[yldedly]

>it's what capable and smart people value and pursue that makes all the difference.

How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values? Seems to me that it's true until it isn't - populism takes over politics, ideology takes over the humanities, science gets Goodharted to death, etc. Values are highly circular - we value what high-status people in our (sub)culture value, and you become high-status by getting what people value. This holds for smart people as well.

[alexashka]

> How do you know capable and smart people will keep having good values?

'Good' values don't exist, so we need not worry about that one :)

[yldedly]

Then what do you mean when you say "make a difference"?

[moffkalast]

I think they mean the literal opposite of things staying the same, not the "helping people" idiom.

[yldedly]

Fair enough, but for the sake of this conversation, if we say 'good' values are those that keep things from staying the same, aren't the values of smart people just as likely to evolve towards 'bad' ones? For example, I'm sure most people know at least one smart person who only plays video games; it does seem that we'll keep inventing forms of entertainment that wirehead people more and more effectively, which seems in line with the Brave New World scenario.