Western society has nearly completely lost the infrastructure that could support complex thinking.
To dig into the relevant infrastructure:
1. A culture open to voicing accurate observations about itself. Every capable thinker voices these early in life before they learn better, if this disqualifies them, the culture cannot support original thinkers.
2. Viable economic niches. Academia is much too contested. Silicon Valley allows for some original thinking, but the thinking isn't what provides returns.
3. Viable social niches. Trust fund kids don't have a leisured class that values thought they could join. The role of public intellectual is extinct, it is possible to be a popularizer. Comparable to say Polybius.
4. Viable knowledge succession. Deep mentoring is considered unfair, threatening or cult-like. The assumption is always that the most recent experts have the best information in a field.
The socioeconomic structure of society was intelligence proofed long before the internet educated showed up.
There was significant variation in among past societies.
Some intellectual golden ages: Classical Greece, Hellenistic Greece (Science), Abbasid Golden Age, Italian Renaissance
etc.
The infrastructure isn't easy to recreate, because the social dynamics are so central to it, read more here:
samoburja.com/knowledge-prod…
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