Geek wisdom : the sacred teachings of nerd culture

293 Pages·2011·5.5 MB·English

by  Stephen H Segal, Zaki Hasan, Mario Zucca, et al

Copyright © 2011 by Quirk Productions, Inc.
All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reproduced in any form without
written permission from the publisher.
Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Number: 2011922702
eISBN: 978-1-59474-530-0
Designed by Doogie Horner and Steven DeCusatis
Illustrations by Mario Zucca
e-book production management by Melissa Jacobson
Quirk Books
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Philadelphia, PA 19106
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v3.1
DEDICATION
This book is dedicated to everyone who’s ever said one of these things out loud during
conversation.
(Especially John, Greg, Mike, Lori, Jeannie, Chris, Ben, Paul, Steve, Paul, Nina, Lisa,
Jenn, Cameron, Tempest, Vanessa, Julie, and Stu. I have been, and always shall be, et
cetera, et cetera.)
TABLE OF
CONTENTS
Cover
Title Page
Copyright
Dedication
INTRODUCTION
A NOTE ON SPOILERS
I. MY NAME IS INIGO MONTOYA
(wisdom about the self)
II. FORM FEET AND LEGS
(wisdom about relationships)
III. WE ARE ALL INDIVIDUALS
(wisdom about humankind)
IV. KNOWING IS HALF THE BATTLE
(wisdom about conflict)
V. BILLIONS AND BILLIONS
(wisdom about the universe)
VI. IN THE YEAR 2525
(wisdom about the future)
About the Authors
INTRODUCTION
INTRODUCTION
I wish I could remember who asked me the question. Because I
know for sure that my answer is what set me on the path that has
brought me here, to you, on this page. The question was: “What
was your religion when you were growing up?” And my answer
was: “Uh, science fiction, pretty much.”
I meant it as a joke. I was poking fun at myself, saying that I’d
been such a freaking geek as a kid, watching Star Trek and reading
Tolkien and writing computer programs and building TARDIS
models, you’d think that stu(cid:44) was my religion. But as soon as it
came out of my mouth, I immediately understood that this was no
joke. It was absolutely 100 percent true in a way that I’d never
thought of before—and, furthermore, it was a good thing.
What is religion? Never mind all the trappings, all the ceremonial
garments and the prayer rules and the (cid:49)sh on Friday. What is
religion really for? It’s a framework of ideas—a body of thought
shared by a community, written and handed down through
literature—that’s intended to guide us toward maturity by helping
us ask and answer the big, cosmic questions about existence. Who
are we? Where did we come from? Is there anyone else out there in
realms of being we can’t see? Here on earth, why can’t we get along
with one another better than we do? And how can we possibly (cid:49)nd
any redemption for the mess we tend to make of things?
The Bible tells stories answering these questions. So does the
Quran. So do the Upanishads. So do the sacred books of every other
religion. The stories in each tradition vary a lot in the details, but
they all make their way around to more or less the same points
that, in turn, ultimately boil down to this: Hey, show some respect
for the universe, because it’s a whole lot bigger than you.
You know what? Religion isn’t the only place to (cid:49)nd those kinds
of stories. The modern scienti(cid:49)c world tells them, too. In fact, geek
culture is built on them.
Look at the Bible. In the beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a
Look at the Bible. In the beginning, God gave Adam and Eve a
couple simple rules, and they didn’t obey them, and we got to see
how that a(cid:44)ected the rest of their lives and what it implies for us.
Then Moses brought down ten divine algorithms from the Mount
for everyone to live by—don’t kill, don’t bear false witness, do
honor your parents, etc.—and we got to spend the rest of the Bible
tagging along as generations upon generations of slaves, peasants,
merchants, and kings alternately followed and broke these
commandments and tried to learn how to live with the
consequences.
And now look at Isaac Asimov, scientist and novelist. He was not,
obviously, God. He didn’t create the universe, humanity, and
everything in between. But he did imagine that someday humanity
would create arti(cid:49)cial beings—mechanical intelligences—and
would have to give them rules to live by. And thus, after school,
while my best friend John was in catechism class reading from the
Gospel of Matthew, I could be found at home reading from
Asimov’s book I, Robot, watching cybernetic Abrahams and Jobs
with “names” like SPD-1 and NS-10 do their damnedest to make it
through situations where the rules of life seemed just impossible to
cope with.
Does that sound strange? That robots, as envisioned as
realistically as possible by a scienti(cid:49)cally trained futurist, should
su(cid:44)er from existential angst? In fact, it makes tremendous sense.
Because when Asimov sat down to codify his Laws of Robotics—the
practical operational rules that would make it possible for these
new intelligent beings to live in harmony with one another and
their creators—what he came up with was startlingly similar to the
moral code outlined by most every religion and philosophy
throughout human history. Oh, sure, it looks different—
1. A robot shall not harm a human being or, through inaction,
allow a human being to come to harm.
2. A robot shall obey the orders given by a human being,
except where this would conflict with the First Law.
3. A robot shall protect its own existence, except where this
3. A robot shall protect its own existence, except where this
would conflict with the First or Second Law.
—but when you put that in plainer, more casual language, what it
amounts to is this:
It’s important to take care of yourself, but it’s more important to
spread happiness, but it’s even more important to hold life sacred.
You don’t have to be a robot, or even a sci-(cid:49) geek, to understand
that’s a pretty straightforward description of being a good person.
And, you know, being a good person is hard. So if geek culture can
o(cid:44)er fresh, new, alternative paths to all the eternal truths that
religion and philosophy have managed to discover over the past
few thousand years—paths that welcome those who’ve been turned
away from the more traditional routes—then I say, let there be
geekery.
The realm of geekdom, of course, is much bigger than just science
(cid:49)ction. Geeks are passionate fans of stu(cid:44), and particularly of stu(cid:44)
that lies somewhere along one of two cultural axes: math and myth.
The love of math stu(cid:44) gives us science geeks, computer geeks, chess
geeks; the love of myth stu(cid:44) gives us theater geeks, literary geeks,
ancient-Greek geeks. This is why science (cid:49)ction and role-playing
games make up the enduring popular image of modern-day
geekdom, mind you, because those are the places where math and
myth intersect: literature built on the infinite possibilities of science,
improv sword and sorcery shaped by the numerical output of 20-
sided dice.
Hence Geek Wisdom: the (cid:49)rst compendium of sacred teachings
from the wide-ranging “holy scriptures” of geekdom, that weird
mass of pop culture and high art ranging from blockbuster movies
to esoteric novels to cult-classic T-shirt slogans. Star Wars. The
Princess Bride. Albert Einstein. Stan Lee. From such sources we’ve
gathered (and mused thoughtfully upon) the deepest, purest, most
profound ideas and sayings to be found. The ones that cut right to
the heart of life in the twenty-(cid:49)rst century. The ones we quote as if
they’d come from the Bible, or from Shakespeare. The ones that,
increasingly, have emerged from the underground to form the
cellular structure of a true new culture canon.