Comment by teekert
18 hours ago
He does, doesn’t he. For one it’s pretty special to have the energy to do all this. Or is it just because it’s a summary of 20+ years?
Somehow you feel like someone who’s socially awkward would not just go on a 4 hours super deep conversation, as some form of experiment.
I wonder what this person is like irl. I did like this piece.
I actually went to university with him! It's so weird seeing his posts occasionally pop up on HN.
That was when he was in his, as he accurately describes it, performative NPR phase of reading difficult modernist novels and having opinions about Barthes or whatever. I found him very very smart, as he clearly is, and also incredibly obnoxious (though I was obnoxious too). Part of that was because it was extraordinarily apparent how contrived his persona was to be superficially charming, and part of that was jealousy; then and now I wish that I were so smart and so charming, superficially or otherwise.