I learned in school to conceal the actual extent of my intelligence, except when I was completely surrounded by other nerds. It's why I enjoy pseudoanonymity s

I learned in school to conceal the actual extent of my intelligence, except when I was completely surrounded by other nerds. It's why I enjoy pseudoanonymity so much. As a log, I'm not obliged to conform to human standards and expectations. I'm the smartest and most popular chunk of trunk there is, and my only competition is from those who managed to register my username before I ever got there. That's annoying, but it does give all of us some cover, in that no one can ever be certain whether any two logfromblammo users are actually the same person behind the keyboard. The HN logfromblammo is not the same person as the eBay logfromblammo, for instance. I am very smart, in my own opinion--not a genius, but probably 90th percentile. It just doesn't seem to be rewarded very well, unless you turn yourself into an ass. So I'm smart enough to let my supervisors think they are smarter than I am, but not smart enough to get promoted above them and stop hiding it. The self-deprecation you taught yourself is probably part of the same act. Making other people feel stupid just by being smart in their vicinity also seems sort of mean. By keeping my mouth shut, and dumbing down what I do say, people are free to assume that I'm no better than they are. But then again, if they ever do need someone smarter than they are, they wouldn't know to ask me.