Help Me Out, Friends

If you haven't heard of the phenomenon of "six degrees of separation", you may have heard of the game "Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon" that is based on the phenomenon; or maybe you know the movie Six Degrees of Separation, featuring a pre-Independence Day Will Smith. Actually, if you were paying attention during that movie, you should know about the phenomenon. Anyways, the phrase refers to the fact that everyone in the entire world is connected to everyone else through 6 people or less. The theory was first conceptualized in the 1920's by Frigyes Karinthy (that is a wikipedia "fact") and then popularized in the experiments of Stanley Milgram (not the experiments where he mentally tortured volunteers, he simply sent out postcards for this one). Milgram basically provided a scientific foundation for the It's a Small World After All ride.

You see this concept played out all the time. You start up a random conversation at the store and find out you are talking to the cousin of your best friend's girlfriend. Or maybe you are on a plane sitting next to a friend of your ex-girlfriend's brother. Or maybe you find yourself dating a serial killer who actually turns out to be the biological brother of your adopted brother.

A recent news article stated that because of social networking, we are actually connected to everyone on the planet through 4.74 steps or less. This means, more than ever, we are all connected. The ramifications of being connected to every single person on this planet through less than 5 steps are extraordinary. Would you drop bombs on a neighborhood knowing that you will kill people who are good friends of your cousin's teacher's husband's nephew's girlfriend? I know I couldn't.

This is a societal revolution. A global, societal revolution. It means that nobody is a stranger. No culture or custom is alien to any other culture. It means that we are all one community. It means that we can change the world.

It means that Scarlett Johansson is only 5 steps away from me. Less than 5. One of you people is connected to someone who knows a person who knows somebody else who knows someone who is really close to Scarlett Johansson.  If you could just reach out to that person, and that person could do the same, and so on, I could arrange to have dinner with Scarlett. And once we met in person, she would see that we were meant to be together.

Well hello, destiny.

I could charm her with my wit and impress her with my fashion sense and huge dong and tell her I forgive her for marrying that douchebag because she was young and he probably drugged her then forced himself upon her repeatedly.

If those aren't the abs of a serial rapist, than I don't know the abs of a serial rapist.

My point is, everyone is connected. If all of us spread love to everyone we know and everyone we meet, and they went on to do the same, this would be a much better planet on which to exist as a human being.

So spread love. Spread peace. Spread my email address to Scarlett Johansson.
We can do this, people. For America. For Earth. For me.

I Love You All (But Not in the Same Way That I Love You, Scarlett)...Class Dismissed.