All our lives we were lied to. "If you're smart, you can do anything." Yeah, right. Albert Einstein and Stephen Weinberg ruled the world, jointly, right? Hawking had women begging to bear his baby. Carl Sagan was filthy rich...

We knew better.

Idiots often were elected to high office.

The rich were rarely known for their Nobel prizes.

The sexually attractive didn't get jokes about how many books they read.

We were geeks. We were nerds. We were often despised, often mocked, often reviled.

Except an odd thing happened towards the end of the decade.

All the lies were turning true.

Speculative dot.coms were suddenly making millionaires. Suddenly all the billionaires were agog at the "new economy", and scrambling for a piece, rather than go under.

Technology and software were king, and all the old rules were broken.

The intelligent weren't just used for once. They were prized and bid for, and were wizards, prophets, senseis, and demi-gods. Once---just once---we saw the intelligent prized for just being---intelligent. For taking the time to learn something and figure out the rules. The intelligent would inherit the Earth!

The geekiest looking doofus on Earth, Bill Gates, no less---became the wealthiest man on Earth.

It was our hour. Finally...our hour.

That's about how long it lasted, too.

The economy took a downturn, around the time of the endless Florida Election Squabble. You can choose the cause, and blame who you want. Fingers can point in all directions, but suddenly dot.com millionaires were selling their limosines and highly prized technology stocks were the scum of the earth. It was bound to happen. That sector was ridiculously overvalued.

Yet the stock of the geek went down, also. Suddenly, we were an interchangeable quantity again, with "crazy, impractical ideas".

We were no longer the way to success. We were just another cog in the machine. We were a means, but the success would be reaped by the entrepreneur, by the professional money-maker...

Or so they would like to believe.

Yet power, once held, is hard to give up. Beware of Geeks bearing gifts.

The record companies struck against Napster---and a dozen smaller and better music-sharing companies have sprung up in its wake, like Audiogalaxy. The record companies should have spent time investing in geeks to make it harder and harder to steal the music, not tried to sue out software to borrow it. For software can always be varied by someone...smarter.

It should be a battle of brains, of the shielders vs. the snatchers. Not a matter of legalese. It's futile in the long run. In the long run brains will win.

...And music will be distributed not at the artificial levels the music companies have developed now, but as the troubadours did. Sorry, Nirvana. You will have to figure out a new way to make money off your music...as will everybody else.

You'll have to use your brains.

We are suffering the twilight of the Geeks. Once at the top of the pyramid, we are now near the base again. Yet we remember the heights we once held, and we know that nothing will ever be the same again.

The "new economy" is actually coming. Free of the hype, it will use the internet practically, as the world's best communication tool---and selling is a way of communicating.

The Internet is no longer seen as a Wonderland, but as just another tool. We'll make it THE tool, THE road to travel to get anything done. Right now we're suffering from the bitterness of inflated expectations. Geeks are undervalued, and web designers are suddenly dispensing fries at McDonald's. Yet we can still work...a little magic.

We won't be kings again. Yet we will be high-ranking Merlins, advisors to the King Arthurs, the corporate tycoons who run the companies. We are in the Twilight of the Geeks.

The Dawn is coming...the Dawn of the real Internet economy, which the dot.com bubble was just a lucky guess about. In which the Geeks will be essential....

Once again.