I feel like an average person or group of people are of average intelligence.

But huge masses of people? They begin to adopt emergent traits that cancel out individual intelligence. It's why foot traffic can be modelled as a liquid. Or why the entire field of economics can exist.

This makes large public masses have predictable behavior that's exploitable by grifters, demagogues, and propaganda.

I've come to realize that the upper limit of human intelligence is both surprisingly smart, and depressingly stupid. I'm lucky enough to be smarter, but also smart enough to know I'm an absolute idiot. I'm not even that smart in an IQ sense, just lucky in my experience, education, and focus. I'm smart in a particular way, but I'm not quick or even capable of many basic tasks.

I don't enjoy people seeing me as smart, because they then expect things I don't feel capable of. I don't want that pressure! I'm not that much smarter than you 😫

Where do I sign up for my "doesn't believe Kamala Harris can control the path of hurricanes with a weather machine" award?