“Now, a lot of the people the nerd dealt with were incredibly
bad guys. Peg house habitues. Escaped convicts from all over the
world. Psychotic gunslingers. People who owned slaves and
massacred Indians. I’ll bet that the first day, or week, or month,
or year, that the nerd moved to the gold-mining town and hung
out his shingle, he was probably scared shitless. He probably had
moral qualms too–very legitimate ones, perhaps,” Avi adds,
giving Randy a sidelong glance. “Some of those pioneering nerds
probably gave up and went back East. But y’know what? In a
surprisingly short period of time, everything became pretty damn
civilized, and the towns filled up with churches and schools and
universities, and the sort of howling maniacs who got there first
were all assimilated or driven out or thrown into prison, and the
nerds had boulevards and opera houses named after them. Now,
is the analogy clear?” ~ cryptonomicon