God of Biscuits

In my business, I’ve witnessed plenty of so-called “disruptive technologies”. They like to call them disruptive because people like to think of themselves as important and so they apply broader meanings to specific happenings.

Fact is, things change no matter what, and sometimes people notice it while it’s happening and try to shoehorn a Cause and claim ownership so they can cash in on the Effects.

But I’m getting away from myself, away from original intent. Oh wait, no I’m not, because getting away from original intent is what I meant to be talking of here.

This past Friday I had to head back down to our offices—magical offices, magical even by San Francisco standards (the photo is the view from my desk)—because I thought I’d forgotten something. I left the Pier and headed up the Embarcadero and ended up stuck a couple of cars back from the 2nd and Townsend intersection.

Far enough back that I didn’t know exactly why there was so much traffic so late (6:30pm) on a Friday evening in downtown San Francisco, especially when the Bay Bridge was closed!

The vehicles right at the intersection lurched and stopped when the light turned green, and like a shiver down the spine, the long line of us did the same one after the next. Then came the car horns.

The dread hit me: gridlock.

Then anger because at that point I could see (and hear) the cause of it all: Critical Mass.

I’d heard of them before, vague things. They were “disruptive”. On purpose. But with a purpose? Being the ultra liberal I was, I’d done some math in my head: bicyclists, emergent phenomenon, anti-automobile. That led me to assuming..environmentalism, alternate transportation, even urban sustainability. In other words: goals.

But those words weren’t in my head Friday evening. In fact, very few words were. I wasn’t making it quite that far. I was just angry. Furious. Enraged, yes, even that.

These disruptive technologies, movements, influences, organizations….I appreciate them as much as anyone, perhaps even more than most: even those who try to take credit for a technology or property that goes nonlinear and all zeitgeisty and turns the world by a few degrees so we can all look at it and ourselves rather obliquely for a while and perhaps learn a little something (or a lot something), even those who try to sell the teapots with the tempests (tweapots with the twempests?) inside don’t control the thing. It’s just how people work. It’s how time works.

But there’s Noble Purpose to us, isn’t there? I like to believe that. I like to believe that we do things because we possess a nobility where I’ll define nobility as something that emerges from our considerations of our own individual humilities. To me that’s all it takes.

Someone needs help; something needs doing: Betterment awaits.

But Friday night. These weren’t people who cared about anything but whatever stands as the opposite of nobility. Along every dimension of the concept, its opposite. These were people who only wanted to disrupt. Not to replace the status quo in favor of some newer, better matrix of livability, growth, fairness, efficiency, equality, cleanliness, sustainability.

These people were a bunch of impudent, puerile gits who did nothing but increase the anger footprint of the City as well as its carbon footprint: all those cars—all of us in cars—that were stuck idling and not moving.

I almost missed out on seeing one of my very best friends in the whole world who was in town visiting, because I was stuck at in intersection for 30 minutes while bicyclists whooped and hollered and goaded drivers and basically fuck-you’d everyone who wasn’t one of them.

There were even at least a dozen or so, along the next block—after I’d made a right turn onto 2nd Street—who would ride very close to the cars all in a line, left arms out, yelling “High Five!!!” as he or she passed each car.

That was the point I started doing more math in my head, real math this time: four-door car means shorter doors means shorter moment-arm. If I pulled the latch my elbow would be near the back edge, meaning maximum torque, minimum effort. Meaning a very quick acceleration, a good flicking motion. Door flicks out, automobile-appropriate response to bicyclist-initiated gesture: It’d make for a nice “Low five!!!” Door flies out, bike flies up, satisfying mental image.

I smiled for the first time since the whole ordeal began over 30 minutes prior to that moment.

These Critical Massholes weren’t in this for any other reason than to hide themselves in a mob and act like churlish pricks and nothing else. None of these people would act like that one on one, they’d lack the bravery or they’d be too mannerly.

And that about says it all.