Technology Actually Makes it Harder to Pick Out the Crazy People

I was walking through campus today, and I saw a crazy man. Mind you, it took me three minutes to identify him as such, which is disturbing, because he was talking to himself the whole time. This wasn't distracted muttering (of which I'm often guilty), this was heated argument with self. Even more surprising is that it was on the BYU campus, which is a religious school full of clean-cut over-achievers whose only goals are to get a spouse and a degree, in that order. We don't get a lot of crazies at BYU, at least not the kind that talk to themselves.

The main point of this anecdote is not that I saw a crazy man--I see that every time I visit Nolan--but that because of technology, I didn't know he was a crazy man. The problem was that the guy was wearing headphones, so I thought maybe he had an attachment for his cell phone, or something, but then I realized that they were just headphones, nothing more. There was no microphone involved. He really was talking to himself, but I'd almost let it go by as a cell phone conversation.

I hope, dear reader, that you realize the devastating implications this has for our society. We will no longer be able to differentiate between those that are sound of mind and those that are lacking any semblance of reason. Maybe the other people talking to themselves have really just been way, way ahead of the trends and started buying blue tooths (blue teeth?) back in 1968. Maybe that dude taking a dump on your lawn is really just downloading unnecessary files. Maybe the bag lady on the corner is really just holding an ever increasing collection of thumb drives and portable hard drives that have her Pulitzer prize winning rants saved on them. Maybe that homeless guy on the corner asking you for change really needs it to melt down and create a new conductor for his time machine. That sounds like something from Back to the Future. Really though, wasn't Back to the Future the first warning of this happening? Doc spends the entire movie running around with a high schooler looking for garbage to feed his car and himself. Sounds like a standard crazy hobo to me.

There's only one solution for this, and we all know what it is. We need to round up all the nutters and interrogate them to find out what the future of technology is. That way we can beat the Russians to the moon.

Here's a picture.