Quote:
Originally Posted by mike_bike_kite
I'm not sure I'd find it particularly enlightening talking with actors though I'm sure they have great stories to tell. Politicians certainly don't fall into the "enlightened thinkers of our time" category either - I'd probably pay not to sit at the same table! Astronauts are certainly brave and would have fascinating stories but again, I don't think that makes them great thinkers.
To attend the next conference in Vancouver costs roughly $7500 + hotel bills + travel. I don't need to be a genius to know that's a bit steep to hope that some of their genius might rub off.
|
To answer your post in no particular order:
1. If your definition of "great" thinker is so limited as to exclude all actors, politicians and astronauts, I think that might be your issue in finding "great" thinkers. That said, even excluding those people, you will find there are multitude of philosophers, scientists, economists, policy analysts and artists that would fit most reasonable definitions of great thinkers. Many of these people have also done Reddit AMAs.
2. A few great thinkers off the top of my head: Stephen Hawkings, Stephen Pinker, Daniel C. Dennett, Ray Kurzweill, Noam Chomski, Tim Berners-Lee, Richard Dawkins, Larry Page, Sergey Brin, Garry Kasparov, Margaret Attwood, Marvin Minsky, Douglas Hofstadter, Thomas Friedman, Freeman Dyson and Craig Venter. I think I said 10, but I thought I would throw in a few bonus individuals in case any on my list had died without me noticing.
3. My comment on the TED Talks conference was more to show that there are venues for great thinkers that are like the Salon, even if I don't think it's that necessary to leave your house to access a lot of these people.
4. It doesn't really matter what your definition of "literacy" is. It's a simple matter of probability: Someone in the heyday of the salon would have to have both a brilliant mind and find themselves in a situation where they also have a basic level of literacy. If we assume that there are as many potential great minds being born today as then (a very conservative assumption given the greater population today), there will be more of those people who are exposed to at least a basic level of literacy and more of those that will have the high level of literacy you seem to be looking for.
Of course, I would argue that, for many great thinkers, a basic level of literacy is sufficient (e.g., Marvin Minsky). Stephen Hawking may not be classically well-read, but it would be difficult to say that his discoveries (e.g. Hawking Radiation) don't result in him being considered to have a great mind.
In any event, an 80% effective literacy rate (assuming 1 in 5 having reading problems) is still far better than it was back when the salons were running. Enough anyway to make sure those potentially brilliant minds get the nourishment they need.
5.
BONUS: Just as an aside, there's good evidence that people, as a group, are getting smarter not stupider (e.g., the Flynn Effect). There's no reason to think that in any group of people there will be fewer brilliant thinkers today than yesterday given the general rise of intelligence.