This is a really compelling vision but I've always wondered how one stays relevant in this scenario. Science is a conversation and it is really hard to avoid becoming an equivalent of a babbling madman standing on a soapbox when doing research on your own terms in your own garage.
well, I recommend you ask https://twitter.com/nntaleb about it directly then. he is not a hermit withdrawn from the world, but he doesn't work in academia, or for a private corporation, or for a government agency. he does research (in mathematics mostly, as well as finance, risk modeling, and interestingly enough ancient Levantine languages) and participates in those communities even though he is not employed by an institution.
You just need some form of reckoning. You can use markets. You can use advisors. You can use some metric you set for yourself. You don't need society to be sane, but you do need to replace it with something.
