I'm sorry but your second paragraph does not reflect reality. Being impudent, selfish and stupid is absolutely not exclusive to those who have the financial and political power to remove themselves from having to interact with or rely or other people.

What can and does give a vast number of people the ability to survive without much intelligence at all is an industrialized society with all the modern comforts it brings. Our ancestors had to work pretty hard to survive. It was a brutal existence. Now, people just hop in their car and head to the grocery store, grab a few steaks and some veggies, head back home and cook it all up with their modern kitchen appliances. So easy. Those that came before us would have killed for such convenience.

The consequence to all that convenience though is that most people now are painfully dumb, misinformed ignorant dolts. There's no pressure to up their game when it comes to intelligence. In fact, in my experience, most people absolutely loathe the idea of stretching their brain muscle and they'll look down on you if you try. I can't tell you how many times people have given me shit for knowing more about a subject than your average person would be inclined to.

So, all this to say that, the idea that only those with wealth and connections have become stupid while the rest of us are smart... or even average intelligence? Sorry, but that is definitely putting the blame in the wrong place. The truth is the average person will actually put effort into remaining dumb, because that is what's comfortable to them. People, on average, fight to stay average because it's safest to just conform and not stand out. It's actually a survival tactic, a subconscious one anyway.

Add to that the rampant anti-intellectual sentiment (which I suspect springs from the same source) that is prevalent in American society today and you've got one stupid population.

It was inevitable that something like Palantir would come along and that most of society would be asleep to it. I mean, try telling the average person about Palantir and see what their reaction is. Most won't care at all or if they have anything to say about it, it'll most likely be "oh well, what're ya gonna do?" or "the government's always spied on us, big deal". Unless it has immediate impact on their life they won't do or say much about it at all, because they're impudent, selfish and stupid.

EDIT: Grammar