pretty sure if you're commenting on here then you're way above average. It's not a compliment, its just that you're misunderstanding how low the bar is.
I refuse to believe the average person here is any more intelligent than the average person on the street.
Plus, it’s fairly common to see people saying the most amazingly simple things but with big words, fancy terms, heavy phrasing and all that just to sound that little bit smarter.
None of that tells me people here are more intelligent than the average Joe walking by living their life. Just that people here flock on posts with subjects they enjoy or know a bit about.
It’s very easy to sound intelligent, all you have to do is leave people confused with a bit of theatre and misdirection (oh, and a dash of arrogance!). True intelligence, though, is owning what you don’t know. True intelligence is not trying to make everyone around you feel dumber so you can be the clever clogs.
There's zero filter that could cause this effect.
This is a website of words. The average person looks almost exclusively at moving pictures.
I'd suggest we're at least top 5% of some key things that make up intelligence: like curiosity and intellectual bravery.
Embarrassing admission: I'm probably much closer to the middle of the open-mindedness chart than i pretend. (I wish i was Bertrand Russell.)
Indictment: so are very many commenters here.
The dread is that even this suggested "5%" contains many idiots (this idea of 5% also being rather idiotic). But if you think 5% is wildly optimistic then I fear you don't appreciate what the baseline is like. People are proper stupid and uninterested in thinking when it comes down to it.
To get a mild appreciation of the bar, at least in technical ability. My source is the OECD’s Programme for the International Assessment of Adult Competencies (PIAAC), specifically its assessment of “problem solving in technology-rich environments.”
Around 5% of the sample on average (116k) got to the top level. A top level task was as scary as being able to successfully reschedule a meeting in an email client with multiple participants. That's the sort of bar 5% can clear, which gives me the anchor. So think about that, well over 90% of people really struggle with that level of task, which I'd imagine all of us could clear (even our idiots). Sure its an annoying task, but its really not _that_ hard.
Thanks, you had me feeling all smug and then you had to add that part.