I think it’s worth noting that small delays in discovering new things would, in aggregate, be very impactful. On average, how far apart are the duplicate discoveries? If we pushed all the important discoveries back a couple of years by eliminating whoever was in fact historically first, then the result is a world that is perpetually several years behind our own in everything. This world is plausibly 5-10% poorer for centuries, maybe more if a few key hard steps have longer delays, or if the most critical delays happened a long time ago and were measured in decades or centuries instead.
I think it’s worth noting that small delays in discovering new things would, in aggregate, be very impactful. On average, how far apart are the duplicate discoveries? If we pushed all the important discoveries back a couple of years by eliminating whoever was in fact historically first, then the result is a world that is perpetually several years behind our own in everything. This world is plausibly 5-10% poorer for centuries, maybe more if a few key hard steps have longer delays, or if the most critical delays happened a long time ago and were measured in decades or centuries instead.