We hear a lot about artificial intelligence (AI) but most of us don’t know what it is or how it works. The basic element of an AI model that differentiate it from other models is the ability for the software to “learn” as it goes along. Other elements are massive amounts of data and a specific “target” programmed by the coders. I am not an expert but I am going to describe a single instance of AI usage that may help refine your understanding of the technology.

Resume Screening

Today most job applicants apply for a job through an online portal. This makes it easy to apply for jobs. It also automates a process that used to be very much not automated. I can remember the days of going to Kinko’s (before they were bought by FedEx) and choosing my paper very carefully on which to print my resume. Even the very paper you used was part of your presentation. But today, it’s primarily online until you are well into the selection process.

Because of this, a job opening can get hundreds to thousands of applicants. Overworked HR employees and recruiters are turning increasingly to AI to sift through these applicants.

Suppose we are looking at an engineering firm.

The Data Used

In order to sift through these applications, resumes from prior applicants are fed into the AI program along with an indicator showing whether they were hired and if so whether they were successful. The definition of “successful” could be anything including whether the applicant is still employed, whether they worked there for a year or more or perhaps even an indicator if they were fired or left on their own. A small company might see if they can get data on other similar companies and the credentials and life experience of the people working at those companies.

Scoring

One technique would be to assign a score to each resume based on various characteristics. In a non-AI program, the user would enter the criteria which could look like this:

· 3 years of experience

· Degree from an accredited engineering school

· Degree in mechanical, electrical or industrial engineering

· Three extracurricular activities in college

A program could be made to search for these four items and select only those resumes which meet the criteria to move forward in the process.

AI follows a slightly different path. In an AI model, there might be a few criteria that are essential such as the ones above. However, you could still have hundreds of resumes that pass the test. The AI model looks at all the data on the resume to score how closely that data matches successful candidates. Since the resumes are all electronic, the AI model has access to everything on the resume.

The model assigns points to anything on the resume that matches successful candidates from the past. This could be such things as degrees and extracurriculars as well as name, address and other information that would not ordinarily be considered.

This methodology selects candidates that are similar to successful candidates from the past and will winnow down the candidate pool even further.

Where Can It Go Wrong?

If the AI model is not carefully vetted, there are several places in which you get unintended consequences. A key here is that the person coding the AI model only codes the goals, not the methodology used to get to the goals.

Definition of successful – If the definition of successful is not carefully written and the model uses anyone who still works at the company as successful, the model might exclude most of your female candidates. Women may work 5 or 6 years and then move out of the company for a period of time to raise children. The model does not know that and will see that women are less successful candidates according to this definition of successful. In reality, a good employee who gives 5 or 6 good years to the company is often very much a success.

Unintended bias – The model is looking for similarities.

Education - You might get a resume from a historically black school such as Morehouse College. If the company has never hired anyone from Morehouse, that candidate may get lower “points” in the education category. This introduces an unintended bias against a school that is expected to graduate qualified black students.

Gender – If not excluded, the model could look at the names of the resumes. Those with the name John are likely to be more common than those with the name Sarah. Without specifically looking at gender, the model gives lower points to the candidates named Sarah, creating unintended bias.

Cheating the system – Because the model is looking for certain key elements that match some criteria, there are ways for savvy candidates to cheat the system. For example, some candidates are submitting their resumes with the job posting included but in white font. The computer assumes the candidate meets the criteria because they are in the document somewhere, even if not in the actual resume. But the humans who look at the resume don’t notice the job description which is unreadable to human eyes (the white font).

Errors – There are two types of error that a hiring manager can make. That hiring manager can hire the wrong person who ultimately doesn’t work out. If that happens, it is well known to the hiring manager and to the computer. The other mistake is that the hiring manager can decide not to hire someone who would have been very good at the job(credit to my brother Doug for pointing this one out). If this happens, no one knows. However, the human could look at resumes the next time and decide to interview or hire someone despite them looking slightly different from the other resumes.

These concerns can be managed with careful programming. However, if all the model does is winnow down a large list of resumes and provide the final 10 or so to the HR manager, the problems may or may not ever be diagnosed. There are some which are egregious (only male resumes making it through the filter, for example) which will be noticed. Others may never be noticed and will continue to exacerbate our cultural biases.

This is just an example of a current use of AI with my concerns. I am sure that others would bring up different uses or different models as examples.

AI does hold promise in many areas to make our lives easier and to move scientific and medical research forward rapidly. However, with anything that is as powerful as AI, we must proceed with caution. The narrative that comes from the tech companies is anything but cautious. For them, AI is the way they are going to super-charge their earnings.

This blog post cannot encompass all I learned in my deep dive into AI but it will give you what I consider most important. I plan to post two additional blogs about data and how AI models work in the next week or so.

In my research I read four primary books and any articles about AI that came across my desk during that time. See the bibliography at the end of the post for the books and articles in case you are interested in reading more.

The Promise

AI can and will make our lives easier in many ways. It’s already doing so. For example, when I type on my phone, AI automatically suggests the next words that it expects me to use so that I don’t have to type those. Google maps identifies the two or three best routes to get to my destination. These are ways that AI is working behind the scenes to help make life easier.

There are more intentional ways to use AI. For example, a friend of mine uses AI to screen training videos and prepare review questions to pose to trainees. She must review these questions for accuracy and relevance but this makes her life much easier. Programmers are using AI to create code. That code must then be evaluated and made more efficient but can save the programmers significant time.

AI is being used to help researchers move from the results of their research to a written paper, saving time and helping make their papers better.

AI can assist with evaluation of medical imaging and improve outcomes.

The sky is the limit at this point with the potential for AI. And if you believe everything you read, it will soon be the only important commodity in our world.

The Risk

The concern I have as I look at AI and the state of things today is that we are not evaluating risks very clearly. I see people on one side of the equation arguing that AI is the end of humanity as we know it and something that should be avoided at all costs. This is both unrealistic and unreasonable. There are very good reasons to use the incredible computing power available to move humanity forward. AI can be used to save water and fuel, to sift through vast amounts of data for meaning that would be too difficult to find without assistance, to reduce traffic accidents by evaluating each road for risks. The possibilities are endless and to never use AI is irresponsible.

However, there are others who tell us that AI is going to save the world. This is also both unrealistic and irresponsible. The current pace of AI implementation is leading us towards a future that no one can really predict and the risks inherent in AI models are starting to be seen.

Here are just a few of the risks that are most concerning to me.

Bias: The models tend to exacerbate and reinforce societal biases around race, gender, ability and other variables that we have made slow but real progress in improving. In recent years, AI models have been shown to have extreme bias but this is frequently only found once the model is in use. Users identify concerns and bring those to the attention of the tech companies. At that point we must rely on the tech companies to fix the model.

One current use of AI that is extremely concerning from a bias perspective is in vetting resumes for potential employees. The AI model is looking for resumes that have characteristics most likely to succeed at a job. The model is trained on the current workforce to assist in making these conclusions. If your current workforce is not diverse, the pool of candidates screened will not be diverse. For example, if you have a team of engineers who are mostly white males, the AI model may not move resumes forward of people who do not have those characteristics. This methodology exacerbates current workforce biases and leaves good potential candidates out of the pool.

If you think about it, there are two possible “errors” you can make in hiring. One is to hire someone who doesn’t work out. When that happens you know it has happened and you can put that feedback into the model. But the other error you can make is to not hire someone who would have been a great candidate. AI has no way to know if this error has been made.

Black Box: AI models are often extremely opaque so that even the people who programmed the model are not sure why certain conclusions are reached. Because no model is perfect, without a deeper understanding of the model’s methodology, a model could easily be developing incorrect conclusions. We need people with deep topical knowledge reviewing the output of models to ensure that they are reasonable. AI is expected to eliminate some jobs but will create others, particularly in reviewing the output of the model. All of the books I read recognize that understanding how to use AI models is extremely important and training in the use of AI needs to be part of our curriculum today.

Unintended consequences: We have heard the stories of AI chat bots that lead people to actions they might not otherwise consider such as committing a crime or in the worst case, commit suicide. The models were not designed for these outcomes but there are frequent unintended consequences in powerful models like AI.

Societal Change: Models are designed with specific goals that may not be consistent with what we want for our world. For example, social media AI is instructed to increase the screen time of users. That increased screen time allows the company to collect more data (for sale) and to show the user more advertisements. Content that is sensational tends to catch the attention of the user. The AI model therefore prioritizes that sensational content leading to greater division in society and a greater sense of fear for all of us. The use of these models in social media is at least partly the cause of the deep divisions in our society today.

What Should We Do

As with all new technology that has the power for great good or great harm, we need to slow down. There are a couple of particular areas of importance that are currently not being fully recognized.

Research: Our academic institutions are the first line of attack for us to understand new technologies. However, due to the size of datasets and the computing power needed, many of our universities are unable to do significant research. That research is left to the tech companies whose interests are not objective.

Testing: In her very interesting book, The Mind’s Mirror, roboticist Daniela Rus proposes that we have a set of tests that every AI model intended for commercial purposes would be run through. This would be similar to the tests we run on cars. Particular safety problems would be identified and tested for. This would not catch everything but would at least build a system of accountability for the models in use. And I would argue that the potential for damage due to a bad AI system is more than the potential for a poorly designed car.

Restricted Access: AI models can be extremely powerful. With that power comes risk. Some AI models should have restricted access since they could be used in ways which endanger human life. The AI company Anthropic recently took a stand that their products could not be used by the United States military until Anthropic understood what guardrails would be put in place. That stand was very costly for the company but pointed to concerns in the industry about the use of the model.

I have very strong concerns about facial recognition technology and the ways in which that technology can be used. There are also significant biases in facial recognition technology, especially with regards to people of color.

Regulations: I am deeply concerned that regulation of AI models is limited, particularly in the United States. We see large amounts of money poured into political campaigns by the tech moguls. This money is spent on all kinds of candidates regardless of their political leaning. The intention of this money is to keep the politicians from seriously considering regulations on AI models. Europe has been somewhat more proactive than the United States in this area, but regulation remains limited everywhere.

Effect on Small Business: Large businesses are already investing enormous amounts of capital into AI research. This research is giving those very large companies an edge in the AI world, creating efficiencies that allow them to earn greater profits. But AI research and tools are very expensive (the free stuff that is of limited use). For smaller companies, this cost is prohibitive, forcing them to be less competitive.

Conclusion

Artificial Intelligence models show great promise to increase efficiency and improve our lives. However, because these models are extremely powerful and new, I recommend caution as we embrace them.

Research regarding the ethical use of AI models is being done around the world. One of the links below is to a statement by UNESCO on the ethics of artificial intelligence. It will be critical that we slow down the tech companies’ race to AI long enough to evaluate the ethics.

If you have found this at all interesting and want to read more, I recommend The Mind’s Mirror by Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone as an accessible, comprehensive picture of the current state of AI.

Bibliography

Books:

The Alignment Problem: Machine Learning and Human Values by Brian Christian

The Mind’s Mirror by Daniela Rus and Gregory Mone

Design Justice by Sasha Constanza-Chock

The Age of Surveillance Capitalism by Shoshanna Zuboff

News Articles

https://www.propublica.org/article/machine-bias-risk-assessments-in-criminal-sentencing

https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2026/mar/09/anthropic-artificial-intelligence-pentagon

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/11/opinion/openai-ads-chatgpt.html

https://www.nytimes.com/2026/02/03/opinion/ice-surveillance-protesters.html

UNESCO Statement on the Ethics of AI

https://unesdoc.unesco.org/ark:/48223/pf0000381137

Violence, terror, misogyny, fear

Heaviness

I am weighted down with heaviness

I walk the dog

Spring air smells of new rain

Cool wind caresses my cheek

Joyful concentration as the dog follows a trail

Lightness

I am lifted up by lightness

How do I hold these together in myself?

I must

Because that is what makes us human

And joy is the ultimate act of resistance

Some months ago I bought The Book of Alchemy: A Creative Practice for an Inspired Life by Suleika Jaouad, partly because of its beautiful cover. Also, I have followed her story of a cancer diagnosis at an early age and the portions of navigating that which she has made public.

I wasn’t sure that I would be able to stick to this but thought I would give it a try. What happened? Today I finished my 100th journal entry. I am feeling some deep sadness because this is the end of the book!!!!

The format of the book includes daily “prompts” based on essays by a wide diversity of authors. These authors range from Quinton Jones on death row in Texas (he was executed in 2021) to famous authors like Elizabeth Gilbert and John Green. The topics are organized into 10 sections, each with a short introduction by the author.

The prompts always triggered something in me. Even the ones that I thought wouldn’t somehow gave me enough to write; maybe not something profound but always something true.

Recently I went through a day when I didn’t journal at all. That evening, I realized that I felt scattered and disorganized. My internal equilibrium was off because I had not journaled. As I go forward, I intend to continue this practice. I am going to try poetry as my prompts. I have a wonderful book called Above Ground by Clint Smith (highly recommended!). I will use this for prompts and see how it goes.

If you have ever wanted to keep a journal and found it didn’t work, I highly recommend this book!!!

This year I’m going to do the latter. And I’m writing to you, my followers 😊, about my resolutions because they will be reflected here in my blog. As you know I am a very occasional blogger. But one of my followers who is very important to me complained recently that she wishes I would write more (thank you, Laura Selph). So here is my 2026 New Year’s resolution:

I will do deep dives on six topics during the year, devoting two months to each topic. At the end of the two months (or whenever I feel prepared), I will blog about my thoughts.

The list of topics is currently as follows:

• January/February: Artificial Intelligence

• March/April: Food and Food Systems

• May/June: Allyship – What does it mean to be a good ally?

• July/August: Addiction

• September/October: Poverty and the Working Poor

• November/December: History from the perspectives of underrepresented groups

If you know of any good books on these topics, please let me know. I have a few in mind already, but I am open to suggestions!

I hope that 2026 is a year full of blessings for each of you. And I hope it is a year in which we as a society realize that we are responsible for the community around us, including those who are less fortunate than us.

I have observed our culture focusing more on what each individual family looks like than on the community as a whole. Parents focus heavily on what their individual family looks like and less on what the communities their children live in look like. The pressure this puts on parents and on families is enormous. Each individual family becomes responsible for the well-being of their child, without assistance from anyone else. What a loss for both the children and the adults!

The NIH has an entire paper on creating the village for raising children. Here’s a quote from that paper:

The phrase “it takes a village to raise a child” originates from an African proverb and conveys the message that it takes many people (“the village”) to provide a safe, healthy environment for children, where children are given the security they need to develop and flourish, and to be able to realize their hopes and dreams. This requires an environment where children’s voices are taken seriously (2) and where multiple people (the “villagers”) including parents, siblings, extended family members, neighbors, teachers, professionals, community members and policy makers, care for a child. All these ‘villagers’ may provide direct care to the children and/or support the parent in looking after their children. However, the village, in many countries today, is dissipated and fragmented and individuals are increasingly isolated and are not eager to ask for, or provide help to, others. Family breakdown, economic pressures, long working hours and increased mobility have all contributed to families feeling less connected to extended family members and others around them (3). https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC8964422/

Spirit of Grace is a village for our young people. Today I want to talk to you about why it’s so important, what we are already doing and what you can do to be the village.

I’m going to start with a story about my own daughter, Laura. In high school she came out to us as bisexual. We had a lengthy conversation one Friday evening. We thought we were saying all the right things but frankly, the conversation ended in tears. In particular, there was a group of kids at school that she really liked who told her they couldn’t support her if she dated a girl because they were Christians. This didn’t make any sense to Laura, and we weren’t able to make it make sense either. Thankfully, we belonged to a supportive church, so we told her to talk to Don, the youth pastor. The following Sunday when we went back to the youth area to get the kids and head home, Laura said, “I’m going to lunch with Don.” Don looked at us for approval which we readily gave. I’m not entirely sure what Don said to her that day and it may not have been any different from what we said. What I do know is that Laura is a happy well-adjusted woman. She attends an Episcopal church on the east side that is open and welcoming. She is in a loving relationship. I also know that Don wasn’t the only person at the church who supported her. There was Bea who loved the kids fiercely and went on mission trips with them into her 80’s. There were my friends Holly and Nicole who modeled for her what a family could look like with two mothers. There was June who travelled with her to Detroit for the Presbyterian General Assembly so that Laura could testify on behalf of an amendment to allow for openly gay clergy to be called to churches. There was Jen who showed her how a woman could pick herself up with respect after a difficult divorce.

I see all of you being the village here at Spirit of Grace. It might be the Dirt Siblings working with the children and youth to plant a special garden. It might be the men’s group taking the kids golfing. It might be Charles Cole volunteering his time at a youth retreat. It might be any one of our five storytellers meeting with the youth on Sunday. It might just be someone chatting with one of the kids in between services.

We are called to be the village for our kids. The passage from Psalm 127 reminds us of how precious our youth are and how blessed we are to have them here.

Let me tell you a bit about the intentional village work we do with our young people. For our younger children we have traditional Sunday school with a program for our very little children and another program for our elementary aged children. They attend in between services every Sunday except for Last Sunday.

But today I want to focus on our confirmation youth.

Why is youth ministry so important?

· If you look at how young people are raised today, there isn’t much opportunity for inter-generational relationships. Young people have their teachers and maybe their soccer coaches and their parents. But many families are geographically spread so that young people don’t often see grandparents or others from the older generations. The church is a place where they are around people of all ages.

· The focus of schools is increasingly on academics, despite research showing how important mental well-being is to learning. At Spirit of Grace we can teach our youth how to live in a way that makes the world a better place. We go beyond academics to faith, ethics and justice.

· Many children are raised without religious education. We know that so many people of the current generation of parents were either hurt by the church or raised by parents who were hurt by the church. At Spirit of Grace we try to be a church that welcomes those who were hurt by the church in the past. We provide these children with moral grounding and a religious background for their future.

· We can show our youth that they are welcome, as they are. We don’t ask our youth to be a certain person in order for us to love them. We accept and celebrate them as they are. This can be difficult some times. We all have expectations as to what a young person will be like. It is our job to lose those expectations and meet them where they are. This can be difficult. I know that I sometimes fall down. I make assumptions as to what will work well for a kid, and I can be wrong.

The confirmation class which is made up of middle school and now high school students, meets in Pastor Robyn’s office. Our Sundays start with a debrief of our prior week and end with prayer concerns. I can tell you from those prayer concerns that our kids are very attuned to the injustices in our world as well as to the needs of their friends and family. Our educational program is graciously developed by Mike Keyes. It is a three-year program which enables the kids to enter at any point and finish when they’ve been in for three years. We have multiple “storytellers” who lead the discussion and I am there every week for consistency. Developing our own program allows us to tailor it to Spirit of Grace. For example, this fall we will spend time on womanist theology because of a question from one of our confirmation students. We also are able to give our confirmation classes perspectives from both the Catholic and the Lutheran traditions.

Through the efforts of parents and Katie Furgison, the confirmation class has performed service projects including making care packages for the Blanchet House and performing maintenance around the church

In past years we have also sponsored one-night retreats here at the church which give us more time to connect. It is difficult in the structured 45 minutes on Sunday morning to have deep conversations. Those retreats are often attended by kids from other small churches.

For the past two years I was privileged to take our confirmation kids to Camp Lutherwood, a five-day overnight camp with churches from all around Oregon and SW Washington. This experience gives our kids exposure to other churches and church leaders. It also gives me and other leaders from Spirit of Grace more time to build deep relationships. For example, this year one of our youth approached me during our time at Lutherwood and asked about the language used in the camp songs. That gave us the opportunity to talk about inclusive language, why it’s important to Spirit of Grace and what you will see at other churches (it also gave me a chance to talk to the camp director who is working to improve the inclusive language used in songs at Lutherwood).

It’s important to note that our weekly scheduled program is not the end of the village raising our children. It’s really just the beginning. The relationships that you build with our youth will guide them through the challenges of growing up in a confusing and complicated world. Recognizing that as adults right now we are navigating a complicated world, imagine how much more difficult that would be when you are also learning how to navigate who you are. They need us.

So how can you show up for our kids? There are so many ways.

· The first and most important is merely seeing them. If you see one of our kids walking through the church, say good morning. You don’t even have to engage them in conversation, just acknowledge them. Attend social activities such as monthly games which has just been restarted and play games with people of all ages.
I will often say to people who ask about my volunteering with the youth that if I teach nothing on a Sunday morning except that there is another adult who loves them, I have done my job.

· Of course you can volunteer. There are many volunteer roles with our youth. Certainly we would welcome you as storytellers on Sunday morning. But there are other, perhaps less intimidating, roles. For example, the men’s group reached out and took some of our kids to Top Golf. The property team worked with the kids last year to fill potholes in the parking lot. The Dirt Siblings worked with the kids to plant a garden.

· Our church will be partnering with the Westside Youth Collective, a multi-church youth group which will give our youth a larger youth group along with an ecumenical lens on their faith. We hope to provide a few volunteers to the Westside Collective.

If you are interested in any kind of formal role with the youth, please talk to me or Reverend Vinci.

What we have is beautiful. We have young children who are comfortable at Spirit of Grace like they aren’t anywhere else. We have youth who know that when they are here, caring adults will listen to them and love them right where they are.

We are a multi-generational community. That is a precious commodity today which gives our youth a very special resource. The vitality of our church is significantly enhanced by our young people. I am deeply grateful for what we have and the role each of you play.

I had noticed my reading also slowed up in recent years. I blame this on several things. For me personally the most obvious one is the ease of availability of the “smart” phone. I find that I spend 15 minutes here and 30 minutes there (and often more) scrolling or playing games on my phone. These little devices promise so much but ultimately deliver very little. Sure, I can research anything while at dinner with my husband. But the phone beckons me with promises of entertainment and to “cure” my boredom. But does it really? I find myself invariably disappointed when I pick up my phone.

There’s also a loss of attention span. I re-read David Copperfield last fall and found that I needed to relearn how to read a lengthy and complicated book like that.

All of this led to a reduction in my reading. I didn’t like that. There are so many wonderful books I want to read and the only way to do that is to actually read!

Thus for 2025 I decided on a single new year’s resolution. I would sit and read a paper book for at least 30 minutes a day. Preferably that would be a contiguous 30 minutes but not necessarily. It is now August. In the past seven months I have read 39 books. These books represent a combination of light fiction such as romance novels or mysteries, heavier fiction such as classics, as well as non-fiction. Not every book was fantastic. Some were harder to read than others. Some were gorgeous beyond my ability to explain. I feel so much better now that I am actually reading books again.

If you are struggling to find time or energy to read books, I challenge you to try this 30-minute challenge. It might work for you. It might not. But if you love reading as much as I do, wouldn’t you want to try to find your way back to a good book?

When we talk about taxes in our country, the conversation seems always to be about how taxes are too much. We spend too much and tax too much. This conversation is driven by two narratives: we should lower taxes on the wealthy and we all pay too much in taxes. I propose that there is another narrative we should consider which is that we all benefit from our taxes and without taxes our current lifestyle would be unsupportable.

Narrative 1: We Should Lower Taxes on the Wealthy

The first narrative is that if we lower taxes on businesses and the wealthy, they will invest that money in a way that benefits everyone. That’s been the narrative since Ronald Reagan was president in the 1980’s. It hasn’t really worked out so well for those who are not wealthy. Income inequality has not improved in those years, leaving a wealthy class of multi-millionaires and billionaires and a vast gap between them and the rest of the population.

In 2022, families in the top 10 percent of the distribution held 60 percent of all wealth, up from 56 percent in 1989, and families in the top 1 percent of the distribution held 27 percent, up from 23 percent in 1989. The share of wealth held by the rest of the families in the top half of the distribution shrank from 37 percent to 33 percent over the same period. Families in the bottom half of the distribution held 6 percent of all wealth in both 1989 and 2022 (emphasis is mine). (Source: Congressional Budget Office, “Trends in the Distribution of Family Wealth, 1989 to 2022”)

Narrative 2: We Pay Too Much in Taxes

This narrative is applied by everyone. We all think we pay too much in the way of taxes. And we are told that if we pay more in taxes, our country will be less prosperous. If we compare the United States to other countries that we would consider prosperous, we find that people in the United States pay significantly less in taxes. In 2021 people in the United States collected taxes of around 27% of Gross Domestic Product (GDP). For comparison, Japan, Canada and the UK collect approximately 33% of GDP in taxes. (From the Tax Policy Center, based on data from the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development). An additional 6% of GDP would yield an additional $1.8 trillion to be used for the benefit of all Americans.

What Do My Tax Dollars Buy?

How do we determine what the “right” amount to pay is? If I go to the store and purchase something, I look at the value I am getting for my money and determine if I think it’s too expensive. Let’s explore what we get for our money.

It’s not so easy to look at taxes like I would look at something I purchased at the store. In general, our taxes pay for infrastructure such as utilities and roads, safety such as police and fire and national defense, education, general public good such as libraries and parks, and our justice system including our courts and our prison system. Under each of these categories is a long list of individual items. Here is my incomplete list of things that my taxes pay for:

An incomplete list of tax benefits

Infrastructure:

· Roads

· Road maintenance

· Airports

· Public transportation

· Utilities

o Water

o Sanitation

o Electrical generation and transmission

· Power lines to transmit power over long distances

· Ports so that goods from other countries can be shipped

· Train tracks and train stations

Safety:

· Fire departments

· Fire trucks

· People to determine regulations to make houses and other spaces safer (e.g. requiring sprinkler systems in public buildings)

· Licensing processes to make people who drive safer on the roads

· Police departments

· Prisons

· National Defense – maintenance and arming of the armed forces

· Coast Guard

· Food and Drug Administration and USDA employees who keep the food we eat safe

Education:

· K-12 public schools

· Public universities

· Community colleges

· Teacher licensing rules

· Curriculum

Public Good:

· Scientific research

o Medical research

o Technology research

o Agricultural research

· Libraries

· City Parks

· State Parks

· National Parks

· Wildlife Refuges

· Rules to keep corporations from cheating customers

· Rules to keep corporations and individuals from polluting the environment

· Museums

Justice:

· The court system to ensure that people accused of a crime get a fair trial

o Public defenders for those who cannot afford a lawyer

o Juries to fulfill our constitutional rights

An Alternative Narrative

Looking at this extensive list of things that our taxes pay for, I realize that maybe paying taxes isn’t such a bad thing. Our country would not be the economic powerhouse that it is without the infrastructure paid for by my taxes. Our country would not be nearly as safe if we didn’t have the fire departments, police departments, Coast Guard and all the other government entities helping out in case of emergency. Our country would not be nearly as enjoyable a home without the libraries, parks, National parks and many other amenities paid for by my taxes. Without our justice system (imperfect as it is), I would not feel comfortable that my rights were being protected. So I will be paying my share of taxes this year without complaint because I know that my tax dollars are being used for my benefit in many, many ways.

We will always have discussions about how much of our taxes to put to each of these categories and how to spend those taxes but it is clear that we are served more efficiently by having the government provide certain services.

Recently a friend of mine asked me, “How do you do it? How do you not use Amazon?” The question took me aback. I have never considered HOW I get around using Amazon because I simply never really have used the service. This means that I have gotten quite good at smiling at people when they say, “Oh, you can get it on Amazon.” Because unless I want to have a conversation around why I choose not to use Amazon, it’s easier to just smile and nod.

Being tired of smiling and nodding I am writing this essay to answer two questions: Why don’t I use Amazon? – and – How don’t I use Amazon?

Why do I avoid using Amazon?

I avoid using Amazon because for me it is in direct conflict with how I choose to live my life. Here are a few of the things that using Amazon can cause.

Too much stuff

Have you noticed that Americans are drowning? We are drowning in stuff. I belong to a “Buy Nothing” group on Facebook and I see so much stuff changing hands through that group. Sometimes a member posts that they are doing a “purge” and lists a bunch of items that they are looking to offload. That same individual will post again in a few months. While it is a worthwhile and valuable thing to try to find homes for your things, I wonder where all this stuff comes from in the first place. It is so easy today to order something that will be delivered tomorrow that people order more stuff than they need.

On average, Americans produce just under a ton of waste per year per person. That is the household waste and does not include industrial, medical or agricultural waste! What an enormous cost for the planet in terms of resources and waste.

Did you ever think about why it’s so much fun to buy things? Each item you purchase gives a small boost in dopamine. That dopamine feels good and makes you want to experience that again. A friend tells me that she gets a warm feeling when she knows that an Amazon delivery will be on her doorstep.

But what happens next? You use something for a bit and then we must get rid of your purchase. When you make that purchase you aren’t thinking of the fact that you must get rid of that someday. It takes enormous effort to get rid of things. You can think of that effort as part of the purchase price. Before you purchase something from Amazon (or anywhere), consider what it will cost to get rid of your purchase.

I leave this section with a quote from Jose Mujica, former president of Paraguay: “If I have too much luggage, too many material goods, that makes me worry I have to defend this stuff - then in that case I will not have time left to take care of the things I really love, and then I lose my freedom.”

Big Business

Remember when Amazon was an online bookstore? They are not an online bookstore. In fact, they are not an online retailer. They are a combination of an online retailer, a data company, a software company (Amazon Web Services (AWS)), an entertainment company, a healthcare provider and more. Through subsidiaries they are involved in groceries (Whole Foods), Artificial Intelligence (Alibaba), home security (Ring) and many more. The ubiquity of the company leads to enormous amounts of data controlled by one organization (more on that later).

Significant portions of online retailers use Amazon’s software to manage their sales. They may even use Amazon trucks to deliver the goods they sell you. In 2023, of Amazon’s total profits of $36 billion, $24 billion came from the sales of software.

When a company is as dominant as Amazon, they are virtually impossible to avoid, despite the best of intentions. I recently had a package that I purchased directly from a manufacturer delivered by an Amazon truck in Amazon packaging.

Because Amazon controls so much of the retail market and the software being used to process online retail, they are a monopoly. In addition to being able to control and dictate pricing in many of their businesses, the monopoly stifles the creativity and innovation of other technology companies.

Data

There is the old saying, “nothing is ever free”. When you purchase from a company such as Amazon, you are paying with money but also with data. Data is the hottest commodity in the economy right now. Amazon uses your data in their interfaces to recommend other purchases, etc. They have entered the AI world through the recent purchase of an Artificial Intelligence (AI) startup called Anthropic. Retailers who use Amazon Web Services will be able to use artificial intelligence from Anthropic. Note that artificial intelligence is ALL about the data. Your data that Amazon has collected is now in the hands of any online retailer using AWS. Have you read the privacy policy? Most of us have not and do not know where our data is being used.

Your data is also being used to direct entertainment companies, to identify your purchasing patterns to encourage more purchases and so many more things. Artificial intelligence and big data are focused exclusively on maximizing the amount of money the company makes.

I am particularly concerned about the impact this will have on creativity. For example, we have seen a spate of Marvel Universe movies lately. These movies are guaranteed to make some money for movie studios. The data algorithms have shown this to the studios, so they fund these movies. But with so many movies following a narrow genre, what are we missing? What interesting and creative movies are out there that aren’t being made because of the AI algorithms?

The same holds for books. If a book has to be a bestseller in order to be published, what interesting and challenging books are not published and promoted? It is certainly true that the opinion of editors about which books are to be published is imperfect. But so is the opinion of the algorithm that cannot see the value in new ideas. Thankfully small independent printing presses are still bringing out some of the books that don’t fit the algorithm. Seek them out when you can and see what you find.

Community

There is an economic impact on the local community every time you use an online shopping service. Recently I decided I needed to buy earrings in the shape of mushrooms or toadstools. I mentioned this to a young woman in high school. Her response was, of course, “Amazon”. I told her that I don’t use Amazon and that I would rather buy from a local artist. This seemed like a new concept to her and one that she liked. Ultimately, my daughter’s partner went to a craft fair and bought me a pair of earrings. The earrings are adorable but they mean SO much more than they would if they had been purchased Amazon.

I buy all my books from the local bookstore. If they don’t have them in stock the store will order for me and either deliver them or hold them for me at the store. I am also able to purchase e-books and audio books from them. This store holds readings, gives books to local charities for kids and supports local writers. By buying through them I am supporting all of these activities as well as supporting local jobs.

Social Interaction

Our world has become increasingly isolated and separated. There are fewer and fewer places where we go and see people in real life. Since the pandemic, even the workplace is virtual. But when I go to the store, I have to interact with someone, if only a smile and nod in the grocery aisle. Recently I went to an office supplies store to buy pens (I love pens). I had a brief interaction with a young man behind the counter. It was really only pleasantries, but I love the chance to see young people learning and working. How do we counter negative stereotypes if we never see young people in real life, only in videos?

Shopping is also an extension of our neighborhood networks. This morning I ran into a neighbor in the grocery store. We chatted briefly about some work she is doing to help another neighbor. That gives me a glimpse into her life that I can’t get from behind my computer. In another instance, I ran into a neighbor and chatted for a time. We enjoyed the conversation so much that my husband and I invited the neighbor and his wife for dinner. Yet another connection made through being in a physical store.

While these might seem like small anecdotes, in 2023 the U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy published a report titled, “Our Epidemic of Loneliness and Isolation.” One-in-two American adults report feeling lonely and isolated. This has a very real impact on our health, as much impact on mortality as smoking 15 cigarettes a day! We need more than just shopping in person to address the loneliness epidemic but it’s a start.

How do I avoid using Amazon?

I hope that I have shown you a few reasons that using Amazon may not be the best solution. The question often arises as to how I manage to avoid using Amazon. I struggle with this question because I have never found Amazon to be a necessary part of my life. But here are some thoughts I have.

Local

I try to use local brick and mortar stores if I can. For example, I buy books from an independent bookstore, I buy coffee at the grocery store with my groceries, I buy stationary at the local stationary store. I buy gifts at local stores. Local hardware stores or even Lowe’s and Home Depot carry nearly everything you need for a home project.

Some of these stores are big box stores and suffer from some of the same problems that Amazon has. But their influence does not have the same scale as Amazon’s multiple business lines. At least at those stores I can look someone in the eye and ask for help. I might also see my neighbors in the aisle looking for something.

Manufacturer Websites

For things that I can’t find locally, nearly everything can be found on the website of the manufacturer or distributor and ordered directly from them. This requires that I scroll past all the Amazon paid advertising when I search for the item on the internet. I find that if I need something, seeking out the originating company online is worth the few extra minutes. I can order directly from that company and get delivery as fast or nearly as fast as I could through Amazon. The process of determining what I need and how to get it slows down my consumption.

For things that are needed regularly such as a special dog food or a coffee that the local store doesn’t carry you can set a reminder on your phone. Some companies will put together a subscription and automatically mail it to you.

Entertainment

Each person must make decisions regarding where they will get their entertainment; streaming services, local movie theaters, etc. I am not a big consumer of video entertainment. I will enjoy a movie at a local theater about five or six times a year. Look for a streaming service that offers indie films. Get DVDs from your local library. Even better, attend a performance of a local theater company. I have had wonderful experiences at local amateur theaters and I am fortunate to live close to a local professional theater.

And of course, entertainment doesn’t require a performance. Invite a friend for dinner, join a knitting or other hobby group, or walk the neighborhood (meeting your neighbors in the process).

A Challenge

I challenge you to take a three-month hiatus from purchasing from Amazon.If you need something during that time, spend your Saturday morning looking for it (you can usually go to a store’s website to see if it’s in stock).If you see something you like, think about whether you really need it and what price you will have to pay once you have it

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