Hoping to Beta Test New Facebook Answers Product

Yesterday I applied to be a beta tester for Facebook's new project, which allows members to answer questions submitted by others (similar to the start-up Quora, founded by early Facebook employee Adam D'Angelo). To apply, I had to submit a "provocative" question and answer. Here was what I wrote:

Is there a place for religion in modern society?

In short, yes.

Religion has proven itself remarkably resilient, rivaling only our capacity for speech in terms of its presence and impact on human civilization. And although I myself am not a religious person, I confidently believe this deep-rooted institution will continue to evolve with society, playing whatever role is necessary to survive.

In his book The Selfish Gene, Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" to describe certain inherited human beliefs and behaviors, such as religion. [In the contemporary vernacular, a meme is a popular (viral) concept or catchphrase that spreads via the internet.] Dawkins goes on to compare genes to "memes," saying that as the former influence biological evolution, so too does the latter influence cultural evolution.

As long as there is mystery and misery in the world, people will continue to turn to religion for answers and comfort. Bioethics, artificial intelligence, and other emerging sciences will provide new arenas for the application of moral/religious analysis, and for this reason I foresee the future of religion being long indeed.

For further information, I recommend the following Wikipedia articles:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_gene
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/God_of_the_gaps
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Meme Keep reading...

Alternate Universe Advertising

Saw this ad on MUNI recently, and the casting caught my eye. You'd usually expect to see the Asian woman as the masseuse, and the attractive white couple enjoying their spa day. Here, the female roles are reversed. A sign of San Franciscan relationship trends or just trying to be PC? Keep reading...

The Roller Coaster That is Sports Stardom

Walking through the mall a few weeks ago, I saw that a group of football players from my (SEC) alma mater were signing autographs outside one of the department stores. I had had a class with one of them, and decided to stop by and say hi since I hadn’t seen him in a while.

He sat at a table with four other former Division I stars, all dressed in their jerseys and looking as strong and fit as ever. Several of them had been drafted in late rounds by NFL teams, but none of them had managed to make the final cut. When I asked my friend what he was up to, he told me he was living at home and looking for a job.

This confession startled me, but also brought me to an important realization. This football star, a big man on campus only 18 months ago, and briefly a member of an NFL team, was now in (nearly) the same situation I was. (I have a job.)

I realized there must be thousands of Tonys out there, athletes on the brink of making it big, but who fall just short. Athletes who excel in competitive NCAA Division I sports, but are not quite good enough to get paid to play. It must be incredibly crushing to the self-esteem of an athlete who has dominated for so long to be so close to his lifelong dream, and yet unable to go all the way. To be in the top .01% of one’s sport, but due to a bad combine or an inopportune slump failing to get that million-dollar contract that the guy next to you gets.

Many of these millions of near-pro athletes find themselves returning to regular life without having developed other vocational skills, devoting themselves in college instead to their athletic career. Furthermore, they likely suffer to some degree from depression, haunted by what-ifs and denial. To be thisclose to stardom, mansions, Ferraris, and rings and then a week later be living with Mom is not an easy situation to come to terms with.

There’s not much I can do to help console them, as I am incapable of fully empathizing with them, but I feel the NCAA must do what it can to reach out to those who dedicated themselves to collegiate athletics, with the dream of playing professionally, only to find themselves just shy of that goal. Hopefully the NCAA already does this—tries to help its graduates find work and fulfillment—for their success outside of athletics is crucial to our success as a sports-loving society.
Keep reading...

Parsimony: Smart, not Semitic

As a member of a group with many entrenched stereotypes associated with it, I must always be on my guard, trying to ensure my actions aren’t confirming these potentially-pejorative beliefs, thus propagating them and reflecting negatively on the community to which I belong.


You see, I am Jewish. I’m not a religious person, but I am Jewish in the cultural sense (a refrain you’ll commonly hear among many modern Jews). The company I keep, however, aside from my family, is not Jewish. What’s more, I’ve been in many situations over the years in which I was actually the first Jewish person someone had ever met. Do I want to be their archetype for a Jewish person? Not at all. I am an individual like anyone else, and the decisions I make should not color someone’s perceptions of an entire population. Nonetheless, they do.

If I decline to buy a shirt because it’s not on sale? Jewish. Use coupons when eating out or going to the grocery store? Very Jewish. Pick up a coin on the ground? Jewish! Always order water at a restaurant instead of a drink? Totally Jewish. Now whenever I am in a situation that involves money, my brain does some automatic calculations to determine the consequences of my choices on others’ opinions of Jews.

Perhaps a quick summary of my financial situation will serve to illustrate another reason, beyond my religio-cultural upbringing, that influences my buying habits: Working for $12/hr, attending a school that costs me about $3000 per quarter, and sitting on a 40% loss in the value of my savings due to the stock market (I know, I know. Only a 23-year old Jew would have money in the stock market.) In short, I am not rich. It makes perfect financial sense to save money where I can. In a gentile’s shoes I am being frugal, which is an admirable quality in Christian theology. But as a Jew I am looked down upon, and chided for my thriftiness.

Perhaps due to our current economic crisis, parsimony will gradually attain the respect it had for much of the 20th century, until a culture of conspicuous consumption and buying on credit took over. For frugality should be considered a characteristic of all intelligent people, whether their last name is Stein or Stone. . Keep reading...

Google's 10th Anniversary Project

In honor of its 10th anniversary, Google is sponsoring a contest of sorts, inviting its billions of users to submit their brilliant ideas for changing the world. They call it Project 10^100, and they're going to put $10 million towards the top 5 ideas. The deadline to enter your idea is October 20. Check it out! Keep reading...

The Last Days of Telephones

As technology progresses, obsolete objects begin to appear increasingly anachronistic when we encounter them. This is happening now with things like full-size cathode-ray tube computer monitors, VCRs, and portable CD players. But perhaps the most striking and life changing example is the slow disappearance of landline telephones. If you’re in the U.S. and less than 30 years old or so, it’s likely that you rarely, if ever, use a landline phone. What’s more, when my generation has children, the concept of a phone that remains in the house will be totally foreign to them.

The Baby Boomer generation, however, will never give up their familiar landline phones, no matter how redundant they become. There are tens of millions of people who continue to pay for regular phone service, in addition to their mobile plan. Having a stationary phone that is physically connected to their house seems to be comforting in some way; it’s always on, and it always rings loud and clear. Cell phones can be misplaced, get set on silent unintentionally, or run out of batteries. Many Boomers are not accustomed to charging their phones daily, and bring it with them each morning is not as instinctive as it is with younger users.

As landline phones cease to be of use, it will be interesting to see where they end up. Unlike cell phones, they are not desired for donation to third world countries, since these nations never set up a telephone infrastructure in the first place, instead skipping straight to mobile phones. Assuming approximately 100 million households in the United States, and at least two phones per household (not to mention answering machines), we’re looking at around 200,000 tons of electronic waste. I can only hope someone figures out a solution to this byproduct of progress. Keep reading...

Sharing Music: A Situation Most Awkward

In one of the most memorable scenes of the movie Garden State, Natalie Portman’s character places her headphones around Zach Braff’s ears, inviting him to listen to a song that will “change [his] life.” Braff complies, and the first few notes of The Shins’ New Slang are heard diagetically by Braff and the audience alike. Most of us have been in Portman’s or Braff’s shoes in our lives, either eagerly sharing a beloved piece of music with a friend or being on the receiving end of such an invitation. In my experience, this exchange ranks highly on the list of most awkward social situations.

To start with, it’s two people, often of the same gender, listening silently to a song for 3-5 minutes. A little weird. But it gets worse. For the sharer, waiting pensively while the song works through the intro, ever so slowly building up to that bit that makes the song awesome, is a nerve-wracking 30-45 seconds. For the sharee, enduring that first third of the song, wondering what in the world makes it so great, is equally difficult. Making this process even more tricky is the pressure-packed nature of the situation, which makes enjoying the song—that is, really listening to it, finding beauty in the lyrics and the music itself—nearly impossible. The sharee can hardly say he doesn’t like it; he’s practically compelled to like it by the enthusiasm of his friend. And the sharer is dying for his friend to confirm his opinion—doubt about his musical taste swells with each second that passes.

I don’t know the solution to this dilemma. One can always recommend that a friend listen to a song on his own time, but there is no guarantee this will actually happen. It’s also possible to start the song and then leave the room, but this might also seem a little strange. Music can be totally social, or intensely personal. In the end, perhaps it’s best just to keep one’s treasured tunes to oneself. Keep reading...

More Walking Problems

This morning I reached the elevator in the parking deck at nearly the same time as a middle-aged woman, whom I do not know. When the elevator arrived, I let her enter first, according to the principle of “ladies first.” After doing so, however, I had second thoughts. Would this woman feel uncomfortable having a young man walk behind her into a sealed box? When the doors opened I faced the same problem, but once again came to the same decision. It seemed rude to exit first, so I let her go ahead. Of course, this had the domino effect of making her the first person to reach the door to exit the building. At this point I was hoping she would stand at the door and hold it in order to let me go ahead, but unfortunately she merely held the door behind her, so that I remained behind. I would have liked to walk quickly ahead to be able to open the next door for her, but doing so surely would have seemed strange and perhaps threatening. So once again the young man had the door opened for him by the middle aged woman. It seemed so backwards, but there was nothing I could do. We finally reached the elevator inside the office building together, and shared a short, but still awkward ride several floors up.

What should I have done???? Keep reading...