alt Hacker News> You need a high-level, far-away map of the entire system, and you need to know just enough to know where you need to dive in
One thing that puts me squarely in the Optimist camp is that such a map can often be created by AI just-in-time. Sure you might not know every detail of what it said, but you can simply follow up and build your understanding.
yep, the just-in-time mapping and exploration are what builds up your breadth, but I think you still need a baseline to be able to tell when the map you've been given looks right but isn't