Thanks for sharing. I agree with @alexandra-renee, this post got real nihilist real fast.
Do you think Da Vinci sat there complaining that all food tasted the same after travelling around the world? No! Because he didn't have the means!
We have a much better set up. And what we've accomplished in the last years is amazing. The access to knowledge of the average individual in the planet has skyrocketed in the last twenty years, and still goes up as more and more people join the digital community. Humanity is going in a good direction, even when some people would like us to have our head down, stay depressed and complain around.
All I'm just saying is that we are talking about Da Vinci, a guy. Not the Da Vinci generation. See the difference? That's all that takes to write history. A single guy. I'm no historian but I'm pretty sure the average person in his time was further away from genius than now, as much as we like to romanticise old times.
You don't need to get EVERYONE to stop watching tv and doing idiotic things. You just need ONE GUY. And we have plenty of geniuses around now. A close example: how many people did BTC need to be born? A small group, probably. (Getting it running is a different deal, but the spark is what matters). How many people do we need to get to change the business model of an entire industry from oil to electricity? I'd say it's mainly one, the rest are just following.

Thanks for sharing. I'm not sure where I heard this (maybe it was Derek Sivers). We don't leave our problems at home when we travel, we carry them around with us.

EDIT. Sorry for the long response, as you can see you got me triggered a bit :). But I'm grateful to you for sharing this and starting this conversation.