>all of the great men of the past learned and contributed

>>9355375
All the low hanging fruit have been picked. I can't do real, new physic discoveries in a fucking attic anymore.

>>9355383
>All the low hanging fruit have been picked. I can't do real, new physic discoveries in a fucking attic anymore.
The great men of history are still a handful out of millions who could see the truth. Stop pretending you could accomplish the things they did if you were in their position. If you were truly intelligent you could make contributions.

>>9355383

This. It was easy to be a polymath when gravity wasn't discovered yet.

I've been published in scientific journals.

My creative writing is still garbage, though.

>>9355401
What I'm saying that those achievements are barred from everyone now, no matter how smart you are. Good lack doing something in physics and chemistry without a multi-million dollar lab and a few assistants.

I'm not underrating the genius of our greater past polymaths, I'm just saying that their model can't be really followed productively in this society, and it was barely worth doing in past societies too: most polymaths' contributions were limited when compared to their full-time peers (although here I'm not considering the personal enrichment that stems from the mastery of more than one craft).

It's all gone, my friend.

Because I have to work for a living

>>9355440
And yet people still defend capitalism.

>>9355475
Technology is so advanced that only a small percentage of the population needs to work. 40 hour work weeks for the majority are only a thing to keep people stupid and to fuel a consumerist, service-based society.

The mass of information there is to learn is just so much greater now. In the past someone could feasibly grasp pretty much all of human knowledge, but now, in any field, the information density already known is so high that the only hope for any productive progress is to deeply specialize in one incredibly specific aspect of the field.

>>9355475
Polymaths can exist in capitalism, they just have to be born rich.

>>9355375
>tfw have to choose between superficial knowledge in many fields or deep knowledge in a specialized subset of one field

This is why we need to develop immortality.

>>9355475
where to even begin with this you cretin

>>9356384

Maybe you can start by providing him a well formed counter.

File: 2010-02-24-determinism.png (422KB, 588x819px) Image search: [Google]

422KB, 588x819px

>>9355375
i only got knowledge on chemistry and bio, not so much math.

File: 1490989452547.jpg (58KB, 699x485px) Image search: [Google]

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>>9355539

>>9355375
Let's play role reversal for a second. I doubt these nerds would have contributed even a fraction of what they did if they had unlimited access to internet porn and anime.

Because nowadays you have as much information in one field that you had combined from all the sciences hundreds of years ago, it's literally impossible to keep up with everything in depth.
You see this from the greatest experts of particular fields, they have glaring ignorance regarding even the basics of other fields, they simply don't have the time required to explore everything when they have to "publish or die".