I don't deny that the world needs people who can be dedicated to intellectual pursuits - but the stagnation you've described might be further proof that academia itself is the reason the job isn't getting done. There are hundreds of well-regarded universities in the world, many with massive private endowments - if just one of those universities could prove that they are capable of advancing valuable knowledge without falling into that publishing trap - why wouldn't they? All of these institutions claim to have education and knowledge discovery as missions, but all they seem to do is build up barriers in the name of elitism.
The world needs innovators, discoverers, creatives, and engineers - but why is a university structure required for someone to be acknowledged as such? The market's needs certainly can't drive every valuable intellectual discovery - but I don't think they preclude them. Government agencies (NASA, EPA) are also capable of doing research and publishing.
To be clear, I do think academia does serve a valuable role and is a good thing in general. I just think that it's grown too broad in scope - probably because of the massive availability of government grants and competition for those grants.
The world needs innovators, discoverers, creatives, and engineers - but why is a university structure required for someone to be acknowledged as such? The market's needs certainly can't drive every valuable intellectual discovery - but I don't think they preclude them. Government agencies (NASA, EPA) are also capable of doing research and publishing.
To be clear, I do think academia does serve a valuable role and is a good thing in general. I just think that it's grown too broad in scope - probably because of the massive availability of government grants and competition for those grants.