“What they failed to grasp, however, is that in the hands of interested parties, a message that was intended to reassure was presented as an admission of problems.”

“Often though, I go back to Geoffrey Miller’s eminently scary article (you’ll need to do a text search for his name to find his entry) from a few years ago which posits that the eventual downfall of all intelligent civilisations will be our seduction by fitness fakers - virtual constructs which gives us the feeling of achievement without actually achieving anything.”

“It is money that, in the language of economic sociologists, enables us to become ‘disembedded’ from our social context, with contradictory effects. Because a £10 note is the same regardless of who holds it, money can be viewed as a dreadful force for anonymity and dissolution of community. But because a £10 note is the same regardless of who holds it, money can also be viewed as the best basis for anonymity and cultural equality. It permits an absence of judgement.”