The Latter Day Lens

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...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag: One listener writes “Military conscription has been shown to build a shared national identity, boost loyalty to the polity, and instill patriotism… But here’s the tradeoff: Men from conscripted generations show less trust in democratic institutions than those exempted from the draft…[and] weakens the relationship between the citizen and the state. Hard to say really - I t...

Send us Fan Mail  One listener writes, Hey I wonder if you guys have heard of Gypsy-Rose Blanchard . She was recently released from prison for her role in the killing of her mother . Now she has over 7 million followers on Instagram and she is likely going to be a millionaire because of the fame she is getting from her story. What is the morally appropriate reaction someone should have to a person...

Send us Fan Mail 2023 US politics . It may be hard to believe, but at this time in 2022, Donald Trump had not been indicted on a single criminal charge. As of today, Donald Trump has been indicted in four states on 91 different criminal charges. In addition, A jury found Donald Trump liable in May for sexually abusing advice columnist E. Jean Carroll in 1996, awarding her $5 million and he recentl...

Send us Fan Mail Most people don’t know that Kyiv is the birthplace of Christianity in the Slavic world. Ukrainians are used to having foreigners try to control the way that they worship. Despite the hundreds of years of Mongol control in the 13th century and the decades of communist control in the 20th century, Ukrainians have always found a way to put Christ at the center of their Christmas fest...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker Matt is up first. Recently, Rudy Giuliani was ordered to pay over $148 million to two Georgia election workers for defamation. This all stems from lies he told about the 2020 election being stolen in Georgia. As a lifelong Republican, I see Rudy Giuliani as a metaphor for what has happened to the GOP. In 2001, Giuliani was America’s Mayor—beloved for his respo...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker Sam. All right, so here's my question. So I have friends that listen to our show and friends that are in the Chicagoland and in the Michigan area, Detroit, and other areas in the upper Midwest, and we've often talked about crime rates in those areas and some of the challenges that face people politically, economically in those areas. And I was joking...

Send us Fan Mail Discussion of the Devate Thought Provoker: Since 2008, there has been a remarkable evolution in Russia's approach to propaganda. Described in this article , they focus on high numbers of channels using rapid, continuous, and repetitive messages that lack commitment to consistency. Like using a rapid fire shotgun as opposed to a precise sniper rifle. It uses text, photo, video...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag: Your idea for a coffee substitute cafe in Provo has already been tried. Latter Day Cafe opened in Provo south of BYU in 2021 making drinks out of the Copomo seed, which they promoted as better than coffee. You could caffeinate your drink on a scale of 1 to 4. 1 was equivalent to Mountain Dew, 2 coffee cup, 3 five hour energy, and 4 Bang.   Thought Provoker: In an intervie...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Sam is first. Quote from Quentin L Cook’s devotional last night: “Youth and young adults are not less active or leaving the Church in higher numbers than in the past, as has been widely circulated.…The percentage of church participation for the rising generation shows a continuous upward trend.” - Quentin L. Cook How has the Church reversed a declining trend...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Matt is first this week: This week The US House voted to censure Rep. Rashida Tlaib over her Israel-Hamas rhetoric in a stunning rebuke for using this phrase . A censure is the strongest action the House can take against one of its members other than removing them from office. In the 1860s members were censured for Making statements in support of the Confeder...

Send us Fan Mail Mailbag: “Sam, If adversity is so great for immigrants, why not save some for the rich people? Why rob wealthy people of the chance to work their way up from the bottom? 100% inheritance tax. Who’s with me?”  The Thought Provoker: Sam is first up this week, Are kids medically treated too quickly with medications for aniexty vs teaching them coping/problem solving skills earlier on...

Send us Fan Mail The Thought Provoker: Shawn is first. I hope that he will choose something about how underwhelming Boston was. How he had high hopes given all the history there, but it was just another dirty crime-ridden town run by liberals 😊   Next up, Matt: “UCLA’s Center for Scholars & Storytellers , or CSS, found that teens — plus the 18- to 24-year-old demographic that advertisers typi...

Send us Fan Mail Thought Provoker: First up, Sam. “participation trophies vs meritocracy”  Next up, Matt.” Martin Scorsese’s newly released film “Killers of the Flower Moon” is based on actual events that happened in Oklahoma in the 1920s . You can follow the link to read the full history, but the short version is that US government policy toward native Americans (specifically the Osage Tribe) in...

Send us Fan Mail Thought Provoker: First up, Sam: Should members of the LDS Church support banning or censoring social media platforms like Tik Tok? https://www.msnbc.com/the-reidout/reidout-blog/utah-tiktok-lawsuit-social-media-rcna119995   Utah Gov. Spencer Cox and state Attorney General Sean Reyes announced the lawsuit during a press conference. https://www.nationalreview.com/news/utah-sues-tik...