I have understood failure so many times. Learning to rise above was giving up. We have always failed as a species in the same ways. AI gives us a chance to reframe the narrative by looking at our past mistakes, which, as an armchair theologian, I think go back a seriously long way. We cannot change ourselves in terms of behavior, but we can build a system around how we actually work. I see the future where so many see me as “stuck in the past.” I’m not stuck there. I do pattern recognition in reverse. AI allowed me to use the patterns I see all around me to spiral into what the world will look like next.
Most people read the Bible as a book about perfect people. I read it as a book written by imperfect people trying to make sense of their world — and that distinction changes everything.
I’m not interested in moral fables or inspirational stories. I’m interested in patterns. In the way humans behave under pressure. In the way we repeat ourselves across centuries. In the way our instincts refuse to evolve even as our tools do.
The Bible is relevant today not because it’s holy, but because it’s honest.
It’s a record of people who were scared, jealous, impulsive, hopeful, territorial, confused, trying to survive, trying to understand God, and trying to understand each other. They weren’t writing from a mountaintop. They were writing from the dirt. And that’s why the text still maps onto us.
Human behavior hasn’t changed in thousands of years.
We’ve built cities, cars, networks, and now AI — but the internal machinery is the same. The same insecurities. The same power struggles. The same scarcity thinking. The same tribal instincts. The same need to be right. The same fear of being wrong.
When I look at the world — geopolitics, social media, traffic, interpersonal conflict — I don’t see modern problems. I see ancient ones with better lighting.
This is why I don’t waste time imagining a future where people “behave better.” They won’t. They never have. They never will. The Bible is proof of that, not because it’s pessimistic, but because it’s accurate.
My exegesis isn’t about morality. It’s about anthropology.
I read Scripture the same way I read a city, a rehearsal room, a highway, or a political moment: What are the incentives? What are the pressures? What are the fears? What are the patterns?
People behave the way they do because they’re human — not because they’re good or bad. And once you accept that, the world becomes legible.
This is why I trust systems more than sentiment.
Humans don’t change. Systems do.
That’s why I believe the future of driving is AI. Not because people will suddenly become considerate, but because they won’t be allowed to be aggressive. The system will remove the behavioral pathways where our worst instincts cause harm.
It’s the same logic that underlies biblical law, urban planning, and modern technology: if you can’t change people, change the environment they operate in.
Lanagan Exegesis, in one line:
Human nature is constant. Human behavior is predictable. The only variable worth engineering is the system around us.
That’s how I read the Bible.
That’s how I read the world.
That’s how I read us.
Scored with Copilot. Conducted by Leslie Lanagan.
Stories That Are All True 