This implies that intelligence equals willingness to conform to the potential employer's worldview.

I would definitely order wine at a dinner, mostly because I like wine at a dinner, and secondly because it would allow me to use it as a negative filter--to see if they have some sort of a problem with it.

I would rather apply elsewhere if the company didn't like wine-drinking (or if they made me file TPS reports), and leave them alone with their drinking problem.

What I do (I'm in France) to avoid that problem is that I bring the team and the candidate to a restaurant and we all order "Apéritif", so that there is no pressure in what the person order. I think it relieves the tension by having a relaxing and informal setup. When he's well fed, slightly drunk, slightly sleepy, we do the technical test :)

I ask by phone before if there is stuff they don't eat/drink to choose the restaurant, or avoid this protocol.

This seems circular to me.

Observation: The culture has changed to the point where people think you are dumber if order a wine during an interview.

You: You are dumber!!!!!

It is circular but still correct!

There are many situations where there are feedback loops like this: For example: Male peacocks grow large tails because this is attractive to peahen mates. It's attractive to peahen mates because their male offspring are also likely to have big tails, which will lead to better reproductive success because they are attractive to peahen mates.... and so on. So a gene that favours big tails will make more copies of itself in the peacock population than some allele that favours smaller tails, even though from a "design" point of view the smaller tail makes more sense (not as heavy to carry around, means you can run fast to avoid getting eaten etc.)

There are many equilibria like this:

- the bank is going to go bust because everyone wants to take their money out because it looks like the bank is going to go bust...

- the credit card company declines your application because you were declined from getting a credit card by another credit card company.

- The company doesn't take you in for interview because you've been out of work for 6 months. They'd rather go after someone that already has a job.

In all of these cases, although the outcome is often not optimal (e.g. nobody wants the bank to go bust), and often not fair, the individuals making the decisions are behaving perfectly rationally.

The criteria there is "better mate". Wilfra could have said "better candidate" and been correct in that way, but they didn't. They said "less intelligent" which seems like a complete non-sequitur to me.

It's a dumb move to do something that makes people see you as dumb. Just a fact of life.

Ignoring norms is "dumb" in a poor choices / stubborn mule sort of way but not in an actual intellect way. Don't confuse the meanings of the word.

For a job applicant to think about what a hiring manager would think is normal enough. Is it so unusual for a hiring manager to see if the applicant does that?

For a hiring manager to think about whether a job applicant is thinking about what a hiring manager is thinking sounds confusing - but we're thinking about that right now.