I don’t exactly disagree with this point, but in mitigation, being constantly vigilant must be exhausting, and even bright people with strong executive function are going to slip up once in a while. It’s just too hard to keep your guard up 100% or the time.

Most deceptions, even comically absurd ones like “dude who has two families in different cities” do not require perfect vigilance, whereas running a cybercrime forum does. I bet success at this stuff comes from having an unusually fastidious personality more than anything else.

While you’d think bright people would be smart enough to recognize these risks and the comparatively safe, lucrative alternatives available to them, I know plenty of genuinely bright people who’ve made systematically poor decisions about how to run their lives or who have personality defects that otherwise impair their ability to succeed. And that’s even despite my social circles being heavily weighted toward people who went to good universities and hold down good jobs.

I’m sure that the ability to make sound, rational, forward-thinking life choices is correlated with intelligence, but I’m not sure how strongly.