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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#161

Post by ben_w »

everdrive wrote: post #96
davemp wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I always have a problem when folks bring up idiocracy because the of the eugenics angle. It’s extremely unlikely that people are getting inherently stupider, just less educated. The former is some sort of prophecy of doom and the latter is actually actionable.

Not claiming that Idiocracy is accurate, however IQ scores have been declining. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/3283/

After a while of going up: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Flynn_effect

While genes must play a part in this (if they didn't, all non-humans would also share our IQ*), genetics shift on a much slower timescale than the entire history of IQ tests.

* This pattern matches to the Motte-and-Bailey rhetorical technique, ergo I am suspicious of people who try to tie genetics and IQ until they're clear they're not making a racially charged claim. Last I checked, there is no real evidence that human races are a meaningful genetic category, let alone that anything usually described as "race" correlates to any genes connected to IQ scores.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#162

Post by vaginaphobic »

jacquesm wrote: post #112
bsenftner wrote: post #87

I attended an audience testing screener for Idiocracy before the film's final edit. I could not believe my eyes and ears, I loved it unlike anything I'd seen before, it was the hardest US culture satire I'd seen up to that point. Then the lights came up and the audience started giving their reviews, in an open mike fashion. They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. I remember makin…

> They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. That is sort of the point of the movie. It is a satire, but it is also a documentary packaged as a satire and the wrapping paper isn't all that thick.

[dead]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#163

Post by coldtea »

Rygian wrote: post #145
everdrive wrote: post #96

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not claiming that Idiocracy is accurate, however IQ scores have been declining. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/search/research-news/3283/

Is there any strong relationship between IQ scores and innate intelligence, as opposed to mental agility gained through education?

Yes. Which is why there are also IQ tests for pre-school kids.

Besides the declining groups have the same education with the earlier ones.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#165

Post by ndneighbor »

marxisttemp wrote: post #109
anonymars wrote: post #93

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Fair point, but why jump to genetics instead of culture (upbringing)?

Because the film itself implies that the idiocracy is due to stupid people breeding more, a classic tenet of Nazism and eugenics alike

I think the intent of Mike Judge's joke was less so an outright promotion of eugenics and more so mocking the upper crust of American society's approach to family planning. (That of which Judge was intimately familiar with during his time in SV when he worked for a graphics card company.)

A lot of his work with KotH analyzed the same dynamics of educated and uneducated America and the interplay and I think Idiocracy is essentially the terminus of the observations he would make where if the idiots got their way. (A semi-common plot point with Hank in KotH where he would be pit against rediculous circumstances.)

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#166

Post by jfengel »

FlufferTheGreat wrote: post #122
m_mueller wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

imagine how it would hit today. I'd guess a vast majority would feel insulted by it...

How many felt insulted by Don't Look Up--I'm guessing that Venn is a circle.

I wasn't insulted, but it did feel a bit too on the nose to really work as satire.

Idiocracy got there just in time, before things became so stupid that satire wasn't possible any more. You have to exaggerate so hard that it lacks the feeling of cleverness required by satire.

The Onion struggles on. They've always been true masters of the form. I wrote my own news satire back in the 80s and quit when I saw The Onion; they were far better than I would ever be. Practically nobody else can still pull off satire here in the worst timeline.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#167

Post by spacebacon »

bsenftner wrote: post #87

I attended an audience testing screener for Idiocracy before the film's final edit. I could not believe my eyes and ears, I loved it unlike anything I'd seen before, it was the hardest US culture satire I'd seen up to that point. Then the lights came up and the audience started giving their reviews, in an open mike fashion. They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. I remember makin…

Indignant behavior may have been a result of a perceived attack on viewers belief system. Possibly combined with no 2nd order awareness of thought. Additionally, a subtle “critique” framing from the screening host or “open mic” framing may prime the participants to command attention. Outrage is the easiest when one has no conceptual lens to add interpretive value.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#168

Post by AllegedAlec »

We've had this discourse happen again and again over the last... Christ, 20 years fuck me.

At some point people have to start realizing "oh wait, maybe the current situation isn't unique and people have felt like this since forever".

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#169

Post by dspillett »

netcan wrote: post #33

Idiocracy hit a lot of superficial/thematic nails on the head with its silliness. "Don't Look Up" captures a lot more of the actual dynamics. Instead of anti-eugenics making brains feeble, the people are just normal humans made stupid by their cultural environment, incentives and suchlike.

> Instead of anti-eugenics making brains feeble,

I didn't read Idiocracy as eugenics/anti-eugenics. It wasn't saying that stupid people breeding made the population stupid, it was saying that the less educated breeding resulted in the more educated being pushed to the periphery and eventually fading out.

The people of the film's future were not stupid, just massively uninformed and misinformed. They were able to grasp the problem and solution in the end.

Unless I'm misremembering, and it did make direct reference to intelligence rather than education and access to it. It is a good few years since I last watched it. There is the title, of course, but educationally-disasavantaged-ocracy would not have been catchy enough!

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#170

Post by Froztnova »

ndneighbor wrote: post #165
marxisttemp wrote: post #109

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because the film itself implies that the idiocracy is due to stupid people breeding more, a classic tenet of Nazism and eugenics alike

I think the intent of Mike Judge's joke was less so an outright promotion of eugenics and more so mocking the upper crust of American society's approach to family planning. (That of which Judge was intimately familiar with during his time in SV when he worked for a graphics card company.) A lot of his work with KotH analyzed the same dynamics of educated and uneducated America and the interplay and I think Idiocracy…

I mean yes but the point at the end of the day was that the people who were breeding in Idiocracy had genetically inferior intelligence.
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