A Visit to Neil deGrasse Tyson’s ‘Rationalia’

Within a few hours, Tyson’s tweet had garnered more than ten thousand likes. Every single retweet was a yearning. Didn’t @LaReyneDEpee speak for us all when she wrote: “LET ME IN AT ONCE”? Tyson’s tweet was a realization of the intellectual eschaton; it was the announcement of a new age.

At this time, perhaps propelled by the collective intellectual energy flowing through the timelines of our utopia’s unfrightened citizenry, I fell into a trance and had a vision of Rationalia. Here is what I saw.

I saw sports leagues replaced by Jeopardy! tournaments, with Watson always ranked as a #1 seed and always wearing a Neil deGrasse Tyson biosuit.

Since there are no sports, Mike Tyson is no longer the most famous Tyson. You’d think this would mean Neil would snatch up the top slot, but, actually, the chicken nugget outfit, also called Tyson, has shown a remarkable capacity to market its products in Rationalia. But Neil safely comes in at number two.

I saw hostilities cease. Well, hostilities as we know them. They use different curse words there. In fact, cursing just takes the form of different iterations of George W. Bush’s name. Shouts of “Shut the Bush up” were heard. Someone said to another, “You son of a Dubya.” Rationalia’s Snapchat filters allow for a middle finger to trigger a transformation into a floating George W. Bush head. Send one to your friends—it’s super fun!

I saw Rationalia’s citizens marching down its evidence-based street configurations with purpose in their hearts. They were chanting, their voices in unison. One loud, imperious, irrepressible message: “COMING SOON: COSMOS SEASON 2.”

I saw an old man shake the hand of a young man. I saw the young man’s happiness leave him as he turned and yelled at the old man. Apparently, the old man tried to sell the young man fake Hamilton tickets. I saw both tossed by the Protectorate Guild into the back of a Tesla XLR8R, which runs on quantum energy. Was this all a simulation?

I felt hungry and ordered a local favorite at an LED-lit kiosk furnished with ergonomic IDEA seats (Rationalia’s clever play on IKEA). I was asked to pay in proverbs. I remembered a fortune cookie from youth and recited it. I was refused service. I need to step up my game. “Every ending is a new beginning”? What was I thinking—they value evidence here! I wrote the same phrase down on a piece of paper, only now with the prefix “Scientists find that” before the fortune. Everything changed. I was welcomed by the restaurant owner as if I were his wayward son. “Bring the fattened calf and kill it!” he roared. But it was said metaphorically, of course, as they only serve abstract objects in Rationalia. I was given a three-course upload on parallelograms and told I would soon be full.

I really need to find another restaurant.

I saw a shrine to Darwin. A shrine to Einstein. A novice forgot to bring his A Brief History of Time to evening service and was singled out in front of the congregation. He was dissipated on the spot by a meister conceptually dressed as the river of time. The congregants broke out into “Oh, let me taste those waters!” for three millennia.

I saw that the children on Rationalia love to play. I grew up sliding down the industrial-sized PVC-pipe wonderland of McDonald’s playplaces. The children here do one better: They zoom through Large Hadron Colliders as singularities. When they come out the other side, they shine like Newton’s children.

I saw a community of equals. Any inequalities were ruthlessly dealt with. Just try to stand out, they warned. See what happens. What happens is you’re forced to read the collective works of Carl Sagan in one, uninterrupted sitting for reprogramming, with the worst offenders being required to listen to them in audiobook format, narrated by Jodi Foster. Consider me deterred.

I saw Tyson speak in front of his admirers. One hundred thousand utterly enraptured devotees lifting their eyes to the heavens. I witnessed his transfiguration into an archangel. Something must’ve gone wrong though because he rode a comet into the sun and was instantly incinerated.

I saw panic. I saw a dog eat its own tail. I saw the night descend on us all—an unwelcome pall hovering over the perfectly symmetrical skyline. Is our great herald dead. Is the great rationalizer gone?

“I am here.” Where did this come from? Why did I say this? Was I just trying to calm the anxieties of the crowd?

They were skeptical. They asked me to tell them what pi is. They wanted to see if I was one of them or an impostor. Could I remember the repeating numbers? I cheekily said “Better tasting than abstract objects, I’ll tell you that.” A collective sigh. In Rationalia, humor is seen as inefficient. Would I be banished?

It was confirmed: I was to leave. I was told I didn’t belong. And just like that, I woke up. I checked Twitter and saw Tyson’s tweet absolutely savaged by most who responded. Whew! Rationality still exists, after all.

Berny Belvedere is a professor of philosophy and writer based in Miami.