Rare capability multiplies
Knowledge, skill, and the ability to build something the world treats as valuable and rare can make one person outweigh many. Forming such people is therefore not a luxury.
Knowledge, skill, and the ability to build something the world views as valuable and rare distinguish two people far more than most equalising stories admit. A single person who holds all three can provide far more value than another who holds none of them in usable form. In extreme cases, one such person can be worth the output of a very large number of people who cannot yet build.
That is not a claim that most people do not matter. It is a claim about formation. Societies that cannot produce rare capability at some rate will remain dependent on importing it, renting it, or doing without it. Supporting the long, difficult work of creating such people is therefore rational policy and rational culture, not elitism for its own sake.
From X
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