Revenge of the nerds

Here's an interesting review in the Economist of a new book about American nerds. The book struggles with the definition of "nerd" - the best it can come up with is "some combination of school success, interest in precision, unselfconsciousness, closeness to adults and interest in fantasy." I could have done better - nerds are intellectual children.

The book itself lays out the traditional problems of nerds - social ostracism, unpopularity, self-limitation in order to fit in, etc. And of course this narrative is mostly true - for most nerds, in most of America, for most of our history.

But there's a happy ending to the story of nerds. As America's economy matured and the returns to human capital soared higher and higher, brain power was suddenly more important to financial success than the ability to make connections. Generations of back-slapping frat-boy Lions-club businessmen were pushed out by a new legion of thoughtful, brainy kids who enjoyed sitting in front of computers til all hours of the morning - in other words, the nerds took over from the jocks.

And I was there. I saw it happening all throughout high school. I felt the palpable change that swept through my small anti-intellectual Texas town. One day we all woke up and the man pictured above was far and away the richest man on Earth. And I'll never forget that time in 1997, when the captain of the cheerleading squad sighed and told me:

"I wish I was a nerd."