young_werther's Xanga

Tuesday, May 06, 2008

Tue, 06 May 2008 10:37:47 GMT

A new era is born: http://soberdelusions.blogspot.com/

Saturday, October 13, 2007

Sat, 13 Oct 2007 11:58:27 GMT

The Online Dating "Anti-Lemon" Problem

I can guarantee you this will be my only post on dating, ever. I have noticed a profound problem regarding online dating: excessive and illustrative handle names. I think this points to an emerging "anti-lemon" problem online.

From an economics standpoint, the "lemon problem" has seemingly plagued some markets for goods. The "lemon problem: essentially refers to information asymmetries between buyers and sellers of goods (or lovers). For example, buyers cannot typically tell the quality of cars at second hand car dealers. At the same time, prices for the cars do not vary that much failing to give the buyer a clear "signal" of quality. As a result, the market for second hand cars falls apart as buyers only offer below market prices (afraid they will be taken at a higher price), and people wanting to sell high-quality cars won't because they will not get the price their car is worth.

The lemon problem seemingly has an application in dating too: although looks were pretty easy to discern, vast informational asymmetries existed in a person's background, personality, and financial status. While not necessarily a deciding factor in the breakup of some relationships, adverse selection would certainly doom the occasional relationship.

Enter online dating. Online dating has exacerbated existing information asymmetries as no one really knows what person a looks like, their personality, or their real intentions online. One of the ways to bridge these asymmetries is quite simple: increase the level and intensity of signaling. For example, a friend of mine recently sent emails to me from women who emailed him with such handles such as "PoshGirl99" and "Gucci Whore." While these handles might be funny and describe their true motives, it would seem we have a new problem emerging: the anti-lemon problem. People, in order to gain attention and distinguish themselves, signal their intentions so clearly that they might actually hurt their chances of finding a mate over the long run. Indeed, men who may have initially fallen in love with these women, and then agreed to fund their Gucci habit, now have clear evidence of front of a woman's real intentions to vitiate their pocketbooks. A word to the wise; clearer signaling doesn't necessarily mean better results.

Addition: When Al Gore wins the Nobel Peace Prize for his polemical work on "climate change" we now have official evidence that the beginning of the end is here. In the midst of deepening chaos in Somalia, Congo, East Timor, Myanmar, Zimbabwe, North Korea and numerous other countries, the Royal Swedish Academy of Science decides to bestow an award for a theory that does nothing really to address any of these paralyzing conflicts.

Alas, proponents may argue that climate change affects us all. Indeed, there is an infinitesimal chance that climate change might wipe once us all out in roughly 100-500 years, if these countries even exist any more. However, let no one be fooled. God doesn't relieve any of us from our responsibilities to care for the wretched of the earth destroyed by human sin. Sin and death, certainly an interesting casual concept understood by very few in the world who would rather create a "messiah" for asking us to switch to efficient light bulbs than actually confront why half of our world's population lives in increasing, paralyzing darkness. Peace, indeed.

Knives Out

Mon, 08 Oct 2007 05:30:25 GMT

Knives Out

I want you to know
He's not coming back
Look into my eyes
I'm not coming back

So knives out
Catch the mouse
Don't look down
Shove it in your mouth

If you'd been a dog
They would've drowned you at birth

Look into my eyes
It's the only way you'll know I'm telling the truth

- Radiohead

Saturday, August 18, 2007

Sat, 18 Aug 2007 13:37:26 GMT

I Think I Am Turning Japanese: A Beautiful Breakdown of Sober Delusions

No sex, no drugs, no wine, no women
No fun, no sin, no you, no wonder it's dark
Everyone around me is a total stranger
Everyone avoids me like a Cyclone Ranger
Everyone
That's why I'm turning Japanese I think I'm turning Japanese I really think so

- The Vapors

But the foolish children of men do miserably delude themselves in their own
schemes, and in their confidence in their own strength and wisdom; they trust to nothing
but a shadow.

Jonathan Edwards- "Sinners in the Hand of An Angry God" (1741)

"But let us, who are of the day, be sober, putting on the breastplate of faith and love; and for an helmet, the hope of salvation."

- 1 Thessalonians 5:8

This is planned to be a multi-part entery addressing the following questions: 1) What is spiritual estrangement? How is it related to delusion? 2) How do Christians sucessfully battle delusion and its consequences? 3) How then shall we live?

Many thoughts will go running through one's head as you lay on the floor of the bathroom, desperately gasping for breath, while your heart continues to accelerate without pause. Inevitably, one question will arise: How did I get here? Over the last couple of weeks, I have made several visits to the emergency room of Seoul's best and worst hospitals. While language truly fails to capture what this experience has taught me (thank you, Wittgenstein), the Vapors probably capture it the best: complete and total estrangement.

Estrangement, however, whether it be from God or ourselves, must ultimately be built upon something. That is to say, estrangement requires a vehicle, a belief system, that tears us away from the truth and entices us to build our metaphysical foundation on sand. After rereading Johnathan Edwards classic sermon "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God, I found the perfect villian: delusion. Although Edwards' sermon is clearly aimed at converting unbelievers during a period of unparalleled revival in the United States, his penetrating analysis regarding man's natural delusionary state also applies to converted Christians. After all, even though we have been saved through Christ's blood on Calvary, our own sinful nature still exists as does the lies of Satan.

Indeed, a quick search of the Bible will reveal many examples of delusion, however, I will only mention three. First, Nathan's confrontation of David after he had slept with Bathsheeba and intentionally killed her husband. Nathan speaks to David using an analogy of a rich man who took a poor man's only lamb. Two, Peter's chronic denial that he would never betray Jesus. Third, and undoutedly most frightening, Jesus in Luke 13:25-27 rejects a group of "believers" who are knocking to get into heaven only to be rejected and sent to hell.

The underpinning of these three different delusionary states is somewhat different.: David's delusion is due to disobedience caused by sin, Peter's due to a fundamental misunderstanding of his own fallen nature, and the group of believers because they never received Jesus as their Lord and Savior. While the three may differ in origin, however, I will posit that the remedy is the same. In Edwards' sermon, he speaks of "God's hand"( a symbol of Jesus' sacrifice) that keeps those who don't believe from falling into hell. I believe in my own case, and that of the church currently, there must be more focus on the "hand" in order to draw people's attention away from their own lives and problems.

Thursday, February 01, 2007

Thu, 01 Feb 2007 13:01:05 GMT

What a statement seems to imply to me, it doesn't to you. If you should ever live amongst foreign people for any length of time and be dependent on them, you will understand my difficulty.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Seoul's Anthem

Wed, 15 Nov 2006 07:45:37 GMT

Her green plastic watering can
For her fake chinese rubber plant
In fake plastic earth.
That she bought from a rubber man
In a town full of rubber plants
Just to get rid of itself.
And it wears her out, it wears her out
It wears her out, it wears her out.

She lives with a broken man
A cracked polystyrene man
Who just crumbles and burns.
He used to do surgery
For girls in the eighties
But gravity always wins.
And it wears him out, it wears him out
It wears him out, it wears him out.

She looks like the real thing
She tastes like the real thing
My fake plastic love.
But I cant help the feeling
I could blow through the ceiling
If I just turn and run
And it wears me out, it wears me out

Saturday, November 04, 2006

Sat, 04 Nov 2006 07:40:45 GMT

Social Justice Part 1: Boyd vs. Wallis

Two leading Christian intellectuals, Greg Boyd and Jim Wallis, recently debated the role of Christians in the public sphere. Wallis argues that faith in God and participation in politics is inextricably linked with the final goal being "social justice." Boyd argues that faith and participation in politics are two distinctly different phenemenon with allegiance to God transcending political ties. I am not an expert on "social justice," for those wanting an expert opinion please click here and the transcript of the event here .

Boyd seems to deeply understand theological missteps that have plagued previous leaders such as Constantine, Luther and apparently Wallis as well. 1) The church must remain seperate from the state ; 2) Only when that seperation is acheived, can Christians serve as the "light and salt of the world." In reality, Wallis and Boyd are not that distant intellectually, differences in opinions are a function of process and emphasis.

Wallis' heavy emphasis on "social justice" (as an output) leads to a variety of political positions that may or may not be biblically supported. Certainly, praying for violence and human suffering in Congo and Sudan are obligations for Christians responding to God's heart. Propositions for wage hikes and "greater equality" are not supported and owe more to Socialism or Utiliatarianism.

Boyd takes the opposite approach putting heavy emphasis on following Christ's teachings and seeking His glory, refusing to translate Christ's words into any political ideology. I believe Boyd's direction is ultimately correct; that is if Christians focus on their relationship and Jesus' teachings there will ultimately be spillover into the public realm where people will have to acknowledge manifestations of God's glory. Wallis, on the other hand, seemingly limits or even directs believers to a predetermined spiritual end ("social justice"). This difference can be aptly seen in two examples that Wallis offers as evidence for his perspective: MLK and Bonhoeffer. Certainly, God used these two men to shake the foundations of their respective culture and national consciousness.

However, these examples seemingly support Boyd's emphasis more than Wallis. Indeed, God used these men because of their faith and focus on God rather than their exclusive focus on "social justice." Boyd's concept of "power from below" is particularly useful in understanding how God raises up believers to influence the world while their focus is exclusively on the kingdom.

Monday, October 30, 2006

Mon, 30 Oct 2006 13:22:40 GMT

The Devil Knows Corean: Part 1

6.53 The correct method in philosophy would really be the following: to say nothing except what can be said, i.e. propositions of natural science--i.e. something that has nothing to do with philosophy -- and then, whenever someone else wanted to say something metaphysical, to demonstrate to him that he had failed to give a meaning to certain signs in his propositions. Although it would not be satisfying to the other person--he would not have the feeling that we were teaching him philosophy--this method would be the only strictly correct one.

6.54 My propositions are elucidatory in this way: he who understands me finally recognizes them as senseless, when he has climbed out through them, on them, over them. (He must so to speak throw away the ladder, after he has climbed up on it.)

7 What we cannot speak about we must pass over in silence.

-Ludwig Wittgenstein- Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus

" When you talk about these stupid things, you are boring."

- Anonymous Corean Girl, 10/29/06

After spending roughly one month on the Korean Peninsula, Ludwig Wittgenstein's wisdom and a young Corean woman's words converged. Although these words seared like a dagger through my spirit, perhaps it is time I should change my ways. Or perhaps, the first robust evidence that the devil knows Corean.

Tuesday, October 17, 2006

Tue, 17 Oct 2006 12:22:38 GMT

Seoul Searching

I feel like the milk carton

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dYJOF8drAkw

Friday, October 06, 2006

Fri, 06 Oct 2006 07:56:58 GMT

The crackle of pig skin (Rain down)
The dust and the screaming (Come on rain down on me)
The yuppies networking
The panic, the vomit (from a great height)
The panic, the vomit (from a great height)
God loves his children
God loves his children, yeah