[api]

The worst of it reminds me of cryptocurrency schlock and how it has drained capital from our industry with little to show for it.

The pattern is similar: an infinitely fascinating puzzle to solve full of interesting math with potentially revolutionary implications if only… if only… but not enough people ask if it’s the right math solving the right problems in the right way or if it’s even applicable.

This phenomenon of smart people being nerd sniped to this degree reminds me of that episode of Star Trek TNG where they figured out a way to possibly destroy the Borg by giving them an infinitely fascinating unsolvable geometry problem to ponder until they lost their minds.

I also see some similarity to how people get triggered and sucked into and addicted to spirals of culture war and political rage or fear mongering or other media driven mind traps. This is less intellectual but seems similar in that you’ve got this meme that hooks us and creates a discourse around it that hooks us more and not enough people poke their heads out of the vortex and say “hey everyone is this really this big of a deal?”

We should become skeptical when we see a big idea accrete a lot of sound and fury around it but it’s not producing much and the main focus of the community circling it is self referential fascination with the idea itself.