Personal Ethics

Everyone has their own personal code of ethics.  Rarely do two people have the same code, the same ideas about morality.  That's fine - indeed, it's a good thing for diversity in our communities.  The problem comes when people judge others because their code of ethics is different.  Just because someone believes something you don't, or has different ideas about morality, doesn't make them a bad person.  As I read somewhere, "Don't judge me because I sin differently than you."

Online Gaming

Online gaming is not bad in and of itself.  The social interactions that take place can be very beneficial for some people.  As in the gaming article by Knutson and Oswald, they mention that a teenage boy who may be socially awkward at school can find acceptance and importance in an online community.  However, MMORPGs do lend themselves to addiction and overplaying.  The key is to know yourself, and avoid activities that you would become addicted to.  I have never played, and will never play, an MMORPG for this very reason.

Social Media

Social media is pervasive in our current culture.  Facebook, Twitter, Instagram, Pinterest, etc are all examples of ways people have to communicate with thousands of others asynchronously.  Rare is the person today who doesn't have some kind of social media account.

Social media has the power to change the world.  The first chapter in Here Comes Everybody shows the influence that social media and networks can have to affect things outside of the social sphere.  The LDS church uses social media to connect investigators with members, to help people understand their goals, and to correct misconceptions and misinformation about the church.  There are many great things that this kind of interaction can bring about in the world.

Unfortunately, these days most of the information that passes through social networks is worthless.  Posts about what someone ate for breakfast or a not-funny joke their boyfriend told that day simply dilute the power and effectiveness of social media.  Perhaps this information is important to the person that posted it, and it has become so pervasive that others accept these kinds of posts, but in truth most of the audience simply doesn't care.

A few years ago I started a twitter account because I was told that it was "necessary in this field" about programming.  I followed several high-profile accounts of professional, well-known programmers, hoping that this would provide me with good insight on programming topics and expose me to opinions I might not have been able to find on my own.  While this did occasionally occur, the majority of the posts were something akin to "went to the dentist today".  Because of the mass of unrelated, unimportant posts, I quickly stopped following twitter and abandoned it altogether.

Social media is a useful, important tool in our society.  Unfortunately, as with many things, it has been misused the point where it is largely ineffective and useless.  Many people talk about the power of social media, and I can see the potential, but until people use it for real communication rather than pointless fluff, it will be an exercise in futility to attempt to find any real meaning in it.

Meeting a Mormon

One of the best ways to overcome misconceptions about the church is to meet a Mormon.  When I was in Basic Training, people thought weird things about the church that they reconsidered when they got to know me.  It is much easier to understand a religion when it's viewed through the lens of someone's life.

Bazaar Development

Open-source products are usually very good.  Developers are excited, committed, and skilled.  Unfortunately, commercial products often can't be open-source because their code is proprietary.  We can leverage good aspects of open-source programming - developers proud of contributions, many eyes looking at a problem, quick releases, customer feedback - in our companies if managers are willing to try.

Family History

I have never felt that family history work is very important.  Some people very much enjoy learning about their ancestors and their history, and I say leave the work to them.  The LDS church has a tendency to make anyone not doing family history work feel guilty, but I say, if God's a loving God, why is there some ridiculous requirement for us to be together with our families?

Government Lobbyists

For many years, many of our laws have been made to serve the lobbyist with the most money, not to serve the people.  A good example of this is copyright laws and how willing politicians have been to condemn people that share music over the internet.  Normal people, and usually even the musicians that write and perform the music, generally don't care about music being shared - but because it will hurt the profits of huge companies that have lots of money to spend, it is suddenly a national priority.