Spirit of Open Access and Literary Dialogue: RMcS

Me: Hi,  The following newspaper article was carried in the Sunday Independent (Ireland) 8 March 2026. For the past five days I have been reflecting deeply on it. Its content, tone and language upsets me as a human being, a writer, and an Irish person. I contemplated writing a letter to the editor of the said newspaper but decided not to as the editorial team is inclined to do excessive structural editing on letters submitted for publication: at least on any of my letters. To get us started, I would like you to approach it from a few different perspectives, and then we can develop our conversation from there. One caveat: let us always be respectful of religions and peoples’ right to believe in them. Thank you. :) Problem with martyrs is they like the misery Sunday Independent (Ireland) 8 March 2026 Brendan O’Connor (Columnist) Ireland is “not a theocracy”, the judge said as he sentenced Mammy and Ammi to the slammy. And he’s right, though he could have added “any more”. Many peop...

This blog is of a conversation I had with Ernie 5.0 AI and will include the 'thinking' process that preceded Ernie 5.0 giving me an answer. Note the repetitious nature of some of the thinking processes based on the sensitivity of certain questions. ME: Hi, :) I would like us to have an interesting discussion on the following borrowed from The Zhuangzi [ 莊子 ] "齊物論: 大知閑閑，小知閒閒；大言炎炎，小言詹詹." And whenever you are using Chinese characters in a quotation or otherwise, please employ traditional characters rather than modern Chinese. To get us started suggest some meanings for the above quotation. Also provide an etymology of the characters used in the quotation. Thank you. ERNIE: Thinking The user wants to discuss a passage from the  Zhuangzi   [ 莊子 ] , specifically from the " 齊物論 " (Qi Wu Lun) chapter. The quote is: " 大知閑閑，小知閒閒；大言炎炎，小言詹詹. " They want me to suggest meanings and provide etymologies, using traditional Chinese characters. Firs...