monomania

Too often, it's just monomania or obsession in a fancy outfit.

* Bobby Fischer: The world had never seen such monomania before and probably never will again.

I doubt it; the risk you describe is the risk of monomania, something which simple utility functions are far more likely to lead to than complex ones.

Having passion about your interests is a great thing, but it's important to be able to relate to other people, and monomania is often pretty insulating.

I won't quite say monomania is "bad", but it isn't without costs, and certainly ancient wisdom has expounded the benefits of being a well-rounded person for a very, very long time.

There is a monomania about covering as much material as possible, so long as students can retain enough to pass a test, but students don't retain much of the material and when the fundamentals are neglected they miss out on that too.

I'd say that obsession and monomania about one form of cognition makes you less creative, and high IQ people are often so impressed with their analytical intellect that they fall into the trap of disregarding other mental capabilities.

Uncle Larry's monomania and "others must fail" sociopathy might have worked for Oracle in a particular market and time, but it would be a recipe for utter failure in a modern startup where adaptability and collaboration are more valued.

It would take an irrational level of monomania and obsession to track down the elected official to hold responsible and vote against him with no consideration of who the opponent is, whether he would do any better of a job, or how the candidates would perform on any of dozens of other issues.