> Which wouldn't matter, except a whole bunch of billionaires are in the headlines right now because they pay too much attention to people like me.

While I think Stross is right on the money with this article, I would hope that the 'like' is doing a lot of heavy lifting here; last thing we need is some idiot billionaire summoning demons (as was, indeed, basically the plot of at least one Laundry Files book...)

> And no tour of the idiocracy is complete without mentioning Mark Zuckerberg, billionaire CEO of Facebook, who blew through ten billion dollars trying to create the Metaverse from Neal Stephenson's novel Snow Crash

IIRC Zuckerberg actually claimed to have been inspired by Rainbow's End. Presumably, in some alternate universe, taking inspiration from Vernor Vinge's other, better books, Facebook instead spent billions trying to make irritating talking spiders.