this post was submitted on 19 Jun 2026
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Historical projections of population place the global population at roughly 162 million people. Let's say only .1% of the population was capable of this sort of thing. Although I think it's low and while these early Greek philosophers were certainly smart the key to their success was wealth and the ability to focus on their "craft". But I'll really lowball human intelligence
Anyway, at .1% of people that means roughly 162,000 thousand people would be capable. The number of those with resources to actually dedicate the time even smaller.
Today the world population is over 8 billion, but we'll use 8 billion. So at .1% that gives us 8 million people alive today that would be capable.
I really underestimated human intelligence, but the point is the same. We have so so many people alive today that there is certainly quite a few people capable of doing these sorts of things
That seems like a fair percentage estimate. What you're leaving out is society. The ancient Greeks, even the 99.9% dummies, were excited about philosophy and learning. Today, Joe Rogan is one of the most popular podcasts in the world and you can't throw a stick without hitting a dozen grifters proudly parroting logical fallacies while people clap. So yeah, there might be eight million people out there, but their thoughtful blog probably gets a dozen hits a month. Their world changing lecture was cancelled for being woke. Their exciting revelation they add to the conversation get overshadowed by someone yelling how great "Oh! My Balls!" was last night.
Bringing up Joe Rogan, but ignoring the estimated 1% of the global population with PhDs is a choice.
If we just counted phds that becomes 800 million people, but truthfully I think most capable of a masters would stand a good chance of doing this work.
Human intelligence is often underestimated by cynics imo
Ouch. And to follow that up with "intelligence is often underestimated by cynics imo". Simply brutal. I hate to be the one to break this too you, but having a PhD doesn't necessarily mean a person is smart. Even if it did, that 1% is sort of entirely making my above point about society.
Considering that alone suggests a rate 10 times higher than they suggested yeah.
But also don't assume education is equally distributed. Wealthy nations have higher percentages of the population with PhDs. Also let's not forget the economic factors. Many fields you at most need a masters degree for job reasons. There are a lot of capable people that stopped there to get a job