Across the course of a lifespan, the number of people who have pushed themselves that hard is much higher. Some get disillusioned by the process, others get full-on burnout.
That said, the people who have it in their future are not reading persuasive writing about it, and haven't discovered hackernews. Possibly never will. Some of the people who are currently living it are within the HN demographic, but only a fraction, in either sense. So practically speaking this is more of a nostalgia piece for much of HN instead of persuasive writing.
Across the course of a lifespan, the number of people who have pushed themselves that hard is much higher. Some get disillusioned by the process, others get full-on burnout.
That said, the people who have it in their future are not reading persuasive writing about it, and haven't discovered hackernews. Possibly never will. Some of the people who are currently living it are within the HN demographic, but only a fraction, in either sense. So practically speaking this is more of a nostalgia piece for much of HN instead of persuasive writing.