I suppose one of the values academia has is providing a garden for information from past generations to persist and be understood. The stuff that got invented in the early industrial revolution could have been produced in the antique greece. Or perhaps wollops of it was - we will not know because what passed for academia then were basically a bunch of mystery cults who guarded their insights with murderous zeal (pythagoreans etc).*
In the pre-internet age, without international academia, there would have been no community with whom to share discoveries so they would benefit all. Einstein would have been a historical nobody without people to understand him, etc.
So to me, you will have to suggest other at least somewhat curated and open mechanisms for living information to persist. Perhaps internet and mans curiosity alone is sufficient to provide this but I don't know...
*From what I remember from one popular historical source or another
In the pre-internet age, without international academia, there would have been no community with whom to share discoveries so they would benefit all. Einstein would have been a historical nobody without people to understand him, etc.
So to me, you will have to suggest other at least somewhat curated and open mechanisms for living information to persist. Perhaps internet and mans curiosity alone is sufficient to provide this but I don't know...
*From what I remember from one popular historical source or another