Well, if you had only 'smart people' there would still be a distribution of intelligence, with a mean and sigma. And you'd just define 'dumb' as being those who were >2 sigma below that mean. (Same argument applies to 'poverty', incidentally.)
Most things don't require above average intelligence to learn and do. Smart people only really shine in complex situations or when attempting to produce a breakthrough in some field. So a city of relatively smart people would largely look like ours but with less crime and anger.
Just how would the seasons work?
Any way you want. Just as there are places on earth with only one season, you can design it to have 1 or however many you want per year. And that could be done by limiting the amount of time sunlight shines in, either via filters or altered day/night times. But the cylinder isn't big enough to have a climate, so your spring is still going to require artificial rain, for instance.
Assuming they are using external solar panels on the hull to get energy from the sun, would there be any point in adding solar panels to any rooftops inside the habitat area? Or wind turbines, hydro electric generators in rivers, heat sinks in the ground and other uses of renewable energy?
Nope. No wind for wind for turbines, no snowy mountains for rivers and solar panels on house roofs would be inefficient compared to those in vacuum, and you might not have house roofs at all. Why build houses when the hole world is built from scratch and the environment is controlled? Live under the plants, or in fabric structures. The whole place could be bikini temps year round with precisely controlled rain.
How would a ship dock with the rotating station?
Aside from the hubs, another easy way to dock would be to fly at the edge of the rotating side, perpendicular to the axis. If the ship is traveling the same velocity as the outer circumference of the station, they will have a moment when they are static to hook up. At that point the station "lifts" the ship off of it's straight path and into the rotation - like a car tire tread grabbing a stone off a road. Launching would send the ship on its way with the velocity it arrived with - but in other directions. The advantage would be that the ship is under gravity while it is docked (which is also the disadvantage. Ooop - looks like you answered your own question. But it is best think about the ship flying under the cylinder and being picked up rather than over and coming down.
Otherwise, you could just park near one end and come aboard through an inflatable tube. You don't have to hard dock.
Even if we think we can play god well enough to manage an artificial eco system why on earth would we build them?
Why wouldn't you build them? Why would it be better to travel long distances and put up with all the downsides of a dead planet when a space station can have a perfectly controlled earth-type environment parked right near home? No blight, no mosquitos, no hurricanes. Low cost to travel between them and other vacuum locales. Plus, it doesn't destroy the natural environment of other planets and moons that aren't the right gravity or chemistry for earth life. After awhile, it would seem foolish to live on planets - like being a hunter/gatherer instead of working 9-5 and having a grocery store.
That said, that does bring up the point of what kind of work would be done there?
What kind of work do we do here? Do you know anyone who farms or builds machines? Most of us do things that are far removed from survival type activities. People in space will design shopping webpages, make porn, invest in bitcoin, run blood drives and operate liquor stores. Just like here.
But they may also do work building more orbiting stuff, maintaining powerstations that beam energy down to earth, make consumer goods out of space materials and then drop them to earth.
I have never heard of an O'Neill cylinder spaceship and am enjoying reading and thinking about it for the first time. At the moment I'm not clear why you need a counter-rotating module. I rather thought you would orient your craft's rotation axis in any desired direction by transferring angular momentum to and from flywheels, much as with the ISS. But as I said, this is a new area for me...
You could. But the other cylinder
is the flywheel. Why build an dead flywheel of solid matter when you could have more living space?
Space stations could be great ways to put people in healthy environments and let the earth heal below. Consumption in space isn't nearly as awful as on a living planet with strong gravity. And if you decide that you want to go study saturn, you don't have to start all over with ships and construction - just take the slow ride out by moving a station where you want it. Space travel doesn't need to be cramped and resource starved.
