Your comment is exactly the attitude the person you were replying to was mocking. What that person saying is that a lot of reasonably intelligent people who are nowhere near geniuses like to <i>think</i> of themselves as geniuses as a form of narcissistic self-flattery. For people good at math, sciences and computing and other occupations considered &quot;nerdy&quot;, capability in these fields and stereotypes of intelligence associated with them become a point of pride and they begin to identify with people far smarter than they are, despite actually being unexceptionally intelligent. HN has talented people, sure, but I think it&#x27;s definitely fair to say there&#x27;s a large population of people who flatter themselves thinking they&#x27;re geniuses who regularly post, upvote, and comment on this kind of article with &quot;me too!&quot; sentiments. Pointing this out has nothing to do with the kids in this article, who are genuinely exceptional and certainly worthy of sympathy and nurturing.