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag:  One listener writes, “I question your definition of liberal and conservative although I loved the discussion. You said conservatives mistrust government and liberals mistrust individuals. I would say that conservatives mistrust government and liberals mistrust businesses. What is it called if you think business and government are equally capable of oppression? Economic p...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag:  One listener writes, “You'll probably get several of these, but here are a few facts to clear up about two of the country's newest felons.1.The lies Hunter Biden told on his two gun license applications were that he does not use drugs. He was also convicted of possessing a gun while addicted to or using illegal drugs. 2. Where Trump is concerned, in New York, f...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is up first this week. There is nothing members of our church value more than free will. Yet, Twitter founder Jack Dorsey warned this week that social media algorithms are robbing individuals of their free will. Specifically he said, “This is going to sound a little bit crazy, but I think the free speech debate is a complete distraction right now. I thin...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag:  Carly’s recording The Thought Provoker: Shawn is up first this week. An anonymous expert recently participated in a debate discussing Meta-Marxism and capitalism. They discussed how the theory of meta Marxism primarily looks at all relationships through the lens of power and power imbalance while capitalism looks at relationships through the lens of self-interested and t...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag : One listener writes, “Like a lot of Republicans, Sam is pretty tone deaf when he talks about risk. On average, rich people have taken much less risk in their lives than the rest of us. Trump is a great example. Trump was a millionaire by age 8. Through all of Trump’s adventures and misadventures he was never in danger even of living the life of an average dentist or inve...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag:  One listener writes, “Ok. You cannot allow Sam to continue to reference “that one company in Seattle whose CEO decided to pay everyone $70,000 and his company imploded.” The company is called Gravity Payments. The late Rush Limbaugh predicted its downfall in 2014. It’s 20 years old now, still going strong and paying an $80,000 minimum salary. This might be a good opportu...

Send us Fan Mail New listeners, this episode replays some of the discussions that get brought up later on. Also, NBA YoungBoy was arrested in Cache Valley Utah recently and is back in jail. Shawn doesn't like to talk about it, listen to this episode to find out why.

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Shawn is up first this week. Eight regional daily newspapers sued OpenAI and Microsoft for copyright infringement yesterday, the latest in an industrywide reckoning with the rise of content-dependent artificial intelligence. News publishers like The New York Times have sued OpenAI for using their journalism to train its models, arguing repackaging original jo...

Send us Fan Mail Apologies to Shawn's fans. He had technical issues that caused him to drop from the podcast. Sorry you all missed his great comments on the big question. The Thought Provoker: Sam is up first this week. Why don't people recognize the booming economy right now?  Next up, Matt.  Two exciting trials are going on right now. One trial features Chad Daybell trying to avoid the...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is up first this week. Two big stories this week related to free speech. In the first , the University of Southern California canceled a graduation speech by a valedictorian who is Muslim and has social media posts that support Palestinians. They say that it is a question of safety. In the second, Google has terminated 28 employees after a series of prot...

Send us Fan Mail Links for the discussion about the changes in temple recommend interview questions. Handbook 38.5.5 was updated in August 2023 to include this statement about the garment. Wearing and Caring for the Garment Members who receive the endowment make a covenant to wear the temple garment throughout their lives. The temple garment is a reminder of covenants made in the temple and, when...

Send us Fan Mail General Conference Recap Matt's Second Coming Prediction What is Mormonism?

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag:  General Conference Predictions The Thought Provoker: Matt is up first this week. You guys are always telling me how Elon Musk is a proponent of free speech. Well, two things came up this week that suggest he is not. First, A federal judge on Monday threw out a lawsuit by Elon Musk’s X that had targeted a watchdog group for its critical reports about hate speech on the so...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag: One listener writes, “Another UBI experiment. This time in San Antonio. https://sanantonioreport.org/cash-without-conditions-san-antonio-experiment-guaranteed-income/   What do you think people did with extra money? You'll have to read to find out.” The Thought Provoker: Sam is up first this week. Did BYU’s ‘No Sunday Play’ policy cause the NCAA selection committee t...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker First up, Shawn. This week Political Scientist Matthew, “Matty Bird” Miles interviewed LDS history Scholar Patrick Mason on the twim podcast . Matt asked a great question of Mason about how history informs his interpretation of religious doctrine? He answered it helps him be comfortable with change and to be comfortable with the human element in scripture. How...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Shawn is up first this week. Elon Musk has sued OpenAI and its CEO Sam Altman , claiming that the company failed to keep its promise of developing AI tools for "the benefit of humanity" over maximizing profits. Musk helped launch and fund OpenAI in its early years. His lawyers argue that Musk poured time, money and recruiting resources to the AI lab...

Send us Fan Mail One listener writes, “I know how much everyone loves UBI, but with so many trials and studies to learn about it happening and wrapping up, I feel like it would be good to talk about their findings . I'm also discouraged by rich people who are lobbying to prevent even the research and studies. The Thought Provoker: This week, a letter was read to Republican-majority LDS Congre...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is first this week. Exciting new research in the field of male contraceptives has identified a number of medications that a man can take that will make it impossible for him to impregnate a woman. The work is very preliminary at the moment, but the findings suggest that taking the medication has no long term side effects on the man or his ability to prod...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker Sam is up first this week. And I make the argument that the high prices we pay here in the US for pharmaceuticals subsidize the entire world, but they guarantee the best end result anywhere else in the world. We have medicines and therapies that are available globally because of the higher prices we pay here in the US.    Next up Shawn, Power to the Patients i...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Shawn is up first this week.  This week Tucker Carlson interviewed Vlad Putin and I got very mad because he didn’t challenge a single thing Putin said. Didn’t challenge his claim that Poland started ww2, didn’t challenge Putin’s claim that he has no interest in invading other countries unless they attack Russia even though he just invaded Ukraine. Didn’t chal...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: One listener writes, “ I  heard Shawn say that we shouldn't pay attention to the fact that people in blue states live longer. You talked about life expectancy, but you could make the same case that people in blue States are, on average, richer , safer , healthier , better educated and more likely to live in a happy, stable family than people in red state...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag: I thought your discussion about longevity and quality of life was interesting. Healthy living is something I think is very important, but I don't know that a health care solution is the key. this map can help identify possible patterns for what might be contributing to longevity. The Thought Provoker: This week Sam is up first. Should Utah schools ban smart phones, o...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is up first. Sam has been saying for a long time that Trump would be the Republican nominee. I have been saying that we should wait and see what the voters do, and not just trust polls. Well, now the voters in Iowa have spoken and it is nearly certain that Trump will be the Republican nominee. I have no reason to believe that Nikki Hailey can win the nom...