Because people are fucking stupid and don't understand historical context. Western European Wypipo have had a 600-to-800-year head-start on the rest of the planet re: universities. There wasn't even one in Russia until the 1700s IIRC. And I don't mean the shitty indoctrination camps they've largely become, but the information repositories and innovation generators they're meant to be.

Kids bitch about "boring old white men" and "muh representation" in university classes, but there are reasons for that. Besides the aforementioned, just go look up which countries have patent offices. It's basically just the G7 with a few satellite offices. That's where it's safe and profitable to be innovative.

Another is the English language. 80% or more of academic publishing is done in English. This discludes a hell of a lot of people from participating in said innovation. There's not really another option. South Korea is shovelling tens of billions into standardizing their language into a definitive dictionary, but that still puts them a couple hundred years behind.

And r/K-selection, I guess. I don't know a ton about it, but it seems to make sense.