By "not too hard in retrospect" I mean that the models are applying well-known techniques in settings where these are not obvious, but also not too surprising, e.g. where experts in that subfield will say things like "of course you'd do that" when examining the solution. (Of course, one should be careful with such self-reports, but I tend to find this believable)
If you follow maths, one can be reasonably confident that the models can now sometimes solve math problems that are "not too hard in retrospect". I don't know how substantial this particular problem was supposed to be, but it feels like it tracks?
This article said that it involved quite a bit of direct personal pressure and that his reversal was pivotal (but it may not be very accurate).
I only saw this now - huge kudos to Kontsevich for being so clear-eyed about this.
Basically I'd bet capable people are still around, only that the circumstances don't allow them to rise to the top for whatever reason.
My guess would be that nowadays many people who could bring a fresh perspective, or simply high-caliber original thinking, get either selected out/drowned out or are pushed through social and financial incentives to align there thinking towards more "mainstream" views.
I wasn't quite happy with the OPs phrasing it in terms of dom/sub dynamics, but couldn't quite put a finger on it - I think your point that it's more about social expectations and connections in general captures it pretty well!
Your dig against pick-up artists as it's stated doesn't seem to amount to much more than "these guys feel icky", which is most likely just reflecting it being low status. (There's also separately a bunch of toxic behavior related to the pick-up mindset one could rightfully criticize.)
I did not know this! And it's quite an update for me regarding Mochizuki's credibility on the matter.
I almost fully agree.
In a strict sense, the people saying that scientists losing their privilege of doing research is obviously not that big of a deal compared to all the progress are right and I think Togelius is wrong in doubling down on this.
However, it clearly won't only be the small fraction of people who are scientists who'll be affected, so taking what happens to scientists (who are relatively privileged) as indicative of how the general population will be affected paints a different picture.