Folks susceptible to societal conditioning to the point that it combats their ability to think critically aren't intelligent at all. They're just "staying safe" when it comes to the opinions of their tribe members. They're cowards who find the approval of their peers to be far more important than any truth. Hiding in the crowd to stay safe is smart on a survival level but not the kind of intelligence that society needs. Truly intelligent people eventually overcome their societal conditioning. People who can't see through it are fucking stupid, regardless of how many degrees they have.

This is very well said. Upvoted!

At the same time though, if we're totally fair to fellow anons....

It seems reasonable that the anon who remarked A lot of intelligent people close off their minds to "conspiracy theories" because they have been conditioned to dismiss them, not because they are stupid may have said this because he is an intelligent person who in the past has dismissed things due to very convincing presentation as "conspiracy theories" and then later realized the error in so doing. One goal of the cabal psy op, after all, is to shut down critical thinking, even in intelligent people. Occasionally they're going to snag some victims. This anon, if he was, is no longer one.