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Quantifying the relative importance of "sparks" versus prevailing conditions needs an objective theory of how social and technological evolution happens and we

Quantifying the relative importance of "sparks" versus prevailing conditions needs an objective theory of how social and technological evolution happens and we are nowhere close to having that insight. It would probably have a strong dependence on the size of the system (the number of people alive) and the degree of interconnectedness in terms of information and resource flow. The smaller and more disconnected, the more the actual relevance of individual behavior. That is just a guess, though. But perpetuating in the 21st century the myth that "new industries come from crazy people" feels more of an Ayn Randian agenda than a path towards harnessing human creativity.

colechristensen 4y ago
Why quantify? Do we need to come up with a rigorous method for assigning how much fame a person ought to have based on their accomplishments? Yes, fame can be quite silly and doled out unfairly but the pushback trying to claim individuals who did trigger these paradigm shifts aren’t all that valuable is likewise silly. There is plenty of room between the extremes. Contribution is an exponential distribution, you don’t get by by cutting out the few who contribute a lot or the many who contribute a little.