Humanity itself is at risk from various extinction level events.
If you insist that it's okay for all gifted students to never exceed to the point of making ground breaking discoveries, we're likely extinct sooner rather than later.
The nongifted people, even if all completely stop contributing to society, would not result in an extinction.
IOW, we are all relying on the gifted people to save us. Hobbling gifted people even slightly has a far worse impact than not helping non gifted people.
Considering humans evolved here I doubt it's possible to reach a compatible, alternative planet. And even if we could how likely are humans to survive there if they cannot live sustainably on their home planet?
I believe we are facing a strong case of naive techno-optimism. I'll give it a go: a 19 yo genius may find a way to capture kilograms of carbons in each leaf of peppermint through a new kind of photosynthesis, and by showing it to the world, we'll all be able to reproduce it and meet our carbon neutrality by 2050. And my uncle Joe, enlightened, will start spending his days drinking peppermint tea instead of making millions trading disposable plastic products from East Asia.
Modern life, seems to me, a product of many ungifted people and a few gifted folks toiling for centuries. That includes relatively unskilled workers and those with decades of education.
Gifted people only ever educated and working in ivory towers would starve long before enhancing life for anyone, except for the efforts of their 'lessers'.
Humanity itself is at risk from various extinction level events.
If you insist that it's okay for all gifted students to never exceed to the point of making ground breaking discoveries, we're likely extinct sooner rather than later.
The nongifted people, even if all completely stop contributing to society, would not result in an extinction.
IOW, we are all relying on the gifted people to save us. Hobbling gifted people even slightly has a far worse impact than not helping non gifted people.
And yes, I am part of the non gifted.