Your comment unfortunately captures possibly the best summary of the current dominant HN culture I have seen.

And yet, I get the feeling just by being straight about it, you also come close to breaking some HN guidelines about not insinuating bad intentions, etc… I do think you have done it in a way that is pretty reasonable though, so hopefully it's not a problem.

Sure wish it was not this way. One, I wish it wasn't all about "I am very smart" and two, I also wish we could talk about this stuff without risking being reprimanded.