on Hawking

With the recent news that famed physicist Stephen Hawking is critically ill (update: it now appears he'll recover but I had this post planned already so fuck it, and you!) it has led me to think about the place in life, society, science, etc. that people hold Mr. Hawking. He is obviously very, very smart and has written about black holes and other things which I only can think about on 4/20 (darn a day late to post huge scientific breakthroughs on the monstro blog!) but I can't help but think that if he didn't look and talk like a robot he would just be your average smart scientist. I think he holds such pop culture appeal because of his appearance and the fact that people are a) amazed that someone so physically crippled can be capable of such amazing HUMAN achievements and/or b) that people fear/respect him because they take one look at him and think he's not even the same species as them and has become 8 steps closer to being a robot than anyone/anything else yet. He is incredible, living with some neuron/muscular disease type thing that is related to Lou Gehrig's Disease for like 30 years longer than most people are supposed to and he has been for most of that time essentially just a brain being transported around to do incredible things. I've also heard he likes the robot voice he uses because of how it makes him sound, he has had the choice of many different voices but chooses that one.