[ItCouldBeWorse]

They mythos of the genius is riding on the long coat tails of the post-worldwar research/coldwar researchers, where there were hard, cold result deadlines. Todays genius produces "papers" about how "all the low hanging fruits are gone" - as if what was archieved back then was easy because its today served in easy to diggest pedagogic pieces. Then the whole research caste is now in "optimizing tasks" that basically rearrange the economy in a ever belt tightening to exclude the average joe, instead of driving developments, that increase the overall cake for society. How to say it without hurting feelings, but nothing of value was lost...

[hello_computer]

In those WWII days, you could make an acceptable living doing good research. You wouldn't become a billionaire, but you'd definitely make enough to support a family. Somewhere along the line, it became a winner-take-all gold-rush. That attracts the wrong sort of person: a bunch of miner 49ers who think they're Einstein because the system jammed a little bit of calculus into their heads before they grabbed their picks and shovels and headed west.

Here's an old, sad, joke:

What's the difference between a physicist and a large pizza? The pizza can feed a family of four.