The 21st century is weird. It seems like every time I think of a cool research direction, I look for some literature and find a whole team of people doing just that.

Yeah, there are totally 7+ billion of us. So, for example, over 140 million people could get into Mensa. Not that Mensa is a criteria for intelligence itself. But it kind of demonstrates the point that there are potentially a lot of smart people out there.

Science is being done at a rapid pace. So much stuff is being done that people in the same field cannot keep up on the literature and end up accidentally repeating research results.

I think there is plenty of value to not trying to be original in the mess of it. A researcher probably could take the time to be thorough, or to organize and digest.