The Nehor

The invasion of Taiwan could very easily be a boondoggle. Even without direct US support it could go very badly. It is easy to look at military numbers and say that China will win but Taiwan would be very hard to take. Taiwan’s west coast is shallow meaning you have to ferry troops in from ships. This makes you very vulnerable. The East coast is covered with cliffs. There are a few beaches that are better than others but none are particularly good and Taiwan knows this. An amphibious landing on this scale hasn’t been tried in a long time. Normandy was easy by comparison. Even if they get ashore and get a beachhead the terrain is brutal for an invader. It is not impossible but it is not a matter of China pulling up and waving the flag and taking over. The weather would also be critical. We also don’t know how will the Chinese military will function. They haven’t been in a peer conflict in about 70 years. China is an authoritarian regime which means corruption. How badly has corruption hit China’s military. It could be as bad as Russia or bad but not quite that bad or mostly under control. Also Taiwan and the United States will see an invasion coming months in advance. There would be no way to hide the prep work for this. A less drastic option would be a blockade. It doesn’t risk as much but it could also fail. I think of Argentina trying to use the Falklands to distract from domestic woes. Didn’t go that well and the Falklands conquest was laughably easy compared to what China would have to do to occupy Taiwan. Again, not saying China wouldn’t try it but some people have presented it as a foregone conclusion that China will win unless the United States intervenes directly. China might be able to pull it off but I wouldn’t be surprised if they failed. Also worth noting in general that this religious crackdown is more general than just targeting LDS. Other groups are feeling it too. Some religious groups have been flouting China’s laws for some time and this may just be a reaction to that. I know of some Christian groups that brag about breaking these laws. The really dedicated ones sneak over the border to proselyte in North Korea. Not sure whether this is bravery or stupidity or both. And yeah, China has to pay the economic piper soon. They have been papering over their economy’s shortcomings since the late 2000s with fiscal stimulus but their government is so far not willing to address the actual problems underneath and the safety cushion won’t last forever.

Bringing back memories of Evan Mecham and all those shenanigans. Weird times.

The more I learn the less I feel the Texas War of Independence was a good movement so not sure the cause was good. The ramifications of the war might have brought more good overall but that is hard to measure.

My what now? It is more of an asparagus smell.

It is just not written in any journals which were the purported source of the story.

I think the weirdest Three Nephites story I have heard was that three men showed up at the Alamo right before it fell. No one knew who they were but journal entries said they somehow got in and no one had seen them and went around telling everyone they were doing a great work and what they were doing would lead to victory. Then they vanished before the battle. Sadly it was all made up.

Bigfoot and UFO sightings have plummeted ever since everyone started carrying a camera with them everywhere they go.

Nah, Korihor was trying to trick his way into getting magical healing.

He probably hung out on the side of the ark like Og of Bashan did. Supposedly Noah even fed Og. Noah was a nice guy. Maybe Og shared with Cain. I would watch a show about them hanging out on the side of the ark together. In one version of the story Og rode a unicorn on the ark…..somehow. Not sure how that worked.

Are you okay?

You can resign from volunteer positions.

I just asked it if it gave this permission and it said no. It is lying to one of us.

So am I talking to a person or are you just a sockpuppet for an AI?

Sort of, he was misrepresenting Chiang Kai-Shek’s actual offer to make it sound more palatable. Either that or he hadn’t really understood what the offer actually was. Background: At the end of the Second World War Chiang Kai-Shek was still in charge of the Chinese government but the communists were out there. They had formed a temporary truce to fight the Japanese. At the end of the war an agreement was reached for the British to liberate the southern half of Indochina and China the northern half. At the time China advocated for Vietnamese independence. China then switched gears and encouraged the return of French rule in order to get economic concessions from France in exchange hoping this would aid their fight against Mao. Later Mao won and Chiang Kai-Shek fled to Taiwan with his army and what was left of his government. Taiwan did not fare well under his administration. Look up the ‘White Terror’ if you want to know how the refugee government treated the people there. When the Vietnam War broke out Chiang offered to invade Guandong province to take advantage of dissent there and to support the United States and its allies in the conflict in Vietnam. The idea was that this offer would prevent Chinese support of North Vietnam and Chiang Kai-Shek believed his return would create uprisings and he could retake the country. This was probably a pipe dream. Nationalist support in China was largely confined to the economic and political elites (mostly the warlords in the nationalist fold) and they were all dead from the purges after Mao’s victory or had already fled. The common people hated Chiang’s government. Virtually everyone agrees there would be no uprisings. So this offer was to draw off China. ETB presented it as if they would fill in and help the US directly in Vietnam. I have no idea if he was ignorant or if he was being deceptive. Supporting an invasion of China would have escalated the conflict. It was a dumb plan and the US government didn’t treat it very seriously. This was also the time period when Elder Benson was trying to drum up support to run for President of the United States working with a John Birch Society front organization with (sigh) staunch segregationist Strom Thurmond as his VP. Chiming in on this offer was probably in service of those ambitions.

It seems like the divine right of kings and nobility with extra steps. It feels good to those who are doing well in life and allows you to accept the suffering of others as chosen or deserved or ordained by God. A lot of temporal leaders were terrible. Most of them in fact. If that is God’s work I am unimpressed. That is not what leadership means. That is the kind of thing you say about leadership if you are a self-help guru trying to motivate people to take charge of their life. Might be useful in that case but it is a bad description of reality.

It was an insane scheme because Chiang Kai-Shek wasn’t interested in serving as proxy soldiers in Vietnam. The actual offer was to cut off all aid to Vietnam from China by attacking China. This would have widened the conflict and Chiang Kai-Shek was delusional thinking there was a lot of support in China for his return. Virtually everyone in China hated him. The people in general didn’t side with the communists for ideological reasons. They did so because the old Chinese government and the local warlords operating within it were brutally oppressive to the point that Mao was (rightly) considered an improvement. It most likely would have gotten Taiwan’s military wiped out, China very involved in Vietnam, and the spectre of nuclear conflict would have been a real possibility. That is not level-headed. That is escalating the situation to no advantage. The situation didn’t need a genocidal warlord. They arguably already had enough of those.

It is a ridiculous take but it is pretty pervasive. We do the same thing with the first half of Section 132 which also doesn’t really work.

I find these ideas very hard to believe. ”Yeah, I have decided to go for being a Spartan helot slave. I think that is the life I want to lead.” ”Really, I am looking into being a Dalit/untouchable in the Hindu caste system.” ”I have decided to go for living a life of ongoing and perpetual physical pain.” ”Oh, oh, are there any slots left for people wanting to be psychopaths? I think that is my best bet for achieving exaltation.”

My reading is nuanced. I am skeptical of the liar in the narrative. Why does everyone else assume Korihor suddenly starts telling the truth at that point? That is how our fictional entertainment does it with the villain rarely deceiving the audience and you can usually trust what they say. Liars in real life just keep lying. If this is supposed to be a true story I have no reason to trust Korihor.

Were people born in other dispensations not meant to be leaders in God’s great work? Also, how can everyone be a leader?

That is deliberate. He is going for the ‘I’m objective and skeptical and disinterested’ thing. He isn’t accidentally revealing anything. He knows exactly what he is doing and that appearance is part of the game he is playing. A lot of anti-Mormons don’t like him because they wish he would be as skeptical and dubious about his own faith. I at least partially agree with them.

This whole passage makes a lot more sense if you assume Korihor was still lying about this angelic devil. Saying oh wait, I actually do believe in God and ‘the devil made me do it’ so please reverse this sounds like a desperate plea for mercy and evasion of responsibility. Not really my fault, it was the bad angel. Note that Alma doesn’t acknowledge his ridiculous story as accurate. Alma just says you would start preaching this again in a heartbeat. I mean seriously, the devil really has to appear in person to deliver that kind of temptation? Since when? Why appear in person when your very appearing undermines the teaching you are giving. Also how would Korihor suddenly know it was the devil right then?

There are watches with several orders of magnitude more processing power.

This. These are reasoned responses to new information but it is definitely philosophies of men. Just like President Kimball’s declarations that no one is every born gay because God wouldn’t do such a thing. You are not gonna squeeze much divine reassurance from a reasoned response. The response always seems to be: “We don’t know, trust God.” ”Well, can you, you know, find out? This is important to a lot of people.” ”Trust God and trust He has a plan.” ”Yet God has categorically stated that you have to do certain things to enter exaltation and now you are trying to tell us not to worry about doing them and all will be well? Is that you hoping it is true or God clarifying or expanding? Is this revelation or just people trying to plug gaps with their own reasoned explanations and reassurances?” Seriously if all the Church can offer is vague possibilities and hypotheticals we don’t need Priesthood or revelation for that. I can make stuff up that sounds nice and workable.

No, I am showing a trope. I don’t much care what an AI says. I don’t trust their answers.