ok so being a scientist is hard right
i’m not a scientist
i’m more of a
i guess you would say
vagrant
but I have it on good authority that being a scientist is hard
you gotta like
go to school and do math and shit
and that’s a shame
because for too long now
science has been closed to bored lazy idiots
whose sole qualification
is that they don’t give a shit if they catch on fire
well my friends
after some exhaustive research
I have come upon a solution to this grave societal ill
here’s what you do:
instead of being a scientist
try being a scientist
IN THE 1600s

guys
science in the 1600s was basically just like throwing meat at a barn and seeing if it turned into anything cool
for real guys
There was a real dude
named Jan Baptist van Sweetname Helmont
[“Sweetname” added for emphasis]
who thought you could make scorpions
by putting a piece of basil between two bricks in your yard
HE WAS NOT THE ONLY ONE WHO THOUGHT THIS
what i’m saying is that the bar for science in the 1600s was hella low
and dudes were capitalizing

basically here’s what happened:
somewhere along the line, dudes figured out that if you rubbed certain things on certain other things
other things would stick to those things
they discovered this because dudes love rubbing shit on other shit
and that’s great
because as soon as this amazing discovery is made
it opens the door to another hundred or so years
of just rubbing random shit on other shit in the name of science
for real this is all these guys are doing
this german guy spins a bunch of sulphur around
BAM
ELECTRICITY
then this english guy starts rubbing flannel shirts on windows
and mashing sugar cubes together
FUCKIN ELECTRICITY UP IN HERE
is there any thing that you can rub on another thing that will NOT produce electricity?
PROBABLY
PROBABLY THEY FIGURED OUT WHAT IT WAS
DURING THEIR HUNDRED YEARS OF GLEEFUL FRICTION

but so eventually dudes calm down about rubbing shit on their shit
much like teenagers entering into adulthood
and they start to do slightly more complicated things
like sometimes
after they rub shit on their shit
they press it up against other shit
to see if the electricity will go into the other shit
and then they discover that sometimes when you rub shit on shit
shit doesn’t stick to the shit
it actually gets pushed away!
holy shit!
and it turns out that if you rub silk on a window you get one kind of electricity
and if you rub flannel on sealing wax, you get another kind
and those two kinds stick to each other
(like i said
they had a long time to figure out what shit was good to rub on other shit)

Then somebody invents a jar you can put electricity in
it’s pretty cool
basically there’s a metal coating on the inside of the jar
and a metal coating on the outside
and one of the two kinds of electricity is on the outside
and the inside has the other kind
and that keeps the electricity from escaping
because it is the will of zeus that it be so

so people start experimenting with these jars full of dangerous
and this one guy gives himself the FIRST EVER ELECTRIC SHOCK
WHOAH
GUYS
are you telling me dudes had been rubbing shit on shit for well over a hundred years
and no one had yet fucked it up?
okay I take back what I said about 1600s scientists
those dudes were legit
but wait wait, check this out
so the Dutch guy says he wouldn’t shock himself again “for the crown of France”
which is no big deal because I don’t even think France has a king anymore
but then the Dutch guy has a couple weeks to think about it
and he realizes that getting an electric shock is actually REALLY COOL
and then suddenly everybody is buying these fucking jars
just to ELECTROCUTE THEMSELVES
it actually replaces microscopes as everyone’s favorite science thing
so okay
I un-take back what I said about old-times science
it sounds dumb as hell
and therefore PERFECT FOR PEOPLE LIKE ME

then in 1706 Benjamin Franklin gets born
maybe I will tell you more about him later
but right now all you need to understand
is that if America has a Zeus
it’s probably Benjamin Franklin
Benjamin Franklin is the kind of dude who is instantly good at everything he does
and therefore develops a style of living
in which he struts dick-first into the thick of every problem he encounters
and fucks his way out the other side, grinning

so this guy decides he wants to know what’s up with electricity
which means he has to take a break from singlehandedly inventing Philadelphia
to run some experiments
and it turns out that there is one particular experiment
that everyone else is too much of a pussnexus to actually run
and that is the experiment
that will finally answer the age-old question:
“IS LIGHTNING MADE OF ELECTRICITY????”
COME ON
COME THE FUCK ON
IT’S FUCKING LIGHTNING
WHEN YOU GET HIT BY LIGHTNING IT GOES BZZT
AND YOUR SKIN GOES TRANSPARENT AND EVERYONE CAN SEE YOUR BONES
HOW IS THAT NOT OBVIOUSLY ELECTRICITY?
HOW CAN YOU COME UP WITH A THEORY THAT SCORPIONS COME OUT OF BRICKS AND PASTA HERBS
BUT NOT MAYBE TAKE A WILD GUESS THAT “HEY
MAYBE THAT GLOWING GOD-DICK THAT TURNED THE FARMHOUSE TO CINDERS IS MADE OF ELECTRONS”
man, the past is dumb

but Big Ben Franklin is NOT
so he does the smartest possible thing
which is to make a kite out of metal and silk
attach a key to the bottom
attach one of those electro-shock jars to the key
and go out in a fucking lightning storm
THIS GUY IS ON OUR MONEY, AMERICA
NOT ONLY IS HE ON OUR MONEY
HE IS ON A DENOMINATION OF MONEY THAT I’M NOT EVEN RICH ENOUGH TO POSSESS
AND I HAVE NEVER WALKED OUT INTO A FIELD WITH A SIGN ON MY BALLS THAT SAYS “ZEUS PLEASE KILL ME”
MAYBE THAT IS WHAT I HAVE BEEN DOING WRONG

anyway this experiment is a great success
Benjamin Franklin finally proves beyond a shadow of a doubt
that lightning is the only thing it could possibly be
and he writes a paper about it
and sends it to the Royal Society of London
and they’re all like PISH POSH
EVERYONE KNOWS LIGHTING IS MADE OF GLOWING BEES

all of which just goes to show
that no matter how suicidally dumb you are
there is ALWAYS someone dumber

TO BE CONTINUED??!??