[rusk]

Yes, there is a dissonance there that led me to be suspicious at first. It's probably just that he's an introvert who learned "how to speak confidently" from a book or a course or something.

That said, I don't think he comes across as completely intellectually honest in a lot of his interviews. I think that this might be more a product of a lot of the bad faith he's been subjected to than anything intrinsic to his ideas. Though I do think he plays it up a bit now to broaden his reach.

[thinkingemote]

I think he learnt how to speak from a few decades of teaching, and in his teaching technique (as opposed to speech giving, debating). I've noticed most teachers and lecturers I've met as being good confident speakers. Not all academics, but the proper educators, almost all yes.

I've noticed that he does fall into set patterns of anecdote and stories in interviews, like he will reply to a question and then pause for a little bit and then reply with something almost pre-scripted, a previous thought but slightly changed.