Which is why I disagree with the other thing you said. People are pretty stupid. To think you know anything without prior research is stupid. Priors need to be deliberately created (act of learning and understanding and internalizing) for a guess to be educated. Anything without we default to stupid, so most of us are stupid with most things.
But just getting by is an incredibly low bar. We have been tested however with the covid situation. But take covid. Mask wearing isn't a "priors" issue. It's the understanding of what a mask does and how it influences risk that is important. You don't need authority to understand the benefits of a mask, though once understood, it would definitely fall under "staying on the safe side with large margins".
At least that is my take.