Do you have a dumb question that you're kind of embarrassed to ask in the main thread? Is there something you're just not sure about?
This is your opportunity to ask questions. No question too simple or too silly.
Culture war topics are accepted, and proposals for a better intro post are appreciated.
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Notes -
Yeah, we may underestimate two tendencies:
People who are truly uneducated in basic concepts may appear much "dumber" than an educated person would think. I've seen this with coding: I once eavesdropped on an older person being taught coding and things I thought were intuitive like program flow seemed to take too long. Of course, I can't remember how intuitive it was for me in the early days either, because I overlearned it so long ago.
People who are working in impersonal institutions where direct consequences for inefficiency can be deferred or it is hard to identify in the first place can appear very "lazy" and irrational (in terms of just not caring about maximizing their productivity or effort, even if there's low-hanging fruit) to people who've actually been disciplined by the modern workplace with its focus on efficiency and time. This is probably worse in corrupt countries.
I've heard Western-educated Africans complain especially about #2, talking about their own people, in ways that might cause trouble for a white man in a progressive space.
That said...if a person legitimately can't sort things numerically (as opposed to not giving a shit and stonewalling gringos)...I'm inclined to believe that they're actually facing an intelligence deficit.
#2 is absolutely something I've encountered numerous times in the wild and one of the major reasons I think that "culture" is way more important than most commenters here seem to treat it. A somewhat related phenomena I've seen both in countries with major unrest (EG Sudan, the Middle east etc...) and poorer neighborhoods in the states is almost an antipathy towards savings and capital accumulation based on a (largely justified) assumption that if someone does start to pull ahead, someone else will just come a long and steal it from them. A sort of preemptive "crab bucket" effect where instead of being torn down they avoid climbing in the first place lest they make themselves a target. Another one you see in a lot of is the old "honesty is for suckers" trope. IE "Why should I 'cooperate' when I know the game is rigged?". After all being the one honest cop in a otherwise corrupt department, or the one guy in the neighborhood who isn't in on the local organized crime racket generally isn't conducive to one's long term survival.
Local minima and a "defect-defect" equilibrium are a hell of a drug.
It's not a fictional hypothetical.
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