The “Em Dash” Controversy
June 5, 2025
I never heard about this phenomenon until yesterday when I read an article by Brian Tubbs on Medium.com entitled “The Em Dash Is Not a Sign of AI.” He is a credible writer and from whom I benefit by reading his essays.
Now, I learned in 1960’s Junior High School Print Shop, the archaic methods of setting type. It was an essential skill for Newspapers in their day — the newspapers we kids used to deliver, riding our bicycles on our assigned routes. Maybe you’ve seen us in old Hollywood movies?
Anyways, the extensive gullibility — which is mixed with a strange paranoia overwhelming people today — came as a shock to me. The fact that there are people who actually think that the use of the “em dash” is a sign of the Evil AI Monster and Fake Authorship is ridiculous! Most everyone — who use it often — simply call it “a dash.”
Well, AI is a monstrosity, for sure. However, we all need to be brave and come out of the deep dark witchy woods which our imaginations have filled with gremlins and other monsters
We need to be brave. We need to be realistic.
As a Bible Believing Born Again Christian, I have a developed unique point of view. I see this phenomenon as an inevitable pathway of Mankind’s journey away from God who created us, who had a great parental plan for us, who made a perfect environment for us to live and to prosper in. Simply trust and obey with just one restrictive rule… One… Just one.
The rest — as you have probably heard — is Biblical history…
One restriction is apparently too much for us Humans to bear…
Today, have you ever heard of the following?
Jesus warned us 2000 years ago that the days at the culmination of Biblical history (the world’s history) would be perilous and increasingly filled with evil, and it would be true throughout the entire world.
In my understanding of the Beast of the Book of Revelation, these perilous times are entirely Mankind’s creation.
Represented by “the number of Man” which is “6,” the Beast (“666”) includes Technology — the Beast being the unholy trinity by which Man replaces God and his need for God,Jesus, and the Holy Spirit…
Technology, in the culminating form of AI, is thereby directly threatening our existence.
The need for us Common Folk to exist evaporates. For those who are monetarily powerful and secure in their own conceits and devices, those who think that they are above the fray, they will be so surprised when their quest to eliminate employees finally is a success, and there will be no need for Managers, either! Oops!
Nevertheless, the dumbing down of the entire population occurring today leaves individuals in a panic and unable to comprehend the whys and wherefores of this tumultuous situation.
Hence, widespread panic and paranoia.
For example, studies have warned that too much AI is already making young people depressed, isolated, and even suicidal.
Since Biblical answers have been so discredited by so many self-appointed “authorities” and God’s pathways have been thereby effectively blocked, Society is struggling in great futility to correct these terrible consequences flooding over us.
If our “mentors” continue to assist rather than resist, and if people continue to submit to their “wisdom” and “foresight,” Mankind is left with little chance of survival.
So, yes — definitely yes — AI is a real monstrosity.
Now, I lost my job of about thirty years, and it was a very long time before I found another. Not only that, but it paid less than half my former wage. Worse, I suppose, was the fact that I had to spend all my retirement savings to keep our house and our car and to put food on my family’s table.
I know the humiliation and despair of losing employment. I know how difficult it is to find another. Now that AI has become capable of replacing Service Sector jobs, including Management, it is going to get much worse — much more humiliating, much more despairing, and very much more difficult for everyone to get by.
Yet, we don’t have to become scared and paranoid, making up monsters which are invisible and come out from under our beds at night…
“The word is near you; it is in your mouth and in your heart,” that is, the message concerning faith that we proclaim: If you declare with your mouth, “Jesus is Lord,” and believe in your heart that God raised him from the dead, you will be saved. For it is with your heart that you believe and are justified, and it is with your mouth that you profess your faith and are saved. As Scripture says, “Anyone who believes in him will never be put to shame.” For there is no difference between {Peoples and Nationalities} — the same Lord is Lord of all and richly blesses all who call on him, for, “Everyone who calls on the name of the Lord will be saved.”- Romans 10:8–13, NIV — {my edit of “Jew or Gentile”}.
Postscript — Jesus doesn’t promise a trouble free life but promises that if we trust and obey, He will be there for us and with us to help us and guide us through it all. Andrae Crouch — Through It All.
