Jonathan Blow

I have tried to read several books about category theory, but they all appear to dissolve into lists of trivial details before they ever clearly say anything new or powerful. Is category theory really just the idea "hey we can draw equations in 2D instead of 1D",

taking that view to the extreme, *all of math* is essentially a glorified rewriting system

That’s not the whole story. Many areas of mathematics add new words which allow your writing to be more compact or expressive. While compaction primarily allows old ideas to be rewritten more intuitively and succinctly, expression allows us to describe fundamentally new ones.

Indeed, a counter example is geometric algebra (not algebraic geometry, sigh), which I really like. It starts out by talking about stuff you already know from linear algebra etc, but has no trouble showing you how you can easily make clean constructions that would be

confusing and burdensome in the old ways (if you even thought to do them, which you wouldn't). I have never read a GA book that dissolved into trivial details before getting to the point. CT, on the other hand, always seems to, so I feel like there is no there there.