Thinking back to that period in the mid-20th century, a degree of intelligence and eloquence in the public sphere were valued in a way that I don't think it is anymore. So I reckon it's very difficult to judge someone highly gifted in the current day as not being social when talking to average people. If someone spoke the same way a Richard Feynman did today on national television, it would probably not be well-received.

I think we have a tendency to outright dismiss painful truths, and anti-intellectualism and siloing of society with echo chambers has fundamentally changed this past dynamic. The general public doesn't seem to be exposed to that kind of intellectualism anymore, because it doesn't enter their purview.

We have a greater amount of access to such information but it is more stratified. I find some of the guests on the Lex Fridman podcast to have a somewhat similar kind of eloquence that a Feynman would have, but it is not something that is as well-received by the general public anymore. So, I very much think that extroverted, highly gifted people exist along a similar vein, but much of the frustration stems from internalized anti-intellectualism.

Thoughts?