Here's my final paper for Apple, Google, Facebook. It's about my experience using Facebook over the past several years, and the effect it has not only on our ability to communicate, but also on our identity. Enjoy!

Facebook and Popular Opinion.

Although I don't find You Are Not A Gadget to be a particularly organized argument, I do agree with some of the things that Jaron Lanier poses within the book (and therefore wish it was better phrased and expressed). On the subject of individualism on the internet, I do agree that I think that we lose a certain about of our identity and become part of a larger voice on the internet - especially because, much like in life, sometimes people can succumb to peer pressure on the web and join the popular opinion on an issue. Granted, anonymity on the web is one the things that keeps this from happening, but on sites like Facebook, and in some cases Twitter and Tumblr, your name is attached to what you write, and at times you may say something you don't actually believe, because it's what other people are saying online. And example of this is when Osama Bin Laden died - and I'll most likely talk about this in my paper as well - but I remember when it was announced that he had been killed, people took to Facebook to celebrate his death. This was something that I couldn't believe, and a lot of people I knew couldn't either - and yet we found ourselves liking those statuses, and in some cases perhaps even posting them ourselves. I didn't, but I know I liked at least one (my friend Michael posted a clip from the Simpsons of Homer Simpson yelling, "USA! USA!").

Although there is something inherently problematic about celebrating someone's death, this provides an example of a situation in which perhaps that belief gets suppressed in order to find yourself part of a larger group celebrating something like that. Sure, you could post a status saying that although you are happy that Osama's reign of terror is over, you don't support celebration of death - but that's only drawing attention to yourself, and it's much easier to just post a video of Homer Simpson. For people who already perhaps don't feel courageous enough to share their own voice, the internet can provide a digital record of that, and as I will state in my paper, further blurs the line people personal self and online self. I think that Lanier discusses indivualism on the internet in his book, but this was a point that I thought of while reading in relation to my musings on Facebook.

Myspace vs. Facebook vs. Google

I tried my hand at this site Neocities with a very, very dumb idea - but it's kind of fun. Check it out: anyone can use the web!

When the trailer for The Social Network came out, I was completely blown away. I remember thinking, "This looks like an incredibly fascinating movie," and I ended up being right. But moreover, and trailer does a great job of getting to the core of what Facebook is about, and what Smith talks about in her article: "I want you to notice, when I'm not around," a choir sings, covering Radiohead's "Creep" - and that's really what Facebook is all about in the end. You want to share your world so people see it, because we all want to be seen. The trailer also brings the paradox of The Social Network into the foreground: in the beginning we see Facebook at work, photos of families, people in hospitals, comments about missing people, etc. - and then we get the movie, the story of betrayal, love, backstabbing, and getting left behind. Facebook presents a world full of objectivism, when the real story is a lot more complicated, much like the second half of that trailer - it's messy, it's quick, and there are no easy answers, not like on Facebook. It's not very often that I see a trailer that I love as much as the movie, or a movie I love as much as the trailer. But this one captures the movie, and its essence so perfectly, and I continue to watch it even though I've seen the movie multiple times now. And it has me listening to that cover of "Creep." What the hell am I doing here?

Give Me a Like.

I greatly enjoyed Zadie Smith's article "Generation Why?" - so much so that I kind of feel like deleting my Facebook, and even not being on Blogger right now (alas, homework permits it). Smith comes from a different kind of mindset: I've read her work in the New Yorker, and an essay about her appreciation for Joni Mitchell - and from the article it seems as though she worked at Harvard for some amount of time. To me, though, Smith represents the type of person I want to be, rather than the type of person that I am: although I like the idea of reading the New Yorker and listening to Joni Mitchell on vinyl, I'm a lot more likely to be on Tumblr listening to Pharrell. Thus, enter Facebook.

I've heard a lot of people say things like, "I hate Facebook," and I'm one of them - and I truly do hate Facebook. It's a device that forces you not only into a box, but forces you to construct that box as well: how do you want to be viewed? Recently, someone uploaded photos of me swimming a breaststroke race at our Conference Championships, and I had to hold myself back from removing the photos. First of all, breaststroke isn't exactly an attractive stroke, and any photos of you taken during it are of you with your mouth agape, suffering through the disastrous yardage. Second of all, it alerted old friends that I was swimming again, after years off from the sport - and I could only picture the wields of their minds turning, thinking about my now less-than-fit body working through the water and laughing about it - because people think about me that much. Finally, the pictures aren't taken very well.

This is only a small example of how Facebook forces you to think about yourself. The fact of the matter is, I'm proud that I'm swimming again, and even though I'm slower than I was, and have a bit more a tummy, I like telling people it - it's essentially saying, "Hey, I'm doing something active again." In my real life, I'm proud of it - and yet on Facebook, I'm horribly embarrassed. Just like in real life I like the Fast and Furious movies, and will talk about them with anyone who will listen, but on Facebook I have There Will Be Blood and The Royal Tenenbaums listed under my movies, because those make me sound smarter. But I don't want to come off too smart: I only have The Corrections by Jonathan Franzen (my favorite book) and David Sedaris listed under authors - when my true literary loves are D.H. Lawrence and Joyce and all the other modernist greats - but I don't want people to think I'm that pretentious.

Smith brings up an interesting idea: as of now, I can draw the line between my Facebook self and my real self - and I'm able to fully appreciate that my Facebook self is a construction based on my own insecurities and overall narcissism. But with that being said, will I always know that? And do other people know that? If I'm on Facebook for long enough, will I forget that that's not me? Smith also has an intriguing read on Zuckerburg: He's a boring dude, who in order to make himself seem liked, created a system in which you're judging based on your choices instead of your character - it doesn't matter if you can talk about something, but if you like Breaking Bad, you're probably an alright person. It's a sad realization, and you can see it in Zuckerburg when he talks. I always thought there was something off about his interviews, but Smith threw it into the light: the sweating, bland answers, and little laughs - he's putting on a show, and the message is that we should like him. And I guess we kind of do. We like him more than Steve Jobs, because he's not an outward dick to everyone. But on the other hand, I'd much rather hang out with Steve Jobs. Because he's not afraid of what people think about him - and Zuckerburg does belong to a generation of people who are desperately afraid of what people think of them.

So the final question is: why remain on Facebook? Why not quit? Is it futile anyway, considering they most likely hold onto your information anyway? Well, I tell myself that I stay on Facebook because I have a radio show, and other things going on, and I want to be able to tell people about it. Also, I don't like the idea of losing people, and never hearing about them again - even if it's people from grade school. But maybe there's something deeper. A fear of having to exist outside of a screen, and only outside of a screen. I don't know, maybe I'll quit. That'd be nice. Because I hate Facebook.

The Dreaded Self-Google.

There have been a lot of moments in my life where - the boredom that comes out of too much time spent on the internet - I've Googled myself. This is probably something everyone has done, either on their own, or with friends, to see what comes up. If you Google my dad, an article comes up that was in the Chicago Tribune about how a budget he'd submitted to the city council (he's an architect for a suburb of Chicago) was rejected - the picture has a caption that says "Raffel looks dejected." It's good for a laugh.

But there's more to be said about Google self-searches than simply "it's good for a laugh." It's a little scary as well. If you look above, you can find myself self-search, which features my Twitter account, my Vimeo account, a interview I did when I was published in a book in high school, and a Facebook page (a different Peter Raffel). If you go further, you find my Instagram, my Youtube account, my Tumblr, and even a podcast I uploaded in middle school that I attempted to do with my friends. That, in itself, is a little scary: when you put something on the web, there's an expectation that you're okay with everyone seeing it, but that's not necessarily the case. I'm pretty sure I wouldn't want people listening to that old podcast or looking at my old Youtube videos - they're probably both pretty embarrassing. This issue also comes up when applying for a job: all a company has to do is Google you and see what's out there - and if it's anything that they don't like, you're not getting that job. The immediate access we can have to anyone is something new within the last twenty years: even if you stay off the web, there's still a chance there's something about you on there. That might not be that big of a deal, but still - the idea that anyone can access you anytime is definitely something to consider. Especially when your mom finds your Twitter and sees that you use a lot more dirty language than she ever expected.

Doing A Bunch of Things, Kind of Well.

On Google's "philosophy" page, there's a statement that is pretty bold to make given their current situation: "It's best to do one thing really, really well." In class, it has been argued that Google's "one thing" is search: not only to search the internet for information, but to search for innovation as well - to search for answers in a larger sense. To me, though, this is kind of contradictory: sure, you could argue that products like Google Glass and the like are ways of giving us more "answers" and continuing this search, but on the other hand, it feels a little excessive. To me, Larry and Sergey seem to be guys who come from a background much different than the majority of well-established businessmen: they are interested in technology, in moving the world forward, and in making some awesome stuff. That's what a lot of the Silicon Valley start-ups are like - it's definitely what Steve Jobs would like. But with that mentality comes a lot more than simply doing one thing really, really well - it means that in success, there is the ability to try and fail, and try and fail, and then try and fail again. That kind of mentality comes from a company with means, that in the past did do one thing really well (a search engine) and now has the ability and the money to do pretty much anything they want.

I'm speaking, in a lot of ways, about the Glass Barge. It's been proposed that one day Google will have a store of its own - much like Apple eventually had stores - that would exist on a glass boat, which, to be honest, would be incredibly awesome. But when you really think about it, that sounds like an idea thought up by some mad scientist, bent on doing things just so that they can be done. I'm not necessarily against this, but if that is the way you want to run your company, don't say that you do one thing. Say that you do one thing well, and are trying to do some other stuff and you'll see what sticks. After all, that's how great ideas come about - trying things and seeing what sticks. Maybe I'm just being picky here (considering I said that no one reads the "about" page anyway), but it seems a little off for a company that claims to do one thing to also make glass boats.

Who Cares About The "Words"?

Douglas Edwards, in his book documenting the early days of Google, calls himself the "words guy," meaning that he gives Google a voice, whereas the rest of the company is essentially made up of programmers who lack the marketing and journalistic background that he has. But something has puzzled me about this, and other word guys: of the people using Google, or whatever other websites - who is actually reading these words. I use Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, Instagram, Google, and host of other websites, but I don't think I've ever actually read the statements made by the website themselves. When I researched Twitter for my Community on the Internet project, that was the first time I'd ever looked at the "about" page on Twitter - and that's after using it for over five years. The same goes for the other websites, and especially Google: Google has never been a destination for me. In a lot of ways, it's like an airport: I don't necessarily like it, I want to get through there as quickly as possible, and I just want it to be easy and painless. Thus, it makes Google's message - and in turn, their word guy - not really important to me. I would think that other users would have a similar opinion about those "about" pages, and it makes the words that Edwards writes a lot less important than he claims them to be.

On the other hand, they're important to the company. I am intentionally rough on pages like that, but they are important to the employees who are wondering what, exactly, they're working towards. I hate to side with Douglas (because I've been pretty against the book and his writing up until this point) but a company with as much power and as much momentum (at least in the early days) that Google has needs to be asking those questions and looking at the big picture. Ideas of "Don't Be Evil" (which I'll discuss in another blog post) are incredibly important, and even if your consumers aren't necessarily reading your mission statement, you need to have it for yourself, and to keep the company on the right track in a financial, innovational, and moral sense.

I watched an interesting movie last week that I thought might be of interesting to anyone thinking about computers and their role in our lives. The movie is called Computer Chess, and is set in the late 70s at a hotel where a computer chess tournament is going on - a yearly event where programmers play against each other using their computers - some from high end companies, and some independent programmers. The idea is that whatever computer wins the tournament will eventually play a human being, and that eventually the computer will probably be able to beat that human - but not yet. The movie places itself at an interesting point in the technological revolution: computers aren't yet smarter than humans, but they surely will be soon (they are now, I'd say, especially with the internet). Also in the film is the plotline that one of the computers doesn't want to play against other computers anymore, and wants to play against humans - and has figured out how to know when playing a computer or playing a person. It's an interesting film that deals with the human psyche and the implications of technology in a world where it is so embraced, when perhaps we should be more wary of it than we are.

Google Gods.

For a while there, it seemed like there was genuinely a war between which search engine was going to win out the battle: I remember as a kid using Yahoo, Ask Jeeves, and Altavista probably just as much as I did Google. I mean, Ask Jeeves had a cool picture of a butler on their front page - and sometimes that butler had different clothes on depending on the weather outside, or if it was a holiday. Now, though, probably about ten or so years later, it seems like Google has become the predominant search engine - doesn't Ask Jeeves even still exist? If it does, I'm pretty sure they got rid of the butler, which is disappointing to say the least.

The problem with Google becoming the one and only search engine we all use is that it lends a certain amount of brand loyalty that customers aren't even aware of. If we draw a comparison, Google has essentially becoming the Kleenex of search engines. No one says tissue, really (at least where I'm from) - we all just say Kleenex. Even if we're not using Kleenex, we still say Kleenex - I'm pretty sure my mom buys Puffs. The thing about this, though, is that Kleenex kind of owns the tissue market - despite the fact that people might not be actually using their product. Google, on the other hand, has both: they've becoming part of the culture, and are used in a way that are different from tissues: no one says "I'll Google it" and then goes to Ask.com. We're all using Google - it's built into our web browsers (at least any web browser I use). Not only that, but it's become more than just a search engine - it's become a one-stop shop. Maps, news, pictures, videos, even social media are now all a part of Google (even though, admittedly, Google+ seems like kind of dud). I mean, even my blog is a part of Google - they own Blogger now too. It's the kind of large company that we don't necessarily think about though - a faceless company that seamlessly controls the internet without having to let you know they're controlling it. They're cool, but they don't have to tell you they're cool. They own Youtube, but not in a way that puts a gigantic Google banner on the top of youtube.com - in a way that subtlety puts a "Youtube" tab on their homepage, and keeps your Google account in the top right corner of Youtube.

My point is this: without competition, Google really can do whatever they want, and that might be a problem. Unlike Mac products, if you don't like Google, your choices are kind of limited. With a Mac, if you find yourself against it, there are other companies to go to. But with Google, sure, you can go to Bing, and maybe Vimeo, and The New York Times website and Hotmail and Mapquest, but that's going to take a lot of time as opposed to having it all within a click of your mouse on Google. And without that competition, it leaves Google in a particularly powerful position - they not only control each segment of the internet, but they're starting to control your entire internet experience. I only have one Google site bookmarked on my Mac (Gmail) but that's because through that I can access anything else I might need, and right next to it is a Google search bar that I use frequently.

Why is this a problem? Well, I guess it's not a huge problem, but it kind of puts Google in a position to play God. If they're controlling everything, they make the choices, and you have little say in them. If they decide, for instance, that a certain site isn't worth their users' time, they can simply not have it show up when searching it. It's that type of control that be kind of scary, especially when you consider the amount of information they hold on us - a scary amount. Moreover, I've said in the past that I trust Apple - I've looked at their products and what they have to say about them and decided they're for me. But I never really did that with Google. It was just there, and I used it. And I still use it. Without that kind of agency, you really don't know what you're using.

Twitter's Community from petermraffel

Here is my powerpoint related to the web community on Twitter, which I talked about a little bit in a blog post recently, but go into more detail on here. It uses screenshots from Twitter's About page, as well as screenshots from my own account. Enjoy!

Using Social Media for Your Own Purposes.

I've been writing about Twitter lately, and I've noticed that a lot of times with social media sites, people don't necessarily use it the way it was intended to be used. For example, comedians will sometimes have conversations with each other that are clearly jokes, but are made to be seen as real conversations happening. Above is a prime example of this: two comedians, Tim Heidecker and Tom Scharpling talking on Twitter about a Hollywood meeting that isn't actually going to take place, but is purely for humorous purposes. By using the conversational aspect of Twitter, comedians and others are able to both make fun of the way the site is supposed to be used, and have a good time while at it. This is an animated video of the conversation they have on Twitter, which is clearly only for comedic purposes, but uses the site in a way that's different than how it's supposed to be intended. I think it's particularly interesting the way people end up using sites, compared to how they are supposed to be used. Another example of this is that there is a feature on Facebook that allows you to see when someone has read a message you've sent to them, but this is somewhat loaded in nature: if you can see that someone has read your message and they don't respond, you might take it to mean that they don't care or don't want to talk to you. Thus, people end up sometimes leaving their messages unread so that that "read" message doesn't show up and people aren't offended that they haven't responded yet, even though they've seen the message. It's interesting, because at times there seems to be a contradiction between what the creators of a site think people want and what they actually want: in this example, they think that people want to know when their message has been read, but really people probably don't like this feature because it makes them look like a jerk if they don't respond right away.

Twitter's Community.

Above: A screenshot taken from Twitter's "Discover" page, which also tells people to "express yourself" and "share openly."

I've been on Twitter for probably about five years now, and when I first started using it, I think I was just as confused as everyone else about what it's supposed to do. According to their "About" page, their mission is "to give everyone the power to create and share ideas and information instantly, without barriers." To me, that seems to be a pretty vague mission statement, considering what Twitter actually is: it's a platform that essentially lets you post 140 character quips and ideas to however many followers you can acquire, while at the same time reading the quips and ideas of the people you follow. The thing about Twitter, though, is that it serves multiple purposes by being very simple: unlike Facebook, which although complex is essentially a social site to be used amongst you and your friends, Twitter allows you to follow anybody (as long as they're not set to private). This can include your family, your friends, celebrities, politicians, or even people who you randomly stumble upon.

I make a point to use my Twitter mostly for comedic purposes and self promotion, which differs from other people. I tend to not follow friends, even though they follow me, because I don't really care about tweets like "Just did my homework" or "Tired :(" - that's kind of what Facebook is for. I don't need two sites to hear about that, so I use Twitter to post my own funny comments and read the tweets of comedians or people I deem funny. I follow a couple news sites as well, but I mostly use it for this purpose.

Relating this to Bellah, it's interesting because I'm essentially creating a community here, but not necessarily one I'm interacting with. Unlike Facebook, the people I follow on Twitter aren't friends of mine, and I don't really communicate with them other than reading their tweets. The people who follow me are at times friends, but also strangers who have stumbled upon my tweets - maybe because they've been retweeted by someone else, or because someone posted a tweet saying to follow me. There are a few friends who I connect with on Twitter, but for me it doesn't really serve as a real community - I would call it more of an Invisible Lifestyle Enclave. I am technically part of a community, but since I'm not really interacting with them, I don't think it necessarily counts as a community. Then again, if we're going based on what Twitter's mission statement is, they don't really say anything about community, only that they want you to be able to share whatever your thoughts and ideas are "without barriers." In a sort of individualistic way, that Bellah talks about, thus Twitter becomes a medium to share your ideas more than it is to hear the ideas of other people; even though Twitter ends up being used to both share and listen, that's not what the site claims itself to be for. It does, on other pages, tell you to "connect with people," however they say that these are "casual and spontaneous" and clearly this is not the main usage for the site. Connection seems to be important to Twitter, but not as much so as sharing your own ideas freely and openly.

Whenever I think about the internet, I'm reminded of this sketch comedy bit from Tim and Eric, who had a show on Adult Swim for a while. It's basically making fun of dumb infomercials, but for some reason it just makes me laugh and remember that the internet is kind of a ridiculous thing in general.

Success and Artistic Creation.

I've been thinking a lot recently about my own goals, mostly because we've been reading Habits of the Heart, and I desperately do not want to identify with any of the characters in the first chapter of the book. Every time I would read one and see a bit of myself in them, Bellah et al. would go on to talk about why the person wasn't fully realizing what they want in life, and are short sighted about their goals. I certainly don't want to be that way, and have been thinking about whether or not my goals and views are actually individualistic or whether I'm actually trying to be part of a larger community.

Maybe this isn't the best argument, but I've spent a lot of time talking with people close to me about the meaning of life (because we're liberal arts students, are what else are we going to do), and I think one of the conclusions that I've come to is that one of the meanings is to influence those around you in positive ways, and generally speaking help move the human race in a positive direction. This is a pretty general idea, as most "meaning of life" comments are, but I've narrowed it down a bit more - I particularly like creating art, in the form of writing or performing or what-have-you, and I know my life has been severely influenced by other works of art: different books and films and music, and I think that one of my goals is to do something similar - to create something that resonates with someone else out there, and will change their life. It's individualistic as well, but only in a certain way: yes, I'm doing it because of my own need to creatively express myself, which is inherently individualistic, but I'm also doing it because I want to give back to a society that has given me so much, and add into the pantheon of great works that have influenced and changed the world. I guess that's sort of a high goal, but that's something I've been thinking about when the topic of success comes up, and what you want to get out of your life. I guess I do want happiness, but more than that I want to gain knowledge and understanding, and I think a way of doing that is by creating art that expresses your experience and understanding to a wider public. But then again, I'm a 21 year old liberal arts student, and it's pretty easy to say all of these things now with a pretty solid meal plan.

Success of the Wolf.

If you've heard of Jordan Belfort, it's probably because of the new film by Martin Scorsese, The Wolf of Wall Street, which depicts his rise and fall in the stock market during the 90s - some of which was illegal, but all of which resonates with the ideas of indiviualism and success that are brought up with Habits of the Heart. The video above, which is one of the seminars Belfort now gives in order to make a living, is what he calls the "Straight Line Persuasion Webinar" - essentially if you go and see Belfort, he'll tell you how to get rich quick, and convince people to give you what you want. That's what The Wolf of Wall Street is about as well, however when I saw the movie, I left the theater feeling a little bit aimless: what did Belfort learn from his years at the top? Sure, he had everything and more: money, women, cars, yachts (which is incidentally crashed), and yet lost them all because he found himself being too greedy. To me, Belfort exemplifies the life that Brian talks about in the first chapter of Habits of the Heart: defining your success as the amount of money you make and how well you do professionally. Belfort had all that and more, and yet lost it without really learning what will truly bring him meaning, and now he seems to be passing along these messages to others who are hoping for the same thing.

In the video (which is long, and I admittedly did not watch all of), Belfort says that inside of us we all have the key to unlocking our own happiness and accomplishments, but what exactly those are, he's not very clear about. Judging by his topic, it's about business: persuading people to do what you want them to do. It's an inherently nihilistic view of humanity, and Wolf of Wall Street is a lot about that: conning people into giving you their money, essentially, and holding onto it as long as you can, even if it's illegal. He says that there's a force inside of us that we need to wake up - and the way to do that is convince yourself that "you're the shit," as he puts it. I suppose the one thing that can be said about Belfort is that there's no masking in his case: he's not tricking himself into thinking he's trying to do things for the good of society or his family - he's strictly doing it for himself. To me, he seems like the embodiment of the individualistic society in which we live: although a lot of us are horrified by what he has to say, it isn't too far off from what's in a lot of our heads anyway.

My New Religion.

One of the things I've been thinking about recently are the parallels between modern technology and religion, and my relation to both of these. I consider myself an agnostic, I suppose - which I've heard is a cop-out in some respects, but whatever - and generally find myself shaking my head at people who follow organized religion. I want to be someone who is respectful of all different beliefs, and part of me wishes I believed as well, if only so that I had some sort of stabilizing force in a world that provides little answers. But alas, I cannot seem to do anything but shake my head at religion, and I feel bad about that, particularly because it seems like a very Liberal Arts Upper Middle Class White Male thing to do.

I do, however, have a religion of some sorts, and that's technology. In the same way that people are drawn to religion, I seem to be drawn to technology, probably even more so than religion. I don't go to worship on Sundays, but I worship every few minutes, when I dig into my pocket and check my phone. Perhaps this comparison I'm drawing is not necessarily a good one, but sometimes it honestly does feel like this. Moreover, I seem to defend it the same way people have defended religion to me: it's about connection, about expressing oneself, etc. I don't know if you can call tweeting a witty remark about Breaking Bad "expression," but nowadays I think it's okay.

Maybe it seems like I'm calling both technology and religion vices, but I'm not. I'm saying that in moderation, both can enhance your life. It's when one begins to take over everything you do that there's a problem. I don't think it's healthy that people look to God to save their lives or to cancel school tomorrow, and I don't think it's healthy to check my phone every five minutes. But praying to something, or searching for answers, or generally being a good person because it's what your religion teaches you - those might not be so bad. And being able to tweet out to the world or text a friend or take a picture of something that interests you or listen to a song that moves you in an impossible way - those are probably good things too. Everything in moderation, I guess.

Whole Earth Catalogue: Here's To The Crazy Ones.

My first impressions of looking at the first issue of the Whole Earth Catalogue, dated Fall 1968, is that it seems - and perhaps this is not the best way to put it - the ramblings of a madman (or men, since the catalogue had multiple contributors). That's probably not the impression that the catalogue wants to give, but it linked me immediately to a lot of the comments that were usually made about Jobs' new ideas of endeavors: within Isaacson's autobiography, there are many times in which Jobs proposes an idea to his board of directors, to which they say, "You're crazy - that'll ruin Apple." The most recent example in my reading is that of the Apple Stores, which people said would surely be a failure in light of the Gateway Stores, which had been a disaster. But Jobs stuck with the idea and forced it through, and ended up revolutionizing the way consumers by computers, let alone anything. When I go to technology stores now, a lot of them end up mirroring Jobs' vision of a pristine, immaculate, minimalistic store. Anyway, this relates to my immediate ideas about the Whole Earth Catalogue, and makes me see an immediate comparison between Jobs and the magazine.

Looking inside, you get what seems to be a grab bag of ideas and "tools," as they would call them: pictures of different geographical settings from high above, a book about "Ideas and Integrities," some notes on the music of John Cage, and a section about Tantric Art. The catalogue seems to be about what the future might hold for people - moving into a new generation, as technology was beginning to burst, the catalogue seems to offer tools to become part of this movement, albeit in an somewhat scattered way. It seems like a catalogue designed for someone like Jobs: many small bits of information about many different things, all working towards on unified goal of progression and artistic achievement. The Whole Earth Catalogue provides so much information about so many things that it's really unlike any other magazine, which usually focuses on a subject matter - this magazine focuses on an idea, and that idea is giving you the necessary tools, which is what Jobs' product is all about.

If I had to relate that to religion, I would say that it follows that ideology of personal religion, and that you have the tools to become an individual contributing to society. Past religions seemed to be about communal ideology, not very much focused on the human, whereas modern religion and the Whole Earth Catalogue seem very involved with the individual - which is also what Jobs was all about. There seems to be an inexplicable link between the personal religion that now seems so prevalent, and the personal technology that has exploded ever since Apple came onto the scene - and the Whole Earth Catalogue serves as the foundation for the themes that Jobs would eventually try to develop in his company.

Steve Jobs at Stanford: Stay Hungry, Stay Foolish.

Watching Steve Jobs' speech at the Stanford Commencement in 2005 feels a bit like a religious experience in a way: you get chills listening to him speak, and something deep within you resonates with what he is saying. But there is also a deep-rooted feeling of uncertainty and of vagueness: Jobs says to live everyday as though it is your last, and never settle for something less than what you want, but what exactly does that mean? Sure, maybe he did this in his own life, but the sheer number of human beings on this planet basically dictates than not everyone can live out their dreams the way Jobs did - it's just not possible. I immediately see ties to religion within his speech - the idea of individuality comes up numerous times, as it does with modern day religion; speaking as someone who went to a Catholic high school, but am half-Jewish and half-Catholic - and essentially Agnostic in actuality - I found that one of the main messages that my Catholic school was trying to give me was that I was special: that God had a plan for me and all I had to do was open my ears and listen. Jobs doesn't necessarily say this, but he does say that you should keep searching until you find the thing that you want in life - and that's basically what a lot of religions suggest as well, they just throw in that God is the one who determines that. It's weird to think that in a sense Jobs and modern day Catholicism (or at least Jesuits) are saying the same thing, except that one party needs to use the concept of God and the other does. Either way, this idea of individuality and finding the right path are daunting, and yet both Jobs and religions make it seem possible, not only for a select few, but for everyone.

I guess the other thing to say that's interesting is that even though these ideologies line up, I doubt that most religions would want to associate themselves with Jobs - a selfish, rude, and at times simply mean person. The tenant of most religions, as far as I know, appears to be helping one another and living a pious life, and yet Jobs didn't necessarily do that. Sure, he maybe helped the masses, and changed millions of lives by bringing the personal computer to the person, but he cut people down and left people behind him in his way towards his goals. And yet, even though Jobs did this, it could be argued that he was simply doing what religion is telling us to do: find your meaning, find your reason, and do what you, individually, are meant to do in this world. Is it okay to do that if it's at the cost of others?