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The thing is our bandwidth is limited and we allocate it differently now. However, not all replacements are beneficial and adding external dependencies adds points of failure.

Challenging yourself is conscious decision. Make choices to challenge yourself, and don't build an echo chamber.

As I recall Socrates was put to death by the ancient Athenians for "corrupting the youth" by encouraging them to be critical of dogma.

Hah, as if people 2000 years ago were more open to challenging ideas.

It's remarkable what some 200,000 people (maybe fewer?) in ancient Athens were apparently able to come up with.[1]

They even did pretty well with computing with the Antikythera mechanism and its predecessors; though, like Babbage, they were limited by the manufacturing technology of the day.

[1] https://www.worldhistory.org/article/1165/ancient-greek-inve...

Not sure this is a representative sample of "people 2000 years ago".