There’s this kind of frightening but flattering thing that happens when you do the work that I do, when you spend a lot of time writing and reading about and working against the forces undermining a better society, when your friends and loved ones are aware that you are hopelessly impaled upon a fascination with the beliefs and mechanisms which are constantly creating and destroying our world. People ask you questions they might not have ever asked out loud before. Questions like, “is it really as bad as it seems?” and “is there any way out of this?” and “for the love of god, what do we do?”