[dang]

Your comment feels like cross-examination—not my idea of a "fun exercise"! Conversation is ok though.

Calling people dumb fucks for trusting you could easily have been for comic effect. The combination of bravado and self-deprecation is something comedians use for shock value and laughs. Adolescent boys (and not so adolescent boys) ham up outrageous stuff up around their friends all the time. Those things aren't sociopathic.

I have zero idea what he meant, and so does everybody else who has only those words to go on. People are just projecting onto a blank screen a few convenient details to create the image that they want to see, a monster and a sociopath—in other words a cartoon villain. You don't have anything close to the information you would need to draw that conclusion if you were inquiring seriously. What really gives the phenomenon away, though, is the cartoonishness of the picture.

The interesting question is why people do this kind of projection. I think it's that the brain works with contrasts, and creating a bad picture of someone else is a cheap way to create a good picture of oneself. But who knows. What's for sure is that this phenomenon is (a) not intellectually serious, and (b) ubiquitous. Even the comment in this thread that was apparently based on personal experience showed signs of it.

[marcos123]

> I have zero idea what he meant, and so does everybody else who has only those words to go on.

Again, incorrect. You know what we all have to go on? The meaning of those words, and their collective meaning when put together in a sentence. We all have a very good idea what he meant. Well, except for you obviously because willful ignorance seems to be your strong suit in this discussion.

What I think is the real interesting question is why are you taking up the position of Zuckerberg public relations evangelist on HN?