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You may be overestimating the banality. I studied CS with many math courses and some of the article goes over my head. (It would be clearer 10y ago) I don't expect many people here actually studied math as their main goal.

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That aside I think there's something bigger here.

I think learning is really hard work, and so most people's first reaction to hard work is to say No, and then go and construct an a posteriori rationale for why actually they shouldn't do that hard work (it's not that useful, you're never gonna use it, you're an expert at something else, etc).

Similar story for why asking data structures in job interviews is a bad idea when you're an applicant (but the people who have been hired and are hiring, do think it's good to ask)

Or... you know, this is actually new information to some people. Why does there have to be something bigger behind it?

Or... both can be true.

Yeah it seems analogous to bike shedding or Paul Graham's 'blub' paradox. I.e., "we don't understand that and haven't [realized that we've] needed it to date therefore it's probably not important and certainly not of interest".

I like your conservation-of-mental-energy interpretation.

TIL about the Blub paradox https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blub_paradox#The_Blub_paradox

Thanks for that.

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