Sure, it's a nice and egalitarian opinion and all but that doesn't take into account the situation when the guy next to you groks something 10 times faster than

Sure, it's a nice and egalitarian opinion and all but that doesn't take into account the situation when the guy next to you groks something 10 times faster than you do and can move on to the next topic in the blink of an eye. As an extreme of this, if it takes you 20 years of hard study to grok a topic that normal people absorb in 6 months ... harsh to say, but you don't fall in the "smart" bucket.