Alterative hypothesis: the reason we see fewer artistic geniuses is a result of the winner-takes-all nature of the arts. Before that happened at a regional level - one country had its geniuses, another country had its geniuses. Now, it happens globally. All the world's attention is on just a few people in each artistic field, and those are the ones we think of as being the geniuses. The rest, those who in earlier times would have been considered geniuses, are ignored. The Internet promised space for a fat tail of creativity, and has enabled the opposite.

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Maybe worth a small reminder that the oh-so-fabulous situation of outcasts mostly came along because outcasts in the 20th century had to be of outstanding value to others around them, or they got flat out murdered.

So maybe not all roses and sunshine for the 21st century.