@scrottie There's a cultural pattern of thinking that the height of intelligence is reductivism, which is stupid.

The other day I started reading a science fiction novel that opened with the main character in a virtual reality prison based on the prisoners' dilemma. This was stupid in many ways, and in particular, the optimal solution to the prisoners' dilemma is so obvious that bacteria can find it.

What was astonishing was that people gushed about what a clever and intelligent novel this was, and the foreword to the book went on at length about how the author was a genius, in particular because of the cleverness of the opening of the book.

As a child, I used to think the point of the story about Alexander and the Gordian Knot was that by cutting the knot, he failed to actually solve the problem and did something impulsive and stupid, and similarly, Alexander's empire was a short-lived spasm of violent stupidity that immediately collapsed.