Why other technological civilizations may still be comparable to us in terms of intelligence

I often hear the following example with people discussing intelligent life elsewhere in the universe: humans and chimps have very similar biology (only a 1.5% difference in DNA) yet humans are much more capable when it comes intellectual tasks and having technological civilizations, etc. After that, the argument is usually extended to ask you to imagine if another species had evolved to be to us what we are relative to the chimps, how much more intelligent would they be? I don’t this idea takes into account think such a super intelligent species isn’t very likely to exist
 
If we take evolution on earth as an example, life seems to be grounded in a competitive framework because of how natural selection works. While evolution can reward different forms of intelligence for many reasons, it can’t escape all of the other factors that are necessary for survival. I’m in no way an expert in this field but think about what we’re asking of nature here. Is it to continue to host this evolution of insanely complex minds, and then doubling down on that intelligence explosion without any attention to the consequences? Doesn’t that risk these species becoming too level headed or peaceful to be able to fight for their survival, especially in the early stages of their history?
 
Also, if we look at this chronologically, my question would be: how would it have been possible for these extremely intelligent species to survive their introduction into their world? Wouldn’t the predator and prey dynamics need to be heavily tilted in their favor and the environment be friendly enough to allow them to exist? Let’s say that in addition to their advanced intellectual abilities, they have great stealth or camouflage and some other defense mechanisms. They’ll still need to settle and build societies which won’t be easy if you’re not out in the open. Not to mention, domesticating other animals on their planets would be very difficult because they’d have to overcome such a huge fear barrier.
 
And what kind of intelligence are we talking about here? Would they be much better at maths and physics by default? So their minds are equipped to solve differential equations in a split second before they even invent calculus? Did they inherit some of their knowledge from someone who was there before them? Let’s say they’re the descendants of species that are human-like in terms of intelligence. Wouldn’t that mean that their civilization would need to be continuing and stable for as long as it takes random mutations over generations to produce a new distinct species? Because they’ll want to possess both the accumulated knowledge as well as have their starting position be the same as one the previous species left behind. It’ll have to be a very long-lasting civilization. It may be possible but I think it has a low probability of happening
 
The last thing I can think of is self-modification where a species would genetically alter themselves to be that way. Again, also possible, but I believe it’s more likely technological civilizations would use gene editing to cure diseases, extend lifespan, and maybe other stuff but it won’t necessarily be used to make biological super brains especially if they’re already using tech to solve their problems.
 
But I wanna make sure that the distinction here is clear. Civilizations that are thousands of years more advanced than humans from a technological standpoint are quite possible. But it’s likely because these species are ahead in terms of culture and tech, rather than having had some exponentially added intelligence to begin with
 
Of course, evolution can fascinate us in so many ways so you never know