So there's this mystery about why so many intellectual greats are in the past, back when the population was much lower. I wonder if part of it is this: maybe if you're one of the top ~5 people at what you do, you try much harder than if you aren't. So maybe in the past someone of some talent level was one of the top 5 at philosophy (or whatever), and that meant they tried harder to excel than a modern who's at the same talent level but who is sure that they're not the greatest modern philosopher because of all the competition.