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Are We Idiocracy Yet?

idiocracy.wtf

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Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#511

Post by mindslight »

Vektorceraptor wrote: post #503
mindslight wrote: post #423

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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…

I don't know what you are talking about. I said - "Biden had problems unrightfully covered up" - and obviously we can't agree on that. So this is Idiocracy already - independent of Trump. If you are unable to speak truth independent of your own attitudes, wishes, ideas, etc. - that's idiocracy.

It's called adding context to keep the directionality correct. "Biden had problems unrightfully covered up" - I do agree with that.

But one of the pillars of Grumpism/destructionism is taking valid factual criticisms, but presenting them in a way that leads to a conclusion of normalization/nihilism/etc. For example, yes from when it was made Idiocracy has been a satire of the very real anti-intellectualism that has been everpresent in American society. But that doesn't justify dismissing its application to the current situation, as you started off your original comment doing.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#512

Post by Vektorceraptor »

mindslight wrote: post #511
Vektorceraptor wrote: post #503

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't know what you are talking about. I said - "Biden had problems unrightfully covered up" - and obviously we can't agree on that. So this is Idiocracy already - independent of Trump. If you are unable to speak truth independent of your own attitudes, wishes, ideas, etc. - that's idiocracy.

It's called adding context to keep the directionality correct. " Biden had problems unrightfully covered up " - I do agree with that. But one of the pillars of Grumpism/destructionism is taking valid factual criticisms, but presenting them in a way that leads to a conclusion of normalization/nihilism/etc. For example, yes from when it was made Idiocracy has been a satire of the very real anti-intellectualism that has…

I was referring to the author, not American politics in general. I added "then this should be called out as well." I thought this made it obvious.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#513

Post by jfengel »

sebastianmestre wrote: post #307
jstanley wrote: post #285

Earlier quoted context omitted.

100 is not a perfect score on an IQ test! 100 is the mean score. It's not a percentage.

I don't think that's what the GP was going for... rather, implying that flat-eartherness is uncorrelated to IQ and, thus, the average IQ of flat-earthers is the same as that of the general population.

Flerfers seem to be a somewhat different problem. In my experience, the vast majority of flat earthers are trolls, pretending to be stupid for the purpose of angering people.

I'm sure there are some genuine flat earthers out there, and I imagine that their IQs do average near 100 (perhaps a little lower). But I'm basing that on a general understanding of how people come to stupid beliefs, rather than from observations of individuals, because I'm not sure I've ever met a flat earther who actually believed what he was saying.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#516

Post by _DeadFred_ »

wiseowise wrote: post #487
SAI_Peregrinus wrote: post #394

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's satire. It's effective satire because it's not all that much more extreme than the thing it's satirizing.

I don’t think that when people say “it’s a documentary” they mean that it’s literally a “documentary”, more like “this satire is so close to reality, that you can call it documentary”.

But we have a term for that and the term is "satire".

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#517

Post by chucksmash »

dTal wrote: post #204
dspillett wrote: post #169

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> 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 gras…

I'm afraid you are misremembering. The movie is explicitly eugenicist. The people of the future are explicitly biologically stupid. The opening transcript is unambiguous: [Man Narrating] As the 21st century began… human evolution was at a turning point. Natural selection, the process by which the strongest, the smartest… the fastest reproduced in greater numbers than the rest… a process which had once favored the nob…

What is "explicitly eugenicist" in observing that the unprecedented way mankind has dominated its environment has changed the selection pressures we are subject to?

My quest to survive to adulthood and pass on my genes looked nothing like the gauntlet an Homo erectus specimen would have run.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#518

Post by abenga »

numitus wrote: post #468
singpolyma3 wrote: post #296

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Is that because of some heritable presence/lack of intelligence or because scientists feed their children well early in life, have books in the home, and take the time to follow up on their children's education?

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#519

Post by lynndotpy »

tremon wrote: post #407
afavour wrote: post #216

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Agreed. It’s cited so often on Reddit by people who want to establish their superiority over the masses. “It’s a documentary!!” is a meme unto itself. It’s also got a kind of weird eugenics-y vibe to it (like establishing “stupid people breeding makes stupid people” as incontrovertible fact) when you step back and examine it as a movie that’s making Serious Statements. But it isn’t. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s a c…

I never understood that eugenics criticism of the movie. They make zero references to genetics in that opening sequence, and the nurture side of that argument is readily trotted out as a truism even here on HN: "people from affluent parents have easier access to education".

The introduction describes it as a "turning point in human evolution", and that "natural selection ... began to favor different traits". These are some of the very first sentences of the movie.

The thesis is given: "Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species". The characters dramatizing the inciting incident in the introduction are introduced with their IQs. It's very explicitly a dysgenic apocalypse narrative, which could have been avoided with earlier eugenicist intervention. (They attempt "genetic engineering" later on, but they fail, as the unintelligent are able to win by sheer numbers.)

It's okay to like the movie, and it is fiction. But it's certainly a dysgenic narrative which has eugenicist implications.

Re: Are We Idiocracy Yet?

#520

Post by lynndotpy »

afavour wrote: post #216
bdashdash wrote: post #155

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I feel Idiocracy is irresistible bait for 'not like the other girls'-types. Everytime this movie comes up, droves of people mention how they get it, while others don't. It's becoming a trope in itself.

Agreed. It’s cited so often on Reddit by people who want to establish their superiority over the masses. “It’s a documentary!!” is a meme unto itself. It’s also got a kind of weird eugenics-y vibe to it (like establishing “stupid people breeding makes stupid people” as incontrovertible fact) when you step back and examine it as a movie that’s making Serious Statements. But it isn’t. It’s not a bad movie. But it’s a c…

It's not a eugenics-y vibe. The inciting incident is dysgenics, and the in-narrative apocalypse would have been prevented by eugenics.

It doesn't preclude the movie from being enjoyed or appreciated. The movie also came out at a time when test scores, literacy rates, and whatnot were all _increasing_, so that was the more salient lens to criticize it by.

That trend has reversed now, though. I don't agree with the dysgenic narrative, but I have often found myself thinking, "Gotta hand it to the movie Idiocracy, it's feeling familiar".

For all its flaws, I was a child at the time saturated in post-Y2K optimism that tomorrow would always be better than the day before. It was one of the first things that made me seriously consider, "What if humanity is not on a linear path of improvement"?

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