I’m a software architect and I manage many engineers (architects tell them what to build). Most of them are very smart. Many that work for me actually understand quantum mechanics in detail…we build optical networking switches. But most of them are constitutionally incapable of understanding how what they are doing ties into the overall system. And as a result they constantly screw up massively. Clearly they’re not too stupid to see this. They just have blinders on and they’re so overworked as most tech people are, they are just bred to not care-to finish their part as fast as possible so they look good and blame screwups (which usually are not apparent until months, often years later) on everybody else.

And also take electrical vehicles. An idiot would understand that you need to consider a clean power grid for electric vehicles to make sense. When I ask people who have or are interested in electrical vehicles the source of power (coal, natural gas, nuclear, solar, wind, etc) in the US, they ALL had no idea! A 10 second google search will reveal that. Yet they never bothered to check. It’s not possible that they are that stupid. They just don’t really care. They want to feel or look good. Just like the engineers.

Mediocrity rules. Because it’s easier and pays off better (in the short term…and that’s all people see)