Idiocracy imagines a future so dumb that Idiocracy is the acme of political satire for the Jen Psakis of the world.
Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
231–240 of 302 posts
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#232Earlier quoted context omitted.
Yes, but the dumb vote in droves for a buffoonish reality tv star they think will fire enough people in Government so that they don’t have to pay taxes anymore. The orange one also hates brown people as much as they do and is unafraid to say it out loud. Also, it’s just a bonus that their reality tv star really, really pisses off those rich educated folks in the city who “look down” them.
I look forward to when not everything is about that man. But we're not there yet, are we?
We are if you want to be. Just stop talking about him and ignore people that do.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#233Idiocracy is fun, but the instinctive "OMG so true" is, IMO, wrong. The film riffs on a common fallacy more so than it's actually insightful. Statements like "people these days are so stupid/lazy/immoral" tend get an instinctive thumbs up. The slang, pop culture & consumerism of the future are the main way the film "demonstrates" that people got dumber. The premise of Idiocracy is that dumb people reproduce more and…
My problem with Idiocracy is the assumption that working class and poor breed only more dumb people. This is untrue, as many of our brightest people came from humble backgrounds. The quote evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould is most know for is “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fi…
To me Idiocracy is a disgusting classist assault on the poor. Whenever I hear someone praise it my opinion of them drops like an aeroplane with a broken wing.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#234Earlier quoted context omitted.
> Counter example: Trump new about the severity of covid and downplayed it for quite some time instead of trying to rally the country. The irony is that the pandemic was such a slam-dunk easy win politically. Handled with the minimum level of political savvy, this was a dead simple way to send his approval ratings into the van allen belt, just like Bush post-9/11. I think his personal financial stake in the hospitali…
I remember when asked about what to say to the American people about the pandemic who are scared. His response was to lash out. It was such a easy slam dunk question, I was almost inspired to create a you tube video asking people to remix it and answer the question like a president.
I think this scenario was a textbook example of why the traditional norm for incoming presidents to divest from their businesses exists. His head was probably spinning like a gyroscope over his business empire cratering and his loans coming due.
We can only imagine how things would've turned out if we'd had leadership with an unbiased focus on national unity and the greater good. He could very easily have had a landslide re-election.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#235Idiocracy is fun, but the instinctive "OMG so true" is, IMO, wrong. The film riffs on a common fallacy more so than it's actually insightful. Statements like "people these days are so stupid/lazy/immoral" tend get an instinctive thumbs up. The slang, pop culture & consumerism of the future are the main way the film "demonstrates" that people got dumber. The premise of Idiocracy is that dumb people reproduce more and…
> Eugenics aside, the reality is that IQ has been rising The Flynn effect has probably reversed recently for the developed world[0]. It's probably still occurring in the developing world due to better access to nutrition (among other things, but nutrition is probably most important). [0]: https://www.pnas.org/content/115/26/6674
Interestingly, though, your PNAS article says the recent downtrend in IQ is environmentally caused and claims to rule out dysgenic fertility as the driver:
> the large changes in average cohort intelligence reflect environmental factors and not changing composition of parents, which in turn rules out several prominent hypotheses for retrograde Flynn effects.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#236Earlier quoted context omitted.
more like society becoming more bifurcated between the smart and successfull vs. everyone else, instead of everyone becoming dumber.
The middle class is disappearing, but a larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off. The upper middle class and the working poor are both increasing in size at the expense of the middle class, but the upper middle class is growing more. The broadcast components of our culture which must appeal to the largest cross-section of society do indeed cater more to the lower end…
> larger proportion of the part that disappears every year becomes better off than worse off
I would hardly disagree with that statement.
Larger portion of the middle class gets downgraded not upgraded.
Some parts of their life get better due to advancements we make in science, but all other aspects are worse and worse.
An example can be “property ownership” - the amount of ppl that own property and are part of the middle class is decreasing year over year in developed countries.
We are slowly getting to the point where we can consider our grandparents or parents as millionairs in current standards.
Global inflation slowly kills middle class and no - ppl are not having it better in aspects that actually matter in long term. We are at crisis now.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#237Earlier quoted context omitted.
more like society becoming more bifurcated between the smart and successfull vs. everyone else, instead of everyone becoming dumber.
Is it the smart who are successful?
There's a floor on intelligence for most kinds of success. But success constitutes social positioning, and intelligence isn't very directly connected to that.
Being too intelligent seems to be a social disadvantage often and probably success for a lot of people requires hiding their intelligence.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#238Earlier quoted context omitted.
Well, yeah. And that's exactly what's wrong with it. That's _all_ it is. As a result, the sense of smugness is undeserved. It's a way for everyone who sits in the second panel of the glowing brain meme to shit on people in the first panel and feel good about it, instead of focusing on the fact they're still in #2. It's an out-and-out display of the word "sophomoric".
Considering that film is an art form, it "only" being an expression to it's intended audience is just fine. There's no obligation or advertisement to be anything more than that. The target audience is fucking exhausted with the never ending deluge of bullshit we're being faced with. No one's walking away from watching it feeling superior. That's the thing, it's describing a situation that we all lose, but only some e…
> The target audience is fucking exhausted with the never ending deluge of bullshit we're being faced with.
You're not reading me. That sense of exhaustion is as appropriate as the smugness that it's being used to justify.
> Considering that film is an art form, it "only" being an expression to it's intended audience is just fine. There's no obligation or advertisement to be anything more than that.
This only makes sense as a defense if we can say that it tries to do something, does it, and doesn't do anything else. The problem is that the movie and those reacting most positively to it in public certainly pretend that it's more than it is.
So it's wrong in the measure of a thing that it does what it tries to do at minimum, but it's also wrong in that it doesn't do anything else (what it tries to and nothing more).
What it does do, unintentionally, is showcase (to exhibit without examining—again, unintentionally) what's wrong with the people who are supposed to be on the right side—a lack of self-awareness and sense of culpability while standing opposite the people on the wrong side stupidly chanting, "don't look up". Each group has enough in their reserves to provide enough stupid juice to take down everyone when pooled together.
> No one's walking away from watching it feeling superior.
That's simply not true.
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#239One of the best predictions from Idiocracy is our reliance on AI that no one understands anymore. They made all of these systems that did everything for them and decades later, after barely even needing to think for themselves for so long, they’re dumb as rocks and have no idea how anything works.
The Time Machine is pretty relevant here.
"Later in the dark, he is approached menacingly by the Morlocks, ape-like troglodytes who live in darkness underground and surface only at night. Exploring one of many "wells" that lead to the Morlocks' dwellings, he discovers the machinery and industry that makes the above-ground paradise of the Eloi possible. He alters his theory, speculating that the human race has evolved into two species: the leisured classes have become the ineffectual Eloi, and the downtrodden working classes have become the brutal light-fearing Morlocks."
Re: Idiocracy: A disturbingly prophetic look at the future
#240Earlier quoted context omitted.
My problem with Idiocracy is the assumption that working class and poor breed only more dumb people. This is untrue, as many of our brightest people came from humble backgrounds. The quote evolutionary biologist Stephen Jay Gould is most know for is “I am, somehow, less interested in the weight and convolutions of Einstein's brain than in the near certainty that people of equal talent have lived and died in cotton fi…
To me Idiocracy is a disgusting classist assault on the poor. Whenever I hear someone praise it my opinion of them drops like an aeroplane with a broken wing.
There known occurences of airplanes landing after losing a wing, especially during WW2.
High-powered acrobatic airplanes produce more lift by engine than wings, they can basically descend like a helicopter.
Also, poor people reproduce like there’s no tomorrow and kids usually follow the path.