There's a wisdom in his rule, but not if applied too strictly. The opposite is also a problem. To wit, at times the web seems to be overflowing with people who

There's a wisdom in his rule, but not if applied too strictly. The opposite is also a problem. To wit, at times the web seems to be overflowing with people who neither tried too hard, if at all, nor did the obvious set of things that an intelligent competent person would have done in their circumstances. Also the more you try, the deeper, the harder, broader, the more you learn, which makes you more efficient in the future. And it gives you deeper, more inter-connected understanding of the world. Something that will give you an edge over the masses who just Google for answers, looking at every problem as a flat-time key-value lookup. If you never learn how to start with the key, and manually reach that value (the answer), the old fashioned way, you'll be missing out on a lot that will serve you well all the rest of your days. And help make you more of a producer and problem solver yourself, rather than a parasite or info polluter. Become the person everybody else turns to when they're stuck. Don't become the person who always has to turn to others. A world full of this latter kind of person is a world that will suck and eventually fail. Optimize in the other direction. Everybody will be better off.