Outsourcing Our Moral Resolve-Video

Outsourcing Our Moral Resolve

We've all heard that no internet filter is foolproof. Undesired content will periodically get through to harass innocent users, and malicious users will always be able to find a way around any security measure. I'm sure we've also all heard, and even shared, that this is the reason why we need to have a personal moral filter to be safe. While that certainly is a reason, I very strongly feel that even if we  had a foolproof filter, where was never any chance of seeing lewd material by accident or intent, that that would in no way lessen the importance for a strong, moral compass inside. It is imperative that we be able to moderate our choices first and foremost by the strength of our own integrity, and thus we are not meant to outsource that responsibility to a software. All that being said, I do support filters and wholeheartedly recommend them, but they should only be seen as tools to complement, and never replace, our own moral resolve.

Illusionary Values

Entertainment can be a means for teaching real-life lessons in a condensed format through analogy and imagery. As an example, many video games tend to offer the player rewards in return for effort, providing a life-lesson of putting the necessary effort into attaining the richest things. If, however, gamers stop viewing the game as merely anecdotal, and the artificial rewards become as real to them as any other, then they end up valuing things of little worth over things of greater. Why put thousands of dollars and years of hard effort into a simple college degree, when you could just put in two hours and save an entire village? This skewed perspective fails to grasp that a village which can be saved in a couple short hours, must not be a village that is much worth the saving. The fact that real-life accomplishments come harder speaks to the far greater value of them. We should let our games encourage us to strive for the best of life, not spend the best of our lives striving in games.

The Future is Divined from Our Needs

In 1947 Archibald Bennett, an LDS Church Genealogist, predicted that "A universal system of intelligent cooperation will bring together on one record sheet every fact in existence regarding a particular family."* One might say that he "saw our day". I don't feel his predicting the future, though, means that he had to have a specific vision of our smart phones, computers, and internet. In fact his language suggests that he spoke not of the technology of mankind, but of very human nature. To know the future of mankind it is enough to be intimately aware of what mankind's needs are. Just understanding that there was an innate need for man to seek out his progenitors and seal his ties to them is sufficient to know that some way will arise to accomplish this. As we understand our nature, we will know what the future will be because we will know what it needs to be.

*https://www.lds. org/ensign/2010/12/future-of-familysearchorg-explained-at-seminar?lang=eng