Please don't comment like this on Hacker News. It breaks several guidelines, most notably these ones:

Be kind. Don't be snarky. Converse curiously; don't cross-examine. Edit out swipes.

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Please don't fulminate. Please don't sneer...

Please respond to the strongest plausible interpretation of what someone says, not a weaker one that's easier to criticize. Assume good faith.

Please don't post shallow dismissals, especially of other people's work. A good critical comment teaches us something.

https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

> clever enough to always be right

Oh, see here's the secret. Lots of people THINK they are always right. Nobody is.

The problem is you can read a lot of books, study a lot of philosophy, practice a lot of debate. None of that will cause you to be right when you are wrong. It will, however, make it easier for you to sell your wrong position to others. It also makes it easier for you to fool yourself and others into believing you're uniquely clever.

Sometimes the meta-skill of how you come across while being right is just as important as the correctness itself…

I don't see how that's any more "wanker" then this famous saying by Socrates's; Western thought is wankers all the way down.

> Although I do not suppose that either of us knows anything really beautiful and good, I am better off than he is – for he knows nothing, and thinks he knows. I neither know nor think I know.

“I don’t like how they said it” and “I don’t like how this made me feel” is the aspect of the human brain that has given us Trump. As long as the idea that “how you feel about it” is a basis for any decision making, the world will continue to be fucked. The authors audience largely understand that “this made me feel” is an indication that introspection is required, and not an indication that the author should be ignored.

It's a coping mechanism for autists, mainly.