A Personal Note

 Readers of this blog will note that I do not cover personal matters here. I have another blog under another name for personal posts. This blog is designed to be an archive of materials on different aspects of early Watch Tower history. Readers can use the search facility to see if anything of specific interest has been covered.

But THIS is a personal post and therefore will be delegated to the dustbin of cyberspace after a few weeks.

The previous post was an investigation of C A Ericson. The investigation was inconclusive. But a reader with a mischievous bent submitted it to an AI critique. The results were, shall we say, interesting, and this is a lesson (or warning?) to any who wish to use such tools.

Overall it was quite favorable, although it didn’t like certain aspects, which had actually been quite deliberate decisions on my part. My post was “inconclusive.” Well, yes, that is true because the subject was inconclusive. My post ended abruptly.  True, and that was quite deliberate - to leave the mystery subject still hanging in the air. The puctuation was incorrect, especially in a poem from over one hundred years ago, but that was hardly my fault. You can see a certain pattern here – I don’t mind criticism. Except when I do…

But the piece de resistance was comedy. AI was asked to spice up the writing style with a few jokes. Here is a selection that resulted, although to actually understand them you may need to go back to the actual article.

After discussing conflicting accounts of Ericson’s pastoral experience: “At this point I considered taking up a less confusing hobby, like astrophysics or untangling headphones.”

After discussing Ericson as a Pilgrim speaker but now on the West Coast: “It seems Mr. Ericson took the Pilgrim moniker a bit too literally, and decided to keep on keepin’ on till he hit the Pacific.”

After discussing how common Ericson’s name was: “Trying to find the right Carl A Ericson is like trying to find a specific grain of sand on Redondo Beach. Only the grains of sand don’t get arrested for stealing tires.”

After discussing the problems finding information: “The amount of information was at times at times overwhelming, but I preached on, as I’m sure Rev. Ericson would have wanted.”

After coming to a dead-end on certain lines of research: “I briefly considered changing the name of this blog to ‘Jerome Mystery’ but I persevered.”

After discussing how many people came and went as Watch Tower evangelizers: “So many people appeared from the time of the move to Brooklyn onwards, and then disappeared a few years later (sort of like socks in a washing machine really).”

And there were more…

One bit of advice that AI threw in – if the joke doesn’t feel natural or relevant, leave it out.

Fine – that sorts that all out then.

With yet another example of an abrupt ending.