Why should society accommodate "the gifted" instead of the other way around? Highly talented individuals almost intrinsically less in need of society's assistance.
I want a poor, black child with outstanding talent to be able to have that talent identified, nurtured, developed, and maximized. Based on what I see in my fairly progressive town (Cambridge, MA), I don’t think we’ve gotten to even this basic level of equality of opportunity.
It is not about society’s accommodation/assistance of specifically the gifted but rather about ensuring that people of all conditions can develop their potential. Society should care about this because it’s the long-term flywheel that improves the human condition.
The pie can get bigger, too. It’s not just about dividing a fixed pie most evenly.
I agree on the basics, but society provides 2 things: a very comfortable salary to get good and services, but even more important than that: it alleges boredom
The practical world is full of interesting problems. Gifted humans need to really feel useful (to put their gift at use) more than they need the matching income.
there's a lot of evidence in the open source community that people don't necessarily need to be paid (a lot or at all) to do work they find interesting. it's great that some people are willing to do this, but I don't think it's fair in general for society to benefit from the work and have the only reward be the satisfaction of a job well done, unless the people doing the work are okay with that.
furthermore, there may be a lot of overlap between useful/important and interesting work, but I doubt they map perfectly. there probably needs to be some material reward for important work so that it gets done even if it's boring.
I certainly don't think we have a great state of affairs today. some people get paid huge amounts of money to do work that I feel is harmful. imo the goal should be to take care of everyone's basic needs, but also to reward people proportionately for their contribution to society.
The alternative is that you end up with nonsense like hungry grads working at FAANG to fuck the world.
Channeling people into useful pursuits pays dividends.