Well said. I really dislike the narrative here, that ignorance is something that leads to discovery. One, the poster gives two examples, as if there's something we should gain for such a small sample. In addition to that, one of the examples isn't valid. The student's former professor is a co-author of the "Tiny Pointers" [1] paper that he was reading and working through. And, it was a conjecture, I don't see how someone should think that it would mean it's impossible.

I would rather, instead of thinking ignorance is a key ingredient to discovery, that instead it's the willingness to try things.

[1] https://arxiv.org/abs/2111.12800