Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future • Hacker News Board

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#61

Post by aww_dang » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

kelseyfrog wrote: post #41

aww_dang wrote: post #13

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The bigger issue for those who object might be ceding control over personal energy consumption to authoritarian central planners. It fits with a pattern of usurpation of individual liberties under the pretense of emergency. Whether or not the Earth has a warming climate is largely irrelevant to this point. The next question would be what the optimal climate is and how do these experts know what it is? We've gone from…

This is a really good example of not liking a solution and resolving that conflict by denying the problem. Was there a single point in your life where your worldview crystalized or was it an evolving process? I'm genuinely interested in how people arrive at the place your at.

Your comment is patronizing, but I'll do my best. Pollution is still a problem for me.

I'd say I evolved as I matured as an individual. There was only so much fearful propaganda I could consume before my curiosity led me to examine the premises. The repeated invocation of apocalypse to scare people has direct historical parallels to other religious financial schemes.

What is an ideal climate, and how would fallible men determine that? Does it not seem backwards for man to dictate what nature should be, when man will never have sufficient information to describe nature?

Who knows, maybe your views will also continue to evolve? I hope I can retain enough curiosity to do the same for myself.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#62

Post by jollybean » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:50 PM UTC

haunter wrote: post #37

jollybean wrote: post #18

It's funny to see how 'one side' will completely miss the satirization of themselves in the work, and just laugh at the jokes targeted towards them. (And FYI I'm not 'taking a side' I can only imagine what 'some other' publication would make of the film) Judge was also mocking lack of education, slouching cultural standards, lack of competency, lack of moral fibre, conscientiousness etc.. In pretty much every scene.…

>it maybe a kind of IQ test or maybe 'personality type' test because I saw it with a friend and she didn't grasp any of the satire at all, to her it was 'stupid' and she literally fell asleep. I didn't know what to make of that. Simply not everything is for everyone. The world is not black and white.

I do realize that for sure. I can see someone not liking it. But it was eerie for someone to not see the satire jump out at them. This wasn't an 'anti take', or 'Oh a mean corporation how about that' i.e. cynical or blaze attitude to satire ... rather it was just 'don't get it'. That said, I will admit, if the medium of the message is not inspiring, then maybe it's not worth the effort for someone to even try to process it. Nobody in my family likes it either.

But any film that's being reviewed 15 years later is worth watching I think.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#63

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

Relevant xkcd; I am unsure as to the veracity: https://xkcd.com/603

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#64

Post by vorpalhex » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:52 PM UTC

zarkov99 wrote: post #59

magikaram wrote: post #10

"The underlying message of course is that humans ought to take such things as science, research and knowledge seriously, lest we create our own Idiocracy." Rather, I felt the underlying message of the film is that the film is a critique of the consumerism and corporatism of the US. The 'idiocracy' with how the government runs, the downward trend of education in the US, and the pessimistic views of our future.

I think the reality is much darker than this: cognitive elites have fewer children than the rest so the average population IQ drops over time (once you fix the low hanging fruits of nutrition/health care of course) . I do not see any solution to this that is not straight out of Brave New World.

While a great plot point that is entirely fantasy and fiction. The average IQ rate of every generation tends to be a few points higher, though there may be a cap.

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#65

Post by mateomorris » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:53 PM UTC

gota wrote: post #49

battles wrote: post #40

One of the best predictions from Idiocracy is our reliance on AI that no one understands anymore. They made all of these systems that did everything for them and decades later, after barely even needing to think for themselves for so long, they’re dumb as rocks and have no idea how anything works.

That's more Wall-e than Idiocracy, I think. Was there any talk of AI in Idiocracy?

Automation, at least. When they started spraying the crops with water (like from the toilet) instead of Brawndo, half the population got automatically laid off.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#66

Post by andrewclunn » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:54 PM UTC

There's always an underlying "those OTHER people are them dumb ones" in any and all of this sort of criticism. The thing is though, to sell it to the masses, not-so-smart characters need to be elevated to appearing intelligent, and straw men need to be employed in rapid fire. The truth is that these sorts of movies "Idiocracy" and "Don't Look Up" are there to give people of middling intelligence validation and reinforce their belief that they are the smart ones.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#67

Post by vorpalhex » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:55 PM UTC

titzer wrote: post #47

slibhb wrote: post #27

Per the Flynn Effect, people are getting smarter. The source of the problems mentioned in the article is not increasing stupidity, it's a breakdown of the relationship between the elites and the masses. You see this clearly in the article where the author complains about sharing a country with deplorables with nutty beliefs. You see it in the elite turn against free speech: elites wonder aloud "is free speech a good…

There are plenty of reasons to question whether the Flynn effect (rise in IQ test scores) actually reflects increases in general intelligence rather than testing skills. Just now, reviewing the Wikipedia article on the subject, I don't see how the Flynn effect is incompatible with the mass psychosis induced by political polarization. People can excel at their jobs and yet rant absurd conspiracies as soon as they get…

Here's a meta-analysis of 281 studies that found very strong support for the Flynn Effect:

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4152423/

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#68

Post by sabhiram » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

mattkevan wrote: post #52

Idiocracy doesn’t actually go far enough to match current-day reality. In the film, people were smart enough to understand they weren’t all that intelligent. Even the president was willing to defer to someone who knew more than him. The last couple of years have proven that to be rather naive when it comes to our real leadership.

Well, the Rock did just announce that he is interested in politics.

Kidding aside, he would likely make a much better leader than the current self indulgent noise.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#69

Post by dllthomas » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:56 PM UTC

lkxijlewlf wrote: post #30

jrs235 wrote: post #15

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I felt the underlying message was "Intelligent people, stop focusing on career and start having more kids (we really are in a race to the bottom)!"

Wouldn't the Dunning-Kruger effect mean that unintelligent people would just keep having kids while the Imposter Syndrome would mean Intelligent people would not?

You think you know more about the Dunning-Kruger effect than you do.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#70

Post by rightbyte » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 4:57 PM UTC

magikaram wrote: post #10

"The underlying message of course is that humans ought to take such things as science, research and knowledge seriously, lest we create our own Idiocracy." Rather, I felt the underlying message of the film is that the film is a critique of the consumerism and corporatism of the US. The 'idiocracy' with how the government runs, the downward trend of education in the US, and the pessimistic views of our future.

The intro of the movie made it quite clear that it was dysgenics.

I.e. how the "good couple" did not have children because of x before the man worked him self to death, while the irresponsible douche stupid brute etc. quarterback was saved by "good couple" medicine and had multiple children.