In the classical utilitarian calculations, it would seem that it is the intelligence of humans that justifies a high weighting of human utility.
Nope. For me, it's the fact that they're human. Intelligence is a fake utility function.
So you wouldn't care about sentient/sapient aliens?
r/Fitness does a weekly "Moronic Monday", a judgment-free thread where people can ask questions that they would ordinarily feel embarrassed for not knowing the answer to. I thought this seemed like a useful thing to have here - after all, the concepts discussed on LessWrong are probably at least a little harder to grasp than those of weightlifting. Plus, I have a few stupid questions of my own, so it doesn't seem unreasonable that other people might as well.