A related problem caused by this is that the word "genius" usually gets ascribed only to people working in some specific domains (obviously ones where other "geniuses" have worked). So we end up with a world where if you do things A, B, and C amazingly well, you get called a genius, but if you do D, E, and F equally well, you are either ignored or called greedy or something else. As a consequence, a ton of young naive people who were told they were smart in school flock to fields A, B, and C, while fields D, E, and F stagnate causing all sorts of economic problems.
I wish you were right, but unfortunately I disagree.
The fields where we toss around the word "genius" like it's lettuce are all, IMO, severely undermanned and under-appreciated. Fields like physics, engineering, mathematics, atronomy, biology, music, etc. When we think "genius" names like Mozart, Einstein, Hawking, et al come to mind. I wouldn't mind if people flocked towards said fields.
Instead, we have a giant talent drain into fields where we do call people "greedy" for their participation. Investment banking, for example. The labeling of people as "greedy" hasn't stopped the deluge of people pouring into said fields, and the label of "genius" hasn't really helped the ranks of academics and artists.
I would be very delighted if indeed people flocked to a field known for "geniuses".
Ah, I was actually thinking about art and literature, not math and science. Perhaps I'm wrong (and no disrespect to artists who genuinely know their process and value hard work), but I've felt for a while that art/literature are assumed to be fields of endeavor where you can get to the point of being called a creative genius without doing all the work required for being called such in math/science and without having to detach yourself socially. I've simply seen too many bright young people take that path without quite knowing where it leads (I myself almost took it).
Regarding math and science, I do observe that academic pursuit in those fields is undervalued in social terms (in my opinion at least). Being a logical person, I conclude that it must be due to the law of supply and demand and, and that the supply (the number of average-quality science grad students) outweighs the demand. Now you can disagree with me all you want, but a lot of middle-of-the-road grad schools I've seen are depressing places filled with kids who have no idea what to do with their lives (if they did, they probably would not be in grad school at this day and age). They would probably be much better off working for a company yet seventy percent of them can't get a U.S. visa. Now most American students in their turn aren't that interested in spending six years of their young lives in classes and labs filled with people who speak mostly Mandarin, for example, so they don't go into STEM fields either.
I really think that the practice of U.S. graduate schools to make money off foreign students without offering them visas that allow for U.S. employment is something downright awful. Either give the graduates U.S. employment/visas or don't let them into the country in the first place. I'm leaning towards the first option.
It's all supply and demand. More people joining a particular field does not mean higher prestige to people who are already there -- often it's quite the opposite.
