/lit/ - Literature

>>17963721
They were super rare back then anyway. I bet some do now though, we just don’t know about them.

>>17963721
Capitalism

>>17963750
So you agree we should move back to feudalism?

>>17963721
Capitalism encourages extreme specialization for monetary gain if you wish to innovate and create
The complexity of the problems we have today also makes it even harder, there is so much more knowledge and depth in every field it's absurd. There are examples of crossfield jobs, some people will study a variety of topics to help a field, but they are now just another part of a machine and will rarely stand out on their own.

>>17963757
Butters is right though. Ask why if you don't understand.

Great men are not simply born as they are. They are born with capacities and dispositions that have to be cultivated properly in order for them to flourish. What does that require? A society and culture that is conducive to such development. Unfortunately we live in a society that corrupts people rather than betters them, and so great men are extremely rare, and of course, good or decent men in general are also rare.

>>17963721
Fields are deeper.
>>17963750
>>17963769
>>17963771
Stupid.

>>17963757
The drawbacks are great, so no, we shouldn’t even want to return to that, but a series of autonomous democratic neighborhoods with a free economy would bring about something that might just look like the medieval age. Sans monarchs. Who needs such madmen? No one.

>>17963721
They do! Haven’t you heard of Dark Academia?

>>17963771
I do agree with her, I’m saying we need to restore aristocracy in institutions that capitalism stripped away.

>>17963786
What a dumb notion. He’s not asking why there aren’t “Renaissance men” anymore

>>17963790
>Sans monarchs
Impossible.

>>17963757
Yes.

The polymaths were the ones pushing the boundaries of knowledge. Now, people are specialized and can only think making bigger televisions, more fuel efficient cars, efficiently tracking, storing, and accessing data, making robots to do wagie work, how to end make pattern baldness and plastic surgery, chopping males' dicks off, and making butt plugs and dildos that hit your p-spot juuuuust right.

>>17963803
No no no. Life is impossible with a ruling class. We’ve seen it multiple ways over multiple centuries. We stop doing that or we die. That’s what it’s come to.

Implying Elon Musk doesn’t exist

>>17963721
1. Capitalism and the culture of hyper-specialization
2. Individual fields are so advanced and intricate that now it is hard to understand many fields on the level required to be a polymath.

The best you can do nowadays is to take a STEM degree in a natural science and read literature, poetry, philosophy, history, etc. on the side.

>>17963817
The only time it happened was in some pre agricultural groups.

>>17963802
You don't even know who terence tao is dumb commie bitch.
>>17963817
Burning nigger rubble.

>>17963721
Increasing specialization because everything is so focused on quantity and function rather than quality and meaning.

This isn't bad though. Most famous artists, mathematicians, and scientists who actually made a mark were complete autists at everything else in life (see Mozart and Newton) apart from a few edge cases such as Wagner and Aristotle.

>>17963801
We can't go back, we must be cautious going forward.

>>17963811
idiocracy core

>>17963786
I literally agreed with you in my second point

>>17963823
He is a good businessman no polymath. He hires specialists.

>>17963817
>We stop doing that or we die
Ah, fucking duh. But people are idiots. And there's always going to be one person with enough ambition and skill willing to take power for himself.

>>17963811
based

They do.

>>17963826
It can happen again now. It has to if you want humanity to survive.

>>17963845
>one person who can overpower 30,000,000
It’s about maturity. It’s possible.

>>17963901
Who's that dude?

butterflys tits. my mouth. now.

>>17963908
One cat is stronger than 50 mice.

>>17963908
Not physically, of course, retard. But they know how to play the game of diplomacy and mob mentality to their advantage. That's all it takes, really. It's a mental thing. Anyone could have beat the living shit out of Stalin. Why didn't they?

>>17963817
>Life is impossible with a ruling class. We’ve seen it multiple ways over multiple centuries.
Such as? desu this sounds like generic shizo-anarchist larping, but I'd be curious to hear your reasoning.

>>17963908
>It can happen again now. It has to if you want humanity to survive.
No your gay system of abolishing borders and hierarchy will just get some African/Russian/Arab warlord to conquer Europe because they weren’t retards who abolished the state.

>>17963922
Fifty-one cats. Stronger this way.

>>17963937
Read Stirner yet?

>>17963951
What we see is endless rising and falling of states, kingdoms, empires, “civilizations”, and endless whining and pining for what “we’ve lost” with their passing. But no tears for those that suffered the actual burdens they caused and still cause today.
Like a pane of glass, they last a time, but they’re fragile and they break. Anarchism proposes we go with the beach instead. Unbreakable, malleable, natural.

>>17963967
In stages. No one wants to invade your town. Calm your bitchtits

>>17963744
If they were geniuses we would know about them

>>17964041
No, we are squandering them in debt slavery and poisoning them.

>>17964015
>Read Stirner yet?
What does that have to do with whether or not a person can take power. Most people refuse to view the world as someplace where they can do whatever they want, you should be aware of that fact. And those kind of people far outnumber the "free thinkers" of the world. Those are the kind of people that allowed for society to progress to the sorry state you see now. The only option is to keep going.

>>17963721
Breakthroughs come about through minds which are genius holistically and are capable of applying universal laws to particular domains. Modern men do not understand this and instead focus on hyper-specialization. This means that men of true brilliance are gatekept out of sharing their ideas or gaining the education necessary to work in a particular domain.

>>17964055
Most people have enough free time to do something productive

>>17963721
Because everything is infinitely more complex and extensive than it was in history when one Italian or one persian can become the foremost mind in multiple subjects

>>17964134
No. Most strongly, NO.

>>17963811
>how to end make pattern baldness
This is important faggot. Solving this would improve the lives of billions. Would be more beneficial to mankind than a million new songs, novels, and paintings. I genuinely believe wars, crime, and misery would diminish all over the world if this was solved

>>17963721
Kanye West is a polymath and also a good case study of how the current system is contra to those types of men.

1. people today are less intelligent
2. the intelligence requirement to be a polymath is higher
3. classical education is dead

>>17964188
Average worker in the US works 34.4 hours per week. That's more than enough time. Think about how many hours you spend posting absolute garbage on this board

>>17964222
>people today are less intelligent
Lmfao
>classical education
Genius polymaths never gave a fuck about this nonsense, thats what made them a genius. Like today, those who make novel innovations and impacts disregard the widget approved rules and paths everybody else follows

>>17964237

>>17963750
Correct. They end up working for government, military or private sector on projects under lock and key. They can never publish anything because everything they know is related to topics that can't be discussed with the public. No time to work on their own projects. Then they die after working 12 hours a day, 7 days a week, ~360 days a year.

>>17964237
Cope. Since the industrial revolution, the relationship between intelligence and fertility has reversed. We've gotten significantly dumber as a result. Classical education is obviously a huge benefit to anyone lucky enough to receive it. Just compare it with modern education. A student who under the modern education system would not have even begun learning a second language could already know two or three.

>>17964227
It's not enough time if you want to rest and relax and eat properly and exercise properly and everything else and all dependant on the type of work whether it's physical or mental or both. Bear in mind also that the potential polymaths are likely working longer than average and in more exhaustive occupations.

>>17964280
Or they don’t even get schooling

>>17964313
>Since the industrial revolution, the relationship between intelligence and fertility has reversed. We've gotten significantly dumber as a result.

>>17964345
Most people who say this play video games for 6 hours a day and waste their weekends and act like they don't have enough time

>>17964313
>>Since the industrial revolution, the relationship between intelligence and fertility has reversed. We've gotten significantly dumber as a result.
You're retarded. The majority of people didn't even have enough daily nutrition and early education needed in order for their brains to fully develop properly until the most recent century

>>17964487
The Flynn effect masks an underlying decrease in general intelligence.
>A closer look at the process allows us to make sense of it. The most important point is that the Flynn Effect has not been found to be occurring equally on all of the different parts of the IQ test. So, a representative Dutch male sample made gains of 0.6 IQ points per decade between 1952 and 1982. They made these gains on the Raven’s test. This test measures fluid intelligence; that is solving problems purely via abstract reasoning without any prior knowledge. The Wechsler test is far broader. It measures both fluid intelligence and crystallised intelligence, where you do have to draw upon prior knowledge. The only Wechsler sub-test which showed similar gains to Ravens was the ‘similarities’ test. This is the test where you have to classify things. For example, you might be given a list of animals and have to select the one that is not a mammal. So, in fact, IQ scores were not rising in general but only on very specific kinds of ability.[6]

>As we have seen, people who perform well on one kind of IQ test—for example, one that measures mathematical intelligence—also do well on all the others. As such, we conclude that there is a general factor underpinning ability in all of these different intelligence tests and we call this ‘general intelligence’. However, analyses of the Flynn Effect in many countries show that it is not occurring on the highly g-loaded sub-tests. In fact, the Flynn Effect is occurring most strongly on the least g-loaded parts of the test. In other words, the Flynn Effect is not a rise in general intelligence. This is a point which Jim Flynn has emphasised in his book on the Flynn Effect, Are We Getting Smarter? The Flynn Effect involves a rise in very specific abilities that are weakly associated with general intelligence. These seem to be specialised abstract reasoning skills that relate to the ability to use classification, in other words thinking in a scientific and analytical way.[8]

>But, if that is the case, how can this possibly lead to massive IQ gains? The answer is quite simple. If people became dramatically better at an ability that is only weakly associated with intelligence then this would be reflected in their overall IQ score, causing their IQ score to increase. Therefore, if they were sufficiently strong in this ability (or a small set of abilities) then it could be more than enough to lead to them achieving a very high IQ score despite the fact that there had been no increase in their general intelligence. Indeed, their general intelligence might have decreased, but the massive increase in specific abilities could be enough to not only hide this decrease but show, overall, a huge increase. This would be entirely in line with the fact that the increases are only on certain specific parts of the IQ test and that these are typically the least g-loaded parts of the test.

>>17964533
>yes let me copy paste the one part of the Wikipedia page that supports my retarded view(and not even fully at that if it would be compared to premodern populations) and ignore everything else
Damn

>>17964518
>The majority of people didn't even have enough daily nutrition and early education needed in order for their brains to fully develop properly until the most recent century
Do people actually believe this bullshit? No wonder everyone is so far up their own ass when it's believed 20th century man has evolved to a state far surpassing all of history.

>>17964533
>The Flynn effect masks an underlying decrease in general intelligence
There is zero evidence of this, even in your wikipedia copy. It states that it may mask a decrease if it existed if one was to only measure the small amount of concepts iq tests are applicable for

>>17964560
>Do people actually believe this bullshit?
Yes because I actually studied the development of French agriculture in relation to improving organizational techniques and technology you stupid fucking faggot. You can see the effects on every single aspect of the physical body. Everything grew in strength and health from the 15th to 20th centuries

>>17963721
It's because the sum of all knowledge today exceeds by far the capacity of one human intelligence, even the highest

>>17964518
Yes, malnutrition likely prevented some of the lower class from reaching their maximum potential intelligence, but among those who did have access to adequate nutrition, some attained a peak higher than that which is achieved today- giving rise to polymaths like leibniz, da vinci, etc.
>>17964550
>yes let me copy paste an image with no context
Damn

>>17964582
>attained a peak higher than that which is achieved today
Give evidence
>like leibniz, da vinci, etc.
Give evidence that the physical development that led to these people was unique to them and not reproduced x10000 in the modern world, only their effects are different because its not the fucking 15th century. There are millions of da vinci teir geniuses alive right now. You don't see them as "da vinci" and they don't produce "Renaissance man" shit because its the 21st century where the cultural and societal development changed their impact and life pursuits

>>17964565
There's a lot of evidence, including genetic evidence.
>In this study, his team identified a large number of genetic variants which collectively predicted both educational attainment and g. They called this set of variants POLYEDU (polygenic score for educational attainment). The team investigated the effect of this polygenic score on the reproductive history of 109,120 Icelanders and the impact of this history on the Icelandic gene pool over time. They demonstrated that those who had higher POLYEDU had delayed reproduction and had fewer children than did Icelanders carrying lower POLYEDU. So far this result is somewhat consistent with those of the previously discussed studies that used polygenic scores for educational attainment to predict fertility outcomes. However, Kong and his team went one step further. Based on a sample of 129,808 Icelanders born between 1910 and 1990, they found that the average POLYEDU—the average percentage of the population with genes that predict high educational attainment—had been declining at a rate of roughly 0.010 standard units per decade, which, they noted, ‘is substantial on an evolutionary timescale’. They added that ‘because POLYEDU only captures a fraction of the overall underlying genetic component the latter could be declining at a rate that is two to three times faster.’

>>17964601
It's not only culture and society that's changed, so have genes. The genes that give rise to a genius aren't as likely to assemble themselves into a single person as they were in the past, owing both to an overall decline in the frequency of these genes and a decline in the tendency for assortative mating within a given social class.

>>17964206
>Kanye West is a polymath

>>17964645
>musician, author, architect, poltical theorist, philosopher, comedian, theologist

>>17964659

>>17964578
Then why is there no 21st century Plato.

>>17964664
>current system is contra to those types of men.
You are the last man

>>17964671
People like plato is like putting an adult in a room full of children. The production of them was rarer and the already existing knowledge in all subjects was minimal so when they appeared the made a greater impact. Drop plato in the world today and he'll probably be an unknown professor in a middling university working on some autistic minimal topic

>>17963721
There are a lot less "easy" discoveries and innovation to be made now.

Also lots of easy contentment and wikipedia articles to dull the drive to diversify.

>>17963721
Real answer: they picked all the low hanging fruit. The first few explorers to visit an unknown island are going to make all kinds of great discoveries. Explorer number #95823 to that island will be lucky to find a new kind of pond scum.
Most of the historic people praised as great men of staggering genius in their field would be unexceptional scholars if they had to start today when everything's already been picked over and rummaged through by thousands if not millions of other minds. This goes for mathematics, athletics, anthropology, and most other parts of the cursed institution known as academia.

>>17963721
The amount of knowledge contained in a field like physics or mathematics is orders of magnitude larger than it was in the 16th century, but the human lifespan has barely increased at all. A single life is too short to comprehensively master even a single field of natural philosophy, not to mention many different fields. Because of how large these fields are now, a differrent kind of person is attracted to them/selected for them. For example, Einstein complained about how distasteful it was to "cram his head full of theorems" in preparation for university exams and spent a whole year not thinking about physics at all after he graduated. That sort of work ethic is not possible in the 21st century if you want to be successful in academia

>>17964041
They won't be recognized unless they outdo every genius and regular hard worker born before them.

>>17964041
Then why doesn’t anybody know about me? I am literally the smartest person on this board. No, this planet.

>>17964194
t. balding faggot lol

>>17963744
>They were super rare back then anyway
The world's population during the Renaissance was much smaller than it is today, and yet it produced more geniuses than we have today.

>>17963721
because using hindsight to identify great men from long ago is about a million times easier than identifying current great men whomst've impact has not been contextualized yet

or theres none, ask again in like 40 years ill have a better answer proly

>>17964988
>produced more geniuses than we have today.
Wrong. I bet there are more geniuses just in the city of London than there was in the entire world of the 15th century

they're wasting their time on consumerism and social media

Specialization. Obviously. There's a penalty for being a polymath in the modern age. The system wants you to specialize in one very narrow thing.

>>17963721
because of many things OP. it cant be pinpointed to one thing like >>17963750
North korea doesn't produce great art does it?

>>17963721
Looking for great men huh. Look to silicon valley, look to big tech.

>>17965400
>Jew suckerberg
>Bill “vaccination final destination” gates
>great men

>>17963721
The less knowlege the easier it is to possess more of the knowlege relatively speaking. Also the past is a fat tailed distribution. You're comparing a short period of time (the present) with hundreds of years. As time goes by the probability of a genius showing up approaches one, even though on any given year the probability is comparatively much lower.

There are going to be more 1 in a million (or 100 million) people born over a period of hundreds of years versus a recent decade.

they do, they're just women now

>>17963721
They got to live in verandas and walk to hang out with their buddies. They got to absorb multiple worlds of their surrounding culture. Most of the renaissance was one cohort on one street. Wish I remembered the article that had the contemporaries meta analysis and biographic. Point is you live in a concrete jungle pressed for time surrounded by operation task specialists penalized for stepping one mote out of step. That is why you are being smothered in abstract but feeling the pressure.

>>17963721
They do, they are just not of the hypermodern worldcurrent, and hence do not stand out.

To the vulgus, and to the average Zoomer, an ingenious eminence is a Zionist useful nerd, and/or a crusty loungedwelling rodent that academically specializes in sophistry.