What I meant is that it is possible the things that Von Neumann discovered were easier to discover than anything that is still undiscovered, so new Von Neumann’s won’t be as impressive.
Sure the median ‘impressiveness’ of various discoveries might change over time but whether someone’s discoveries was 5 standard deviations above average in 1953 or 5 standard deviations above average in 2023 doesn’t seem to matter?
What I meant is that it is possible the things that Von Neumann discovered were easier to discover than anything that is still undiscovered, so new Von Neumann’s won’t be as impressive.
Why wouldn’t they be?
Sure the median ‘impressiveness’ of various discoveries might change over time but whether someone’s discoveries was 5 standard deviations above average in 1953 or 5 standard deviations above average in 2023 doesn’t seem to matter?
So we can’t have less geniuses. More people means more people above 5 standard deviations (by definition?).