Did you ever pause to consider that theoretical computer science might not be done for the sake of midwit code monkeys whose deepest contact with complexity theory was when they learned to reverse a linked list in O(n) for their SWE interview?

Where do you think the money comes from, and why do you think that is?

I'm not sure that retreating to the ivory tower is a winning rhetorical strategy.

Not sure why the hostility anyways. If appreciating TCS results really is a higher brow activity, then GP's indignation at computational models shouldn't upset you, quite the opposite. It's definitionally the normal experience.

And while I do find the blogpost in the OP trite, that is mostly because it's from someone who should absolutely be more intimate with the subject than such "midwitted code monkeys" (aka. normal people) you refer to, yet pretends to feel duped by OAI's results. Quite the different case, and I think is much more worthy of ridicule as a result. They're the high brow who should be appreciating, understanding, yet fail to.

indeed, the purpose of theoretical computer science is as a filtering and ranking mechanism for awarding tenure in universities