define_eprime

One was an administrator who cheerfully kept confidential details about the security of our corporate network in it without once reading the Evernote TOS or considering the consequences if those TOS changed.

Even after I explained that those TOS clearly violated several parts of his employment agreements, he continued to use it. He didn't think there was anything wrong since our CFO also kept a lot of sensitive information in it...

I think I understand the gist of what he's trying to say: you can only know you've improved if you know what you're trying to achieve and measure what you do. By that measure doing arbitrary things "to get better" won't lead to improvement.

I think he's wrong in two ways.

First, he ignores a situation I've experienced many times - getting "stuck" in a point of stable local maxima after finding a less than perfect solution to a problem. Playing around with new and unrelated stuff occasionally helped me identify something I initially overlooked in my initial problem and lead me to something better.

Second, and perhaps more important, I believe the simple unconscious act of learning and sharing new things can lead many to live longer, happier and arguably better lives.