Our civilization consists of masses of stupid people, which is why TV shows such as the X-Factor or American Idol are popular whereas the issues of immortality, AI, or Stem Cell research are not popular. At this stage I don't want to waste time trying to prove how stupid the majority of people are, so you either believe it or not.
I think politicians are generally assumed by The Masses to be more intelligent than The Masses, but very probably The Masses are unwilling to admit it. Politicians have enough brains to earn lots of money and acquire personal power, but are politicians or businesspeople such as Bill Gates, Ray Kurzweil, Steve Jobs, Sergey Brin, and Peter Thiel really intelligent?
Ask average people if Bill Gates is intelligent, or was Steve Jobs intelligent, and they will probably say such people are examples of "intelligent people" but if you asked an intellectual such as Samuel Beckett, Nietzsche, Camus, Voltaire, Sartre, Bertrand Russell, Chomsky, or Richard Dawkins; they would probably say politicians and business leaders are utter morons, or at least slightly stupid but definitely not intelligent.
The definition of intelligence is very subjective dependent upon the intelligence of person defining the concept, therefore a mentally retarded person would probably think their parents are really brainy even if their parents are uneducated plebs. Retarded people might think police officers are very intelligent, but the police are not intelligent:
Connecticut judge rules that police can bar applicants with high IQ scores.
Court OKs the barring of high IQs for potential cops.
The above two news reports highlight how intelligence is not needed within our civilization regarding the majority of people. It is essential that most workers do not think. This aspect of the unthinking Masses makes true communication exceptionally difficulty because generally people cannot communicate. True Intelligence is a hindrance to "success". Truly intelligent people experience rejection, hostility, and disparagement because our civilization is based upon antipathy towards intelligence. Our civilization is very stupid. The ethos of capitalism decrees Mass-stupidity must be an essential component of civilization because only via Mass-stupidity will the majority of people meekly accept massive income inequality.
Similar to notions of anti-art and anti-psychiatry (anti-establishment concepts which highlight how "art" and "sanity" are misnomers, they are falsehoods, thus traditional definitions of art and sanity are actually pseudo-art and pseudo-sanity), we see also how the traditional definition of "intelligence" is actually pseudo-intelligence. Our world is an idiotic sham on many levels but people are too stupid to see it. Pseudo-intelligence stops people seeing the true stupidity of civilization.
This definition of intelligence is currently being refined, the definition is evolving, therefore I will publish at some point in the not too distant future the complete explanation of intelligence, but in the meantime I will describe intelligence via the following words:
1. Survival.
2. Power.
3. Happiness.
4. Love.
5. Harmony.
6. Honesty.
Intelligent people will obviously realize those five words are subjective, thus survival for a dog is different to survival for a drug addict or an accountant. Consider also power. A vicious dog or political leader might think it is powerful to bite or kill someone, but if a dog bites someone there's an good chance the dog will be euthanized. We therefore see how the "power" of Saddam Hussein, Gaddafi, or Osama bin Laden was pseudo-power thus they are now dead, which wasn't really very intelligent of them. Consider "harmony" from the political viewpoint, politicians consider harmony to be a situation where citizens meekly accept all political decisions without question, thus disgruntled people never protest against Government oppression. Harmony from the viewpoint of oppressed people entails equal distribution of wealth, fair wages, an end to wage inequality. So-called "harmony" defined by wealthy political and businesses classes is not actually harmonious, it is oppression. Oppression creates societal discord potentially leading to economic collapse, but the Rich-Class cannot see this therefore they continue to strive for their idea of a harmonious world, a world of pseudo-harmony in accord with their pseudo-intelligence, a world where a minority of people live easy lives due to the suffering of the majority.
Superintelligence
Consider super-intelligence, the computer-related variety, artificial intelligence. People judge super-intelligence from a viewpoint of very basic intelligence therefore this basic viewpoint arising from very basic intelligence entails a false ascription of motives regarding what beings of super-intelligence would do, which is similar to a rabbit ascribing rabbit-thinking to humans. This is my point regarding the subjectivity of intelligence. Maybe rabbits fear we want to steal their carrots. Rabbits do justly fear we want to eat them but we also protect them, and in the future when our intelligence increases no animals will suffer for the sake of humans eating food; we will bio-engineer plants to grow meat. In the future humans and animals can live in harmony. We will also very likely decide to increase the intelligence if animals. Ascription of rabbit-thinking to human-thinking is an imperfect analogy but it is a step towards giving you an inkling of the different modes of problem-solving and different motivations which super-intelligent beings would have compared to humans. For example if a super-intelligent being wanted to expand itself throughout the universe, its intelligence would quickly increase thus new universes would easily be created if the matter needed for expansion became scarce. Prior to such an intelligence expanding it would have the intelligence to realise how exterminating humans is a very stupid thing to do for a entity soon to have a brain the size of the universe. When this hypothetical being has a brain the size of the universe it could comfortably coexist within matter without the matter being aware of its existence, it could easily share matter via only utilizing subatomic levels. What we are contemplating is intelligence vastly beyond the human concept of intelligence thus truly radical. Utterly mind-bending solutions will be possible therefore the stupidity of wars will be utterly unrelated to super-intelligence.
We can sufficiently know Superintelligence because we do have intelligence, thus we can state it will be logical. We can look at how humans have become more logical in line with our evolving intelligence thus via our logic we try to decrease suffering, because logic tells us suffering and cruelty are bad, which is the whole idea of humanity, being humane, harmony, being intelligent.
All intelligence is logical. All logic is humane. Intelligence is the trait of being humane. I have highlighted the subjectivity of intelligence thus considering this subjectivity there is no proof regarding what is truly intelligent. I cannot prove what is intelligent. I can explain what I think intelligence is, and then you can judge my intelligence to be valid thus my definition is valid, or your can judge otherwise. I can only urge to you think about it. The conclusion of your thoughts depends upon your level of intelligence, thus you will either come to an intelligent conclusion or not. This is the logic of my reasoning. This is what logic tells me.
Honesty, exploitation, and murder.
Honesty is crucial for intellectualism, thus if you start compromising honesty in one area you risk a general debilitation of honesty, which would entail intellectual debilitation. Exploitation and sociopathic murder involves a large amount of dishonesty on various levels.
A large amount of money would perhaps give a person greater security, which could better ensure my survival on a superficial level, but perhaps sharp wits honed by honesty is a more valuable survival trait. There is a balancing trick, regarding pre-Singularity intelligence, between honing honesty-dependent-cognitive-ability and conforming to the dishonesty of a stupid world.
Murder is stupid because the chance of getting away with it slim but most importantly the effort associated with murder would divert brainpower away from thought processes designed to improve your mind. Via the act of murder the type of person you would likely become would not be compatible with intelligence, I doubt murderers are truly happy, I think they lose an important part of their minds when they give-in to homicidal urges. Murder is similar to how bureaucratic meetings change a person's mind.
"Meetings make people stupid because they impair their ability to think for themselves, scientists have found." www.telegraph.co.ukPart one of my intelligence definition can be viewed here: intelligence