Well this thread has touched on just about every non-trivial thing I've been privy to in the last few days, including Collective Electrodynamics
Pretty sad story. Sounds like an end-life crises: Mead brings everyone down (except Einstein) by not saying... really anything. And when he does --- such as when he speaks of the Schroedinger cat --- he does not show understanding of the issue. Statements like "generations of students were driven out of physics becasue they no longer could comprehend it" (to wit) are very revealing: plenty of students who wanted to be theorists "switch out" after the first year once the grades are in; he was probably one of them. I wonder whether he can even read modern theory work. Again, statements like "70 years of darkness" do not suggest he can or he has done so. I guess, he feels that ranting is his last chance to make a theory contribution.
It was cool to run across George Gilder again too. Thirty years ago his book, "Wealth and Poverty" changed me from a mush brained liberal to the rabid conservative I am today.