The Importance of Ethics

It is so simple to be mischievous. With the availability of the Internet, we can communicate with millions of people instantly, and no one will know if we are being dishonest. For example, I recently read a story of a man who bought an Xbox One for his child from eBay. When the package came, all that was in it was a photo of the desired console. How disappointing! Because it is so easy to be dishonest, it is imperative that each of us establish our own personal ethics. When we all follow our set of ethics, we can more reliably depend on others to be honest as well.

Balance in a World Fighting for Attention

In our capitalistic society, businesses fail if they don't get your attention. Before the Internet, it was relatively difficult to gain the population's attention because of the difficulty in reaching a large audience. With the invention of the Internet, a company can literally reach almost the entire world for the price of a reliable server. This is remarkable. Now we have all these different companies and products all fighting for our attention in this dog-eat-dog world. Because of this, it is so easy to get sucked into one of these companies that fight for our attention. We often hear of people spending hours upon hours on social media sites like Facebook, or MMORPGs like World of Warcraft. If we can learn to moderate the time spent on these sites, our lives will be better off.

Social Media and the Gospel

Steve Jobs

No one but Steve Jobs could have done what he did. At least 4 industries that have been revolutionized because of him: personal computers, music and music storage, smart phones, and tablets. He didn't invent these industries, but he took them in their infancy and molded them into mature fields of technology. But it wasn't solely his vision that allowed him to change the world like he did. It takes a unique combination of creative vision and tyrannical leadership to do so.

Those who worked closely with Jobs agreed that they hated him, but admired him and wanted his approval at the same time. This is where his magic came from. Walter Isaacson's biography of Jobs frequently mentioned his "reality distortion field." This is the term attributed to Jobs's ability to convince others of what he wanted. For example, during the development of the original Macintosh, Jobs thought it booted up too slowly. His developers didn't think it was possible to make it go faster. He told them that they were going to sell at least 5 million Macintoshes. Each of these computers will probably boot up once a day. If the team could shave off only 10 seconds from the boot up time, that would be 50 million seconds saved every single day. After a year, this would be a couple dozen lives. So by shaving off 10 seconds, the Macintosh team could save lives. This is his reality distortion field.

There are many things I admire about Steve Jobs, but he definitely had his priorities out of order. He completely sacrificed his family for his work. This is completely different from how I want to interact with my family. They are the most important and will always come before work.

CS Stereotypes

It is widely known that there are relatively few women in the computer science industry. This is because there exists strong stereotypes associate with those who enter the field of computer science. These stereotypes create a difficult barrier for computer savvy women to overcome. Typical stereotypes include words such as "anti-social gamer" and "geeky nerd." Although I don't adhere to these stereotypes, it is easier for me to overcome the barrier that they create because I am closer to those stereotypes. When you think of an anti-social gamer, you almost always think of a male. When you think of a geeky nerd, you almost always think of a male. Even though I am a social non-gamer, it is easier for me to identify with the stereotype simply for the fact that I am a male. A social, non-gaming woman will have vastly more difficult time relating to this stereotype.

The Dual Nature of Open Source

Open source and free software are essential for technological advancements to continue. Almost every single piece of software relies on the use of previous breakthroughs that someone has allowed you to use for free. Sometimes, this reliance is just the fact that your software was developed on a Linux machine, or maybe you wrote your program in a language that you didn't have to pay to use. The truth is that if you couldn't use Linux or if you couldn't use that language, you would probably not have the determination to finish your program. On the other hand, you don't make much money from open source projects. In order for people to have the desire to develop new software, there usually has to be a monetary incentive. The decision whether to add to the open source community or charge for your software is quite a conundrum.

The Dynamic Properties of the Church

Change is good. In the face of constant change, failure to adapt is failure. The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints embraces this principle whole-heartedly. If Mormon pioneers looked in on today's Church as an entity, I think they would have difficulty identifying it as the future of their religion. However, if they take a closer look, they would find that the core principles have not changed a single bit. This is what I admire about the Church. Mormons are able to take new technology and use it to their advantage, while many religions think that in order to preserve their religion, they can't accept any new change. Change in religion is beneficial as long as you hold strong to your core religious values.