The golden age of blogging - is that actually a thing? I'm going to call it a thing - really was a different internet. Even if what people wrote was stream-of-consciousness or ranty, you at least got the impression that people sat down and consciously decided to *write* something. Now, with platforms like Twitter, people don't really write. They comment. Twitter is just a toxic stream of comments. Even if Twitter may simply be rebranding and reviving blogging, I'll be happy to see them do it.

Exactly. 9 out of 10 marxists I've known came from privileged, intellectual households - often parents of professors, as you say. Doctorow's wikipedia entry says that he dropped out of four universities without receiving a degree. I suppose that he regards this as a badge of honour, maybe enjoying the implication that he's too intelligent or too special for a conventional education. How contemptible: most people are happy to just get into university, and regardless of the deficiencies of the educational system, work hard so that they can get decent jobs and have some kind of social mobility.That he got a high-level job at the EFF apparently without much of a resume suggests more benefits of a privileged background. People like this of course rarely acknowledge their privilege - they like to identify as working class, even though they've never experienced the real danger of being poor and not having well-to-do parents to bail you out, or not having an education that you can always fall back on. I read Doctorow's wikipedia entry and find him quite contemptible.