Are We Idiocracy Yet? • Hacker News Board

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#421

Post by cwillu » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:01 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #314

Goronmon wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You can have a message and point of view, but don't put activism over comedy. The "joke" in this case is people's reactions to school shootings. And people's reactions haven't changed, so I don't see why the article should change. It's just so exhausting. This has some real "The worst thing about school shootings is knowing that The Onion is going to repost that article I personally am tired of seeing" energy to it.

It's not a joke if you repeat it 100 times. That article has some real "The best thing about school shootings is we get to have literally every article on our website be this clever headline we wrote 10 years" energy to it.

The joke will continue until the populace finally gets it.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#422

Post by t-3 » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:02 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #166

FlufferTheGreat wrote: post #122

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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;…

A straightforward rendition of the last 10 years wouldn't even pass the smell test for a satire. It might work as some kind of experimental dark slapstick.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#423

Post by mindslight » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:08 PM UTC

Vektorceraptor wrote: post #239

I can't take this seriously - blaming Trump but not Joe Biden, though latter had obvious symptoms of cognitive decline AND many "smart" people claimed otherwise. If you are literally tricked to doubt your own eyes, your natural judgements and being constantly gaslighted to think otherwise - then this should be called out as well. If this does not fullfil the criteria for "Idiocracy", then nothing does.

The thing about Biden was that the bureaucracy was still intact, so most government functionality carried on just fine regardless what Biden himself was doing. Trump gutted the bureaucracy in favor of autocracy, replacing the domain experts with sycophantic yes-men. So when Biden got a terrible idea that would unquestionably harm the country, the response would have been something like "We'll look into that" or even an outright "no". Whereas when Trump gets a terrible idea (which lets be honest is a few times a week), the only answer is "yes sir".

If you're comparing dementia styles, Biden was effectively the type that is happy to sit on the couch and stare off into space while his family does things around him. Trump is the combative kind that is always trying to find the keys to the car to drive away and assert his own independence, and violently rejects help and concern.

As for your larger comment, you're probably closer to right in that bureaucratic authoritarians were much more like Idiocracy. President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho had better leadership, speaking ability, policy planning, honesty, work ethic, intelligence, humility, and outright patriotism than the piece of pig shit currently staining our White House could ever hope for. He also didn't rape trafficked underage girls or pardon Upgrayedd for a bribe. The movie makes me long for simpler times.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#424

Post by Froztnova » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:11 PM UTC

anonymars wrote: post #376

Froztnova wrote: post #170

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Did the movie ever say anything about genetics or IQ?

It does explicitly reference IQ and, at one point, shows an adult taking an intelligence test and trying to put a square peg into a round hole.

There is nothing in the movie that suggests that the decline in average intelligence is a result of cultural factors or education.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#425

Post by jMyles » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:17 PM UTC

breakyerself wrote: post #333

I love Idiocracy, but I have come to sympathize with criticism that it's a bit pro-eugenics.

More than "a bit" - it's the entire premise of the film.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#426

Post by mike_hearn » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:18 PM UTC

soared wrote: post #287

mike_hearn wrote: post #268

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There are quite a lot of dubious matches. Brawndo is considered a match with "Nestlé CEO says water isn't a human right". Beyond that it has nothing to do with agricultural malpractice, the Nestlé guy is just correct. It doesn't make sense to talk about human rights that way. "Ow my balls" is considered a match because "YouTube's most popular content is often people hurting themselves", which is just wrong. It's stuf…

The apprentice is literally reality tv competition though.

It's a TV show. It's not reality TV as the term was originally used.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#427

Post by Fnoord » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

bko wrote: post #384

catapart wrote: post #357

Earlier quoted context omitted.

not quite; spell it out for me. are you suggesting that the onion has never, under any circumstances, been funny and therefore are guilty of having pretentious opinions that are "not funny", which makes them bad? Or is it that you're suggesting that you are the sole arbiter of what is and isn't funny, so you're the only person who gets to determine the worth of specific types of humor? Sorry, I have a hard time disti…

[flagged]

I know a comedian who is very good on absurdity. He's been doing that for ages (he kind of popularized it in my country), and he generally attracts right-wingers. I don't appreciate all his humor, as in I don't find it all funny because the goal seems to be to shock (kind of like Goatse, which was also a joke/meme riddled with a political message). I do find it political and humor though, as I can clearly see the intent is (at least also) to humor, and also can recognize political virtue signaling within. I've also found him, at times, funny.

Whether something is humor can be objectively established by disassembly of the structure of the content, whereas 'if you find it funny' is personal, yet 'if it is funny' is a summary of whether a certain group (such as 'the general public', whatever that may be) find it as such.

As such, I believe the expression of not finding someone or something funny a red herring. Different emotions obviously flourish, and the person who expresses that they don't find it funny finds these (more) important.

The red herring here isn't whether The Onion is funny or not (personal), it isn't whether it is humor or not (it is, specifically satire). It is that you fundamentally disagree with the political message it entails. Which you are allowed to do so, but in a discussion it is useful to recognize a significant amount of people do find it funny, and either have no problem with the political messages (tolerance) or agree with these (acceptance).

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#428

Post by everdrive » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:20 PM UTC

jfengel wrote: post #173

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/

I'd be curious to know the average IQ of, say, climate deniers. I suspect it's still a perfect 100. I don't think it's about general intelligence. In some ways just the opposite: very smart people have a talent for convincing themselves that they are right. Unfortunately I fear it's more like EQ than IQ. The driver is more about the people. They do not like the kind of people who are trying to prevent climate change,…

One other thing that's interesting -- at least in my personal observations, climate deniers don't usually actually argue the science. They might do this when publishing or speaking publicly. But, at least when you're talking with them and they're at ease and speaking freely, they seem to offer a different argument.

The argument I've seen, which really sticks with me, is that climate change is false, yes, but that's sort of a given that we don't investigate. Climate change was cooked up so that "the other side" could impose all sorts of horrible restrictions on "us."

I obviously don't agree with the argument, (ie, I think climate change is real and quite urgent) but I think it's an interesting framing. It's an argument from tribalism most obviously, but I also think it does what so many people do when attempting to understand complex events; it transforms the problem into more of a personal drama. The "real issue" is that "those people" are "against us." You see this sort of framing all the time; complex problems boiled down into personal dramas because people intuitively understand personal dramas and seek them out, but not necessarily because a personal drama has the best explanatory power.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#429

Post by seydor » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:21 PM UTC

AllegedAlec wrote: post #370

seydor wrote: post #195

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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?

Today it's Trump, yesterday it was something else. Tomorrow it'll be a third thing.

what was yesterday

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#430

Post by pluc » Tue, Apr 07, 2026, 2:22 PM UTC

pbhjpbhj wrote: post #221

jacquesm wrote: post #134

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If Trump spots a mentally capable person that is also stupid enough to eat his slop (or evil enough), he gets a job. Isn't that a bit like a wooly mammoth? In theory it could exist but in practice you're not going to find anybody that is both mentally capable and at the same time stupid enough to eat his slop. That leaves evil enough and there are plenty of those...

There are plenty of intelligent people that are willing to ride on the back of the Trump regime. That seems mostly to be the problem, in fact. Whoever suggested that using Tariffs to provide a handle to move stocks that they could use to trade, I very much doubt it came from Trump. That was provided the means to keep all the greedy grubbers in the Republican party onside whilst they hid Trump's involvement with Epste…

Never attribute to malice that which is adequately explained by stupidity