On my deathbed, as the burial site at Westminster Abbey is being prepared, and a weeping Nobel delegation bother me at my 12-bedroom Highgate estate with still another prize, I will spare one last thought for the species. What about people below the genius threshold? How is society to look after the merely very competent?
I ask because the world is in danger of over-rewarding an inspired few. The best AI researchers and engineers can name their price as companies vie to hoard talent. Sam Altman talks of “crazy intense comp for a very small number of people right now”. Something similar is going on in finance and law. There is no longer much squeamishness about admitting the uneven distribution of talent. Woke, with its flattening ethos, has ebbed, and unions are weak in the most advanced industries.
At this point, the moral custom is to worry about people with the fewest marketable skills. But it is not as if the world was treating them well before. The real news is the fallen status of those just a notch or two down from the most sought-after. Will someone not speak up for the quite good?