Agreed. Smug dismissal of new ideas is such a lazy shortcut to trying to look smart. I'd much rather talk to someone enthusiastic about something than someone who does nothing but sit there and say "this thing sucks" every time something happens even if person #2 is incidentally right a lot of the time.

Smug acceptance of new ideas is such a lazy shortcut to trying to look smart. I'd much rather talk to someone who has objectively analyzed the concept rather than someone who does nothing but sit there and say "this thing is great" for no real reason other than "everyone is using it".

Incidentally, "everyone" is wrong a lot of the time.

While I agree in principle, someone has to make decisions about resource allocation and decide that some ideas are better than others. This takes a finely tuned sense of BS detector and technical feasibility estimation, which I would argue is a real skill. It thus becomes subtly different to be an accurate predictor of success vs default cynic if 95% of ideas aren’t going to work.