Vicky and I sat in traffic, stood in lines, rode the metro, hopped off the metro for a desperation pee-break (for me), stood in more lines, rode more metro, shuffled forward for hours in massive crowds, and mostly missed all but bits and pieces of Jon Stewarts closing speech for the Rally to Restore Sanity, but the point wasn’t to be entertained, the point was to be represented. With best estimates of 215,000 attendees, we were adding ourselves to a show of support for reasonable discourse in American politics.
Rally Stage
This was a rally with strong roots in geek culture, from the initial petition calling for a rally to take place on 10/10/2010 (Powers of 10 Day) to raising half a million dollars for DonorsChoose in support of classroom projects, there was a heavy geek vibe to this movement.
Not surprisingly, Star Trek, Star Wars, XKCD, and FSM references abounded in the signs the attendees carried:
Geekdom at the Rally
More impressive, however, was that there were even more signs supporting science and enlightenment. I was blown away to see so many people supporting rationalism and empiricism:
Science and Enlightenment at the Rally
Stewart’s speech was brilliant and well-reasoned, making a plea for civility and discourse that reminded me of this passage from Dr. David Brin’s Disputation Arenas:
First, if you want to see clues about our future, step away from your computer screen. Go outside and stand near a four-way intersection that’s regulated only by stop signs.
Watch for a while as drivers take turns, not-quite-stopping while they gauge each others’ intentions, negotiating rapid deals with nods and flashes of eye-contact. You’ll spot some rudeness, certainly. But exceptions seldom rattle this silent dance of brief courtesies and tacit bargains — a strange mixture of competition and cooperation.
The four-way stop doesn’t work in some cultures, and it’s hard to picture anything like it functioning in times past, when mostly-illiterate humans lived in steep social hierarchies and “right of-way” was a matter of status, not fair play. Nor would robots, adhering to rigid laws, handle traffic half so well as the drivers I see, dealing with a myriad fuzzy situations, making up micro rules and exceptions on the spot, even as they talk on cell phones or quell squabbles among kids riding in the back seat. This phenomenon visibly illustrates how simple rules can be used by sophisticated autonomous systems (e.g., modern citizens) to solve intricate problems without any authority figures present to enforce obedience.
How does it happen? Experts in complexity theory coined a term — emergent properties — to describe new levels of order that seem to arise out of chaos, when conditions are right. For example, Kevin Kelly’s book, Out of Control, depicts how rudimentary genetic drives coalesce into the fantastic flocking behavior of birds. When intelligence extends this process to higher levels, the result — our own unique kind of flocking — is called civilization.
Support Commercial Spaceflight
Here’s a similar passage from Stewart’s speech:
Look on the screen. This is where we are. This is who we are. (points to the Jumbotron screen which show traffic merging into a tunnel). These cars—that’s a schoolteacher who probably thinks his taxes are too high. He’s going to work. There’s another car-a woman with two small kids who can’t really think about anything else right now. There’s another car, swinging, I don’t even know if you can see it—the lady’s in the NRA and she loves Oprah. There’s another car—an investment banker, gay, also likes Oprah. Another car’s a Latino carpenter. Another car a fundamentalist vacuum salesman. Atheist obstetrician. Mormon Jay-Z fan. But this is us. Every one of the cars that you see is filled with individuals of strong belief and principles they hold dear—often principles and beliefs in direct opposition to their fellow travelers.
And yet these millions of cars must somehow find a way to squeeze one by one into a mile long 30 foot wide tunnel carved underneath a mighty river. Carved, by the way, by people who I’m sure had their differences. And they do it. Concession by concession. You go. Then I’ll go. You go. Then I’ll go. You go then I’ll go. Oh my God, is that an NRA sticker on your car? Is that an Obama sticker on your car? Well, that’s okay—you go and then I’ll go.
There’s Waldo!
My favorite sign of the day illustrated what another sign told with, “Signs are an Impractical Medium for Civil Discourse.”
Signs are an Impractical Medium for Civil Discourse
I know the World Wide Web doesn’t lend itself to deep immersion in ideas, but shallow engagement leads to shallow results. Go deep.
Additional Notes:
You can read the full text of Stewart’s speech here.
Check out my complete flickr set here.
Update: The Rally set a new record for metro ridership, breaking the 1991 Desert Storm rally.