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

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#181

Post by aseerdbnarng » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 5:59 PM UTC

Emma_Goldman wrote: post #118

chrsig wrote: post #78

I encourage everyone to watch Don't Look Up . In many ways it struck me as the spiritual successor to Idiocracy. I needed to watch it in chunks, because of how viscerally real it is. It is funny, in that it's ostensibly comedy, and the actors all have great comedic timing...but it's also a very very honest appraisal of where we're at as a society.

I have to disagree. It attempts to satirise today's mass media by exaggerating its influence on politics to the point at which it revolves around little else, succumbing to what it is supposed to be objecting to: the idea of politics and politicians as trivial. The plotline was so wildly implausible that it ended up saying little about the real world. Also, the asteroid threat is not a good analogy for climate change…

Its not good satire because its very heavy handed (similar to Idiocracy) but its criticisms seemed spot on to me. The characters were all there from the jingoist politicians, a media focused on trivial distractions, techno utopianists, a fragmented society that cant agree on common truths and ultimately a disastrous ending that could have been avoided. Its not a cheerful movie

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#182

Post by foreigner » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:03 PM UTC

edoceo wrote: post #86

seanhandley wrote: post #56

The irony for me here is that the author adds no additional intelligence or insight of their own - this is a simple retelling of the story of the Idiocracy film - framed as a prophecy coming true - simply to add eyeballs to the content machine that pays their salary.

I like money.

I can't believe you like money too!

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#183

Post by FredPret » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:04 PM UTC

huijzer wrote: post #74

> 'Observing that “evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence”, the narrator explains that “with no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most – and left the intelligent to become an endangered species”.' As a counterexample, there are the people in the top 1 000 or so of the Forbes ranking. All pretty clever and not really endangered at all. The article reads…

1000 counterexamples does not make a trend in a population of 7000,000,000

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#184

Post by chrsig » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

999900000999 wrote: post #178

chrsig wrote: post #78

I encourage everyone to watch Don't Look Up . In many ways it struck me as the spiritual successor to Idiocracy. I needed to watch it in chunks, because of how viscerally real it is. It is funny, in that it's ostensibly comedy, and the actors all have great comedic timing...but it's also a very very honest appraisal of where we're at as a society.

Don't look up falls flat, in my opinion because you have too many superstars in a movie that should not be about star power. Netflix has this weird habit where it's like they can't budget well. I imagine they spent so much money hiring Leonardo DiCaprio they didn't have enough to write good scriptwriters. I really wanted to like the movie, but why would you cram so many high power celebrities in one film. Film. Idioc…

> Idiocracy is amazing because outside of Booker T, and Scareface's cameo I had no idea who these actors were

I can understand where you're coming from. I'm a marvel fan and I'm disappointed that they went with so many celbreties for Eternals -- I haven't seen it yet, but they were really more distracting than anything in the trailers.

I didn't mind the actors in Don't Look Up though, Leonardo DiCaprio, Jonah Hill, and Jennifer Lawrence had some good chemistry. It did feel like Jonah Hill's character was literally the same character from Wolf of Wallstreet.

My guess is that netflix was hoping that it'd garnish more attention having many big name actors. It's also possible those actors _wanted_ to do it as a form of expression.

> If anything Don't Look Up ends up being a demonstration of the celebrity worship it mocks.

I don't really think it mocked celebrity worship. Maybe to some degree with the tech ceo (I can certainly amuse myself with how HN would probably react to some of it's hivemind's idols like Jobs or PG in that situation.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#185

Post by Trex_Egg » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:07 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.

nice plot by the way.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#186

Post by dfxm12 » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:07 PM UTC

im3w1l wrote: post #138

dfxm12 wrote: post #87

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think that was more of a minor plot point to move the story along rather than the real message. Judge just took a common theme, probably popularized in The Time Machine (The HG Wells book, not the ride in the film), to get us from point A to Point B quickly. After all, it was such a small part of the movie compared to how much time was spent focusing on lowest common denominator entertainment (ow my balls), commerc…

The real genius of Idiocracy is that it realizes that the audience wants to see "ow my balls" but doesn't want to admit it. So it provides a framing where you both get to feel above it and get to indulge.

Haha, I have no trouble admitting it. Be it Ow my balls, Beavis and Butthead or something else, I don't feel above a little bit of schlocky TV, really.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#187

Post by bckr » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:08 PM UTC

freen wrote: post #177

throwvirtever wrote: post #130

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Is it the smart who are successful?

Yes, but the dumb vote in droves for a buffoonish reality tv star they think will fire enough people in Government so that they don’t have to pay taxes anymore. The orange one also hates brown people as much as they do and is unafraid to say it out loud. Also, it’s just a bonus that their reality tv star really, really pisses off those rich educated folks in the city who “look down” them.

I look forward to when not everything is about that man. But we're not there yet, are we?

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#188

Post by loteck » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:09 PM UTC

quacked wrote: post #155

netcan wrote: post #103

Idiocracy is fun, but the instinctive "OMG so true" is, IMO, wrong. The film riffs on a common fallacy more so than it's actually insightful. Statements like "people these days are so stupid/lazy/immoral" tend get an instinctive thumbs up. The slang, pop culture & consumerism of the future are the main way the film "demonstrates" that people got dumber. The premise of Idiocracy is that dumb people reproduce more and…

IQ is not rising; literacy rates are falling in the developed world. As an example, fewer people are literate in Massachusetts now than when it was founded.

fewer people are literate in Massachusetts now than when it was founded

I'm also sensing we may be having some trouble in the math department.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#189

Post by durnygbur » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

Common denominator to reach global audience is attractive young women and making the audience feel smarter than "dumb people". Those who decide about the money we use and about the power structures we submit to are constantly cunning and clever. I don't see them in Idiocracy.

Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future

#190

Post by tarboreus » Thu, Dec 30, 2021, 6:10 PM UTC

throwvirtever wrote: post #130

hamiltonians wrote: post #126

Earlier quoted context omitted.

more like society becoming more bifurcated between the smart and successfull vs. everyone else, instead of everyone becoming dumber.

Is it the smart who are successful?

...

Yes?