I'm surprised it was really considered mystery. My grandparents told me straight up, who had four children, that the reason that had such a large family is because they were supposed to. It was their patriotic duty. Did this zeitgeist get lost a time or is it now some sort of secret? Perhaps it's not politically correct the point out that actually, people, there is a class of people who determine what we're supposed to believe. Just like I grew up thinking computers were cool just when we needed a lot of software developers, right before my career was outsourced to H-1Bs.

I suppose it makes sense. It's not like there's any single place that documented where we're all agreeing about what we're supposed to believe. After all, nobody has a date where we all decided that hackers were really cool and awesome.