19 March 2008

Engineering Decree

This morning, as I listened to the mellow tunes of The Phantom of the Opera on my way to work, I took pleasure in visualizing this guy at work exploding. He used to be my manager, and when I decided I was tired of his crap I went back to my previous job and let him take up the load. Since then, he has bugged me nearly constantly... "What's the master password, again? How do you plug in a monitor? Which slot takes credit cards?"

For that last question, instead of pointing out the floppy drive, I told him I had to run the card manually and now I have his credit card. teehee

Anyway, I was listening to The Phantom's Overture, my favorite song from the soundtrack, I visualized him exploding. I rewound the song a few times, so that I could see the gooshy part again. It was relaxing, and made the drive seem to fly by.

When I arrived at the office, there was an ambulance outside the building. I was elated. Finally, I thought, my quest for superpowers has come to fruition. Soon, I shall rule the world with an iron fist! But when I got upstairs, I found him still alive. Apparently, someone else had exploded, or whatever, and I was saddened. Not because someone had exploded, or whatever, but because it wasn't someone on my "list". This, of course, led to much pondering and introspection.

I mean, I have to do something for eight hours a day, right?

Eventually, I realized that it's not just me. I'm an engineer, and being an engineer means being a Harbinger of Death.

No, hear me out.

I know that human death never really bothered me, but I never stopped to think about other engineers. Who designs new guns? Engineers! Who built the first (and second) atomic bomb? Engineers.

We can peer inside the atom or build a supercomputer that fits on the head of a pin, but civil engineers don't design buildings that bend rather than collapsing during an earthquake? And those same civil engineers put skyscrapers close together in earthquake zones!

When the brakes fail on a car, who designed the faulty brakes? Automotive engineers. And don't even get me started on the number of people killed by airbags.

HIV? Genetic engineers. Assault vehicles? Mechanical engineers. Putting detergent and gasoline into a light bulb so that when the lamp is lit the mixture becomes napalm and explodes? Custodial engineers.

The list goes on.

But is all this really a sign of bad things? No, I think it's good.

No, hear me out!


In evolution, how do you get to the top of the food chain? Is it by marching for animal rights and eating vegan? No, you do it by eating the competition. The way of getting ahead in nature is to kill. It's natural, and it's right, and it feels oh, so good.

Some day, the descendants of today's engineers will be either disembodied godlike beings of pure energy or will have their essence hosted by perfect, mechanical bodies, granting them both immortality and easy cleaning. And if any of our minions try to rebel, we'll make them explode.

And we'll like it.

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