Yes. But it isn't all snackman. His population - the group he likes and sympathises with - only really wants confirmation of an optimistic message. He reflects the wishes of his kind of people: the sort who say - thanks so much for keeping me in this stock, which otherwise I would have sold [at a much higher price]; and, please keep on telling me all about how the technology will inevitably succeed one day [no timeline required].
This is a characteristic of people who are not very curious about other possibilities. The odd thing about awk is that he is smart enough to know how an interesting conversation ought to look. And it doesn't look like the conversation on that thar "dd" board. And yet he seems to prefer to be the king of that turtle stack, rather than an equal contributor with useful specialist knowledge in an open-ended discussion. As if enforcing orthodoxy and excluding heretics has ever been a successful policy (witness history of Catholicism). In his shoes, I'd want to just say - look, technology is one influence and I think it is an important one, but I know there are others and I don't really know how they will play out and I am happy to concede this. The determination to seem absolutely certain and avoid any admission of doubt and to disappear from conversations which aren't going your way and to excoriate those with whom you disagree is, I think, the root of the issue. It speaks to me of a lack of confidence, rather than of comfort in one's philosophy.
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