And all at once he noticed something about the people around him. It was as though they knew, somewhere deep down, that the future was overdue. - Daniel Suarez

Those heavily invested in the status quo had difficulty thinking outside of it — and were often tainted by it.

No. It’s my parents’ society, not mine. What does it offer my generation? A meaningless existence. Living long, boring lives, milked each day by salesmen. Livestock for a permanent ruling class. Well, I have no use for their laws, their maps, their failures. The Daemon has already defeated them.

One did not accidentally graduate from top-tier schools. One strove to get in and to maintain grades once there, and to do that, one usually needed to be a master at conformity. To excel in all the accepted conventions. No, the truly different thinkers often went unnoticed.