> 13
I appreciate you gave it a shot. It was my favorite read from 2020, and I think it captures the spirit of the OP.
But yeah, it is overlong and could probably be compressed quite a bit. It's very conversational, like from another era. Also: French.
Anyway, quantitative thinking and quantitative organization of matter is the key to why things are becoming more and more crappy (a.ka. quality is disappearing).