Why Sapience Got Shoved To the Rear

This response by George Mobus in the comment section of his post on Sapience caught my attention:

...Steven Mithen has written about the effect that invention has had on the evolution of the mind for the past 10,000 years. He doesn't speculate on the de-selection of sapience, but he does point out how profoundly the need for owning a territory, protecting grain stores, and organizing work increased the emphasis on intelligence and creativity. Moreover, the time frames for solving those kinds of problems were short compared with the life history of an individual. And, of course, the need to work in the fields, doing more-or-less repetitive hard work tends to deemphasize the value of older persons' knowledge.

Once again, it will be necessary to create another social/economic system in order to encourage the development of sapience -- and to have any hope of a quality future.