I don't think they're signaling intelligence as much as they're signaling a specific subculture of East-Coast WASPy humanities-focused aristocrats that the most

I don't think they're signaling intelligence as much as they're signaling a specific subculture of East-Coast WASPy humanities-focused aristocrats that the most "prestigious" papers are steeped in. For example, the famous blind animus that that memeplex has towards tech certainly isn't rooted in looking down on the _intelligence_ of those steeped in Californian tech culture, but rather their will and ability to signal social class effectively. It's a weird inversion, since the signals being defended are deeply illiberal: they exclude individualism, weirdness, inclusiveness, systems striving to be built on merit, etc etc. I'm pretty familiar with this tendency because I come from a family who's pretty steeped in this kind of subculture. Growing up in CA and moving to the Bay as a teen, I absorbed the tech/Burning Man/CA memeplex of humanism and inherent equality and individualism way too deeply not to overwhelm my upbringing, but there are certain class markers I haven't shed, and un-self-conscious use of dense prose is one of them[1]. I actually did try to make my speech more casual when I became aware of these class markers during a period of teen rebellion, but changing how you communicate is a pretty complicated uphill battle, so I ended up with a weird hybrid of big words and idiomatic expressions (and lots of cursing, in verbal communication -_-) [1] I want to emphasize again that this isn't quite an intelligence thing: my best friend is definitely smarter than me, and he speaks significantly more casually/colloquially than me because of his family's background.