I mean a lot of what Socrates and Plato wrote and taught are just self justifications for the ancient Greek ruling class.

That delusion is so common that I suspect it must have a name, but I don't know what it is.

But the better a solution appears, the more a person who sees the solution believes it to be obvious, and therefore also believes that, had they tried to solve the problem, they'd have come up with this "obvious" solution straight away with no effort.

Meanwhile, the person who actually solved the problem could only come up with the perfect simple solution after a lifetime of study in the area to the point that you'd call them an expert or master, and after agonizing for a long time over this particular problem.

Teaching "common sense" is so hard because kids get so offended that you think they are stupid.

Historical projections of population place the global population at roughly 162 million people. Let's say only .1% of the population was capable of this sort of thing. Although I think it's low and while these early Greek philosophers were certainly smart the key to their success was wealth and the ability to focus on their "craft". But I'll really lowball human intelligence

Anyway, at .1% of people that means roughly 162,000 thousand people would be capable. The number of those with resources to actually dedicate the time even smaller.

Today the world population is over 8 billion, but we'll use 8 billion. So at .1% that gives us 8 million people alive today that would be capable.

I really underestimated human intelligence, but the point is the same. We have so so many people alive today that there is certainly quite a few people capable of doing these sorts of things

"Einstein is such an idiot. I learned about general relativity in middle school"

I would, too! I would have invented math! All of it!