We sometimes hear of a paper submission being rejected because the method was too simple, or a promotion being denied because the work artifacts lacked complexity. I think this can be partly explained by Dijkstra’s quote: “Simplicity is a great virtue but it requires hard work to achieve it and education to appreciate it. And to make matters worse: complexity sells better.” — Edsger Dijkstra Why does complexity sell better? Complexity signals effort. Papers with difficult ideas and technical det...