> This one, which is basically saying one of the most important things for society is coming up with new ideas. Not hard to see why someone who built his life around startups would think this.
> If I already know pretty much exactly what someone is going to say (and nearly all of it is self-serving), I'm not going to be that interested in listening.
These seem to be your central points. Firstly, you're correct: the essay says that new ideas are one of the most important things for a society:
> There are more subtle reasons too, which persist long into adulthood. Intelligence wins in conversation, and thus becomes the basis of the dominance hierarchy. Plus having new ideas is such a new thing historically, and even now done by so few people, that society hasn't yet assimilated the fact that this is the actual destination, and intelligence merely a means to an end.
...
> So what are the other ingredients in having new ideas? The fact that I can even ask this question proves the point I raised earlier — that society hasn't assimilated the fact that it's this and not intelligence that matters. Otherwise we'd all know the answers to such a fundamental question.
But is this mistaken?
When choosing where to send your kids to school, would you rather send them to a school that believes strongly in their own ideas, or one that embraces more recent ideas?
My parents sent me to a small religious school. Personally, I would've been happier somewhere else.
But as you say, you don't disagree with the essay. Your central point is in your last sentence:
> If I already know pretty much exactly what someone is going to say (and nearly all of it is self-serving)...
You're saying that pg essays are no longer surprising to you. But I don't think you knew what it was going to say before you read it; you read it, and then said, "This isn't surprising."
Personally, I found it surprising that society could place so much emphasis on intelligence, if it's true that new ideas matter more.
You could try to argue that new ideas don't matter as much as intelligence, or that something else matters even more. It would be interesting if you were correct, since that would refute the essay's central point. But you haven't done any of that; your comment can be summed up as "I think pg sucks," because you're not making any concrete claims.