How to think "pretentiously"?

I will describe how `"pretentious" ideas from multiplicative number theory played an important role in some of the recent advances in number theory, combinatorics and ergodic theory. I will illustrate the ideas by discussing Tao's resolution of the Erdös Discrepancy Problem and some of my recent work with Frantzikinakis and Moreira on questions of partition regularity of quadratic equations. The talk requires no previous knowledge of the areas.