## Highlights Nerds got rich because futuristic technology and finances rewarded nerdery. Following this, the rise of nerdom played out in perfect concordance with René Girard’s [theory of mimetic desire](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mimetic_theory), which can be summed up best as: > Man is the creature who does not know what to desire, and he turns to others in order to make up his mind. We desire what others desire because we imitate their desires. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hevmx12rtzzd4vm9b78r1evj)) we now live in nerd paradise because those at the top of the hierarchy for the past two decades were not the Wall Street financiers of the 1980s, or the mid-level corporate man of the 1950s with his protestant jawline and white picket fence, but because those at the top used to spend afternoons reading _The Silmarillion_. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hevmy10spx63q8f86dm3swdj)) ^95lxmi Despite this being a massive victory for my teenage self, and generally enjoying nerdom at a personal level (I admit I too would be intrigued by _Silmarillion_ references in a pitch) my concern is that nerdom, in an unintentional way, is strangling high culture. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01hevn0s93kaas1nf6fagepvm2))