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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#431

Post by [deleted] »

shinjitsu wrote: post #346
Intermernet wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many US citizens didn't get that Starship Troopers was a black comedy. There are serious video reviews taking it seriously as an action movie where the characters are true US heroes. I have a feeling these people are the same as the ones you're talking about.

As a fan of Heinlein's book, the movie flattened the exploration of the political themes from the book and turned it into said black comedy. It would be like turning Animal House or Lord of the Flies into a black comedy.

[deleted]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#432

Post by withinboredom »

ern_ave wrote: post #409
ndsipa_pomu wrote: post #364

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I'd love to hear any additional ideas you have other than violating the rights of citizens. That's a strange take. There's citizens' rights involved in not being shot at and also the right to own guns, but when people are being killed, I would think that the right to life would take precedence over introducing some rule over gun ownership. Here in the UK, we have strict rules on gun ownership (which I'm not particu…

> I would think that the right to life would take precedence Well, let's do a thought experiment to test this. Which of these two rights takes precedence: (1) life (specifically in this case, the right to not be murdered) or (2) freedom of movement That's an easy question, isn't it? (1) takes precedence. But how many 9's of protection are you willing to "purchase" at the expense of (2)? How much of (2) are you willin…

I have no clue what I just read or what kind of mental gymnastics are required to say that a right to a weapon overrides a right to live.

It used to blow my mind when I moved here (Netherlands) that I wasn't allowed to use a weapon to defend myself... but then you realize ... basically nobody has weapons.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#433

Post by [deleted] »

shinjitsu wrote: post #346
Intermernet wrote: post #252

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Many US citizens didn't get that Starship Troopers was a black comedy. There are serious video reviews taking it seriously as an action movie where the characters are true US heroes. I have a feeling these people are the same as the ones you're talking about.

As a fan of Heinlein's book, the movie flattened the exploration of the political themes from the book and turned it into said black comedy. It would be like turning Animal House or Lord of the Flies into a black comedy.

[deleted]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#434

Post by Zigurd »

Fnoord wrote: post #413
Zigurd wrote: post #381

Earlier quoted context omitted.

TBF millions of people are going to demand that you respect their claim that they are not "political."

Demanding to respect a claim is a political act by itself. Something being 'political' or not is a red herring. Politics is deeply ingrained in our society. How much is it ingrained? It is a spectrum, not a binary proposition. Trying to portrait it as a proposition is trying to oversimplify, removing nuance. All it does is it wants people to ignore issues and let different political wings try to live in 'harmony' wit…

I evidently erroneously omitted the /s but really it's more snark

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#435

Post by davemp »

servo_sausage wrote: post #280
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.

This to me is one of the most apparent failures of modern taboo infecting people's ability to communicate, or even reason. Eugenics is not ethical, for a variety of very good reasons; that does not mean that it's unscientific. We know that intelligence is heritable; we have observed epigenetic group trends like the Flynn effect to the point where they plateau... The biggest unknown in my opinion is how stable the gai…

Eugenics is a taboo because there is a tempting trap to over simplify and make assertions that are not actually supported by the data.

We know that IQ is hereditary to an unknown degree. We have some evidence that IQ relates to intelligence.

We don’t know really know which genetic variables are responsible. Even simple features like height are thought to have ~12k variables.

We don’t even really have a good definition of intelligence (see any AGI comment chain).

I would say that assuming we have good enough data or models to base important decisions on is unscientific.

Decisions like improving education and nutrition don’t really need to help.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#436

Post by Zigurd »

withinboredom wrote: post #432
ern_ave wrote: post #409

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I would think that the right to life would take precedence Well, let's do a thought experiment to test this. Which of these two rights takes precedence: (1) life (specifically in this case, the right to not be murdered) or (2) freedom of movement That's an easy question, isn't it? (1) takes precedence. But how many 9's of protection are you willing to "purchase" at the expense of (2)? How much of (2) are you willin…

I have no clue what I just read or what kind of mental gymnastics are required to say that a right to a weapon overrides a right to live. It used to blow my mind when I moved here (Netherlands) that I wasn't allowed to use a weapon to defend myself... but then you realize ... basically nobody has weapons.

An irony is that guns are vastly more often used for self harm than for self defense. These supposed defenders of rights are often losing their own lives and the lives of family members with the instruments they demand to have a right to have.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#437

Post by duskdozer »

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/

Can't forget the new favorite:

>Mild cognitive decline was noted after infection with the wild-type virus and with each variant, including B.1.1.529 (Omicron). Relative to uninfected participants, cognitive deficit (3-point loss in IQ) was seen even in participants who had had completely recovered from mild COVID-19.

>Participants with persistent symptoms had the equivalent of a 6-point loss in IQ, while those who had been admitted to an intensive care unit (ICU) experienced the equivalent of a 9-point loss in IQ.

https://www.cidrap.umn.edu/covid-19/even-fully-recovered-sur...

https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMoa2311330

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#438

Post by Juliate »

ModernMech wrote: post #26
Juliate wrote: post #5

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Because he was stupid, and not evil.

I think that’s where Idiocracy goes wrong; stupidity is indistinguishable from evil when deployed at scale. Living through 2026 I find the distinction meaningless -- Hanlon's razor needs refinement.

Evil has a motive (defensive or offensive).

Stupidity has none.

You can derail stupid towards something. Even de-stupid it. That does not work with motivated people, even less evil ones.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#439

Post by drcongo »

coldtea wrote: post #154
xattt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It breaks my heart when I hear people outraged about Onion stories, not because that they fall for them, but because they know they have a hard time telling truth from fiction.

The outrageous "impossible/sarcastic" Onion stories from decades ago are hardly fiction these days.

Fuck Everything, We're Doing Five Blades

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#440

Post by justin66 »

bko wrote: post #233
xattt wrote: post #123

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It breaks my heart when I hear people outraged about Onion stories, not because that they fall for them, but because they know they have a hard time telling truth from fiction.

I think people don't like Onion stories because they're not funny, they're just pretentious and political. For instance, their famous 'No Way to Prevent This,' Says Only Nation Where This Regularly Happens article they post all over their page whenever there is some high profile gun related crime. It's all over their page and no doubt they get a bump in traffic from smug people who feel it's clever. It's just so exha…

> I think people don't like Onion stories because they're not funny, they're just pretentious and political.

After reading this comment thread I think this would best be rephrased as "Some people don't like Onion stories because they feel like they're the butt of the joke." Which is fair enough, but let's not over-intellectualize it.

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