Nerdapocalypse

Mythbustacapinyourass

I, for one, am both happy and relieved that the cast of the Discovery channel show MythBusters has finally launched their assault on civilized society. Sure, sure, this whole incident was just a terrible accident, a miscalculation. Right. And if you belonged to a small clan of nerd geniuses plotting the downfall of a society of morons who gave you wedgies in high-school, I’m sure you would declare your intentions to everyone instead of slowly testing weapons on the neighbors until you were absolutely sure you were ready, right?

No, it’s clear that this is game on, and that “experiments” with cannonballs are just the beginning.

Can any of us, honestly, say we hadn’t seen this coming?

In all my recent Ayn Rand bashing, I mention how funny it seems that politicians, hedge fund managers, and “think tank” wonks like Grover Norquist now fancy themselves neo-captains of industry, brilliant minds hard at work using their superior intellect to keep the world running and save us poor, incompetent middle class types from ourselves. This is partially because Rand’s “self-interest is morality” stance (the girl wore a dollar sign in place of a crucifix) is back in favor, even though it never made any sense in the first place. One of my favorite–and by that I mean “funniest”–moments in Rand’s philosophical opus, Atlas Shrugged, features the owner of the world’s most successful copper mining company going on strike against the world of stupid people who regulate his and other important businesses and joining a secret group of financially, and apparently intellectually, gifted captains of industry on a private piece of secluded land. There, he does what surely any modern day CEO or banker would do: he builds his own copper mine. Like the best and most awesome copper mine ever.

You know, like a modern day CEO or board member or company president of a major multi-national corporation would. Or Grover Norquist. There in a free-market utopia, the super-awesome copper mine he apparently somehow dug himself using magical tools and maybe that green army of dead soldiers from The Lord of the Rings movie, is free to produce shitloads of copper without worrying about poisoning the town’s water supply or having to pay fines for miners who died due to cost-cutting measures his moral self-interest led him to make. In fact, there doesn’t seem to be any actual workers in the secret Valley of the Tycoons Rand created; just a bunch of rich people for whom things just seem to happen. One supposes that when they turned their backs on the world to go rough it, they at least took the household help with them, as I don’t recall any scenes of a trophy wife having to skin a rabbit. At any rate, the home-made copper mine rocks, and everyone lives happily ever.

Describes our current situation, right? I mean, except that “CEO of multi-national corporation doing something” part. Outside the tech industry, there seem to be relatively few CEOs who can even tie their own shoes, let alone dig their own copper mines. What today’s captains of industry tend to build are credit default swaps, and there’s an excellent version of Atlas Shrugged about that, too.

Aside from lattes, we don’t make stuff in this country anymore. In fact, long-time U.S. fabricator of bicycle frames, Sapa, has just announced they will no longer be making bikes.

So if, as in Rand’s novel, the real Makers and Builders in the U.S. wanted to go on philosophical strike and quit thinking, building things for, and paying taxes to support, those just along for the ride who don’t seem to actually contribute anything to society–if all that shit really was starting to happen–where do you think the revolution would really start?

Exactly.

Nerds.

Trapped in Lockers One Too Many Times

From computer programmers to your annoying neighbor who makes shit in his garage, and even that douchebag who invented cyclonic vacuum cleaner technology, smart people are rising up, motherfuckers. Objectivists, Tea Party types, and Occupiers alike might want to duck and cover, because I’m here to tell you we’ve finally pissed off guys like this.

At least their swift elimination of everyone else on the planet should be pretty well televised, and frankly pretty freakin’ awesome. In the immortal words of “coldunus” who left a comment on the ABC News video coverage of the cannonball assault, ” . . . this episide will be so AWESOME.”