TL;DR: I don’t know how smart I am, but I got a hell of a lot smarter once I stopped trying to be smart. When I humbled myself and accepted that maybe I’m the dumb one, I opened myself up to learning from a much wider range of sources and people, and began to understand the value of situated knowledge

I don’t know if I’m one of the people this question is aimed at; I’d like to be, but I learned long ago that getting hung up on being thought of as intelligent is pretty harmful to learning.

Let’s say I have an idea in my head that’s very smart, but I can’t communicate it, or execute it without help. A brilliant idea can’t do much good when it’s locked away because ideas thrive in diverse communities. I’ve spent a long time focussing on my communication skills because they’re essential whether I’m speaking to people who are more or less smart than me.

Not that it’s realistically possible to know if someone’s smart or not. There have been so many times that I have felt trapped within my own head, unable to effectively articulate what I’m thinking and coming across like a dumbass. I can’t know whether that’s what’s happening for someone I’m speaking to, so I’d rather have patience and work with them to get their ideas into words than prematurely pronounce them as stupid.

On top of that, I can’t reliably tell the difference between someone who is smarter than me, and someone who is less smart than me, because both of them say things that I don’t understand. There’s always something to learn, and I fucking love learning. There’s also always something to offer too, something to teach - even if I’m talking to someone way above me in intelligence. That’s the crux of my answer really, the fact that everyone has something to add and something to gain, because their insight is unique and valuable.

And yes, I mean everyone. If someone holds a stupid idea, they still shouldn’t be dismissed as a source of potential knowledge because it’s important to understand why these opinions and beliefs arise. There is always a reason why, some circumstances or factors that led them there. If I believe my viewpoint to be the correct one, then I’d like to share my understanding with them, and that’s easier if I understand them first.