[JumpCrisscross]

No discovery depends solely on one person. The example illustrates the mechanics in the last line.

Fringe elements are analogous to a society's surface. They, by definition, interact with novel elements and ideas at a higher rate than population.

Internal interactions exchange information. That distributes information (physical and intellectual). It also increases entropy and thus homogeneity. Conductivity (the term of art is legibility [1]) and complexity are at odds with one another.

Ceteris paribus, internal homogeneity shouldn't change the surface. But humans have agency. Homogeneity precedes conformity which drives more homogeneity. Furthermore, less diversity means fewer novel opportunities/interactions between the fringe and the unknown.

Privacy preserves a diversity of fringes which drives social complexity. A society without privacy is simpler, and thus less capable of innovation, than one with it. (There is obviously an upper bound to this phenomenon. A perfectly opaque system is static. But humans, as social creatures, resist isolation more naturally than conformity.)

[1] https://publications.aston.ac.uk/id/eprint/27204/1/Linked_da...