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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#461

Post by ern_ave »

FrustratedMonky wrote: post #414
ern_ave wrote: post #363

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm interested to see any studies you can find on this topic. Here are some studies that I have: Equalitarianism: A Source of Liberal Bias [1] - in study 6, liberals were shown to be ...pretty racist. You claimed the Right believes fake news. I wont dispute that. I'll just reply that there's a lot of that going around. Here are some examples that debunk fake news you yourself might fervently believe: Girls Who Code:…

Sure. Everyone is biased some. Going all the way back to the "1951 Princeton–Dartmouth football game" The Right, just happens to be in a bit in a slump right now with its anti-science religious activism. "Doing worse" Garrett & Bond (2021), Conservatives’ susceptibility to political misperceptions, Science Advances. https://www.science.org/doi/10.1126/sciadv.abf1234?utm_sourc... Sultan et al. (2024), Susceptibility t…

Great! So, let's start with your first study. Note this quote:

> it is possible that conservatives’ relatively low accuracy about political information is a by-product of the fact that issues used in forming this assessment were selected with an eye toward detecting misperceptions among the political group

That's definitely a way to bias a study against conservatives. It's good that this study claims it avoided that bias. But did it? They don't list the questions that participants were asked. I checked the list of supporting documents, and couldn't find it.

Without that list, I can't accept this source. Sorry.

If I went out and asked a bunch of Liberals, "did Trump say that Neo-Nazis are 'very fine people?'" I suspect that upwards of 90% of Liberals would answer "yes" ...and they would swear they heard him do it! You may (falsely) believe this yourself!

I could ask, "did Trump advise people to drink bleach?" and many Liberals would swear he did.

He didn't do either of those things. But many Liberals emphatically believe he did. I could very easily design a study that included only these sorts of questions - questions that Liberals will get wrong.

The only way to spot this bias would be if I included the questions in the study, so that you could vet them yourself. Without such a list, it is completely reasonable for me to reject your source.

Should I continue to the next one, or are they all like this?

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#462

Post by boogieknite »

vintermann wrote: post #302
asah wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

DLU captured the decisions better, but Idiocracy explained how we got there.

Eugenics, you mean? Letting the stupid people breed? Haven't watched it so I wouldn't know, but from what I hear of it that sounds like a pretty serious strike against it.

tbf its not "letting the stupid people breed" and more that smart ppl stop breeding. still wrong and like other comments said, Dont Look Up is more practical bc its people with money, power, influence dooming us with greed

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#463

Post by throwaway-11-1 »

cooper_ganglia wrote: post #325
EternalFury wrote: post #294

Public education is important. Without it, it’s harder to stay above average. But there are those who say “it is not my duty to fund the education of anyone else.” Hence, here we are.

"Public education" is exactly the thing that will guarantee Idiocracy, that was practically the whole point of the movie

What are you talking about? The opening framing is a pseudo eugenic critique of class reproduction. Did you even watch the movie?

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#464

Post by catapart »

whamlastxmas wrote: post #395
catapart wrote: post #344

Earlier quoted context omitted.

you don't have to be a scientist to directly engage with the literature. from mathematical proofs to directly observed phenomena to statistical certainties - it's all out there for you to engage with and feel secure in your findings just by having an internet connection. there's a qualitative difference in that evidence from the "sides" and therefore there is a qualitative and practical difference in the "more intell…

If the side you follow says the science community is political and biased, then "just look at the literature" isn't going to help. It's like telling an atheist they'd believe in Jesus if they'd just read the bible. We are lied to constantly by people who influence our lives. You can't even go to the grocery store without being lied to - being told breakfast cereals are healthy, that low fat options will make you less…

please engage in good faith. if you think mathematical proofs will be an issue when I tell someone to "look at the literature", you either don't know what a mathematical proof is, or are too far abstracted from reality to influence any practical action. yes, we're being lied to. no, they don't fuck up the science in order to lie to you. they just expect you not to read the science. because, truthfully, it's rare that the people who are lying to you would even know how to fuck up the science in their favor. so they bet on your ignorance, based on their ignorance, and they usually win the bet. but not if you just go look it up and engage with it. it's not about reading a single paper; it's about always reading every paper (on topics you have decided you are going to have an opinion about) with a keen and unshakeable focus on practical effect. anything else is an academic boondoggle.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#465

Post by tovej »

coldtea wrote: post #228
tovej wrote: post #189

Earlier quoted context omitted.

All of these effects are explained much better by social factors. If you're poor or discriminated against, you get less nutrition, less education, and face barriers in trying to improve both.

> If you're poor or discriminated against, you get less nutrition, less education, and face barriers in trying to improve both. Which doesn't matter, since they measured rich and middle class, and poor and discriminated against both before and after. Did you think the new measurements were done at some ghetto and the earlier higher ones at Martha's Vineyard?

Could you please elaborate on why measuring the same group somehow eliminates social effects?

Are you claiming social factors have remained constant during the measuring period? Because they very obviously haven't.

If you're aware of the Peter principle, and how inequality compounds over time, then you know that the rate at which social factors change is correlated with their quantile values.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#466

Post by withinboredom »

ern_ave wrote: post #455
Zigurd wrote: post #436

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

I'm having a hard time understanding your point. Here's what I think just happened: Me: I value the right to self defense You: Guns are used for self harm more often than self defense [as an aside, I don't disagree that this is true - I've heard this stat many times] You: This is ironic! Please help me to understand why you think that's ironic. What do you feel would be a non-ironic position? Is it this.... Me: I val…

Ok. Now this is logic I understand. Nobody is saying you don’t have a right to self defense. The question should be: why do you have a right to bring a gun to a fist fight?

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#467

Post by Arodex »

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.

I read the book, was very interested by the points he made, but I completely understand and support Verhoeven's take on it as a naive utopia that will get completely derailed. Just look at how the "veterans" of the "forever war" are foaming at the mouth at the idea of war-criming and sending others to die in Iran. Heinlein's central idea that people who offered their service to the rest of society are better qualified to vote doesn't survive the slightest encounter with reality.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#468

Post by numitus »

singpolyma3 wrote: post #296
numitus wrote: post #246

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But it's a proven fact. Less educated people are poorer. The less educated tend to have more children. And children who grow up in poor families receive a lower quality of education.

Yes but this is not the genetic argument this is a "school system sucks" argument

In every country, if your parents are scientists, you will be in average smarter, than if your parents are peasants.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#469

Post by [deleted] »

clejack wrote: post #230
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.

Even if the creator specifically had eugenics in mind, I think he stumbled upon a greater truth. Consider this. You can take anyone from any group in your nation, place them in a different nation, with a different culture, and they will adopt the mannerisms and accents of that culture. We focus on race constantly, but it's clear that culture drives the norms that we see in any group. And culture may be persistent (es…

[deleted]

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#470

Post by Arodex »

red-iron-pine wrote: post #336
j-kent wrote: post #284

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same goes with Starship Troopers - Clearly biting satire, but at the time was considered to be a dumb action movie by most.

it was a dumb action movie, with a bit of satire and some non-trivial nudity. the book is a political science treatise about the role of the citizen in government and draws heavily from Thomas Hobbes and Max Weber, basically invented the "space marine" concept that we see in 40k or Starcraft or Doom, and touched on things like haptic feedback and non-traditional UI and how it could be C2.

The nudity is also part of the point. American will heavily restrict movies with nudity or swear words, but see far less problems with showing gore and violence on screen to youngsters.

Seen from Europe (Verhoeven is Dutch), this is completely deranged.

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