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Oligopsony comments on Muehlhauser-Goertzel Dialogue, Part 1 - Less Wrong
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It is, but it's possible to argue somewhat convincingly that the lack of friendliness is in fact due to lack of intelligence. My favorite counterexample was Von Neumann, who didn't really seem to care much about anyone, but then I heard that he actually had somewhat complex political views but simplified them for consumption by the masses. On the whole it seems that intelligent folk really are significantly more moral than the majority of humanity, and this favors the "intelligence implies, or is the same thing as, cosmic goodness" perspective. This sort of argument is also very psychologically appealing to Enlightenment-influenced thinkers, i.e. most modern intellectuals, e.g. young Eliezer.
(Mildly buzzed, apologies for errors.)
(ETA: In case it isn't clear, I'm not arguing that such a perspective is a good one to adopt, I'm just trying to explain how one could feel justified in holding it as a default perspective and feel justified in being skeptical of intuitive non-technical arguments against it. I think constructing such explanations is necessary if one is to feel justified in disagreeing with one's opposition, for the same reason that you shouldn't make a move in chess until you've looked at what moves your opponent is likely to play in response, and then what move you could make in that case, and what moves they might make in response to that, and so on.)
I think there are a number of reasons to be skeptical of the premise (and the implicit one about cosmic goodness being a coherent thing, but that's obviously covered territory.) Most people think their tribe seems more moral than others, so nerd impressions that nerds are particularly moral should be discounted. The people who are most interested in intellectual topics (i.e., the most obviously intelligent intelligent people) do often appear to be the least interested in worldly ambition/aggressive generally, but we would expect that just as a matter of preferences crowding each other out; worldly ambitious intelligent people seem to be among the most conspicuously amoral, even though you'd expect them to be the most well-equipped in means and motive to look otherwise. I recall Robin Hanson has referenced studies (which I'm too lazy to look up) that the intelligent lie and cheat more often; certainly this could be explained by an opportunity effect, but so could their presumedly lower levels of personal violence. Humans are friendlier than chimpanzees but less friendly than bonobos, and across the tree of life niceness and nastiness don't seem to have any relationship to computational power.
That's true and important, but stereotypical worldly intelligent people rarely "grave new values on new tables", and so might be much less intelligent than your Rousseaus and Hammurabis in the sense that they affect the cosmos less overall. Even worldly big shots like Stalin and Genghis rarely establish any significant ideological foothold. The memes use them like empty vessels.
But even so, the omnipresent you-claim-might-makes-right counterarguments remain uncontested. Hard to contest them.
It's hard to tell how relevant this is; there's much discontinuity between chimps and humans and much variance among humans. (Although it's not that important, I'm skeptical of claims about bonobos; there were some premature sensationalist claims and then some counter-claims, and it all seemed annoyingly politicized.)
However, non-worldly intelligent people like Rousseau and Marx frequently give the new values that make people like Robespierre and Stalin possible.
In the public mind Rousseau and Marx and their intellectual progeny are generally seen as cosmically connected/intelligent/progressive, right? Maybe overzealous, but their hearts were in the right place. If so that would support the intelligence=goodness claim. If the Enlightenment is good by the lights of the public, then the uFAI-Antichrist is good by the lights of the public. [Removed section supporting this claim.] And who are we to disagree with the dead, the sheep and the shepherds?
(ETA: Contrarian terminology aside, the claim looks absurd without its supporting arguments... ugh.)
Depends on which subset of the public we're talking about.
I'm confused, is this an appeal to popular opinion?
Of course. "And all that dwell upon the earth shall worship him [the beast/dragon]" Revelations 13:8
People in a position to witness the practical results of their philosophy.
Why exactly did you remove that section?
I would say that it is simply the case that many moral systems require intelligence, or are more effective with intelligence. The intelligence doesn't lead to morality per se, but does lead to ability to practically apply the morality. Furthermore, low intelligence usually implies lower tendency to cross-link the beliefs, resulting in less, hmm, morally coherent behaviour.
Ouch, that hits a little close to home.
Fuck, wrote a response but lost it. The gist was, yeah, your points are valid, and the might-makes-right problems are pretty hard to get around even on the object level; I see an interesting way to defensibly move the goalposts, but the argument can't be discussed on LessWrong and I should think about it more carefully in any case.