# Why Did The Chicken Cross The Road?

> They tell us that something is waiting for us on The Other Side, that death
> may be a pilgrimage and not a destination, that the afterlife is a warm
> awakening after the fretful dream of life.
>
> —
> [_Death Be Not a Stranger_](https://web.archive.org/web/20111214142131/http://www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,981213,00.html)

The joke wasn't always about a suicidal bird.

[By 1847](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Why_did_the_chicken_cross_the_road%3F#cite_note-1),
it had become a well-known
[anti-joke](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-humor). Instead of a typical
[punchline](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Punch_line), the chicken joke
purposefully delivers a disappointing resolution.

In 1899, [Henry H. Bliss](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Death_of_Henry_H._Bliss)
was struck by a taxicab -- the first recorded car casualty in the US.

[^note]:
    Before cars, people used vehicles called "horses". The non-LIDAR autopilot
    was ahead of its time, but the market was never going to accept 1HP and a
    30-mile range. This is why Americans distrust European imports.

![US motor vehicle deaths per year](/United_States_Motor_Vehicle_Deaths_per_Year.webp)

The US made more cars, faster cars, heavier cars; one could maim/kill oneself by
stepping into oncoming traffic. All high-speed roads became portals to The Other
Side.

[^note]:
    Songs like
    [Hit Me With Your Car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MmltUzDjKgA) and
    [Crash the Car](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZlVT8gPGEs) derive humor
    from such safety violations.

Any arbitrary animal could've crossed the road, but we coincidentally chose the
"chicken" -- an enduring symbol of cowardice.

> The way that they did and to grin like lions  
> Upon the pikes o’ th’ hunters. Then began  
> A stop i’ th’ chaser, a retire; anon  
> A rout, confusion thick. Forthwith they fly  
> Chickens the way which they ⌜stooped⌝ eagles; slaves  
> The strides ⌜they⌝ victors made; and now our cowards,  
> Like fragments in hard voyages, became
>
> -- Shakespeare, _Cymbeline_ (1623)

![another variety of "chicken" is played in two cars](/chicken.png)

In [games of chicken](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chicken_(game)>), players
demonstrate courage by yielding later than other players. Game theorists model
such [payoff matrices](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Normal-form_game) like
this:

|        | Swerve |   Stay |
| ------ | -----: | -----: |
| Swerve |   0, 0 | -1, +1 |
| Stay   | +1, -1 | -∞, -∞ |

This game normally has three Nash equilibria (i.e. stable strategies): (1)
always chicken, (2) never chicken, or (3) match your opponent's stochastic
strategy.

But not all chicken games are symmetric. When a lone man challenges armored
vehicles, it feels callous to cram life into a lopsided payoff matrix.

[![Tank Man](/tankman.jpeg)](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tank_Man)

The chicken joke is an anti-joke that morphed into an actual joke, but we've
induced [jamais vu](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jamais_vu). Over and over
again, humans teach the new humans that pointlessness is the point.

But when we search for meaning in the seemingly meaningless, we discover motor
vehicles, mathematics, misery, metahumor -- much more than a mere joke. Pulling
that fraying string in your underpants, you find that the entire universe
unfurls and, against all odds, everything remains connected.

![T.S. 1989 hoodie](/ts1989-hoodie.jpeg)

Chinese authorities
[largely ignored](https://www.vox.com/2015/7/22/9017411/taylor-swift-china-tiananmen-square)
Taylor Swift's [_T.S. 1989_](<https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1989_(album)>),
which unintentionally memorialized the Tienneman Square (TS) 1989 incident.

Those hoodies were likely _made in China_ and conceived in the United States --
Taylor Swift's US propaganda outsourced to Chinese sweat shops, then resold to
US consumers to fuel Chinese propaganda, and then sensationalized/compressed
into clickbait for US media outlets to advertise more McNuggets (which
[are ostensibly chicken](/carbon-nuggets)).

![McTank Man](/mctankman.jpeg)

There's nothing humorous about suicidal chickens, nor traffic fatalities, nor
game theory, nor Tienneman Square, nor Taylor Swift. But it's funny if you think
about it.