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kevmo 12 hours ago

I suspect every generation has multiple Einsteins, but they're probably getting killed in war zones or crushed under oligarchy.

Esophagus4 12 hours ago | parent | next [-]

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops”

-Stephen Jay Gould

malfist 12 hours ago | parent | prev | next [-]

Or being told on hacker news that PhDs are too easy to get and they shouldn't do science.

gom_jabbar 12 hours ago | parent | prev [-]

Nietzsche argued that genius is more frequent than we think, but that something else is missing for its realization ("the five hundred hands"):

> In the realm of genius, might the “Raphael without hands” — the term understood in its broadest sense — be not the exception, but the rule? — Genius is perhaps not so rare after all: but the five hundred hands it needs to tyrannize the καιρὁς, “the right time” — to seize chance by the scruff of the neck! [0]

[0] http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB/JGB-274 (translated from German)