We almost certainly have 1,000 Einsteins and 1,000 Mozarts alive today. A relevant quote from 1979:
“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.”
I remember a talk by a Microsoft VP who said that a very optimistic estimate would be that we were using human intelligence and creativity at maybe 5% efficiency. The actual number is likely much lower than that.
That is pseudo science and a really stupid take. Our brain is expensive as fuck since the moment of conception, born realy early and mostly under developed because of Our fucking big head. The whole evolution says that we animals use it or loose it, let that be tails, guils or brain power.
If we didnt use the whole brain it would be cut off for efficiency.
Mind the context, we are talking about how little our society is capitalizing on the abilities of people, not on some stupid “we only use 10% of our brain” take
Maybe the quote wasn’t about the brain, but about human resource management, which would make more sense in the context here?
I’ve heard both Melon Husk and Lil’ Jeffy Kisses repeat this sentiment. Where do they even get their figure? Something like 120 billion humans have existed, ever, and there has been only one Einstein and one Mozart. 1/120B * 1T = 8.5.
Factor in the widespread nutritional and medical resource shortages that would come along with one trillion humans, and I’m confident that number would drop to zero.
It seems to be that we’d be better off ensuring the future of humanity and focusing on science. Surely it would be quicker to experiment with genetics to grow an Einstein than it would be to implement a trillion-human breeding lottery hoping to find one.
You know we already probably have a bunch of Mozarts and Einsteins peeing in bottles to avoid getting dinged while driving Amazon Prime trucks because that’s the only way they can get by.
They’re almost certainly is a bunch of geniuses who were never appreciated because they spend their entire lives trying to get food and water because they were unfortunate enough to be born into Ethiopia. We could feed and house and educate these people if we really wanted to, to the benefit of not just themselves, but the entire species if they did turn out to be the next Einstein. Instead the likes of Jeff Bezos go on podcasts and talk about how wonderful the distant future is going to be, while at the same time being utterly unprepared to do anything about the problems we have right now.
Is space Karen actually paid his taxes we probably could build a base on Mars with that money.
By that… We all live in Ethiopia. Compared to what could be, without the crooks and their rigged game holding us down
[and telling us they’re our saviours, when they let us up for a bit of air, or take credit for making us strong when we manage to struggle for a gasp by ourselves].
I have to bite my tongue anytime someone mentions getting one or two day shipping. Like, you’re not going to die if you don’t get your RAM tomorrow ffs.
I legitimately would be okay with an “it gets to you within a month” option.
Look at moneybags here, able to afford RAM.
It’s not the next day delivery that’s the problem Amazon could totally offer that and not abuse their workforce. It would just cost them some more money so they don’t do it.
It wouldn’t cost them money, they would just make slightly less money per year. Which is just me being pedantic, but it matters in these contexts.
Like, Bezos could have been the most loved billionaire on the entire earth, just through treating his workers slighty better and some minor philanthropy on the side, but no, he had to squeeze every fuckin penny out of everything.
That’s a bit pedantic. It currently is an issue and Amazon isn’t going to change anytime soon.
I legitimately would be okay with an “it gets to you within a month” option.
This is pretty much how all my Aliexpress orders go. Works for me.
Think about how many Einsteins and Mozarts all over the world who he and the other billionaires have killed through their policies and greed
Well said.
I tried say that too but probably got lost in my verbose rant.
We already have a 1000 mozarts but half of them are starving right now and then out of the other half 80% couldnt pursue their dreams
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.
- Steven Jay Gould
Look some the poors are going to die however that is just the price we all have to pay to make sure the rest of the Epstein Class continues to hoard wealth.
Ramanujan died at 33 because of an impoverished childhood.
And Bezos is pushing for genAI, so they will be pushed out by genAI slop.
Did you guys know it’s possible to be rich and also just shut the fuck up?
Yeah, we don’t see e.g. the heads of the BIS etc swanning around doing the fauxlanthropist whitewashing bit on the podcast circuit.
I haven’t heard that term before. Gonna mentally bookmark that.
he was literally on a podcast talking about Blue Origin and a distant future where humans have colonized multiple planets
Most billionaires are the scums of the world, hording the wealth and spending it on stupid stuff while his employees who do the actual work get little to no credit and are payed much less.
mostYeah. If anyone can propose an exception, I will show them an example of effective image whitewashing.
The only reason ghouls like Bezos want a bigger population is because they want more people to exploit, especially artists and scientists.
Stories like these from people like these are always delivered through the lens of what’s best for business. This is propaganda.
Also lack of genuine self-awareness on their own true intentions. To them, being greedy is so ingrained they can’t see it as a hazard to themselves until its too late.
We very literally already have 1000 Motzarts and 1000 Einsteins. They are poor and working in your wearhouses and have no means or free time to pursue the fields they would accel in.
Pay your taxes Jeff.
They literally could not give a fuck if there’s a Mozart out there.
This is the same shit that happened with Nazis. They decided that classical art is the only “real” art and anything that was modern at the time was “degenerate art”.
https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-24819441
They want people that worship the traditional art that fuels nationalism, like Greek statues that are bleached white. They like the idea of classical art, that a perfect homogeneous society existed before them that they can re-achieve.
They hate all varieties of modern art because it’s either hard to understand, or it might even conflict with their nationalism.
They want to dip their toes into what they think art should be, not embrace what it is.
Imagine how many more Mozarts and Einsteins we could have if we removed barriers like poverty and hunger and allowed everyone to have a fair shot at life.
Exactly this
We have so much untapped potential in the world because of the system he is a product of. The vast majority of people have to spend most of their time and effort on general survival. There’s diminishing amounts of time and effort that average Joe can actually spend on intellectual and artistic pursuits orthogonal to their source of income. Hell, just fucking having hobbies is becoming a bit of a privileged position in 2026, which is frankly a desolate place we’ve managed to take civilisation.
And if we cooperated instead of antagonizing each other (which happens under this capitalist system) we could probably collectively achieve even more than 1000 “mozarts” could do
See, that’s the thing these guys don’t want to understand. There could be a thousand generational talents like that "right fucking now*, who have these enormous gifts and won’t ever be able to realize them because they gotta go to their third job so they don’t fall behind on rent AGAIN.
Your Uber driver might be a virtuosic violin player who’s never realized it because he’s never had the opportunity to try. The cashier at Taco Bell might be an amazing painter, who can’t afford to paint because every last cent has to go to one bill or another. That kid in Ghana you’re watching on the TV charity commercial might be the next talent in rocketry or physics or poetry or any of a dozen other fields if they had a shot.
I know a guy who draws absolutely beautiful sketches, and having seen some of the paintings he “dabble with”, I’m positive he could make some amazing things.
Unfortunately, all he gets to do is small sketches in his down time, because he works two jobs and has 2 kids.
Imagine how many people have an ideas for something that would make tons of people’s lives better, but they can’t work on it because they have to go to work and all their energy is spent just trying not to become a statistic…
It’s so nice to see other people with this sentiment. Even at a young age I always thought it was a little silly for only rich people to have “the best” education when there are people out there who can’t follow their passions or dreams because of various things.
So nice to see, thank you for pointing it out!
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But. Then we’d have no Elon Musks or Jeff Bezos’s or Jeffrey Epsteins… Surely you don’t want healthcare that bad, right??
No no no, just make endless people living in poverty and maybe a gentleman can pick up a child prodigy here and there
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I’m certain if I hadn’t fought depression and sucidial thoughts for the most part of my life I’d be in a better position now.
Yep. So much wasted human potential.
Fuck billionaires, and their rigged game.
modern einstein is trying to develop new ways to keep people hooked on a social media scroll. modern mozart is producing kpop or playing jazz/fusion in some club where they make $40 a night and then dying broke (like allan holdsworth).
but it’s true that most great brains probably never develop properly because the system tries its hardest to keep them stupid and in poverty.
the modern media landscape is all nepo babies and what does it get you? it gets you fuck all; everything is pathetic from top to bottom in every single artform but we’re acting like shit is normal.
God, remember when actors were expected to be able to dance and sing as well as act?
A bygone age, where polymathy was still more the norm, before the corporation separated us into maximal-bar-one ignorance, of “specialisation”,
and (I recently read, in the new book I’m reading) they lopped off the latter half of the expression “jack of all trades, master of none” [something like, “… is more often better than a master of one.”],
and they convinced us the specialists were the “experts”, the sages of the enlightenment, the wise ones with superior knowledge. … All the while they’re one step away from maximal ignorance.
I wonder how much better acting (and all “professions”/skills) could be, with a broader range of skills beside.
You got me wanting to go listen to more soffmi muhod, boc, or autechre.
I know, not really the point you were making… but yeah… lets go find more of these mozarts, who, whether still obscure, or found their niche audience, retain their creative integrity, despite the economic pressures. … Oh that we could each be so. Or that we’d not even need be.
How many Mozarts and Einsteins are pissing in bottles in your warehouses, Jeff?
To put it another way: we don’t need a trillion people to find more Master Artists and Master Scientists, we need more Equality of Opportunity and a system that rewards Art and Science, both the very opposite what has made this “gentleman” as rich as he is, of what he promotes with his own words and using the parts of Press he bought and what he tells the politicians he has in this pocked to do.
He is literally one of the biggest individual forces pushing away from the very outcome he claims to want.
The hypocrisy of this asshole and others like him is mind-boggling.
They would say none, because Einstein made it out of the patent office and if you’re still stuck in the patent office, you aren’t Einstein. Brilliance must always rise to the top. Bezos is at the top, so in his mind he’s brilliant. In his mind, there’s no world where he isn’t who he is today.
Remember there’s no empathy or understanding.
The ironic thing is that Einstein would disagree with Bezos and Einstein is his example of the worlds smartest man.
We probably already have thousands of them out there but they never recieved the education they would have needed to unlock their potential and or are too busy surviving in abject poverty to contribute to the advancement of humanity.
Because shitheads like him hoard all the money and do everything they can so others around them are stuck in the poverty trap so they can use them as cheap, desperate and exploitable labor.