The Nerd Revolution

For some people, the effects of high school cliques last a lifetime. You know the 'jock' in your town; still clinging to his missed opportunity to go pro, he spends his days loathing his job and his family and spends his nights lamenting what could have been. Of course his wife is the 'cheerleader', spending most of her free time maintaining her popularity with the local men. But what happens to the nerds? Often seen as the outcasts, the misfits, many nerds eventually work themselves to the very top of our society. They are business owners, lawyers, politicians, engineers, inventors, webmasters, journalists; in short, they put themselves into positions of influence in the world.

At the core of a nerd is a voracious desire to learn. Nerds generally enjoy reading. Nerds enjoy most activities that involve learning something new. Nerds do well in school because the system relies on the students' desire to learn about everything, and nerds love learning. Why is this important? Because as the old saying goes, knowledge is power.

As a generally learned group of individuals, nerds tend to be very rational people. They will always debate on principles of logic, and often see emotion as a hinderance to rational behavior. Nerds also tend to have a very cynical view of the world, because nerds are still in the minority. It is pointless to debate politics with your irrational neighbor, who supports a candidate based solely on his stance on abortion for example, when the real intellectual debate needs to deal with where exactly our government lies on the vertical scale between anarchy and totalitarianism. Therefore, nerds being the minority, tend to withdraw from public debate and politics in general. Sure, some are able to shed the cynicism and join the debate, but many do not.

But something is happening in the world today. Nerds are shedding their cynicism in droves and embracing irrational thought as a means of effecting change. It is completely irrational to believe that my $250 made a difference to Ron Paul's campaign, when he raised more than $4 million on November 5th. Yet, irrational as it was, I did it again on November 30th. This contribution was even less rational. Not only was my donation a meager 0.05% of his total that day, his total sum was relatively meager and gained little, if any, attention. Yet, undeterred by my completely irrational behavior I donated another $500 on December 16th. Why do we even bother? Because we have to try. Trying is the only cure for cynicism. It is rather easy to sit back and be cynical towards the world when you've never attempted yourself to change it.

Luckily for the Ron Paul campaign, and for America, nerds are a great group of people to have at the helm. They have intelligence, free time, 'computer skills' (is that even nerdy anymore?), and money in the bank from years of frugal spending. You know all those people buying houses they can't afford and driving SUVs they can't afford and burning up tons of expensive gas? They are not nerds. Nerds know how to live within their means, and now Ron Paul is our hero and benefactor.

I think the 'fringe' of America truly started this revolution, but the nerds are taking it to a whole new level. It took the completely irrational actions of a few dedicated Americans to shake the sturdy foundation of nerd society. Now that they have, we cannot be stopped.