“I’m not unmindful that I am in the shade and you are not, so we’ll keep this short, plus you have a commencement speeker to follow. A real commencement speaker.
You should know, I think, that black cloth absorbs 98% of all incident sunlight upon it, which makes graduation robes good for cold, dank, British boarding schools and bad for outdoor graduations, I just want to tell you that.
That’s a tweet, right there, isn’t that? Just a moment, excuse me. I feel compelled to textify. Hold on. Black cloth, absorbs 98%… graduation robes good for cold dank British prep schools, bad for outdoor graduations.
I just want to make this quick because, I’m tired. I’m tired of trying to fix the world. I need the rest of you to help me fix the world. The world is getting stupider. It is not good when the world starts getting stupid. So yes, even on John Stewart, the opening credits, rotating globe is turning the wrong direction. I told him this.
And in tall buildings, you realize 80% of them don’t have a 13th floor. This, the 21st century America, there are people afraid of the number 13, I need help!
I need help when a member of congress said “I have changed my views 360 degrees on that issue.” I need help!
I need help when I see newspaper headlines lamenting the state of the school system and they complain half the schools are below average. I’m thinking, that’s kind of what an average is, sort of, you kind of need half below! I can’t keep doing this!
Why do we drive on a parkway and park on a driveway?! What’s that about? And why do people think the world is going to end this year? They study the Mayan calendar and they believe that the Mayans somehow knew more about Astrophysics than I do! What they didn’t tell you is that the Mayans somehow actually, in their ability to predict the future, didn’t see the end of their own civilization coming.
And then the people who don’t like high-tech, or space… you’re having a conversation with them, and they’re like “Oh, wait a minute, I have a call on my cell phone to get the GPS coordinates of where the sattellite photos are going to be so that we can hold a party when it’s not raining.” These are the people who don’t like technology. Who are these people?! And why do they even exist with that going on in their mind? You have to fix these people!
Cause you know what we need here? I want to make the world smart again, and I need you to be a part of the community of people who help make this happen, because, only then can you invent the future. You don’t discover a preexisting future, you create the future. I want you to create the future that you would be proud to bequeath and honored to inherit.”
I’m gong to pretend that Neil Degrasse-Tyson was our real commencement speaker. Cool? Cool.