People of above average ability tend to build up civilisation while people of below average intelligence tend to tear it down. By civilisation I mean the ability to work together on projects that don't harm other groups. The better the people of a culture work together on noble goals the more civilised they can be said to be¹. With this definition in mind it's obvious why below average people reduce the level of civility. They don't understand the goals as well as others and they don't understand the mechanisms of achieving those goals as well as others. As a result they will tend to engage in activities that benefit themselves at the expense of the group. Meanwhile people of above average intelligence understand the goals of society even better than most and seek to explain their understanding to others, thus acting to improve the level of civility. Elon Musk is the poster-child of this type of person. But most of the people I know fail to comprehend any aspect at all of what he is trying to do. It's obvious that if we could somehow build a society exclusively of people intelligent enough to understand Elon's goals that that society would be way more civilised than our current one. I'm not super stocked to move to Mars because it's a tough place to live but one aspect of it that does very much appeal the fact that all people that go will by definition be smart enough to understand Elon's goals. And I'm very curious to see what a society with a high minimum intelligence level would be like.

Christianities great contribution to the world is civilising people that aren't smart enough to understand Elon level goals. It would be so much better if we could just lay out a great set of goals in front of the masses and have them understand why those goals are the correct goals and how doing X, Y, and Z will lead to those goals being achieved. But we can't, not even in a one on one discussion can the average person come to understand how the destruction of earth is only a matter of when not if. And that's one of the simpler presuppositions that Elon bases his goals on.

[^1:] If you look at a world map of IQ's you will see a map of civility