I often find that it is remarkably difficult to produce great, original intellectual output (not that any of my output thus far can be considered "great" to the general public, but rather, by my own standards) in the absence of some environmental or external influences. This came from various sources at various points in my life.
At one point, the external influence came from stumbling upon videos from Marvin Minsky, which then led to reading on various computing theories and graph theory.
At another point, it came from reading the work of and watching all of the video interviews of Frederick Hayek, Milton Friedman, Thomas Sowell, and many other economic thinkers (including Peter Thiel, who has discussed economics extensively in his writings and interviews with the Hoover Institution, and who happens to be one of my larger influences), in addition to numerous Wikipedia articles on economics.
And at many points throughout my life, it came from watching videos of and reading the writings of political figures, ancient and modern, such as Itagaki Taisuke, Zhou Enlai, Lee Kuan Yew, Ibn Khaldun, Ibn Rashud, Maimonides, Jiang Zemin, Richard Nixon, as well as some of the Federalist Papers, to better understand the path dependency of our current problems and how they relate to problems of the past, and their (the minds of past's) views on them, as well as their attempts to address them.
And at another still, it came from blog posts from individuals or organizations trying to tackle pressing problems in housing, energy, transportation, and healthcare, such as the Institute for Progress, Patrick Collison, or the affiliated future studies community (which seems to be tangentially related to the YIMBY movement).
At each point in time, I would be entranced with the problems described and solutions proposed, as well as how to make the proposed solutions better.
I wonder, to what extent is our thinking and ability to produce material of value dependent on having other work to rely on, either as inspiration, or to constrain the problem and allow you to focus on finding an excellent solution for one dimension of the problem.
Perhaps that is the true value of an ecosystem. The intellectual stimulation and inspiration to consider a problem and possible solution, and a constraining of the problem space to focus and provide something of value, thanks to the work of others that you can build upon.
That is likely the Silicon Valley effect. While the internet has compensated for this in some ways, making it easier to find communities (or echo chambers) to discuss and obtain new ideas, intellectual discourse is often best done with other people, and in-person communication is still the highest-bandwidth form of communication we have (pending a new invention by Mark Zuckerberg). As a result, the relevance of Silicon Valley holds.
And perhaps this is why it may be beneficial to produce content in other languages, particularly when parts of the world that speak that language natively don't have a significant belief in those ideas. More content about free market reforms or certain economic policies or certain areas of science, in those languages, can stimulate further thought, and eventually lead to an ecosystem. For example, I like to envision a world where the Middle East and Europe might have as robust of a libertarian ecosystem as the United States. Once those values take hold and an ecosystem is created, it can have lasting relevance and resilience. Much like Silicon Valley for tech.