Nobel Prize

It’s important to have goals. My goal is to win a Nobel Prize. I’m not fussy about which one. It could be for physics, chemistry, psychology, medicine, peace, or even that squirrely one for economics. I can rule out literature, because sooner or later the judges would read something I wrote.

I think I could win the award for physics with my theory that the universe is shaped like a timeless, motionless donut, and your consciousness is like an ant walking toward the center. Here I’m depending heavily on at least one of the Nobel judges being hungry during the judging. And it wouldn’t hurt if one of them is an ant.

I might win the award for chemistry for my discovery that Diet Coke and protein bars can be combined with a human being to create crap-like blog posts. I don’t know how many times I have to replicate that experiment before I get the recognition I deserve.

I could win the award for psychology for my groundbreaking discovery that the phrase “moist robots” can be used to dismissively describe all human activity that annoys me. You might think there are plenty of professionals in the field of psychology who are doing more prize-worthy research, but an equally valid point of view is that they are moist robots who hate animals and enjoy hanging around with nuts.

The Nobel Prize for peace seems the easiest to win. I already suggested that DreamWorks create a CGI version of Osama and have it tell al-Qaeda they each get 1,000 virgins in the afterlife if they eat sand until they die. If anyone has a better idea, they won’t win any prizes by keeping it a secret.

I might win the award for medicine for telling my friend Steve that magnesium supplements would reduce the swelling in his knees after exercise. It worked for me and it worked for Steve. So if you need a placebo and can’t find sugar pills, try magnesium supplements. They’re like magic.

The economics prize should be mine for my discovery that everything you need to know about investing can be put in nine bullet points. And I’m not the only one who thinks that. There’s also “some guy on the Internet” who agrees:

http://www.marketwatch.com/news/story/Story.aspx?guid=%7BBE57F0AA%2D03D9%2D4320%2DBC4D%2D83363B6372F6%7D&siteid=

The main reason I want to win the Nobel Prize for whatever-the-hell is because it would help in my ongoing quest to win all conversations. After winning the prize, the next time I have friends over to the house, I’ll steer the conversation toward the field where I won my award and wait for someone to say something I disagree with. Then I’ll say, “Let me get you a coaster for that drink.” I’ll disappear into the den and come out with my laminated Nobel Prize certificate and slip it under his beverage. Then I’ll lean back and say, “Please, go on.”

The inconvenient part about winning the Nobel Prize is that there is some social pressure to give the million dollar prize money to charity. I’d have to look at the rules, but I don’t think they can take back the prize if you announce you plan to use the money for plastic surgery, because you always wanted tusks.

Recently I placed 21st on a list of the Top 50 Thinkers.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/life_and_style/career_and_jobs/article2823746.ece

Making the Top 50 Thinkers list is to the Nobel Prize what beatification is to sainthood. It’s okay, but nothing you’d want to laminate and use as a coaster. I know it won’t win any conversations because if I whip that list out, someone will point out that Donald Trump beat me out, and he uses dryer lint for hair.

So I wait.

Comments

[ankitverma]

send me ideas by the help of that I ALSO MAKE A PROJECT

[Ilia Chentsov]

Read the beginning as "It's important to have goats".

[Inmate # 7291969]

I was recently the recipient of the No-Bail prize for my groundbreaking work in determining just how much beer a human being can consume in a short period.

[Bill]

>The Nobel Prize for peace seems the easiest to win.

Not really... most of the winners had to kill a few hundred thousand people. That's a lot of work.

On second thought, killing people is easier than discovering anything important. I guess you're right.

[Matthew Kovich]

Hey, you beat Al Gore on that list (#41), and he's won a Nobel.

[Nimrod]

Dryer lint!!

[Karl H.]

The Nobel Prize for physics isn't awarded for theories. It's awarded for discoveries. That's one of the main reasons Einstein received the prize for his research about the photoelectric effect and not his relativity stuff.

[Ricky]

omg how could you beat steve jobs?!?!

[erkek arkadas]

it is very difficult to get a nobel prize.
you should work very hard :)

[Gary Olmstead]

Scott, if you think you can't win for literature, you haven't read anything by this years winner, Doris Lessing. But don't let that worry you, clearly the Nobel committee didn't either.

[Robert]

I can't take seriously any list that includes Al Gore as a top thinker.

[justin]

As others have pointed out, there is no Nobel prize in psychology. A psychologist, Daniel Kahnemann, did win the Economics prize once, for his work on the psychology underlying irrational economic decisions (e.g., risk aversion).

[omer rosen]

I always wondered what motivated those people who got awarded twice. The first time is really great. You go to Sweden, meet some strange people that speaks a strange language and participate in a ceremony over there at a palace or something.
The second time is quite a hassle for you. You need a new suit, fly 7 hours and that boring ceremony again. Not forgetting the usual question that you will be asked "to whom you donated the money?".
That is why I don't try to win this award. I know that is will lead to atleast two more and I don't need that burden.

Great post as usual.

[pay attention]

The list had to be weighted for audience reached. Trump isn't a thinker, merely a moist ego needing constant feeding, like a blast furnace. He’s not even close to Scott in entertainment value. Not surprising Scott beat Gore, the sloppy research and ignoring any inconvenient fact had to pull Gore down.

[Michael LaRocca]

Never take health advice from a cartoonist. You wrote something along those lines a while back, but I ignored that tidbit in favor of following your advice about magnesium supplements. After all this time, my elbow remains swollen from leaning it on the computer desk for 16 hours a day for too many days, so maybe I'll switch to Milk of Magnesia and see if that cures this shit. You still have my vote for the Nobel Prize. Too bad I can't vote. Since I live in Thailand, I wrote in Thaksin Shinawatra for US president on my absentee ballot, but what else can you expect from a moist robot, monkey brain? Don't you realize your book title insults monkeys everywhere?

[Paul Van]

On the basis that humor is the best medicine, you might be able to win the Nobel prize for... no, that won't work either.... Sorry

[Kevin]

Why win an award when you can create one and then award it to yourself?

Of course, you wouldn't be able to call it the Scott Adams' Prize...you'd have to pick a fake name. Something that sounds European and vague enough that it tricks people.

Then, simply award the prize to you. When people ask, "What's the Guttenburg Gold Circle of Power Award", scoff, roll your eyes and mutter, "uneducated masses" then throw something in about how "this is why we're still in Iraq".

[Noah Vaile]

I do believe that the most recent "Peace Prize" recipients prove that winning is little more than a matter of "how low can you go? and how loud can you be?" I believe that you are well placed for a shot at the peace prize in the near future. Or any other of the prizes for that matter. My only hope is that you or some other winner not only keeps the money but quickly dissipates it in an orgy of drink and prostitutes.

[Putin]

Funny, but please keep promoting your book... Or was it too obvious...

I think you should win the award for your whole weasel work! It's unique for as far as I've read...

[Jason Allen]

I think it takes a little more work than that to get a Nobel.

[Justin]

Oi vay, does anyone else see the idiocy of having the general public vote on greatest thinkers? Wasn't it you, scott, who made the point that people can't tell the difference between 1% and 1000% smarter than themselves? "definitive guide to the world's most influential living management thinkers"... That sounds like whos best at manipulating the public, not who thinks straightest. Which muct be true, because #15 got on there for selling obvious crap to morons. Smart, but not why he was voted in...

[dude]

There is no Nobel prize for psychology yet.

[Kevin Kunreuther]

To Rita Mae:

Technically Scott can win a Grammy anytime he narrates an audiobook and it is nominated, whether he wrote the book or not. Pretty sweet, eh?

[La Baule]

Those top 50: all men.

[Vern at Aim for Awesome]

Hi Scott. You sir, are a noted and flaming farkologist and I recognized you in a recent post (todays post actually) as such. Coincidental that I wrote about this on the same day you wrote about wanting to win a nobel prize? I wouldn't nominate you for it unless there was a farkology award category.

Should have thought about that before you got into farkology!