skimming your comment history, to me you seem very comfortable occupying the sociocultural critic position which is to some degree inherently cynical imo. i say that because i also recognize it in myself

Yeah, but I'm only cynical in relation to what I see as the orthodoxies of the kind of people who post on HN.

When I say it like that, it sounds pathetic. And in fact, it is. Yet, here we are.