Still, yeah, it’s quite possible that we’re on average just smart enough for civilisation but no smarter.
We evolved to this level of intelligence gradually, not in a single hop. Given that the length of time we have had a civilisation for is pretty much nothing in evolutionary terms, I would guess that we are pretty much exactly at the minimum level of intelligence necessary for a civilisation.
Yup, that’s what makes it quite possible. Not drop-dead obvious, though—there’s nonzero selection pressure for intelligence even now, environment has a huge load to do with intelligence so there are possibly big gains between the beginning to civilization and now, maybe civilization-making magic happens with enough geniuses (genii?) or is prevented by too many too stupid people so variance (and maybe population) matters more than average.
We evolved to this level of intelligence gradually, not in a single hop. Given that the length of time we have had a civilisation for is pretty much nothing in evolutionary terms, I would guess that we are pretty much exactly at the minimum level of intelligence necessary for a civilisation.
Yup, that’s what makes it quite possible. Not drop-dead obvious, though—there’s nonzero selection pressure for intelligence even now, environment has a huge load to do with intelligence so there are possibly big gains between the beginning to civilization and now, maybe civilization-making magic happens with enough geniuses (genii?) or is prevented by too many too stupid people so variance (and maybe population) matters more than average.