The future looks bright. And a little blight.

I read an article the other day that announced that Google was banning porn and got excited. I was like, sweet! Good for them! One small step in the battle by a huge company stepping up and showing some guts. Then I clicked on it and realized it said, Google Glass was banning porn. I skipped "glass" the first time because I had no idea what that could mean.

If you haven't heard about it, google glass is basically google glasses and look like this:



In essence it turns you in to a cyborg. It's a computer you where on your head. It has a built in toggle you can touch and move a cursor around the screen it has in front of your eye, but you rarely need it. It runs a variety of free apps made for it as well as all the classic email/social network sites.

It obeys all voice commands - you can tell it to take pictures, record, give you directions to the nearest walmart, tell you how far it is from your house to the moon and how to say smorgasbord in Finnish. It has built in gyroscopes that measure speed, acceleration, angular velocity, and could probably measure the amount of vomit you throw up after wearing it for too long.

Available to the public? Not yet. They're testing it with some people that applied to test it I believe. And people are still working out surveillance and privacy issues that would obviously come from having a live camera on you ALL the time.

Isn't it incredible that it isn't even available to the public yet and already people are like, "let's make a porn app for it! MONEY!!!" An even more secret, silent way to watch porn whenever you want and not have anyone know. Scary. Good thing they banned it.

At first I think, kudos to google for banning the apps after they were out. Then I think, "Yeah. Like that's going to work." I'm sure although the early apps will be down soon, they will be back up modified to fit the rules, or just secretly up and google will just let it slip by in a short matter of time.

ANYWAY, my point is I know that every generation says to the younger "you guys have temptations that we didn't even have to think about." I know I'll be saying that when I'm 60, of maybe even 40. Where's it gonna be?

I have a feeling it'll be along these lines. Each ubiquitously accepted invention that comes around seems to make our lives increasingly intertwined with technology. Accepted inventions inevitably become need in a short amount of time. Cars. TVs. Old cell phones. Computers. The internet. New cell phones with built in TV, computers, internet, and cars* (*coming soon), Ipad/pod/touch/phone, etc. Most people can't imagine leaving home without these things, or getting home without seeing this or that, or going a day without checking this or that.

My projection is that the future will bring a lot of great things, but will also bring lives more intertwined with technology that ever before. Instead of being a hand-held device with all we need, it will be something we wear. Whether it's a glasses like google glass, a soft lens contact, a fancy arm computer like in the movies, or something that is just implanted in our brains I really don't know. (How weird would that be to have a hard drive attached to someones memory that enabled one to remember everything they've ever seen, heard, or done? Sorry, random thought.) Either way, if the future followed the trend of the past and I'd bet that it will (if I were a betting man :)...), the newest, most convenient ways of technology are going to come, become necessities, and bring with them new and diverse challenges and temptations that my generation hasn't "even had to think about" yet.

What on EARTH did people do 50 years ago without these things???

EVERY generation says this. The moral fabric of society dwindles. New things come in to distract us from what really matters. And as things get more convenient in society, they get more difficult for the diligent seeker of truth and good.

What are we gonna do about it? What all parents and grandparents should do - sit here with my flip phone and 3X5 card for the rest of my life and curse all new technology and the devils that brought it. I wish. :) OR... we could just be aware and be careful.

Be aware and updated on what's going on and what temptations the young people are facing. The apostles often talk about twitter and facebook and we laugh at them a little when they do, but it shows they are aware. ("Silly Elder Ballard, you don't have a facebook account - facebook is for kids! Just like trix.")

Be aware about how these things might produce new challenges for us personally and make life adjustments and preparations as necessary. Be aware of the good and evil that inherently come from each new invention/update and make efforts to apply the good and avoid the evil.

Be careful not to let our lives become too intertwined with these new things such that they detract from our ability to have meaningful relationships with God and with others. Life is about relationships, it's really the only thing we take with us.

This was more for me than for anything. Every once in a while I get in doomsday mode and have to run in a cold sweat and check my food storage. I just need to calm down and remember to go forward in life with careful but deliberate pace and to take things as they come in that mindset and things will be just fine.

In many ways, the future is very bright. It is bright for my family and me. It is bright for those that are striving to follow Christ's teachings.

But in other ways, it's also very blight. And yes I do mean a rapid and complete chlorosis, browning, and death of plant tissues due to an infection (thanks wikipedia).