Just before I left Tel Aviv, at the Dizengoff mall, I saw one thing which gave me hope: a dozen young men, many of whom were dressed in soldier’s uniforms sitting at some tables, playing what appeared to be Magic: The Gathering
Now, I know absolutely nothing about the game. I had a roommate in college who apparently was a big fan. He had two long boxes of cards, but I never once saw him play. He kept claiming he had special, “rare” Magic cards that were worth big money, to which I said,”Yeah? So why don’t you sell them?” But he never did. See, that’s the core of nerd-dom, to value that which outside of a select group is pretty much worthless.
But why does this give me hope? Because as we well know, nerds aren’t fighters. They may play the games of warriors, but when it comes down to it, a nerd would rather reason through your differences, than kill you over them. Nerds do fight, but they fight over details.
And so, it came to me to consider what that alternative reality would be like if “nerds” were the mainstream, and the “non-nerds” on the periphery.
Thus, I give you…
Top Ten Ways Life Would Be Different if Nerds Ran The World…
10. Lord of the Rings: Return of the King would win the Best Picture Oscar (Wait, a sec…)
9. Intense religious wars between Jedi Masters and followers of Vulcan Surak over whose philosophy followed the path of true enlightenment and cooler mind tricks.
8. Castle construction industry given new life.
7. Revenge of the Nerds I, II, III and IV on permanent rotation on MTV.
6. All cars would include talking GPS pre-programmed with the location of every comic book shop, everywhere.
5. Cheerleaders for high school Model United Nations.
4. When Playboy Playmates claim they like “funny guys” they mean it.
3. The UPN Network? All Enterprise, all of the time. The WB network would stand for “Whedon’s Baby” and ANGEL would be in its seventh season.
2. By law, all restaurants required to provide free WiFi. Unfiltered.
1. President Gates, meet Japanese Prime Minister Long Duk Dong:
