Modern Mars Hill

For months, I've wondered "What's the best way to pick whether a character should be male or female?" This started partially because I knew some feminist writers who wanted more female characters, so it made me wonder what justification I had for making a character male or female. It started partially when people kept asking for superhero movies with female main characters. It started partially because I had a character who was male in the initial idea, but as the character changed more and more, the character eventually turned into a female, but the fact that the character was male or female had nothing to do with the plot, so it made me wonder "How should I decide whether I should make this character male or female?" After looking at various strong female characters and asking various writers their opinions, here are the answers I've formulated so far. How to write a character's gender: 1) Check to see if any part ...

Mark Zuckerberg has recently made it a personal goal to "fix" Facebook. There are a few problems with Facebook that need to be solved. Cyberbullying and online abuse are never acceptable under any circumstances. I wish Facebook weren't such a time-waster just as much as you do. And reposting news that falsifies facts while pretending to be legitimate news is another problem that needs to be fixed. But I don't think it's Mark Zuckerberg's job to fix all of Facebook's problems. Some of those problems are your job to fix and my job to fix. If there is clickbait on Facebook, it isn't Mark Zuckerberg's responsibility to prevent it from being spread. You and I should stop spreading it. If there is fake news on Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg shouldn't need to prevent it from being spread. You and I should stop spreading it. Do you realize how easy it is to fact-check some information? Every once in a while, a picture will come up with about 16 po...

I got to BYU - a large university with a lot of beautiful people. Hardly a day goes by when I don't tell some random girl I've never met that she's beautiful. Almost every time, the compliment makes her day. The times when it doesn't, the worst that happens is that she says "thanks" insincerely or in a confused way. It is entirely possible to compliment someone on their looks without being creepy or sexually harassing. Even I can do it, and let's be honest: I can be a jerk of a flirt sometimes. If you don't know someone and your first sentence is a compliment for  the purpose of flirting or otherwise getting the person to like you, then that looks like a compliment, but it's really flattery, and in Dale Carnegie's words "it ought to fail and it usually does." On the other hand, if you sincerely compliment someone with the goal of making their day better, it's almost impossible for this to go wrong. Since sexual harassment i...

Sexual misconduct is inappropriate no matter who you are. I don't care how rich or powerful you are, and I don't care how good of a movie you made, you don't have license to engage in sexual misconduct. I do think a fair trial is necessary for sex offenders before punishing them with anything, including being fired. Not because I don't believe the accusers, but because a fair trial is necessary for every crime, and this should be treated as an actual crime, not as something taboo that at best ge ts you fired or gets you 3 months in prison as a warning to others. Are there some flaws in a fair trial? Yes. A jury might declare a guilty person to be innocent or declare an innocent person to be guilty. A fair trial might give too light a sentence, though I'm not sure I would consider that a fair trial. But I think it would frequently give people the punishment they deserve instead of the slap on the wrist and publicity they too frequently get.

We each occasionally hear people giving other people a hard time for sending thoughts and prayers to the people involved in a tragedy. Sitting around feeling sorry for someone else won't do any good any more than sitting around feeling sorry for yourself. And when someone says that they're sending "thoughts and prayers" when they're really just sitting around feeling sorry for someone, they're not actually sending thoughts and prayers. When they're just going abou t their normal lives and not thinking about or praying for the victims of tragedy, that is obviously not sending thoughts and prayers. But when someone is actually sending thoughts and prayers, that is a wonderful and essential part of helping people overcome both personal and public tragedy. Prophets and Apostles have clarified for decades that true prayer requires acting on our prayers, not just wishing that God would do it all for us (Sources may include David A. Bednar's April 2006 Confer...