What occurs to me that The Simple Truth seems to be about using knowledge for getting things done vs. using knowledge to gain status - isn't that the whole point of being a "Sophisticus Maximus"? Yet I don't see this difference stressed a lot in the sequences: I think Eliezer is highly used to the Silicion Valley type of people where using knowledge for getting things done is taken for granted. Putting it differently, they live in a culture where you cannot gain status from knowledge if you don't use it for getting things done. Also - Dijkstra relevant, but I will put that into the quotes thread.