I’d never thought about fluidity and the diminution of the nation-state in quite these terms before, but this comment is spot-on.

Also, all of these arcane speech codes, microaggressions, bizarre and unrealistic sexual norms, they are a way if gatekeeping. Spaces in the fluid elite are limited and it’s important to keep as many people out as possible. There are no real borders, so borders are created in behavior, in speech, in shared norms that look very inaccessible and bizarre to the majority.

Let’s find a common cultural referent here. Remember how the people in the Capital appeared to those from the Districts in The Hunger Games? That’s how the globehopping, fluid elite seem to almost everyone else. They look and seem utterly ridiculous, in a comical way. This is true even if some of their ideas are valid and good (which they are).

As the scope of human possibility has theoretically increased — with the internet and access to so much more information — freedom of action and being has actually substantially decreased.

There’s little room for exploration anymore, for trying on identities, for getting the feel of something and deciding that you don’t like it — or do. There’s no space for making mistakes any longer. Everything goes on your permanent record and no one will allow you to forget a minor flub, a moment of anger or even just a poorly-chosen word.

Everyone’s a critic but with none of the wisdom, insight, or sagacity of a true critic. Instead, nearly all are poo-flinging monkeys who have the acuity and wit of a doorknob.

The internet and social networks have amplified the worst of our mob tendencies and driven the reasonable and the well-considered from discourse altogether. It’s not sustainable from a societal perspective, and the most likely result is that the worst will achieve total victory.

I think I would’ve made a good scientist, even today where the focus is on math pseudo-IQ tests rather than deep thinking.

However, I am glad that the obsession with mathiness caused me to stay away as I would’ve not liked academia much — and that would’ve been the most likely default destination.

As E.O. Wilson knows, ideas rarely come from math. How most scientists actually generate ideas has little to nothing to do with the oddball math worship.

I am angry at my teachers to this day for telling me that math was all that matters, even if they were narrowly correct. Math hardly matters at all for real thinking, unless you are a mathematician.

I could’ve never passed any of the math classes in the STEM curriculum, so that was an effective hurdle keeping me out. But I still would’ve been a good — and perhaps great — scientist.

People who think “fake news” is some new phenomenon should really read up on “yellow journalism.” It moves faster now, yep, but it’s not new at all.

Obamas in negotiations to develop Netflix series: report.

Oh please no. Can’t we be just done with them and Trump too?