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by kevmo 67 days ago
I suspect every generation has multiple Einsteins, but they're probably getting killed in war zones or crushed under oligarchy.
3 comments

“I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein’s brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fields and sweatshops”

-Stephen Jay Gould

Nietzsche argued that genius is more frequent than we think, but that something else is missing for its realization ("the five hundred hands"):

> In the realm of genius, might the “Raphael without hands” — the term understood in its broadest sense — be not the exception, but the rule? — Genius is perhaps not so rare after all: but the five hundred hands it needs to tyrannize the καιρὁς, “the right time” — to seize chance by the scruff of the neck! [0]

[0] http://www.nietzschesource.org/#eKGWB/JGB-274 (translated from German)

Or being told on hacker news that PhDs are too easy to get and they shouldn't do science.