The university was founded by the Church... so Tom Billings mooted. Really the system was something of a renaissance, if you will. The "Late-Antiquity" before the Middle Ages kept alive a classical form of higher-education, among Syrian Christians and Jews, in Iraq; which became the House of Wisdom under the better Caliphs there. But either way the "university" of Catholicism and, honestly, of Tudor Episcopalianism was no home for scientody.
I've long noted the case of (deep-Asian) Islam. On our side of the world Napier the Scottish Protestant got his stuff done at home too. Much astronomy was commissioned by kings who paid for the 'scopes; or by rich eccentrics. They'd submit their "letters" to a "Royal Astronomical Society" which, note, isn't Cambridge. The Church commissioned, er, Latin. Greek if you were Napier and took trips abroad.
It's been impressed upon me how much learning has been done privately to this very day. Percival Lowell anyone? For another instance the /√ algo. Throwback to the days when quartic equations were solved by Italians in secret.
Now we have a new Church, committed to diversity and to equity. Inclusion too!
University types stuck with this new Clerisy don't respect us. They figure they paid their dues. Deep down I feel like part of the "dues" they've paid includes truckling to the sociopaths running their departments. A professor who keeps his research in hiding will resent those of us who don't have to hide.
As far as monetising real work when you're not in the academy, er. Some people do youtubes but Google deplatforms too. Other people put out documentaries about the Atlanteans or books through "metaphysics" publishers. Not exactly real work. I reckon we should do it anyway.
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