Arguably, the advances we have now in modern day is because we have generally decided that everyone should be able to read, write, do arithmetic. Now we have a massive funnel (the entire generation) to do innovation. This is a much larger pool than was possible with a very narrow subset of the population capable of these things.

We also know that stress and poverty actually reduce the brain's capacity to think, and even moreso, a child who suffers from stress/hunger/general poverty has a stunted brain development due to exposure to stress in their formative years. So, naturally, we can say that not having systematic stressors like hunger, economic insecurity, health concerns, etc. would lead people to have greater capacity for wonderful things.

In a making stuff up sense, you can fit near any narrative you want to near any set of data about our history. Consider, used to be there was literally nothing to do for the majority of the day/night for folks. Yes, you could tend the garden and such, but that was done before sun was fully overhead or you would suffer exposure symptoms. You could watch the herds, but that was mostly passive, for mostly the same reasons.

With that narrative, many scientists in history were not people that didn't have to do some of these boring things. They were people that filled their free time with experimentation and other observations.

Of course, that is just one narrative to fit to the data. I'm sure there are others. But it is not just incumbent on one side to give evidence. Can you point to evidence that free time is not beneficial? Observationally, as a parent, forcing my kids to have boring free time has led to them doing/learning as much as forcing them to productive learning time. (Indeed, I've grown sympathetic to the argument that productive learning time often isn't either of its claims. )

The inventor in a shed is a well trodden meme. Pre 20th century most science seems to have been done by rich amateurs. The most interesting blogs I've come across are just interested amateurs trying things out.

I'm not sure there's a linear relationship between free time and scientific progress, but people need free time to scratch their itches, and sometimes this itches progress our understanding of the world.

The entire open source software ecosystem?

Yeah,

I like our world isn't wonderful as is.

Imagine what a peasant from 300 years ago would think seeing what their work would be value at today.

Its peanuts in our perspective, but not starving is a start, eating meat would be a luxury, being able to see a doctor.

Hating ourselves is trending right now, sad.

I would certainly hope that 300 years of techonological progress would offer the basics to a "peasant".

I believe the peasant's king would be just as astonished.

Do you think our world isn't incredible, and by far the best a human could ever hope for so far?

> by far the best a human could ever hope for so far?

Wow. I am without words.

All I can say is, some people have bigger imaginations than others and being a slave to capital is not always paradise.

The bit about the king completely misses the point. Again, I would hope that in 300 years, technological progress UNDER ANY SYSYTEM would afford "miracles" in the eyes of kings or peasants. jfc.