You know, the only thing that keeps smart people from trying stuff is cultural boundaries and social fitness, which in itself is something evolutionary grown and includes small progress to a local maxima? You know, that the only thing that keeps us from trying unconventional stuff is often the lack of money, which inherently comes from the state. The politics decide about money and they also cater to stupid voters or to business interests. This in itself is stupidity. The answer of stupid is evolutionary benefitting is just fine on the surface, but if you look at the complexity of issues, it is not as clear. And then there is my opinion that i would rather accept some local maxima while some scientists try unconventional stuff than have stupid people always thinking theyre right DKing all the time, because it is exhausting! I know it is not a choice, but if one thinks being and staying stupid is fine, which might be the consequence of “stupidity is evolutionary advantageous”, then I would rather fight the premise, because that would not be acceptable to me.
You know that much more intelligent people are still doing evil stuff right now and more often than not, because other people do either not act intelligent or consequential. I have a few examples: grandchildren-trick in germany, which relies inherently on grandparents being naive or ignorant about technology or that they might be betrayed. They never thought about that, in that regard you might count being ignorant or naive also as stupid. Another example: some people get into magazine subscriptions and never stop them, even though they do not like it, just because unsubscribing is too inconvenient or saying no to the sales man is too hard. Another one: People go to financial advise and do not know most things about personal finances and investments. So they literally have to trust the advisor, who sometimes only works to get the most out of his customer into his own pocket, that could only be avoided through knowledge and experience, which are traits, that are also associated with smartness. Although not all those people maliciously choose to exploit those naive or lazy or ignorant people, they rely heavily on them to earn their money. If those people would not let themself get exploited, there would literally be less evil, because it could not be commercialized in that way. Hell, even corporate and governmental employees are sometimes as stupid as they could not even send a simple e-mail (there are examples), and would not even learn it, if shown.
I do not accept any answer like “those people that exploit others will find ways”, as you do not know if it would be that way.
I also do not accept anything defending the exploited people, who in my opinion are not inherently stupid from the mentioned circumstence and I do not mean any harm to them. But the things that happened are literally stupid things, that could easily be avoided, so they have done something stupid, as does anyone in this world, so no evil feelings there, just improving the debate focus.
And to answer anything, that would say that some people might have a disability or illness and therefore might be easier to exploit, which could be the case. Those could also be exploited, even if everyone becomes smarter, but: there is a solution to that and that is societal support and care work. If you have a right to health care and to be supported by society to make up for your disabilities, then a judge or judgementally assigned professional might decide for you, so that you do not have any disadvantages due to those circumstances.