To clarify here, I don’t feel like I’m significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying “facts.”
To clarify here, I don’t feel like I’m significantly smarter than most people, but I feel like people have a hard time doing any sort of thinking about stuff. Especially when it comes to verifying “facts.”
Realize that when you are in a group of people, the (set-theoretic) intersection of knowledge only decreases as you add members. But you are likely to assign individual ignorances to the group as whole. “He doesn’t know this; she doesn’t know that” equates to “these people don’t know anything”.
It also works in the opposite direction (well, up to a point, with too many people communication overheads become too much) - the more people with the more varied expertises and experiences you add, the more complete the group knowledge becomes.
PS: And that both things increase simultaneously with group size actually brings an interesting side to it - people seeking the “flaws” of others will find more “ignorant” people as the group size grows whilst those seeking the knowledge of others will find more total knowlegde as the size grows, or in other words, the spirit of those in the group or interacting with it matters can produce almost opposite conclusions and results.