I think we need to define intelligence and compassion a bit better perhaps. The whole idea here that intelligent people without compassion will be entirely self serving and cruely harm everyone with great efficiency is a bit odd I think. Is intelligence the attribute that allows for a clear understanding of the world? If so, then the implication would be that a clear understanding of the world is that all that matters is personal self interest, and that cruelty is not actually in reality a bad thing. (Since an intelligent person should be a person that understands reality clearly, he would clearly see in reality that cruelty is not bad and that his self interest is what is good.)
And about compassion, are we talking basically about sympathy? Sympathy is certainly important, it's pretty much the root of all our moral sentiments, if you believe what Adam Smith had to say on the topic in any case. Sympathy doesn't carry you that far though, on its own it only provides a motivation to act well in the presence of other human beings whose reactions you can witness.
Consider such as Hitler though. Hitler's problem arguably wasn't a lack of comapssion, it was a deranged view of the world. He was perfectly compassionate to what he saw to be good human beings, but his stupidity (failure to perceive reality clearly) meant that what he thought was a good human being didn't really exist (aryan supermen exist only in the imagination, so to get to the 'superman' you have to clear away pretty much the entire human race, naturally starting with those who in hitlers deranged view were the most opposed to his speculated imaginary ideal humans). If you're stupid enough to actually think that some people aren't really people, then your sense of compassion and sympathy won't apply. You can see such a phenomenon in such as Eichmann even better, that banally evil putz. He was responsible through his organization of the holocaust for millions of deaths, and yet the guy was hardly demonically evil like a sadistic SS prison guard would have been.
Consider the communists if you don't believe that. Communists would probably consider themselves compassionate, but in the name of an imaginary utopia, they'll do all kinds of terrible things to all kinds of people. Didn't Lenin say one time he couldn't listen to Mozart becasue it softened him up too much? He had compassion, he could be 'softened up' by pretty classical music, but his stupidity (and don't call Lenin's bullshit the product of intelligence, imaginary communist utopias are the product of an unclear view of reality, not an intelligent assesment of it) caused him to deliberately supress his compassion.
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Unfortunately, some of our technological advancements that run on gas and whatnot, have been seriously fucking up nature and the ozone layer. It's only a matter of time before the earth pretty much floods, or we are killed off by nuclear warfare. Call me crazy, but thats where I think "intelligence" is taking us.
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The problem isn't intelligence, it's stupidity! It's certainly not as if compassion would solve our excessive desires for fuel. Reliance on such as sympathy and compassion are the exact problem with solving such long term problems as environmental degradation. You put gas in your car and drive around, you can't see the consequences in human faces in front of you, it's impossible. The only solution to such problems is using intelligence to clearly see and understand the complex consequences of such actions. When you're too stupid to understand that, or stupid enough to think that your immediate interests are more important than the future of the planet, then you're going to have difficulty in solving these long term problems.
I think the whole problem here is that you're all talking about ingenuity and calling it intelligence.
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