He usually tries to understand the deepest mysteries of the cosmos. The really big questions. But now it has been reported that the physicist is stumped by the biggest riddle of all: women. Hawking says, “They are the greatest mystery of all.” Does this mean he’s working on a formula to understand them, beyond the cliche roses, chocolates, and a new home with a white picket fence? If so, perhaps the answer will come soon after a quantum theory of gravity is established to explain both the attractive and repulsive forces at work in the statement “You can’t live with them, you can’t live without them.”
Of course Hawking is being facetious, but while he’s at it, maybe he should work on a formula to understand men, too. Like why men are fixated on sports scores–which they would want to know prior to knowing about anything else, including election results, Iran’s missile testing results, or the red-lined China Syndrome status of the nuclear power plant up the street. Of course nuclear energy has turned out not to be as dangerous as oil addiction, despite the movie. (If you add to global warming the consequence of wars.) But the truth is, if anyone is unwilling to be an individual, or to think for himself or herself (instead of getting opinions from TV news sound bites and Entertainment Tonight), they are really not difficult to understand at all. All you need to do is to track their demographic, like the ad agencies do. Once a subject’s prejudices are analyzed by establishing their ethnicity, social status, and education, it is easy to target them with personalized propaganda. . . or rather with familiar things they want to hear (pop goes the weasel.) That way you can control them with a feedback loop of social memes which can be injected like a virus. Kinda like what Coca-Cola does, linking themselves with love and happiness when what they’re really selling is no more defensible than a recreational drug. (Tasty but addictive and pro-diabetic, contributing to obesity and a spike in health care costs.) In politics, we elect a President based on if we think they can win, as if it’s America’s Next Top Model. And so is it any wonder we get the same rhetoric from candidates who act as if it’s all a game? You know who pays the price of this win-at-all-cost philosophy of us-versus-them. Personally, I favor Ron Paul, even if he doesn’t look as Presidential as Romney (or Obama). Why? Listen to the man. He makes sense. Our bloated military budget would be cut in half with Paul. With Romney, we could be looking at a third Vietnam in the Middle East. Are we really doing so well with the other two? In business and industry, we’ve just about given up making things (other than sugar water, weapons systems, and cigarettes) to the Chinese, Koreans, and Japanese. (Although we spend more on our military than every other country in the world combined.) So how about we let Coke make a car? Sure! The Coke Car, with no seat belts or air bags. They push other unhealthy products which sell well overseas, so why not? American cigarettes are smoked by babies in some foreign countries, too, and (after all) also aggressively advertised to kids in far Eastern countries like Indonesia and the Philippines!
I started by talking about Stephen Hawking, who is a genius. Now I’ll add a quote from another genius, who was Time Magazine’s MAN OF THE CENTURY: “Nationalism is the measles of humanity.” Measles is a skin disease. A surface rash. Beauty is also skin deep. In truth, we are all more alike than we are different, and there is no justification for ego in a universe which has been shown to be more vast with each passing decade of examination by science. We’re all like the man on the ledge. Human evolution must now move beyond this state of warfare and blood lust and winning at others expense, or else. If politicians and Hollywood producers and fast food conglomerates and Pentagon generals need another quote from Albert Einstein to consider, it’s this: “Any intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more violent. It takes a touch of genius — and a lot of courage — to move in the opposite direction.” Even Steve Jobs, whatever his ego, would have agreed with that.
