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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#191

Post by coldtea »

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #137
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

It's true though, isn't it? The response is what typifies Nazi and similar positions. It is curious that there's no reported disgenic effect though - that seems counter to evolutionary theory? Perhaps it's only limiting the rate of growth of IQ/intelligence. There's a classic sci-fi story in which we rely on computers, the population gets dumber to the point noone knows how to make/fix the computers. I think in that…

>but it's from the time when there were monolithic computers.

Or centralized SOTA LLMs.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#192

Post by [deleted] »

api wrote: post #62

I think you could have done this in the 1980s and 1990s and found a lot of fits: MTV, reality shows, daytime TV, junk food everywhere, pop music becoming increasingly trite and simple, newspapers and commentary declining toward grade school level vocabulary. In the 50s you would have had suburban conformity and doctors recommending cigarettes. In the 60s you had people trying to become enlightened by taking drugs and…

[deleted]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#193

Post by mike_hearn »

mvdwoord wrote: post #152
thousand_nights wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

i couldn't finish "Don't Look Up", it felt like sitting through a political lecture. all i wanted from a comedy was some laughs.

Same here. There was something feeling so obviously off with Don't Look Up.. for me at least. Idiocracy did not suffer from this.. but Mike Judge is somewhat of an acquired taste I guess.

I never saw it but Scott Alexander's review made it sound like the writers of Don't Look Up were themselves idiots, who wanted to send a political message but couldn't figure out how to do it properly.

https://www.astralcodexten.com/p/movie-review-dont-look-up

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#194

Post by fleroviumna »

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.

[dead]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#195

Post by seydor »

AllegedAlec wrote: post #168

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".

I don't think so. Trump is exceptional compared to political tradition for a very long time, as evidenced currently by most developed world leaders shunning his illegal war campaign. In fact, who else can be comparable?

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#196

Post by fainpul »

davemp wrote: post #88
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.

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.

There is no eugenics angle in Idiocracy. Nobody tries to achieve some "genetic ideal" by manipulating people.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#197

Post by MSFT_Edging »

Lio wrote: post #76
input_sh wrote: post #45

Not quite sure "Ow My Balls / Jackass" argument should count, the Jackass franchise is older than Idiocracy and was most likely an inspiration for that bit.

For some reason that also reminds me of the TV shows in Robocop. e.g. Climbing for Dollars and It’s Not My Problem! When I first saw Robocop these looked so crass it was obvious satire. Now...? Well, I'd buy that for a dollar.

Verhoeven makes some extremely heavy handed satire.

A decent litmus test is whether someone understands that the Starship Troopers movie is satire or not.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#198

Post by amalcon »

froggiemeow wrote: post #132
anonymars wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is so special about tweets as though we don't have copious other writings to reference?

Tweets are low effort and short, you can even do it while taking a dump, there is a lot more friction to being unhinged when you are writing a book or taking an interview, for reference trumps most unhinged stuff is tweets, not interviews and not books. Not all forms of writing are equal.

Trump's tweets are low effort. Just like most of his rally speeches, which are also unhinged. Other presidents, especially e.g. FDR, put effort into all of their communications. Including speeches and, when available, tweets.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#199

Post by actionfromafar »

seydor wrote: post #110

- "Brought to you by Carl's Jr. They pay me every time i say it" vs "Mysterious trading patterns follow Trump into war" - "Florida's in Georgia, dumbass" vs "We setled Aberbaijan and Albania" - "Secretary of education is kinda stupid, but he 's president's brother" vs "Donald Trump's White House is a family affair" I ve been watching Idiocracy over and over for years, as a documentary. In many ways the movie is more…

And the President in Idiocracy, for all his faults, actually wants to do the right thing, once he has the facts.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#200

Post by orwin »

reliabilityguy wrote: post #142
MidnightRider39 wrote: post #118

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Imho IQ scores aren’t a sufficient measure of intelligence, it’s very shaky science at best

> Imho IQ scores aren’t a sufficient measure of intelligence You may be correct. However, if the methodology of IQ scoring didn’t change, the change in score itself is worth of investigation.

Depends on the IQ test i guess?

The one i did at 7 _definitely_ had a cultural component. I think it was 5 different tests, i distinctly during one of them thinking "if my parent didn't educate me on music there is no way i could have answered that, is this bullshit?". Then in the spatialization test i had a tangram, which incidentally, was a game i had since i was 4. Honestly i remember i scored high, but i also told myself how lucky that was that most of the question the psychologist asked me, i already read the answers (which might have been the point), and that they used a tangram because honestly i knew i would have scored poorly on that particular test, i have trouble visualizing stuff (mild aphantasia).

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