If you were to plot them all on a chart, when you came to plotting Gilder's coordinates you'd have to get another piece of paper. He believes government-run education is to blame for declining American literacy. Compared with the other speakers, George Gilder will probably come across as shrill, as an extremist. In a way, he's been set up to fail. The lights dim.
Gilder is to speak first.
A blue spotlight focuses on center stage. The podium is a big, brushed-steel cone, narrow at the base and flaring out as it goes up. When George Gilder strides in from the right and stands behind the cone in the blue light, he looks like a scoop of blueberry ice cream, and the ball microphone dangles in the air like a maraschino cherry on top of his head. Taken together, these phenomenal advances will topple all centralized institutions. People in the audience sit up in their seats.