Modern society has created an out for smart people that did not previously exist

In days of old, the people we would call "great minds" were often polymaths, masters of multiple fields.

There are now countless fields for any person to delve into, and each field is crammed with enough nuance and detail to spend a lifetime mastering and so much history that you could spend a lifetime just listening to everyone's contributions.

It's made it more difficult for the average person to view society and its systems in a wholistic manner and lead people to doing things to improve the human condition.

I honestly don't think there's been a reduction in the frequency that "noble" people appear. (As in people who recognize issues in a system and dedicate their own time to fight improve it for everyone.)
It's just that now, instead of seeing taxation without representation is bullshit and fighting for a free nation, Jacob G. Worldchanger is an IT guy and the injustice he's exposed to is that manufacturers are making less modular/resellable designs to push you to buy their new products.

He's dedicating his mind to a hundreds of hours of detailed analysis of the combat and rotations in Apex Legends pro play.

What I'm saying is: the great minds that we could probably use on our side to make a better word are getting caught up on random hyperfixations.

Of course, I'm not saying we should be like robots and all minds must be devoted to the cause at all times. I enjoy doing my own sideshow bullshit, and, really, society will never progress if talented people aren't toiling away mastering different crafts as an act of passion.
Every piece of art, every thinkpiece, every technological advancement, every story pushes us forward and affects lives in untold ways that compound and lead to change, but I feel the natural process that gives us our revolutionaries has become weakened by modern life and perhaps me writing this will inspire someone else who could do something to do that thing instead of acting purely in self-interest.

Other factors decrease people's odds of self-sacrificial, society bettering behavior such as high cost of living, but that's not who this is aimed at. This is targeted at the blessed. Even in strained times, there are those who live comfortably. Those with the money to have a massive personal server rack and a team of rasberry pis to run their own tech services. Those who say "I don't think about that kind of stuff" or "I don't do politics" who do not realize that it is the highest privilege to be able to turn your head away from the mechanisms of the world. Those who have the luxury to turn away from suffering because it makes them feel bad or because discussion of it can get heated and test relationships.

This is for those who study their field because it allows for pure intellectual and creative stimulation. Because studying something else would require them to read through pages of descriptions of human suffering and understand systems of horrible oppression that they have unknowingly been complicit in.