this post was submitted on 17 Jan 2025
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Idiocracy was too optimistic. it supposes that when people are having problems they will realize, realize they can't fix it, and try to find someone who knows more than them to fix them
Your point, like many similar, misses the fact that idiocracy is MANY cycles in before they attempt to right the ship. There is an entire population of adults in there that seemed to have been born into the already broken world and developed wholly inside of it (and probably several generations). Not a lot of "Back in my day" in that world, because back in "that day" everyone was still a fucking moron in a broken world.
500 years covered in the link below alone. Settle in, we're just getting started. Unfortunately we'll never live to see the movie, "Ass" or to see it win those 8 Oscars.
http://www.themovietimeline.com/film6759
Not just that but the story also suggests that the US can fail so terribly while still functioning to be able to still host monster truck rallies and have a working water system that can pump millions of gallons of mountain dew
Brawndo, its what plants crave
The premise was that it was a gradual decline to that point though. There would have been millions of opportunities to right the ship up until that point. It's optimistic that at some point, at SOME point, people will decide to do what the smartest people think. But the movie is pretty pessimistic that there was entire generations that didn't ever do that even once.
It's also not how genetics works. Smart people don't only have smart children and dumb people don't only have dumb children.
The fact that nine people m people think that intelligence is actually a highly inheritable trait is worrying.
People evolved from ape-like predecessors. Would you say the children of a predecessor and the children of a modern human are equally likely to be of a similar intelligence?
The apes figured out how to make tools out of stone. They knew how to make fire and knew which plants they could and couldn't eat. People today aren't smarter than their ancestors because they have access to sophisticated tech.
A lot of people conflate "knowledge" and "intelligence." Not the guy you replied to, they seem like a troll; but still, a lot of people.
Our ancestors had intelligence in spades. They figured out an insane amount of stuff just to survive; and it's not too far back in the grand scheme of things that they had to remember it all because they had no way to record it. The first caveman to make a handaxe had absolutely no idea what he was doing, but they figured it out. Wheels, bows, fire, the entire concept of agriculture... They figured out how all of that worked from scratch, with no reference material.
Modern humanity builds on that with knowledge. We've figured out how to record everything our ancestors discovered, and all of our new discoveries as well. We've put men on the moon, figured out how to make electricity from things like waterfalls and glowing rocks, and almost everyone has a tiny computer in their pocket.
None of that means that we're more intelligent now, though. All of that knowledge is iterative, so we've just been applying that same intelligence at a continually higher level throughout history.
The idea of "surviving" doesn't even come into play in the evaluation of other species. Stupid as hell species survive for hundreds of thousands of years on Earth, that's how conducive it is to life. You seem to have some unfounded civilized cavemen POV on our ancestors when really we're still all apes + advanced language.
The dawn of civilization wasn't us going from some lone person survival style steam game where we came into the world solo dolo in a pair of underwear.
Try this story about 'intelligence'
https://ebookslib.org/sf/12898-eurema-s-dam.html
Nah. The existence of evolution in no way validates your pseudo-science racism. Billions of years of natural selection doesn't equate to your garbage notion that "certain people" shouldn't procreate.
When did I say that only certain types of people shouldn't be allowed to reproduce?
I'm antinatalist, I don't think anyone should be allowed to being life into the world, which is filled with so much suffering, without the consent of the child.
Regardless, I was just disputing the claim that intelligence is in no way a heritable trait.
You're defending eugenics.
The eugenics component of the movie is gross, no wonder I fail to remember it.
IIRC, the movie had no eugenics component. You appear to be conflating the concept of "darwinism" (natural selection) with the concept of "eugenics".
The concept of "reproductive rights" allows for individuals to make their own selections for themselves and their offspirng; those choices do not constitute "eugenics" until they are imposed in another.
If the state is not applying selective pressure, it is not eugenics.
The apocalyptic scenario depicted in the movie is suggested to be brought about by failing to encourage the correct couples to reproduce. Implying that certain people for certain reasons are unworthy because their progeny are not suitable stewards of the planet.
No, it wasn't. The implication was that the smart people didn't procreate as much as the stupid people, and that generation after generation saw the intelligence of the species go down.
Worth had nothing to do with it.
Works have meanings beyond their surface-level detail and literal meaning. They also have themes and clear implications. And Idiocracy certainly has those. It has clear undertones of eugenics.
The first is the clear implication that population demographics require active management. In the movie, there was no mass government program to encourage births among those of low intelligence and discourage births among the intelligent. This situation developed entirely naturally through culture acting on its own. A viewer could only conclude that if this horrible future is to be avoided, that we need to start worrying a lot more about who is reproducing in what numbers. We either need government mandates or major cultural initiatives to encourage reproduction among the deserving. Idiocracy never outright endorses eugenics, but the implication is obvious. Writers aren't idiots. They know the clear implications of their work. You don't end up with a political movie that clearly implies the solution is genocide without realizing that's the obvious implication.
The second is the theme that intelligence is something that can be bred or selected for at all through the social stratification we have now. Are those with PhDs really more intelligent, by writ of birth, than those that never graduate high school? Or it mostly about circumstances of birth, opportunities, personal choices, or even neonatal environmental pollutant exposure? Do we have any real evidence that intelligence differences within the species are something that can truly be selected for? Hell, what kind of intelligence are we talking about? Scholastic ability, emotional intelligence, executive reasoning, etc? There are many types of intelligence. And the very idea that the poor and those of lower educational attainment are of genetically lower intelligence is a key eugenics theme.
Yes, Idiocracy never comes right out and explicitly endorses eugenics. But the implications and themes are undeniably pro-eugenics.
I'm going to have to go watch the movie again, but I don't recall any message that the state created (or failed to stop) the "idiotization" of the populace.
The overarching message seemed to blame rampant consumerism, not evolutionary pressure.
Don't do drugs, it's bad for you. You remembered the wrong movie.
There is though, there's a whole scene about poor=dumb and horny vs rich=smart and chaste. It's very easy to forget since it doesn't solidly tie in as much as the producers may have hoped
There's an implied statement in that scene: "if their parents and grandparents were different people, this world would not be in ruins." Mercifully a lot of viewers interpreted the film as a satirical view of the progression of society in general or humanity overall. But the scene as it is laid out says the wealthy smart people died out and left only the dumb poors to inherit the earth.
No, the scene is about how the wealthy people wait for the best financial opportunity to afford their kid the best while the dumb people just have kids. The wealthy folks wait too long and have no kids.
The movie is about how "dumb" people outbred "smart" people and it ruined the planet/humanity. Replace those traits with the races of your choice or any other genetic trait and tell me if you're still OK with that narrative.
Race isn’t the result of choices but being less educated certainly is to some degree a function of choice. Your suggestion of replacing a trait that involves choices with one that is not chosen at any level is a false equivalence.
How exactly is it treated as a choice in the movie?
The "smart" people keep waiting and waiting. It's not being forced on them...
Choice to have a baby ≠ choice to "be dumb"
Choice to not have baby = choice to let dumb people out-procreate smart people = more dumb people
And, returning to the original question - How exactly is that treating individual intelligence as a choice and not a genetic trait?
You know how you can choose to pay attention in class and do the work and ask for help when needed? If you don’t do any if that you’ll end up dumb and that is a result if your choices
Setting aside the ableism of your reply, it still in no way relates to how intelligence is treated in the movie that is being discussed.
Dumb isn’t ableist really. It used to refer to mute people but it hasn’t been used for that purpose in decades. Nice try at another bullshit claim. You like those don’t you?
You misunderstood the first scene completely to the point where I wonder if your sensitivity to this bit is because of your own perspective on where you sit intellectually or financially. You can decide on your own how much of that is the result of your educational choices.
Lol. "You're dumb and poor". What an informative reply. Thanks for clearing that up.
You really have trouble understanding things if that's your take away from my comment. I never concluded that you are poor or stupid but Im leaning towards you not being a strong reader based on the skills you demonstrated today.
Literally what you said. Feel free to clarify if that's not what you meant.