Innovation tends to have many positive externalities. Whoever invents a widget probably only captures a tiny slice of the overall value it delivers to society.

Innovation tends to have many positive externalities. Whoever invents a widget probably only captures a tiny slice of the overall value it delivers to society. Therefore, a particular level of investment can simultaneously be irrational from the perspective of an individual but rational from the perspective of society. Overall, I'm not sure if this is a debate with an answer that will help people move forward. Everyone probably agrees that have accurate beliefs is good, all else equal. And everyone probably agrees that living a good life doesn't require you to maximize your belief accuracy at the expense of all else. Maybe the central idea nugget is that a high degree of self-doubt will improve belief accuracy but hurt other aspects of your life, such as speed of idea generation or speed of work output. I suppose that's a trade off that we all must navigate, consciously or otherwise.