It’s a horrible but probably-true idea that to someone much smarter than me — as Nathan was to Caleb in Ex Machina — my most intelligent patter probably sounds like a constant repetition of bromidic old ideas, boring and clichéd aphorisms, and assertions that are easily disproven by even minor thought.

I know this must be true because that is how people dumber than I am seem to me.

The universe is not only cruel, it is comical in its cruelty.