10.2 | The only thing to fear

0:00Good morning. A teaching tool aimed at helping kids understand world view. Why it matters and why Christianity holds up to questions. Katie McCoy is standing by standing in for John Stone Street. She joins us for Culture Friday. Also today a review of a documentary that evaluates the race toward artificial superintelligence and whether we are right to worry. It's a general question of how do we build a society that can deal with powerful technology. And World Music Reviewer Arseneo Orteza on the comeback of tree 63. It's Friday, October 2nd. This is The World and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Masth. And I'm Nick Einker. Good morning. Up next Kent Coveington with today's news.

1:01Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Etinyahu says authorities now have more information about a copilot who tried to hijack a commercial airliner on its way to Israel. We know that he underwent Islamist radical indoctrination. He was reportedly an Omani National Israel's initial assessment is that he likely acted alone. Authorities arrested him in Saudi Arabia and then sent him to Abu Dhabi where the UAE is investigating the incident. The still unnamed suspect is accused of stabbing the flights captain and trying to crash the plane. Passengers managed to overpower him and regain control of the aircraft. These guys are regular civilians and they did a job. I'm not sure that my team could have done any better. I'm not sure they could have done what they did. They're superheroes and they save the day. Meanwhile Homeland Security Secretary Mark Wayne Mullin says his department is keeping a close eye on American flights. We see no credible threat to the United States.

2:01However, all of DHS including our air marshals TSA were always at a heightened alert for this kind of stuff. And in an unrelated case, police on Thursday made a sixth arrest in connection with a suspected terror plot targeting a US run military base in England. Police arrested the 27 year old suspect in London. He's been identified as a dual citizen of the UK and Iran. The Pentagon is rolling out details on new projects unveiled this week during what Secretary of War Pete Higgseth called his state of the force address. World's Harrison Waters has more now from Washington. Pete Higgseth said the Department of Wars commissioning a task force to consider the future of war in space with a team of civilians at the wheel. Project Meridian will be co led by three of our nation's best minds. Elon Musk, Palmer Lucky and Newt Gingrich. Lucky is least well known of those three names. He's a 34 year old tech and defense industry leader.

3:03The trio has until late January to recommend new weapons and technologies for future battlefields. Higgseth also announced a new department at the Pentagon, the Office of Religious Affairs reporting directly to him. Replacing spiritual health at the same level as physical health. Our department is you might say putting on the full armor of God. Other new projects include scaling up drone capabilities and building a new American military base. The expansions come as Higgseth acknowledges he has authorized 20% cuts in the top ranks of generals and admirals. While critics warn the cuts could drain experience, Higgseth says they'll make the military leaner and more accountable. Reporting for World, I'm Harrison Waters in Washington. Four astronauts woke up on the International Space Station this morning. Ten nine eight after launching from Cape Canaveral Thursday on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket. Three two one ignition and lift off. Go Falcon, go Dragon and go crew 13.

4:10NASA says the nearly eight hour trip was the fastest ever by an American spacecraft to the station. Commander Jessica Watkins is leading the crew on a six month mission replacing a crew that arrived in February. NASA says their work includes growing human tissue from stem cells and testing new ways to grow crops in space. Pakistani air strikes in Afghanistan have killed at least 10 civilians most of them children. Not according to the United Nations. World's Kristen Flavin has that story. Afghanistan's Taliban rulers say the bombs fell early Thursday morning destroying homes in two provinces. Pakistan says it targeted hideouts of the Pakistani Taliban and block separatists and that early reports show 22 militants killed. On Thursday, Pakistan's army spokesmen said the country will do whatever it must to protect its people. Lieutenant General Ahmad Sharif Chaudhry accused the Taliban governor of Kandahar of hosting militant leaders in August,

5:10including block separatists and al-Qaeda members to discuss attacks against Pakistan. The Taliban dismisses the claims as propaganda. For world, I'm Kristen Flavin. Russian leader Vladimir Putin Thursday reiterated a threat that Moscow could use nuclear weapons to defend Kalina grad. That is a Russian region wedged between NATO members Poland and Lithuania. This week, Moscow sent NATO a written warning that it would use its entire arsenal. If the alliance tried to blockade the region, Russia claims NATO is planning a blockade. But officials with NATO say they are not targeting Kalina grad and denounced what they call irresponsible nuclear rhetoric. And Russia's neighbors have their own complaints. Poland says a Russian helicopter from Kalina grad crossed into its airspace last week, the latest in a string of Russian drone and aircraft incursions on NATO's eastern flank. I'm Kent Kuffington and straight ahead.

6:11Katie McCoy joins us for Culture Friday and later, a documentary looks at the AI race and fears about its future. This is the world and everything in it. The world is a country of war. The world is a country of war. The world is a country of war. The world is a country of war. The world is a country of war. It's Friday, October 2nd, 2026. This is the world and everything in it from listener supported world radio. Celebrating 15 years. Good morning. I'm Lindsay Mas. And I'm Nick Eiker. It's Culture Friday and joining us now, author, speaker and co-host of Reality Check on World Watch Katie McCoy. Good morning Katie. Good morning, Nick and Lindsay. How are you guys? Well, thanks for asking, doing well and you know, really pleased that Reality Check is back now with you and Jonathan Moro and the team at World Watch.

7:11The first season of Reality Check, of course, a kind of a live proof of concept. It drew a great response. Families really benefited from it as an addition to an already excellent video news program for young students. But season 2, I think is even more ambitious than season 1. And it kicked off just Wednesday of this week. Caleb Bailey setting the table with a piece built around a pretty sweeping claim that everybody has a world view. So now with season 2 teed up for you and Jonathan, I think we ought to test the claim a bit. What counts as a world view and how do you test it? Well, first we're so excited that it's been renewed for a second season. And thank you to all of your listeners who have given the feedback. I've lost count of how many different people I've heard from even at other conferences that are world watch regulars. And they have talked about how Reality Check has helped them. Some of them are parents. Some of them are even teachers.

8:11And it just creates conversations for these world view discussions that kids are having to think through. And I can't imagine being a teenager in today's world. And when we say everybody has a world view, what we're challenging is the idea that you can be completely just a blank slate. That you can look at the world completely from just your experience, your own perspective. And it doesn't affect how you see life's biggest questions. And not only how you're interpreting life's biggest questions, those classic questions that we get from I think of Charles Colson and Nancy Pierci of who are we or where we come from, what went wrong, how do we fix it. But along with that, the filter that that creates, how do you set the possible that you can have two different people see the same different story on social media and come to completely different conclusions. That is expressing a world view. That's expressing a set of ideas that is guiding how you see the world and how to fix what's wrong with the world.

9:16And so that first episode in season two is we want every listener to realize that whether or not you realize it, you have a world view. The only question is, have you tested it? Have you considered how you've constructed that world view? And does that world view work? Does it align with reality? And does it help you guide you through those major life questions? Oh, and you're not just putting non-Christian world views under that test, Katie. Christianity has to answer the same basic questions. Is it true? Does it explain reality as it actually is? How do you make sure that Christianity gets held to the same test and not given, you know, a home field advantage? Entirely. So one of the things that we do with this second season is not only are we critiquing other world views, but we're helping listeners understand how to construct their own questions that they likely have never had an opportunity or the need to ask. Like, is it real? Is it true? How do you understand truth, which we're taking that from season two carrying it over to how to construct a world view?

10:23But one of the things that we're diving into in season two, and I will say Nick, it is an ambitious season when you look at the topics we're covering. Just in a few months, we're going to be talking about critical theory and how critical theory itself is a world view. It is examining what is wrong with the world and how to fix it. Feminism is an offshoot of critical theory or sort of a variation of critical theory and helping students understand that not only are these world views, but because they're world views, they are competing ideas with the Christian world view. So one of the greatest vulnerabilities I believe is not only do we have a cohesive world view, but are we trying to synchronize that world view with ideas that are culturally palatable? And I think we see that all in evangelicalism under the umbrella that you don't have to just be having a pride flag outside your church to be synchronizing ideas of the world and what the world says we need to do to make the world.

11:28Just to make the world just righteous and good. So it's such an opportunity for us to examine these ideas. I can't wait to hear what these students think about it. I can't wait to hear how God uses it in their lives. And as always, we want to hear from listeners. We want to hear how it's landing, how it's helping or what we can be doing more of or better. So Katie, you're primarily a writer and a speaker. Here you're taking big ideas, feminism, critical theory, eventually Marxism, and trying to explain them to middle and high school students in this visual medium in just five minutes. It's tall order. What is that forced you to do differently as a communicator? That's such a great question. I have to tell you, reality check has helped me become a better communicator because when you're asked to take something like, why don't you take ideological feminism? Explain it to a 14 year old in five minutes go.

12:30And when you do that, you really have to narrow down to what are those ideas? How do I concisely and cogently communicate them? And don't let them go look at their phone and get distracted in the middle of the five minutes. Exactly. I know. No, they don't start scrolling halfway through because we want to also produce and Caleb and his team have done this masterfully well. It is truly entertaining. Not only are you getting a lot of education about some pretty high level things brought to that high school level, middle school level, but it's fun. It's engaging. So probably the biggest challenge and I think we're running into this. I'm writing the episodes on Marxism that are going to be in, I want to say, the spring, winter to spring is how do we distill this in a way that is communicating, connecting and also clear. And it is a real test for anyone who who does communication for a living truly to try to make it that concise.

13:35Well, Katie, I want to take one of those worldview questions into the culture news survey data this week show bisexual identification among ninth grade girls dropping from 26% in 2021 to 13% in 2025. The researcher can't really say why, but when an identity category moves that far, that fast. What does that tell us or at least suggest about the role culture plays and how teenagers understand and describe themselves? Yeah, this is a fascinating article and when you read the report, the author tries to explain why this is and can't really find an explanation. He says it's not because of social media drop in social media use among teens. It's not because teens are Gen Z or somehow trending more conservative. He places this in juxtaposition of post-progressivism and saying that somehow these teens have decoupled or separated their progressive ideas and their progressive political identities from their sexual orientation and gender identity.

14:47What I find fascinating when I look at this chart is you see the peak and then the precipitous drop and what was happening in those years to summarize it in the immortal words of representative Alexandria Ocasio Cortez. Woke one was crazy. Woke one was crazy and when you look at the years that you see this spike, it is between about 2018, 2019 and then 2021 and after 2021. So you think that's the height of when critical theory was just en masse and not only the ideas of critical theory and secular government in school systems, but it even infiltrated the church. We can think of some best-selling books and authors that integrated critical theory into Christianity and then its counsel for Christians on how to correct injustice. And so we're seeing some things mapped in that graph and I believe it was the spike in the critical theory worldview and everything that it claimed to be able to correct by deconstructing dismantling different authority structures.

16:02When that happened, what we saw is Americans kind of woke up and realized we are no better. You can only deconstruct so many things. What are you reconstructing it into? And there was never a positive solution. That's one of the things that critical theory does. It's just there's always something to tear down, dismantle and deconstruct, but there's not a positive vision for where we should be going. So when you see the precipitous drop, I believe it maps the drop in quote unquote, woke one that after 2021, you see this sharp turn and it isn't just the 2024 election. In fact, I would say the 2024 election is just following the cultural change of people realizing that woke one didn't work. And so I think what we're seeing in these political identities and for many, many teens, it was a political identity. It was a way to distinguish himself or herself. It was a way to feel special because of course being a quote unquote cisgender white middle class American kid doesn't make you special.

17:17You have to have some type of oppression identity, some type of victimhood in order to make you stand out and sexuality was the sphere that children teens could adopt and elect to take on that put them in that minority status. Well, and let me put one more world view test on the table because the former college swimmer Riley gains is back in the news. Her experience in college having to compete against men took her from athlete to activist and she's pursuing a case against the NCAA and suffered a bit of a setback this past week. So let me just frame up my question to you this way feminism once insisted that biological sex mattered that women could be vulnerable to male power and sometimes needed protection from it. But what happens to that world view when woman itself becomes a category that's under frankly dispute.

18:18Right, this is one of the great ironies of second and third wave feminism some people debate whether we're in a fourth wave. But certainly since the 1960s what feminism did is it said that based on your category, you are either an oppressor or you are oppressed. And that category was your biological sex that if you were born female, you were automatically an oppressed social class and either you just didn't realize it and you had to have your consciousness awakened or you were a traitor to your sex and you were just part of the problem and I'll finish laughly. So this is what feminism said and largely one I mean the I would say was generally quite victorious the prevailing belief is that men are automatically oppressors women are automatically oppressed. Well, what happened was this idea kept getting applied to other gender minorities and in that case the gender minority now is trans women quote unquote meeting biological males who self identify as women.

19:28So then the oppressor and the pressed categories just flipped now it's women who are the oppressor biological females who are the oppressor and trans women who are the oppressed. Alright author and speaker Katie McCoy she's also co-host of reality check on world watch Katie we get to talk to you again next week we'll see you then thanks Katie sounds good see you then. Additional support comes from door university providing student musicians with opportunities to discover develop and share the gift of music and bring glory to God from Barnabas aid providing support for the suffering and persecuted church aid from Christians through Christians to Christians Barnabas aid dot org.

20:36And from asbury university where students grow in Christ prepare for careers and build lifelong connections in Kentucky or online asbury dot edu. Today is Friday October 2nd thank you for turning to world radio to help start your day good morning I'm Nick Eiker and I'm Lindsay mast coming next on the world and everything in it a documentary on a topic that seems to be on everyone's minds. Recently advancements in artificial intelligence and fears about AI going rogue have dominated headlines one filmmaker decided to find out how concerned he should be about this new technology and he turned his journey into a documentary world arts and culture editor Colin Garberino on the AI doc.

21:37The AI doc recently became available on Netflix in it artist and filmmaker Daniel roar undergoes an emotional crisis he's just found out that he and his wife are expecting their first child and he's worried about what kind of future that child might have in this brave new world of rampant artificial intelligence roar decides to go to the experts to begin. What is artificial intelligence I know that must be annoying for you that that question but I do think it's important. The first group of interviews spells out the dangers of AI there's talk about how quickly the technology is evolving how it could lead to unemployment how we're about to hit an inflection point in which AI will be smarter than all of humanity. That's why AI dwarfs the power of all other technologies combined scary stuff if true. What's to stop an autonomous super intelligent machine from exterminating humanity but these profits of doom and gloom aren't the only voices out there the documentary quickly moves to experts who have a sunnier perspective on the coming apocalypse.

22:40I think this is the most extraordinary time to be alive. The only time more exciting than today is tomorrow. According to these folks life will be endless leisure for future generations AI will free us from the necessities of working and the super intelligence will have solved the world's problems. So who's right will AI bring about the end of the world or have an on earth. Everyone seems to agree that we have to risk destruction for the possibility of ushering in utopia. Why is this a risk worth taking. Roar talks with the heads of open AI and theropic and Google deep mind to get their perspective for them these changes are inevitable. Here's Anthropic starry on the day all of this was going to happen. This this train isn't going to stop you can't step in front of the train and stop it you're just going to get squished. It's too bad everyone in this film remains frustratingly vague. Roar takes everything at face value without pushing back on his subjects various and sometimes outlandish claims.

23:42The most exasperating aspect of the film is its lack of nuance. AI isn't one thing. It's lots of different kinds of programs that do lots of different things. The film mentions past advancements enabled by AI but when talking about the future it focuses on large language models like open AI's chat GPT and Anthropics Claude. It's not that chat GPT is the existential threat. It's that the race to deploy the most powerful, inscrutable, uncontrollable technology under the worst incentives possible. That's the existential threat. Large language models are just one type of AI. They can do some useful stuff like write a high school essay or a piece of computer code. But LLMs aren't the kind of AI that helped scientists win a Nobel Prize for explaining how proteins fold and LLMs aren't the kind of AI that can drive a car. Even so, some folks, especially at open AI and Anthropic, have an almost religious belief that they can turn these large language models into a general artificial intelligence that can accomplish any task.

24:48There's nothing magical about intelligence. This is very important. Intelligence can feel magical, it can feel like some mystical thing in your mind or something. But it is just computation. This of course is nonsense. We know exactly how LLMs work. They are highly sophisticated programs that guess what the next right word an assinance should be. Doctors and scientists don't fully understand how human consciousness works, but what they do know is that it doesn't resemble the computations of a large language model. No matter what the profits of AI claim, chat GPT isn't ever going to rewrite itself to be continually self-improving because that's not how its guessing game works. Do we really need to worry about the LLMs eradicating humanity? Probably not. But we should worry about the damage these companies can do as they race to develop this mythical superintelligence. An LLM can't do anything on its own, but open AI and Anthropic attach them to programs that can execute commands from the LLM.

25:49These are the AI agents that have made headlines by launching hacking attacks on other companies. Recently, Amode and Sam Altman have called for greater regulation on AI labs. To me, that sounds like a self-serving plea for the government to stifle their competitors. The problem we need to solve is not AI specifically. It's the general question of how do we build a society that can deal with powerful technology, because we're going to get only more and more powerful technology. Do we need protection from AI, or do we need protection from irresponsible AI labs? Instead of reshaping society, what if we held these companies accountable, like we do with other businesses that create dangerous products? What if next time an AI agent from OpenAI hacked another company, the engineers and executives were held criminally responsible? That seems like a better plan than just crossing our fingers and hoping for the best, like this documentary seems to advocate. I'm Colin Garberino.

27:03Good morning. This is The World and everything in it from listener supported World Radio. I'm Lindsay Masd. And I'm Nick Eiker. Coming next is Strong Come Back album by an award-winning trio. The South African CCM band Tree 63 was by all outward signs a success when it disbanded in 2009. Its song King has been an ASCAP song of the year nominee, and its self-titled album Tree 63 had won a GMA Dove Award for rock album of the year. But disillusionment was growing behind the scenes. World Music critic Arsenio Ortezza spoke with founder John Ellis about his decision to reboot the band. During its initial run, Tree 63 developed a solid following among fans of contemporary Christian music. One of the singles from the trio's fifth album has even become a contemporary worship classic.

28:11Billboard magazine ranked this cover of Matt Redmond's Blessed Be the Name, the number one adult contemporary Christian radio single of 2004. But John Ellis, Tree 63's founder, says the song's popularity was not without its problems. After that song was ahead, people would come to the shows and wait around for us to play it, and then they would leave as soon as we finished playing it. Ellis has nothing against Redmond's song. In fact, he and Redmond are friends. But Ellis didn't think that the song represented the authentic Tree 63 sound. To Ellis, Tree 63's calling was to create guitar-oriented Jesus-focused music that could hold its own among the likes of you too and the police. This is Turn For Home, the opening song on Tree 63's new album Voyage. It's certainly not another worship song. I get the need for worship music, but there's another kind of music and a lyric that I wish other artists were also aware about of what it would like to wake up today in your life.

29:14With all the day-to-day struggles of being a human being, what are you trusting God for in your life? More than one song on Voyage concerns the nature of a faith that can survive the long haul, but none expresses this concern more eloquently than the title track. After the flood, after the fire, I am still with you. Besides being the group's first album in 11 years, Voyage is also the group's first with the new lineup of Ellis, the drummer Angus Warden, and the bassist Dion Nipe. It's also the first Tree 63 album on the Just Music label. Tree 63's best-known albums appeared on In Pop, the label co-founded by the newsboys manager Wes Campbell. Ellis as news of the Michael Tate scandal did not surprise him. During his own years with In Pop, he says, the label placed greater emphasis on commercial success than on spiritual accountability.

30:16They really pushed on us the sense of American Christian music as a place where you can thrive individually and corporately financially. If you do this and this and this, you will thrive financially. And that was their focus from the get-go. Ellis said In Pop pushed a materialistic win-it-all cost-satitude at odds with the biblical idea of losing one's life to find it. And it exhausted him. It also took its toll on his marriage, which ended in divorce. This is Seeker. It's sung to the kind of person specified in the title. But it's opening lines, what was it you wanted? What is it you seek? Could just as easily be Ellis singing to himself during his In Pop years. But Ellis doesn't want to come across as a victim. He called me to be a person who spends his life writing and recording and performing music. If that functions well in the industry, that's around great. If it doesn't, it's up to God. I still have a grateful guy.

31:22And I've recorded a new record of songs that are full of grateful sentiments. And fans of Trees 63, Old or New, will be grateful that he has. I'm Arseneal Orteza. I'm Arseneal Orteza. God always with you. Now it's time to name the crew who helped with this week's programs. Jenny Ruff, David Bonson, Mary Muncie, Lauren Smith, Merna Brown, Lauren Dunne, Cal Thomas, Hunter Baker, Onise Adouwa, Nina Edding, Daniel Sir, David Clausson, Katie McCoy, Colin Garberino, and Arseneal Orteza. Thanks also to our breaking news crew, Mark Mellinger, Kent Covington, Steve Closterman, Travis Kertcher, Daniel Devine, and Christina Groob.

32:30And thanks to the technical production team, Benj Eiker, Carl Peetz, and Josh Gagne. Harrison Waters is Washington producer. Kristen Flavin is features editor. Emma Eiker is assistant producer, and I'm producer Lindsey Mast. And I'm executive producer Nick Eiker. This is episode 3,500 of the world and everything in it from World Radio, celebrating 15 years. World's mission is biblically objective journalism that informs, educates, and inspires. The Bible says, teach me your way, O Lord, that I may walk in your truth. Unite my heart to fear your name. I will give thanks to you, O Lord, my God, with my whole heart. And I will glorify your name forever. For great is your steadfast love toward me. You have delivered my soul from the depths of shi'ol, verses 11-13 of Psalm 86. Give thanks and glorify the name of the Lord at a Bible-believing church on the Lord's Day, and worship him in spirit and in truth.

33:31And Lord willing, we'll meet you right back here on Monday. Go now, in grace and peace.