their desire for more material possessions

In 1998 I accompanied then-Elder Henry B. Eyring to a large Church meeting in the Utah area now known as Silicon Slopes, a community of great innovation in technology. It was a time of growing prosperity, and Elder Eyring cautioned the Saints about comparing what they had with others and wanting more. I will always remember his promise that as they paid an honest tithe, their desire for more material possessions would diminish. Within two years, the technology bubble burst. Many lost their jobs, and companies struggled during this time of financial adjustment. Those who followed the counsel of Elder Eyring were blessed.

Neil L. Andersen

"Tithing: Opening the Windows of Heaven," General Conference October 2023

labor-saving machinery

You call your thousand material devices "labor-saving machinery," yet you are forever "busy." With the multiplying of your machinery you grow increasingly fatigued, anxious, nervous, dissatisfied. Whatever you have, you want more; and wherever you are you want to go somewhere else. You have a machine to dig the raw material for you..., a machine to manufacture [it]..., a machine to transport ]it]..., a machine to sweep and dust, one to carry messages, one to write, one to talk, one to sing, one to play at the theater, one to vote, one to sew... and a hundred others to do a hundred other things for you, and still you are the most nervously busy man in the world... your devices are so many sharp spurs which urge you on to invent more machinery and to do more business.

"An Oriental Writer", as quoted in Wise Men from the East and from the West by Abraham Mitrie Rihbany. Houghton Mifflin. 1922. As found in Strength to Love by Martin Luther King, Jr. Harper & Row. 1963. Fortress Press Gift Edition 2010. p. 72, 73

simple people bear the weight of the world

It is not the multitude that serve and save the world but the righteous remnant that walk humbly before God. For the sake of ten the Lord was willing to spare Sodom, but they could not be found. (See Genesis 18:32.) Zarahemla narrowly escaped the fate of Sodom because of the few who were righteous. “Yea, wo unto this great city of Zarahemla; for behold, it is because of those who are righteous that it is saved…. Behold, if it were not for the righteous who are in this great city, behold, I would cause that fire should come down out of heaven and destroy it.” (Helaman 13:12-13.) 

Today as in the past God withholds his dreadful judgment for the sake of his Saints. The nations are not preserved by armaments and the threat of war, nor by economic power and technology. Before the God who made all things, these things are as reeds in the wind. The destroying angels are kept from their work by the lives of unknown people “who seek not for riches but for wisdom” (Doctrine and Covenants 6:7) and who try each day to serve the Lord….

Simple people bear the weight of the world.

The Lord’s Question: Thoughts on the Life of Response by Dennis Rasmussen. Brigham Young University Press. April 1985. Chapter Four, “Whom Shall I Send?” p.42, 43

they'll treat us as food

"We're in a slow retreat in the face of the steady advance of our mind's children,'' agreed Paul Saffo, a technology forecaster at Stanford University in Stanford, Calif. "Eventually, we're going to reach the point where everybody's going to say, 'Of course machines are smarter than we are.' ''

"The truly interesting question is what happens after if we have truly intelligent robots,'' Saffo said. "If we're very lucky, they'll treat us as pets. If not, they'll treat us as food.''


Robots are narrowing the gap with humans. By Robert S. Boyd | McClatchy Newspapers 4/20/09