"Are right and wrong convertible terms, dependant upon popular opinion?" -William Lloyd Garrison

Summer Weekend at Dolores Park
San Francisco, CA

"Ladies and gentlemen, a chili bowl is one ninety nine just down the street. Who can spare two dollars?" My peaceful ride home from work was interrupted by this announcement by a man as he entered the back of the trolley. I looked up from my book but for a moment. I was careful not to make eye contact with him. I discretely surveyed the other passengers. They remained unfazed, scrolling through newsfeeds and tweets. The man was composed. "Ladies and gentleman. It's only two dollars. Just two dollars and I'm going to have dinner tonight."

I looked back at my book. Then up again. I casually opened my tote bag and reached in to investigate the contents of my wallet. I thought I remembered having a few dollar bills. Yes, I was right. I have three dollars. I could give him two. "Ladies and gentleman..." Nobody else is doing anything. What would they all think of me if I stood up and handed him money? And is he really going to buy the chili bowl? "Ladies and gentleman this is your last chance before..." the trolley came to a halt and the doors swung open. His voice got softer. Distant. Should I? Maybe? What else could he buy with two dollars in this city? It was too late. He had exited the trolley, leaving me with my over-analyzed, crumpled George Washingtons.

Over the past several days, I've oscillated between feeling like I did the right and wrong thing by ignoring the man. My subconscious elitist is congratulating me for discouraging "these people" from entering the trolley. But the good-doer in me, the good-doer I want myself to be, is embarrassed at my weakness. 

Living in the Silicon Valley, I spend a lot of time talking about how technology is solving people's problems. Problems like finding your friends in a crowded park or getting to know someone without speaking to him. And I have lots of opinions about how to solve them and solve them well. In case my tone is not palpable as it comes through the words on your screen, these are not real problems.  I rarely talk, let alone think, about world hunger or the painful but obvious financial disparity that surrounds me on a daily basis. 

A few days after my cognitive-dissonance-inducing-trolley-experience, I found myself reading this probing article in The New Yorker in which author George Packer questions whether the Silicon Valley can embrace politics, can think outside its bubble, can solve big problems. He writes, "It suddenly occurred to me that the hottest tech start-ups are solving all the problems of being twenty years old, with cash on hand, because that's who thinks them up." Packer is reverent, then pointed, then accusatory, then hopeful, and I found it impossible to disagree with him (if you have ever heard of the Silicon Valley, the article is a must-read. If that means you stop reading this post right now, I'm fine with that). 

There is a fundamental problem in the fact that not a single person traveling home from the financial district, myself included, budged to hand a man a few dollars for dinner. We were all probably grappling with the same concern: What if he doesn't use the money to solve his hunger problem? 

We feel more comfortable finding technologically innovative solutions to different problems. The affectionately dubbed "first world problems." That's where the attention is, anyway. And the money. It's easier when the solution is something tangible like an smartphone application that just works. 

I don't have any concrete solutions. But we have a chance to make things better by taking swings sometimes. To disregard how we may be judged by others, to question the status quo and attempt to solve microproblems when we can. To satiate one man's hunger. To make the "problems of being twenty years old," as Packer puts it, the problems of being citizens in a socially fragmented, economically disparate, technologically advanced world.