What adds to the absurdity is that an ancient spartan or dalmatian would have seen folks like Socrates as foreigners, and so people who descend from ancient Spa

What adds to the absurdity is that an ancient spartan or dalmatian would have seen folks like Socrates as foreigners, and so people who descend from ancient Spartans would have no reason to feel proud of the achievements of Greek philosophy were it not for the 20th century myth of the nation state. The situation is even worse in India. The intellectually honest account is that great people came at random from accommodating societies and cultures with the requisite technology and opportunity for those geniuses. There are countless stories of kings beheading inventors because their inventions risk offending the social order, or the gods, their pride, or some such. Just as there were in all likelihood millions of geniuses all over the world who were determined at birth to be subsistence farmers or slaves.