IRREVERENT Magazine - Features

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Written by Scott Meadow

Category: The Editor's Mess

Recently, Professor Stephen Hawking (yes, the real one) posting on “Yahoo! Answers” asked the world, or at least us internet rabble: “In a world that is in chaos politically, socially and environmentally, how can the human race sustain another 100 years?”¹ In case you’re not familiar with the service, “Yahoo! Answers” allows anyone to post a question on anything and then have a bunch of yahoos “answer” it. In other words, imagine what would happen if you dumped a herd of lobotomized philosophers out on a deserted island for six or seven decades with nothing but high-speed internet connections, broken keyboards, and enough reefer to get several Bob Marley concerts higher than ozone.

I personally found it inspiring that Professor Hawking used the site to post such a heavy question. However, as if often the case with internet message boards, when I read the responses it totally harshed my buzz.

Before I give Stephen my own answer, it’s interesting to look at what others wrote. There’s over 15,000 "answers" so far, and I’m a writer with an article to write, so I didn’t read each and every one but I did poke around to find some that seemed representative of the lot as far as I could tell by aimlessly surfing around with four or six scotchs under my belt. Call it a scottish polling sample. Here they are:

Read more: Heckling Hawking