It takes a long languid time to think deeply. Sometimes I spend years pondering ideas and their implications. Scholars do this too, of course, but less so than in the past. They just can’t, and also do all the work of getting grants while constantly churning out pubs.

Our entire society in reality militates against this sort of extended thinking. The in itself partially explains the slowdown of interesting ideas — not just the “low-hanging fruit” hypothesis.