[Vivtek]

Another factor people seem to underestimate consistently is that there are simply a whole lot more people today. It's much, much harder to stand out from a population of a billion or seven than the, what, few tens of thousands of literate white people that Europeans noticed in 1800?

Takeaway for me: screw standing out on a global or historical scale. Do good work and get creative and you might get lucky, but first you gotta do the good work and get creative.

[r00fus]

Agreed, I'd refine it further: "simply a whole lot more people today with easy access to knowledge". More people + more knowledge + easier access means specialization is not only encouraged, in many cases it's possible to make a living being specialized where it wasn't before.