Idiocracy
- Thread starter Rawker
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Great movie, but personally, I doubt that the world could ever, for lack of a better phrase, get that stupid. Yeah, it seems pretty bad now... But that's only because America was run by a rabid pack of domestic terrorists from 2000 to 2008 instead of, you know, rational people. These things go in cycles. Won't be long before American society is considered the same status it was years ago; not perfect, but better than most.
Alright, this is scary because just this morning I was thinking the exact same thing: About that movie and how it might actually have a point. And I haven't seen the movie in a while either. I don't know why I was thinking about it, but I was and now this thread is here voicing my thoughts.
This isn't the first time such a coincidence has happened to me on these forums either. I think all Escapists are connected to each other. Or to me atleast.
So could someone please provide a convincing argument as to why the movie isn't right, or is it actually right? Because it seems that way. There are no other (major) evolutionary factors on humans right now, except that stupider people have more kids. I'm sure things won't get as drastic as in the movie, but things could turn that way, atleast to an extent, right?
Scary. The coincidence and the truth.
This isn't the first time such a coincidence has happened to me on these forums either. I think all Escapists are connected to each other. Or to me atleast.
So could someone please provide a convincing argument as to why the movie isn't right, or is it actually right? Because it seems that way. There are no other (major) evolutionary factors on humans right now, except that stupider people have more kids. I'm sure things won't get as drastic as in the movie, but things could turn that way, atleast to an extent, right?
Scary. The coincidence and the truth.
There's a great line from Mad Men which is apropos to this kind of thinking:
"I don't know, maybe every generation thinks the next generation is going to be the end of it all. I bet there were people in the bible walking around complaining about "kids today"".
We're always convinced that society is going to hell in a handcart, and that the only thing that can stop it is by holding true to some ideal of the past. You know what? People are smarter today than at any point in the past. The pace of progress is always increasing, and knowledge begets more knowledge. No reprogenics, no "Gattaca" crap, nothing about how there will be a "smart" society and a "dumb" society, it's all crap.
You know what Einstein's kids were? Of above-average intelligence. Do you know what his kids' kids were? Average. Genius, bread down to average in one generation. Do you think it's because Einstein married some dumb floozy? Do you think his kids did? Nope. There's always a reversion to the mean. Smart only begets smart to a point, and never perfectly.
And, not for nothing, but why is it that whenever I hear about "oh, well, if society collapses, smart people will build back up" it's from people whose only conceivable contribution is in a post-industrialist world? Very few of us (and I include myself) could hunt down an elk, much less invent the telephone. We're only smart contextually. I can't talk about theoretical physics any more than I can talk about baseball stats, but the only reason knowing about one makes me smart and the other makes me a meathead is because of the side of the fence our collective on this site happens to land on.
Similarly, why do we conflate "stupid" with "asshole"? I've met many, many, affable, kind, considerate people who aren't as smart as I am, and I've met raging jackasses who are as smart if not smarter. In fact, I've known more smart assholes than stupid ones. So, let's bifurcate the issue: are we worried society is becoming "dumb", or that society is becoming "jerks", 'cause there are actually two different solutions.
"I don't know, maybe every generation thinks the next generation is going to be the end of it all. I bet there were people in the bible walking around complaining about "kids today"".
We're always convinced that society is going to hell in a handcart, and that the only thing that can stop it is by holding true to some ideal of the past. You know what? People are smarter today than at any point in the past. The pace of progress is always increasing, and knowledge begets more knowledge. No reprogenics, no "Gattaca" crap, nothing about how there will be a "smart" society and a "dumb" society, it's all crap.
You know what Einstein's kids were? Of above-average intelligence. Do you know what his kids' kids were? Average. Genius, bread down to average in one generation. Do you think it's because Einstein married some dumb floozy? Do you think his kids did? Nope. There's always a reversion to the mean. Smart only begets smart to a point, and never perfectly.
And, not for nothing, but why is it that whenever I hear about "oh, well, if society collapses, smart people will build back up" it's from people whose only conceivable contribution is in a post-industrialist world? Very few of us (and I include myself) could hunt down an elk, much less invent the telephone. We're only smart contextually. I can't talk about theoretical physics any more than I can talk about baseball stats, but the only reason knowing about one makes me smart and the other makes me a meathead is because of the side of the fence our collective on this site happens to land on.
Similarly, why do we conflate "stupid" with "asshole"? I've met many, many, affable, kind, considerate people who aren't as smart as I am, and I've met raging jackasses who are as smart if not smarter. In fact, I've known more smart assholes than stupid ones. So, let's bifurcate the issue: are we worried society is becoming "dumb", or that society is becoming "jerks", 'cause there are actually two different solutions.
I think maybe part of the problem is tha we seem to be glorifying the very thing that is taking us down that path. I mean you turn on most tv channels today and they are jammed full of "Reality" tv, showing off asinie and backstabbing behaviour, easily accessable by younger minds, that will get imprinted onto the next generation and so on and so forth, instead of good morals and useful knowledge, not all the useless info about "celebraties." there stupidity everywhere, from extreme religious zelotism (i'm not saying the religion is stupid, just that taken too far lead to horrific things that go against the morals of that religion) to corrupt politicians bilking the public for everything while thinking they will get away with it, to the econimic model that has lead to our current situation. people seem to question things less often, and even communicate less, though thier twitters, facebook, and texts, eliminating the need to be face to face or even get to know a person or to sit and have an indepth discussion on life and the human condition.
While i do doubt that the world will end like it was show in the movie, you can see much of that now, if you look around. th world is much more liely to be eradicated by human hands through the atomic bomb, or biological warfare that just stupiding itself to death.
While i do doubt that the world will end like it was show in the movie, you can see much of that now, if you look around. th world is much more liely to be eradicated by human hands through the atomic bomb, or biological warfare that just stupiding itself to death.
Maybe instead of complaining about how much stupid people breed, smart people should just breed more, create a balance.
The movie, I have not seen, is flawed from my understanding. The world population is growing and with in the balance of 'smart to stupid' hasn't really changed. Like wise being less trained then say a nuclear physicist, doesn't really make you stupid. Nor does it eliminate your talents from being needed in other areas that still are vital to our civilisation, say factory working, which is more vital to our survival then knowing exactly how uranium divides into plutonium will ever be.
Hitch hikers guide comes to mind. The smart people got rid of the stupid then died out....
Still I am more concerned about two things that can be found in all branches of our society these days: Entitlement and Lack of Responsibility. We have become, as a whole, a society that believes we deserve everything handed to us on a silver platter while at the same time blaming anything that does go wrong on someone else! It is so bad we joke about frivolous lawsuits, a blending of the two, because they are that common!
We live in a world of 'safety seals' and labels telling us not to do things which would be common sense anyway such as don't drink the sulphuric acid. Only to shake our heads as yet again someone drunk the acid and now is looking for someone to sue, to blame, for their own actions. We need to force people to be responsible for themselves again, then what people view as 'stupidity' will go away.
Not because these people will kill themselves off, but because they are not really stupid to begin with and know a good way to get rich fast is to do something stupid and sue....
We also have to beat into people that a good hard days work is NOT a thing to be shied away from. We don't just get plopped into this world just so we can get everything we dreamed of and more. Not unless, by chance, you happen to be part of the 1% that has billions in a bank account the moment they are born in any case. No, working for your meals is NOT a sign of being stupid and most of the best things in life are those you have to work for.
PS: I am only in my, now late, 20's, I have a rational thinking brain that does understand how uranium breaks into plutonium even if I don't remember the exact math, and have come to this conclusion from the point of an observer. I defend these 'stupid people' cause the idiots really are the ones who try and group people into stupid and smart, always believing they stand on the other side of the equation.
Hitch hikers guide comes to mind. The smart people got rid of the stupid then died out....
Still I am more concerned about two things that can be found in all branches of our society these days: Entitlement and Lack of Responsibility. We have become, as a whole, a society that believes we deserve everything handed to us on a silver platter while at the same time blaming anything that does go wrong on someone else! It is so bad we joke about frivolous lawsuits, a blending of the two, because they are that common!
We live in a world of 'safety seals' and labels telling us not to do things which would be common sense anyway such as don't drink the sulphuric acid. Only to shake our heads as yet again someone drunk the acid and now is looking for someone to sue, to blame, for their own actions. We need to force people to be responsible for themselves again, then what people view as 'stupidity' will go away.
Not because these people will kill themselves off, but because they are not really stupid to begin with and know a good way to get rich fast is to do something stupid and sue....
We also have to beat into people that a good hard days work is NOT a thing to be shied away from. We don't just get plopped into this world just so we can get everything we dreamed of and more. Not unless, by chance, you happen to be part of the 1% that has billions in a bank account the moment they are born in any case. No, working for your meals is NOT a sign of being stupid and most of the best things in life are those you have to work for.
PS: I am only in my, now late, 20's, I have a rational thinking brain that does understand how uranium breaks into plutonium even if I don't remember the exact math, and have come to this conclusion from the point of an observer. I defend these 'stupid people' cause the idiots really are the ones who try and group people into stupid and smart, always believing they stand on the other side of the equation.
Shame I got ninja'd out of introducing the XKCD here..
First of all: To me the entire idiocracy issue is about as viable as any doomsday scenario. Slightly more likely then the "in 2012 we get eaten by ufo-surfing Maya zombies" theory and slightly less likely then "the sun is going to burn up real soon". About on par with "Elvis was an alien".
Still, studies of the rise and fall of species point out that most dominant species eventually grow to large to sustain themselves, until they collapse onto themselves and another species can take over the place. A neat evolutionary trick to make sure nobody stays on top for long enough to be able to really screw up the world. One could argue we've reached that point, but then again one could argue the first "one" should stop wearing his pants on his head and be a tad more optimistic.
Stupid people have always been around. That's another neat trick of evolution: specialisation. If you've got smart people, you need to have stupid people too. If everyone's the same level of smartness, nobody would be smart and everybody would be just normal, and that would be a really scary scenario. We need exceptionally smart people to have the great ideas for us, while the less brainy people can do the small, insignificant stuff like providing food and shelter. Since we need a lot more food then we need ideas (a good idea can serve millions of people for a decade, while a loaf of bread is gone in a couple of days), we need a lot more "stupids" then "smarts".
To conclude, I'd like to quote my old Sociology teacher: "People who believe in idiocracy are idiots who like to think they're smart."
First of all: To me the entire idiocracy issue is about as viable as any doomsday scenario. Slightly more likely then the "in 2012 we get eaten by ufo-surfing Maya zombies" theory and slightly less likely then "the sun is going to burn up real soon". About on par with "Elvis was an alien".
Still, studies of the rise and fall of species point out that most dominant species eventually grow to large to sustain themselves, until they collapse onto themselves and another species can take over the place. A neat evolutionary trick to make sure nobody stays on top for long enough to be able to really screw up the world. One could argue we've reached that point, but then again one could argue the first "one" should stop wearing his pants on his head and be a tad more optimistic.
Stupid people have always been around. That's another neat trick of evolution: specialisation. If you've got smart people, you need to have stupid people too. If everyone's the same level of smartness, nobody would be smart and everybody would be just normal, and that would be a really scary scenario. We need exceptionally smart people to have the great ideas for us, while the less brainy people can do the small, insignificant stuff like providing food and shelter. Since we need a lot more food then we need ideas (a good idea can serve millions of people for a decade, while a loaf of bread is gone in a couple of days), we need a lot more "stupids" then "smarts".
To conclude, I'd like to quote my old Sociology teacher: "People who believe in idiocracy are idiots who like to think they're smart."
I love overpopulation!deadman91 said:
Anyway people are getting smarter and smarter each generation and assuming we did get that stupid then we'd have a small panic(followed by some good ol' media hype) and then get smarter people to fix everything. If intelligence actually goes down to point where it's a problem then it'll go back up.
A fellow XKCD fan :-D. I offer this... http://xkcd.com/610/the protaginist said:
Movies like Idiocracy and its ilk are excuses for people to say, "Hah! I see what is really going on. I'm not one of those mindless idiots," not realizing that they are probably the mindless idiots being parodied.
Inteligence isn't entirely defined by parentage.
Also, if you look through history, you'll see people who resemble the idiots of today. The Mowhawk Terrors? Chavs from the 1700s (or maybe it was 1800s, I forget.) Human intellect (or lack of it) seems to be going at a constant. The ability for that intellect (or lack of it. Also, I can't spell. Help?) to express itself is definately increasing though.
Also, if you look through history, you'll see people who resemble the idiots of today. The Mowhawk Terrors? Chavs from the 1700s (or maybe it was 1800s, I forget.) Human intellect (or lack of it) seems to be going at a constant. The ability for that intellect (or lack of it. Also, I can't spell. Help?) to express itself is definately increasing though.
Are we getting smarter? I mean, I don't really see any evidence in support of either a "dumbing-down" of the gene pool or a "smarting-up" of it. I recognize that there was probably a point before the creation of civilization and recorded history where humans were relatively incapable idiots in comparison to modern man, but isn't progress really just a matter of building on the advances of others? I mean, we look at something that's come before, and we improve upon it. I don't know that it's because some human that's exceptionally smart comes along that we make progress, as it is people approaching the same problem from a different direction. I'm a writer, and I give out my work for review and editing. If someone suggests a change that improves the work, I don't go "You're a fucking genius! Here's a Nobel Prize!" I realize that it's because I couldn't have approached my work in that direction. I overlooked it not because I'm some cretin, but because I simply didn't have a) the time, or b) the background and history to come up with a "better" idea.
Likewise, I don't think it was beyond the ancients or Medievals to come up with electricity, but they didn't have a body of knowledge that allowed them to harness and store it like we could do in the end of the 19th century. I wasn't aware there was any way anthropologists and archaeologists could look at the remains of these past civilizations or stare at their bones and go "wow, what a bunch of fucking morons. We're so much smarter than they are." To the extent of my knowledge, there's nothing in the pyramids that say "Ramses III's IQ was 80! 80! He's stupid!" Where do we get off saying we're smarter than people? We can't even decide how they did Stonehenge (and that was done by people who didn't know how to write).
Likewise, I don't think it was beyond the ancients or Medievals to come up with electricity, but they didn't have a body of knowledge that allowed them to harness and store it like we could do in the end of the 19th century. I wasn't aware there was any way anthropologists and archaeologists could look at the remains of these past civilizations or stare at their bones and go "wow, what a bunch of fucking morons. We're so much smarter than they are." To the extent of my knowledge, there's nothing in the pyramids that say "Ramses III's IQ was 80! 80! He's stupid!" Where do we get off saying we're smarter than people? We can't even decide how they did Stonehenge (and that was done by people who didn't know how to write).
Ironic? i was thinking about the exact same thing as this.Rawker said:
I totally support what this movie supports i.e. the corporate advertisments and such although the dumbing down part is what you make of it.
In the Maths exams in Australia they are harder than they where 16 years ago for some reason and kids are still getting the same results.
I just depends on the way you look at it. But the movie was very entertaining none the less, although not many people have seen it =(
A- no, we as a species are not getting dumber, no study as of yet has proved it either way (getting dumber or smarter).
B- Yes, overpopulation is definitly a problem and something I think will cause a lot of conflict in the future and ALREADY HAS caused a great amount of conflict
B- Yes, overpopulation is definitly a problem and something I think will cause a lot of conflict in the future and ALREADY HAS caused a great amount of conflict
