As I read more and more, this book, even more so than GR layers itself. Each of the chapters and sections seem to be a certain delta-t taken out and individually examined (but not necessarily in order) reveal a history of individuals and ultimately of a society. In the same way, the landfill that Nick visits with Sims and Detwiler seems to represent layers of history put together that also give birth to a history and age. Conventional history has more often than not followed the aristocrats and the wars of those in power. The landfill, the accumulation of everyone's waste, seems to me a very plebeian but unified representation of society's history.

Having read kettledrum's post, I'd like to add a bit.

Being passed over removes one from the world, so that he can stand removed and indifferent, but to what extent does this constitute a negative alienation from society contrary to man's social nature?

This reminds me of p353 near the bottom where it talks about the search for the drug to "kill intense pain without causing addiction." "There is nearly complete parallelism between analgesia and addiction. The more pain it takes away, the more we desire it." While removal from the world at large takes away its painful realities, removal from it strips a person of the social character which defines them in the same way that drugs dull the pain while turning their user into a dependent who can no longer focus on anything but the next dose.