I still get to watch a clique of "internetorati" on a private email discussion group. They stroke each other's egos and reassure themselves how much cleverer and more righteous they are than all those they condescend towards.
Their pride is sickening to behold, yet I need do nothing for them to experience a fall for the history books. They no longer interest me; they have become irrelevant, but don't yet know it. In their cosmology I am a joke, but it's their tragedy, not my comedy.
I see most so-called intellects only as another glaring example of Socrates' cave allegory. They just stack themselves atop the other deceived they are stuck in a false reality along with creating some bent sense of superiority within that limited group. And done just so they can turn to the rest and claim "We rank among best of the idiots in this facade!" They feel they can interpret the shadows in more detail making them somehow more of an "elite fool" than I am.
If you can't shine in your group, just create a smaller far more exclusive one then you can claim to be the best among them with far less competition for a claim to the title.
Some like "bigger trucks", some like "bigger brains" but it is all just another dick measuring contest in the end done to satisfy some demented social ranking system rooted in nothing more than malignant narcissism. It's a tumorous side effect of civilization...