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I find this thread/anecdote pretty surprising -- to me this type of thinking is quite native to my style of mathematics, and it's Terry Tao!
https://mathstodon.xyz/@tao/109633672161867361
maybe I'm just a much worse mathematical optimist than I am a pessimist lol
Insofar as there are a lot of "elementary" tricks like this for doing mathematics that aren't familiar to people I think this is a hopeful sign -- means there's a lot of low hanging fruit