The world has always been a sorry and confused sort of place—yet poets and artists and scientists have ignored the factors that would, if attended to, paralyze them.

I once found this idea seductive. Now I find it outrageous. It’s not just because it’s wrong; it’s an affront to the human spirit. People only discover stuff when they think it’s worth trying, and there have been entire eras of human history where people didn’t think it was worth trying. A meme like “ideas are getting harder to find” could drive... See more

So if past ideas seem obvious and future ideas seem obscure, it’s tempting to conclude we live at the inflection point where ideas suddenly get harder to find. And maybe we do. But we’d feel that way even if ideas weren’t getting harder to find, and that should make us a little skeptical.