Back in 2015, I had this student who was completely deaf. As part of the university's accommodations, he came up after the first lecture with his dragon dictate so that I could train it to recognize my voice. I had to read excerpts from a fairy tale so it would recognize consonants and pronunciation. From then on, as I would lecture into a microphone, the dragon dictate would transcribe lectures for him (with a slight delay) so that he would know what went on as well as have written notes with which to study.
At first I was afraid. I was petrified to find out what strange, silly, and perhaps inappropriate things I might say. To the credit of this student, if I ever did, he never reported me for it or complained to anyone. I had never before had anyone come away from lecture with a verbatim transcript of everything I said. I was not sure how to feel about it, and at length I started to regret training his dragon.
Then, redemption arrived. One day, a student contended that I had promised them extra time for an assignment, which I did not recall ever saying. I suddenly realized I had a dragon in the corner and went over and said, "Let's check the transcripts" as I scrolled back using this gentleman's dragon dictate to what I had actually said at the beginning of the hour. I then reread what the dragon dictate recorded me saying, which countermanded the young lady's contention and quieted her contestation of the terms and said, "Don't try to put words in my mouth. I have a court ordered reporter." The dragon's transcript vindicated me and refuted the young lady's claim.
At this time, the student had caught up with what happened in class as the dragon dictate, which continued to transcribe the entire conversation, including the young lady although with some errors since it was not trained to recognize HER voice, and he laughed hysterically. It was entertaining and enlightening.
Why do I mention this? Very few people are important enough or say things important enough that anyone bothers to write them down. I try to be a diligent shepherd of things I hear and report them as verbatim as I am able. Sometimes the person speaks so quickly I can't keep up, so I give the "gist" as it were. For most people, this is a good thing. We don't know everything you say, everything you think or everything you do. In the social media age, however, with every young person (and some elderly ones) recording every asinine thing they do and posting it to instagram or tiktok, people are finding out that what they say or do comes back to haunt them.
It supports the scriptural argument that our words and deeds and even our thoughts will be used against us at the final judgment. Matthew 12:37 reads "For by thy words thou shalt be justified, and by thy words thou shalt be condemned". Elsewhere in Alma 12:14 we can read "For our words will condemn us, yea, all our works will condemn us; we shall not be found spotless; and our thoughts will also condemn us; and in this awful state we shall not dare to look up to our God; and we would fain be glad if we could command the rocks and the mountains to fall upon us to hide us from his presence." What we say, and what we plan to say, can and will be used against us. It already is online. Why would we expect otherwise from an omniscient God?
So, train your dragon. I got a new phone Monday night this week, and it's already learning what I'm likely to type. Train up whatever records what you say and think and do to record the things you want people to know you say and think and do by only saying and thinking and doing things that you are ok having other people record. Samuel Adams didn't write things down, and so most of what we know about him is anecdotal, but you no longer have that luxury in our modern world. What we do (and say) will define us. Either say things worth hearing or write things worth reading. And then when your words are dictated back to you by worldly judges or an Eternal One, they will have no choice but to give you what you deserve.
**This post is not sponsored by Dragon Dictate. It was an actual product used by an actual student in an actual chemistry class, and I like the pun of "training your dragon" based on the movie franchise of similar nomenclature.**
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