Q&A Nothing capitalistic

On Nov 24, 2005, at 4:04 AM, A Mad Hatter named "Jeff" wrote:

Hi,
I found your site a few links away after I was looking up "Black Friday". I found your site do be very funny, but because of the repeated (but still funny) puns of the word "nothing", I didn't understand what you were trying to say.

In making way to your site, I could only understand it to be a civil protest against the inequities of capitalism; my least favorite type of economic policy. I so wish socialism was viable.

Anyway, I'd like for to tell me "nothing" ;-) Just kidding, actually, I would like to find out what "nothing" is all about, as I'm interested, and may like to be a contributor.

Thank you, Jeff

To which I replied:

Hello there Jeff,

It is very difficult to explain the obvious. If anything, that's what the site would be about. But the site is about nothing. To get back to my first point which I didn't have in mind when I made the site back in 1995, or when I started to think seriously about nothing more than a decade earlier, but was clearly in mind when I thought more vaguely about nothing years before that, and not at all before my conception, of which I can happily say "I recall nothing", The obvious. The obvious should be obvious. How can a word not be defined by itself? A single word, whatever the word, should have intrinsic meaning or at least self-evident meaning when in context. Ah, but no. People must read something into everything even if the thing is a word that means a lack of thing. It (the word nothing) is the easiest concept to grasp, yet rarely does anyone comprehend that it is a word which means "it" doesn't exist.

You say, "because of the repeated (but still funny) puns of the word "nothing", I didn't understand what you were trying to say". Yes, the site was meant to be funny when I put it together. That was the secondary point. The other point was to see how many people would understand nothing. That was the tertiary point. Very, very few out of the millions of people who ever visited the site can see the obvious. The main point of course, was nothing.

I would never bother to make any type of public statement on *yawn* economic policy. This may seem to you to be an anarchistic statement (but it isn't)... I leave it to the people who care to figure that stuff out (and they will figure it out wrong, and it doesn't matter). What really matters about any economic or political policy is, is it funny? Happily for everyone, all political and social policies are hilarious. Many are tragic comedies, nonetheless all are great comedy fodder for those who say the obvious for a living. I'm perfectly happy with what little I have. I'm even happier with nothing. See?

Well, I hope you finally know nothing. And I hope you finally see the obvious. And no, it's not about the WORD nothing, it's about NOTHING! And no, nothing is not it! At the most "it's" "it".

P.S. This site has remained almost completely unchanged since its creation in 1995. I don't think there would be any need for contributors who don't know nothing. Besides, I've been writing about nothing for years, I just don't update the site because I think it would confuse the public. "Ah ha!", they may say, "you did something!" Best not to get into that.