You should take Slate[1] with an even bigger grain of salt. While Less Wrong is a canonical illustration of all the problems with high IQ people, at least they try to be accurate in their beliefs.
Which is the actual purpose of the site. Singularity, consequentialism/utilitarianism, and so on are side effects.
I'm not sure what you mean. I've been following LessWrong for a while now, but I've never seen that Slate article before. I should be clear that most posters do not agree with the idea itself, as it is fairly absurd. What's more interesting are the thought processes that might lead one to consider such an idea, which are in full evidence throughout the site.
Which is the actual purpose of the site. Singularity, consequentialism/utilitarianism, and so on are side effects.
[1] I'm guessing http://www.slate.com/articles/technology/bitwise/2014/07/rok... right?