Exactly. Intelligence and good judgment seem to be very different things.I've seen brilliant engineers make terrible community decisions - sometimes because they're optimizing for profit or ego rather than community benefit.
Maybe the real question isn't who's smart enough to participate, but how to design transparent decision-making systems regardless of external factors.
Of one part, those who thrive in corporations must appear to drink the Flavor Aid.
"It is difficult to get a man to understand something, when his salary depends on his not understanding it." - Upton Sinclair
And then another part is the professional working class of privileged, moderately-to-highly educated, and brimming with ego without nuance or ambiguity while skewing to the tendencies of less wisdom, struggle, and wide-ranging life experience. There isn't much internal or external motivation towards integrity, self-improvement, or commonwealth investment.
Maybe the real question isn't who's smart enough to participate, but how to design transparent decision-making systems regardless of external factors.