Perhaps, but the past also needed more serfs than readers. I don't think that is good, but maybe it is too idealistic to think you can create a nation of 330m critical thinkers. Not because it isn't possible, but because not everyone wants to approach life that way.

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int_19h 4 days ago | parent [-]

The past needed more serfs than readers until the Industrial Revolution, but once we got those going, all that machinery required skilled people to operate.

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p1esk 3 days ago | parent [-]

Did making things without machinery require fewer skilled people?

	▲	int_19h 3 days ago \| parent [-]
		Depends on what you're making. Pre-industrial society was mostly concerned with growing food to feed itself. Things like say blacksmithing or advanced weaving certainly did require skilled professionals, but they were proportionally a tiny minority of a society consisting mostly of farmers.