Smallish Post 1/24/2012: My CS404 reading assignments today were these two articles:

• "Five things we need to Know About Technological Change"
• Oaks, "Focus and Priorities"

I thoroughly enjoyed reading both of these articles.

I felt that the article on 5 things we should know about technological change was intellectually stimulating and presented some interesting ideas, even if I didn't agree all of the author's comments. It persuaded me to contemplate the vast impact technology has on the world's social/cultural evolution. I agree with the author that technology is a powerful tool that can be used for both good and evil; however, I disagree with the comment that "technology is not part of God's plan". It's true that technology has made evil material more invasive and easily accessible, but it has also provided a powerful means whereby gospel principles and truth can be shared throughout the world with a speed and effectiveness that has never been known in past dispensations. I feel that this is part of Heavenly Father's way of preparing the earth for His Son's Second Coming.

The article by Elder Oakes was very spiritually inspiring. He discussed how the wise application of knowledge is much more valuable than a vast library of information left unapplied. This reminds me of some of the things that I'm currently studying in Bioinformatics. DNA sequencing technology has accelerated so quickly that we have unbelievable amounts of genomic data collected from thousands of organisms, but are in desperate need of additional algorithms to analyze and extract valuable information from this vast amount of data. Elder Oakes also made the point that due to the modern conveniences of technology people in general have much more leisure time, and we will be held accountable for what we do with the time and resources we have been blessed with. Reading this gave me a desire to spend my time and talents more wisely.