Democracy is better than the alternatives, but that doesn't mean people aren't collectively pretty stupid. Your average American probably couldn't even find North Korea or Iran on a map, but that won't stop them from having opinions on those countries.
I think this “I’m smart, they are dumb” mindset is very unhelpful.
My experience when growing up on a farm is that farmers typically aren’t highly educated. But I can tell you they are typically damn smart. I would probably even go as far as saying that it’s in general harder to fool a farmer than a programmer. Because a farmer that is easy to fool is not a farmer anymore. The farm will have gone bankrupt already. And it’s similar to self-employed painters I guess. Maybe they are not academically smart, but they are certainly not dumb either.
So that’s my main problem with this “I’m smart they are dumb” mindset which is the default in academia. It diminishes large parts of society and for no good reason. I think it would be way more fun if society can respect all the players in the system.
