For a while, I thought the answer to this question was simple: nerds ruined everything. They carried a teenage sense of grievance into adulthood and nobody stopped them and now here we are. In pop culture they gave us people who go to the mat for blockbusters and in politics they gave us the kind of technocrat who just stands around with his hand raised, waiting for the American people to call on him. However, looking at the broader scope of the problem, I can no longer really subscribe to this theory. To nerds I offer a qualified apology: I still don’t like you, but I have to admit, it’s not your fault.

—B.D. McClay, in “A decade of sore winners”