> Half of the population is below average intelligence, and giving the wrong people the loudest megaphones has a devastating effect on society. I don't think h

> Half of the population is below average intelligence, and giving the wrong people the loudest megaphones has a devastating effect on society. I don't think humans need a lot of intelligence to not be gullible. Scientific method for example is simple enough way of extracting truth from lies and does not require massive amounts of intelligence to apply to your measurements of the world. Generally I don't think people believe in a "paedophile ring run out of a pizza shop" because they are stupid. They just see how unreal politicians behave from their tall platform and extrapolate that behaviour to domestic questions. Working as a software engineer from a poor family I had seen so many times my CEO (or my upper middle class coworkers) being awkward or plain out low-key abusive with cleaners/waiters/etc that I can totally see where people who don't have ability to directly speak to people in power assume things about them which are not totally true. But let's be honest, they have a reason to think this way.