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burnt_umber_ciera t1_jeez28w wrote

Empathy and ethics definitely do not scale with intelligence. There are so many examples of this in humanity. For example, Enron, smartest in the room - absolute sociopaths.

Just look at how often sociopathy is rewarded in every world system. Many times the ruthless, who are also obviously cunning, rise. Like Putin for example. He’s highly intelligent but a complete sociopath.

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Frumpagumpus t1_jef6oh0 wrote

lol old age has gotten to putins brain.

by enron do you mean elon? I mean enron had some pretty smart people but I don't think they were the ones who set them down that path necessarily.

the problem with your examples is

  1. they are complete and total cherry picking, in my opinion for each one of your examples I could probably find 10 examples of the opposite amongst people I know personally much less celebrities...

  2. the variance in intelligence between humans is not very significant. It's far more informative to compare the median chimp or crow to the median human to the median crocodile. Another interesting one is octopus.

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burnt_umber_ciera t1_jefej76 wrote

I guess we just disagree then. There are so many examples of intelligence not correlating with ethics that I could go on ad infinitum. Wall Street has some of the most intelligent actors yet have been involved in multiple scams over the years.

Enron is what I meant and I don’t agree with your characterization.

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Frumpagumpus t1_jefzlkj wrote

funny, I would say,

wall st has gotten both smarter and more ethical over the years, and substantially so

mutual funds -> etfs

gordon gecko types -> quants

even scammers like SBF have gone from cocaine and hookers lifestyle branding to nominally potraying themselves as utilitarian saviors

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Frumpagumpus t1_jef7kdl wrote

> Just look at how often sociopathy is rewarded in every world system.

It can be yes, cooperation is also rewarded.

It's an open question in my mind as intelligence increases what kind of incentive structures lie in wait for systems of superintelligent entities.

It is my suspicion that better cooperation will be rewarded more than the proverbial "defecting from prisoners dillemas", but I can't prove it to you mathematically or anything.

However if that is the case, and we live in such a hostile universe, why do we care exactly about continuing to live?

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