• ekZepp@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    People are not more stupid than before. They are just more ignorant, bigoted, lazy, and scared. And this is not an accidental outcome.

    • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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      2 months ago

      Nooo! It’s because stupid people have too much sex and smart people don’t breed enough! Probably part of the gay agenda! /s

      • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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        Pleeeeaase don’t think about the fact that this movie is kind of basically supporting pushing eugenics… It’s totally a political commentary about how bad Republicans are, and definitely not actually propagating hardcore Randian Libertarian ideals in its insistence that certain types of people are just inherently, genetically, more suited to rule over others.

        • errer@lemmy.world
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          It isn’t supporting any sort of selective breeding program at all, in fact it’s the exact opposite: it’s saying that all people should be raising kids to avoid a situation where the culture nosedives to the lowest common denominator. The supporting characters start coming around towards the end of the movie because they are not inherently stupid, just brainwashed.

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            2 months ago

            Just because it doesn’t support an explicit breeding program, doesn’t mean it can’t dabble in negative eugenics.

            • DragonTypeWyvern@midwest.social
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              For someone that says he isn’t pro-eugenics, Mike Judge certainly made a very pro-eugenics movie. It’s simply undeniable, whatever his intentions.

              A common criticism of Idiocracy is that it’s most appreciated by some of the people it purports to mock, faux intellectuals. I don’t think it’s a coincidence how many of its most fervent online supporters lack the intellectual honesty to admit such an obvious fact.

              • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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                2 months ago

                A common criticism of Idiocracy is that it’s most appreciated by some of the people it purports to mock, faux intellectuals.

                Given how much on the movie is spent dunking on stupid people (i.e. stand-ins for republicans), I don’t think that’s surprising at all.

        • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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          2 months ago

          It does have one anti-capitalist theme (the megacorp buying the FDA), so, I don’t know, if it’s exactly Randian, per se.

          • Voroxpete@sh.itjust.works
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            2 months ago

            I mean, the movie doesn’t actually know what it’s trying to be. It’s a dystopia where everyone is too stupid to function, but a megacorp has zero difficulty arranging the infrastructure and logistics needed to water crops with sports drinks, while also engaging in massive regulatory capture to make this happen. It’s a world where intelligence has disappeared but they somehow have super advanced scifi tech everywhere that hasn’t broken down even though logically no one should have a clue how to maintain it. Oh, and despite being apparently the worst possible future, as soon as someone comparitively smart shows up they immediately put him in charge of the country instead of, say, handing it over to said megacorp.

            Idiocracy is an incoherent mess masquerading as satire, while it’s only cogent point is “I hate anyone who has ever shopped at Walmart.”

            • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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              Each one of these things is it’s own commentary, that is all. Judge obviously wasn’t doing cohesive world building; he was just squeezing together all the commentary he has on why people are hypocritical idiots. All the way down the the eugenics bit.

              Since that’s where the conversation started, let’s go to eugenics first. I would wager the writer has expienced the ‘cautious successful people with no kids’ trope a million times in real life and in his very successful career. He made it his own when he contrasted it with the Jerry Springer types; which was very culturally dominant at that time. Yes, we look at it today and only see the problematic eugenics message; but I imagine the writers regret when he sees the most intelligent, affectionate, people he knows never being able to do what the dummy’s on Springer find all to easy.

              The writers world is one on the brink of collapse. All because technology was so advance it was self sustaining, at least for a time. The excess it provided made society’s need for education, social structure, and governance evaporate. The time leading up to when Not Sure showed up could have been a cultural revolution of art and space exploration but instead was plagued with reality TV, fart humor, and fast food. All things that were dominating the culture when the writer wrote the script. Taken to the most extreme, focus on making more Gatorade then could ever be consumed would be in line with societies priorities at the time.

              Finally, Not Sure becoming president was a simple, funny, way to advance the story. It would be unkind for the author to make all this commentary without giving the audience a polite instruction that could help circumvent our tragic future. That comment being, just feed the plants water. Meaning stop with the idiocy. You don’t have to listen to the, “smartest man in the world” because Not Sure was just an ordinary 20th century guy and even he knew that plants need water.

              • Fuckfuckmyfuckingass@lemmy.world
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                2 months ago

                I’ve always found it funny how I’ve seen folks from both ideological sides point to this film as a satire of what’s wrong with the other. It’s a simple satire, but that’s what makes it effective.

                • Clinicallydepressedpoochie@lemmy.world
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                  Judge is master at this type of commentary. Beavis and butthead was making fun of how stupid the MTV audience was. The same audience that adopted and Beavis and Butthead just as fast as it was incepted.

                  King of the hill is the ultimate “Steven Colbert is a sincere conservative show.” In king of the hill Hank is a nieve Texan that buys into every bullshit “American exceptionalism” type idealogy there is. He then humanizes him and shows how every single time Hank is returning to “American values” he’s just being nieve and if he were born anywhere else he would be just as liberal as he is a “conservative.”

    • nexguy@lemmy.world
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      People are definitely not more bigoted and ignorant. They just feel it’s now safer to express their bigotry.

      • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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        2 months ago

        They just feel it’s now safer to express their bigotry.

        Which has a memetic effect on the population. The more bigotry ideas are expressed, the more new people feel that those ideas have value. Andrew Tate is an example of a super spreader.

    • ColeSloth@discuss.tchncs.de
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      2 months ago

      Between the lead fuel, plastics, and possibly other issues not yet proven to be an issue like food colorings and preservatives, we may actually be dumber today than 150 years ago.

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      Everyone always jumps to eugenics to explain Idiocracy, but I don’t ever remember hearing genetics mentioned in the movie. The movie merely states that dumb adults raise dumb children. I don’t know about you, but I see that everyday. This doesn’t need to be explained by genetics. Children mimic the ways the adults in their lives act to model themselves on as they mature. You can counter this with things like public education or community involvement, but if the parents are involved and interact with their child, they’re going to mimic them. If you know a smart person who was raised by dumb people, chances are the parents weren’t really involved with the kid as they grew up.

      This isn’t even a obscure fact. What do you think those Jesus Camps are for? Why do you think rich people send their kids to elite schools?

      • lorty@lemmy.ml
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        2 months ago

        It’s eugenistic because the movie argues idiot parents have idiot children while smart parents have smart children. For every example you can find of this being true you can find another of it being false.

        • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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          eugenistic because the movie argues idiot parents have idiot children while smart parents have smart children.

          This still comes down to a nature vs nurture argument, and the movie tends to fall back on things like education being the primary issue.

          Idiots raising idiots isn’t necessarily an argument based in eugenics. Parents who never learned are not going to be able to teach their children. If there isn’t something like a decent public education system, then what chance do the children of idiots really have?

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            2 months ago

            the movie tends to fall back on things like education being the primary issue.

            Are we talking about the same movie?

            The movie’s “happy ending” is literally that the “smartest person” becomes the boss of all the stupid people. I think y’all don’t really know too much about eugenics.

            • TranscendentalEmpire@lemm.ee
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              2 months ago

              Are we talking about the same movie?

              Yes, everyone knows about this scene. This still isn’t claiming that intellect is a genetic trait that can only be inherited. It’s claiming that intellect is no longer a valued societal trait that people find necessary to procreate.

              I think the problem with your interpretation is it is focusing on biological evolution, when in reality the satire is based on societal evolution. Idiocracy is only set like 500 years in the future, not exactly enough time to see humans biologically adapt in any significant way.

              • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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                I don’t know what I can say. The movie literally focuses on the biology. It’s literally in the text and you claim otherwise.

                Edit: I noticed that my timestamp didn’t work. It’s pretty open at 1m58s

                • papertowels@lemmy.one
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                  2 months ago

                  Does the movie touch on an “intelligence gene” that’s passed down?

                  I don’t believe it does, in which case, is it eugenics if no genes are involved?

    • pyrflie@lemm.ee
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      Idiocracy is Satire that ends up being optimistic as the “selectively” bred population seeks out and acts on marginally more intelligent advice for large scale political issues that actually do solve easily determined problems.

      I don’t know that it’s evolutionist message is eugenics. Those that self select to remove from the breeding pool probably shouldn’t be maintained. Darwin awards exist for a reason.

      Edit: Ugh, I just realized Prunebutt is slrpnk. I need to block that instance. Every interaction I’ve had has been bad faith arguments. No I do have the instance block. Why am I seeing his comments?

      • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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        2 months ago

        The whole notion of intelligence being inheritable and letting the “stupid” (or rather: the poor) reproduce indiscriminately is basically the original idea of eugenics.

        • pyrflie@lemm.ee
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          Intelligence is inheritable, brain size is a selective trait. Arguably one of the five defining traits of Homo Sapiens. Repetitive de-prioritization is an environmental pressure as maintaining said size is a significant energy expenditure.

          It isn’t eugenics it’s evolution. If the size doesn’t provide a reproductive benefit it doesn’t continue after a few generations. Ironically our internal special conflicts/predation help to maintain intelligence value.

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            2 months ago

            Intelligence is inheritable

            Intelligence doesn’t even have a proper definition in the biological domain. If you have any scientific proof that intelligence is inheritable, do show!

            You can juggle words all you want: you’re describing eugenicist principles. Those aren’t only morally unjustyfiable: they’re simply wrong with an oversimplified understanding of evolution and intelligence.

            • pyrflie@lemm.ee
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              Eugenics seeks results, Evolution seeks to understand how we got to where we are (maybe what we could do, CRISPR is pretty damn cool).

              Intelligence (the ability to learn and reason) is based on brain size and composition/structure, both of which have a basis in genetics. It isn’t totally reliant, but it provides the framework.

              • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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                I don’t know how else to phrase it: the claim that intelligence is breedable is a eugenicist foundation.

                Evolution is a process, you’re confusing evolution with evolutionary science.

                Your definition of intelligence is incredibly oversimplified. Intelligence is not an inheritable trait (as in: the difference in intelligence of human population does not significantly stem from genetic differences).

                • pyrflie@lemm.ee
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                  I think there is a fundamental miscommunication happening here and it’s basis may lay in time. Idiocracy is set 1000 years after 2001. A millennia is evolutionary significant.

                  The movie suggests a self selecting breeding program that de-prioritizes intelligence. 100 generations is significant. This would likely result in reduced brain mass and simplified structure. This would be a measurable genetic result.

                  Again this isn’t likely due to circumstances I outlined above, but Judge’s model has a basis on different environmental benefits from reality. As he has stated about his satire.

                • Coach@lemmy.world
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                  2 months ago

                  Genes make a substantial difference, but they are not the whole story. They account for about half of all differences in intelligence among people, so half is not caused by genetic differences, which provides strong support for the importance of environmental factors. This estimate of 50 percent reflects the results of twin, adoption and DNA studies. From them, we know, for example, that later in life, children adopted away from their biological parents at birth are just as similar to their biological parents as are children reared by their biological parents. Similarly, we know that adoptive parents and their adopted children do not typically resemble one another in intelligence.

                  Article: Is Intelligence Hereditary? - Scientific American

    • halvar@lemm.ee
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      I mean, it’s not nice to joke with eugenics but I think it was no more than that and besides the movie explicitly mentions that research of important topics halted in favour of projects with a more promising outpay and that education became worse and worse by the year, which are both very real threats.

    • The Assman@sh.itjust.works
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      We’re talking about that movie where a man of below average intelligence goes to the future and saves the world by teaching them the value of education, right?

      • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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        Yeah! Poor dumb people should have been banned from reproducing ages ago! It’s not like there’s a economic-political system continuing to knowingly destroy the planet in service of number go up!

        It’s the poor dumb people!

        /s

        • CompostMaterial@lemmy.world
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          See, now I didn’t say anything about eugenics for the poor or dumb. I just said I supported the idea of eugenics. I would be very happy to start with the wealthy and powerful first. (Although one might make a good argument that there is a significant overlap between the rich and the dumb)

    • Duamerthrax@lemmy.world
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      They had to make the future people somewhat likable and sympathetic for a comedy movie. In reality, they’d be much more short tempered, racist, sexist, and violent.

    • Cyber Yuki@lemmy.world
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      Despite that, its depiction of an ignorant society unaware of the technology supporting it was incredibly prophetic. If we ignore the “dumb people reproducing” bit, we can see it as a warning about how an uneducated society is detrimental for everyone.

      I mean, we have flat earthers, for fuck’s sake.

      • Zorque@lemmy.world
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        The problem is it’s also a society without users and abusers. It’s just a story about dumb people.

        But the reason society seems to be trending stupider isn’t because we’re naturally focusing on shunning intelligence… it’s because the rich and powerful are using their influence to put that idea in our heads. They want a stupider, and more malleable, society to manipulate.

        That is the biggest problem we’re facing right now. And ignoring the root cause basically means you’re pushing a boulder up a steep hill, just for it to roll back down again.

      • UnrepententProcrastinator@lemmy.ca
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        2 months ago

        We always had village idiots. Social Media just allowed them to find each other.

        I’m not worried with flat earthers as much as theocrats amd other form of politically motivated extremism.

    • Honytawk@lemmy.zip
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      That is the thing.

      Idiocracy is a universe where intelligence is shunned. Being smart is a bad thing and reading books can get you beaten up. It is basically anti-intelligence.

      While in our universe we have more of a pseudoscience problem. People who want to be smart, it is revered. But they fall for pseudo-intelligence. (Flatearthers, anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, …)

  • Stubb@lemmy.sdf.org
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    2 months ago

    If there was a movies circlejerk community on lemmy, this would be the top of all time post.

    • BlanketsWithSmallpox@lemmy.world
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      on the internet*.

      And then you have people jumping in saying IDIOCRACY EUGENICS only to eventually get curbstomped again despite arguing against one of the most tongue-in-cheek movies ever made…

      The anti-circle jerk has finally come back around though so that’s nice.

  • pyre@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    idiocracy is a stupid movie that promote eugenics. I’m so tired of seeing people hailing it as some sort of genius movie when the only thing it has is “aren’t other people stoopid? durr” wow easy there you’re making my brain hurt with all this brilliant analysis. fuck idiocracy.

    • Franklin@lemmy.world
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      I’m pretty sure the eugenics portion of the film is done more as a gag than a Literal endorsement of eugenics.

      Watching the film as a whole illustrates the way in which corporations are not only in positions of power, but are also taking the role of the arbiter of truth. It builds on this by showing how that leads to anti-intellectualism among the masses as they no longer form their own opinions, but defer to those of corporations.

      This is just my interpretation.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        i don’t understand why the premise is set up that way. maybe I’m remembering it wrong but i don’t remember the premise being a red herring or anything; they played it pretty straight.

        the movie could have been totally valid if it actually looked into real causes of intellectual decline, which is about education first and foremost, but instead they go with the breeder mentality, and not only give credence to IQ which is bs in and of itself, but suggest that it’s inherited.

        someone else in these comments says oh it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s genetic but ignorant people are likely to raise their children to be ignorant or whatever… but that’s just steelmanning the movie’s premise. it’s how not the movie plays it. they straight up suggest it’s intelligence rather than education and tie it directly to breeding rather than socioeconomic conditions and political manipulation.

    • prole@sh.itjust.works
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      It’s a funny movie. But I get what you’re saying, people use it as an example of why the real world is going downhill, and those people are unknowingly promoting eugenics.

      The movie itself doesn’t promote anything. Don’t blame Mike Judge for stupid fandoms.

        • GrundlButter@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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          I’ll bite. Besides the 5 minute plot device intro that is never referenced again in the entire movie, what message does it have? I could see maybe a vague anti corporate message, but all of the movie seems tongue in cheek, including the intro.

          And if eugenics is the only political message you can think of, at least we can both be glad it failed and that this comedy movie has only been taken as a joke.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        i don’t subscribe to that idea. if it didn’t promote anything it wouldn’t be brought up constantly.

        • zalgotext@sh.itjust.works
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          The political message is certainly not “eugenics is good”, it’s “corporatocracy is bad”. The movie doesn’t “promote” eugenics.

          • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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            That bit about the corporation is just a relatively minor plot point. The corporation didn’t make the people stupid. Even the CEO didn’t know what he was doing (which is a horrible satire of a corporation, too).

            The whole premise of the movie, the whole conflict and the thing the title is referencing is: Stupid people outbreed smart people.

            That’s a eugenicist viewpoint. It just is.

          • pyre@lemmy.world
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            too bad they didn’t call the movie corporatocracy then, isn’t it. almost like that wasn’t the main point for them.

            even if corporate power was the central point, which it isn’t because it’s a liberal movie and not a leftist one, it ties the corporate power to people being stupid (due to dysgenics and not the education system btw) rather than a very deliberate and systematic takeover by people who very well knew what they were doing. because that’s how it is in real life, but the movie completely blunders that.

      • pyre@lemmy.world
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        what do you think satire means? are you a cinemasins fan or something? those sentences do not follow each other.

    • ysjet@lemmy.world
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      That’s kind of a bold claim, as it always seemed to me that the ‘smart people aren’t having kids while dumb people are’ wasn’t about eugenics, but about cultural norms- dumb parents aren’t going to encourage critical thinking, going to school, valuing intelligence, or any number of things to their kids. Moreover, dumb parents aren’t going to want, or be able, to provide their kids the sort of resources needed for that kid to shine even if the kid DID want to go against the local grain and focus on those things, because dumber people generally tend to make less money.

      More to the point, lack of intelligence is, generally, more based in environment and means, not personal ability- people usually aren’t dumb because they’re inherently dumb, it’s because they lack teaching and resources, or are in an environment that discourages intelligence. The most common indicator of this is the local economy- a brutal catch 22 of being poor meaning there’s worse resources for people, who cannot get ahead and thus end up poor themselves.

      There’s an old joke in the US that you can easily divide people up by their earning potential with a single simple number- their zip code. The same thing applies to test scores.

      • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        ‘smart people aren’t having kids while dumb people are’ wasn’t about eugenics…

        That is literally the main claim of Eugenics and the premise of the film. Go back and retake high school English.

    • Knock_Knock_Lemmy_In@lemmy.world
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      It’s a 90 minute film. You are taking issue with the first 2 minutes.

      Also, eugenics involves unnatural control and sterilisation. It sounds like you have a problem with intelligence being inherited.

      • Prunebutt@slrpnk.net
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        You are taking issue with the first 2 minutes.

        It’s the friggin setup to the movie.

        sounds like you have a problem with intelligence being inherited.

        … which is a eugenisist idea.

      • abbiistabbii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        The whole premise of the film in the first two minutes states “smart people aren’t having kids while dumb people are” and the result of that in the film is a society of morons (who, also, somehow have automation and high technology, which requires, you know, some amount of intelligence). There’s not really any other way one can take the film other than “we need to make smart people have lots of babies and prevent dumb people from not having kids lest we end up with a society full of morons” which is, by definition, “unnatural control and sterilization” (eugenics).

        I mean saying “you take issue with the first two minutes” is a little like when a racist makes a racist claim and then you say “ok, what do you think should be done about it” they just say “I’m just sayin’” because they don’t want to actually say the thing out loud. If you make a satire which uses as the premise that “smart people don’t have kids, while dumb people have lots of kids” and then depicts a future that is degenerate, full of stupid people doing stupid things for stupid reasons, it’s hard not to take that as advocating for eugenics on some level by saying “we need to make smart people have lots of kids and prevent dumb people from having too many kids.”

        Literally, from the wikipedia page, here’s the ending: "Joe discovers the time machine was an amusement ride, a detail Frito was aware of. Joe becomes president and marries Rita, with whom he has three children. Frito becomes vice president and has 32 children, all stated to be “the dumbest kids ever to walk the earth” in contrast to Joe and Rita’s children, who are “the three smartest kids in the world.”

        The two people from “the before times when everyone was smarter” have three of the smartest kids around and the dumb guy has 32 of the dumbest kids around. It’s not being subtle, this isn’t even something you would find in high school English for close reading. It’s literally saying "smart people have few kids and dumb people have lots of kids and this is bad and will result in a degenerate society that we must avoid. Hell, for a film making this claim, it’s not even written that well. It’s more “what if Cleetus from the Simpsons ruled the world” than “what if the global IQ dropped because smart people didn’t have four kids a piece”. Does make fun of Anti-intellectualism? Sure. Does it do it in a way that actually points to the problem? No! It blames breeding rather than the actual reason for all the anti intellectualism.

        The reason for all the anti-intellectualism and stupid bullshit in the world right now isn’t because smart people aren’t shitting out kids at a rate of knots. It’s because of right wing authoritarian people, who themselves have at least some brains, manipulating the public discourse for their own selfish aims. Cases in point:

        • Climate change denial: Climate change deniers are literally claiming Scientists don’t understand what weather is and it’s being parroted and pushed by right wing publications who, I might add, aren’t being run by morons, but people who will benefit monetarily from us fucking the planet.
        • Campaigns to ban abortion and contraception: We literally have several countries that are showing why banning contraception and abortion are bad ideas (Ireland and Romania and the people who are campaigning to ban them are making claims like “Condoms don’t stop AIDS” and “the moment the sperm hits the egg, the zygote is fully aware”. All of this is being promoted by people who aren’t morons, but by people who will benefit monetarily from banning contraception and abortion from all the cheap labour.
        • Campaigns against transgender rights: TERFs are literally developing a fake history around transgender people, saying that it was both due to the Nazis and only invented in the 1980s, which their own propaganda (The Transsexual Empire, a book that advocated for the complete elimination of transgender people from the population, was published in 1979) disputes. The people who promote this aren’t morons, they are just extremely hateful and benefit from using violence to enforce strict gender norms and the culture war that distracts people from the real problems of this age.
        • Campaigns for child marriage: Yes. In the USA, the country that is the sole focus of Idiocracy, people are advocating for CHILD MARRIAGE. And they’re not merely doing this because their fucking pedophiles, they’re doing this because they benefit from girls not getting a proper education, and people having kids when they can’t afford so they become beholden to low paid, long hour jobs to pay for their kids, which you know, benefits organisations like Dollar Tree and WalMart and Amazon who rely on cheap labour who can’t afford to say no. All of this is not even bringing up that having a child at 12-14 is often times deadly.
        • Campaigns to abolish the Department of Education: This is a part of Project 2025, the reason is very simple, and it’s not because people are stupid: They want quality education to be only available to the rich while out of reach of the poor because a quality education allows people to make more money and be politically active and be harder to manipulate. The people advocating for this aren’t dumb, quite the opposite, they’re smart and are going to benefit financially from this.

        If I were to summarize the it all, it’s not that stupid people are in charge, it’s smart evil people using anti-intelectualism to get their way. To drive it home, during the Brexit campaign, the former Education secretary, Michael Gove, when someone someone was interviewing him and challenging him on brexit, stating that every single economist was saying Brexit was a bad idea, Michael Gove said “people are sick and tired of experts”. That’s the issue here: we’re being told not to actually listen to people who know what they are saying and listen to right wing ideologues who are either benefiting from this or being paid by people who are. And again, Michael Gove isn’t a dumb person, he’s an Oxford graduate, he’s just a really fucking horrible person who, amongst other things, despite being Scottish himself, made a televised diatribe where he claimed Scottish people were poor morons who didn’t deserve self determination.

        And I know that’s a lot of text, but sometimes you have to go into detail. So here’s the tl;dr:

        1. Idiocracy’s whole premise, start to finish is “smart people don’t have as many kids and dumb people have too many, and that will result in a degenerate society of morons.”
        2. The real cause of anti-intelectualism are terrible people promoting bullshit, fighting against scientists and even just generally moral and ethical people, for their own self interest.
  • Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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    2 months ago

    It’s comforting to know that while things may seem to be going in one direction, the opposite is actually happening. IQ isn’t a static measurement, nor is it all that useful… However it has been trending upwards ever since it’s inception. Meaning that what 100 IQ currently is used to be closer to 130 back in our grandparents time.

      • Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        2 months ago

        Well shucks I’m out of date. Thanks for catching me up.

        Are your studies based on united states, North America, “first world” countries, or global?

          • Coskii@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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            2 months ago

            that direct link had a concerning title, but then there was this paragraph:

            research and meta-analyses over the last two decades suggest that the Flynn effect had already stagnated or begun to reverse. In a meta-analysis examining IQ scores across 31 countries from 1909 to 2013, Pietschnig and Voracek (2015) found that the magnitude of higher IQ scores observed for newer cohorts has declined. Dutton and Lynn (2013) found Finnish IQ scores had differed −2.0 IQ points (0.13 SD) from 1997 to 2009, while French IQ scores differed −3.8 IQ points (0.25 SD) from 1999 to 2009 (Dutton and Lynn, 2015); for these studies, more recent samples had lower IQ scores than previous samples. In a meta-analysis examining nine original studies that observed a reverse Flynn effect, differences ranged between −0.38 IQ points (0.03 SD) and −4.3 IQ points (0.29 SD) per decade (Dutton, van der Linden, and Lynn, 2016). Recent evidence within German-speaking countries, also suggests that the magnitude of higher visual-spatial ability scores in newer cohorts could be declining across certain regions of Europe (Pietschnig and Gittler, 2015).

            Linking to a ton of other studies, which is enough data for me to consider acceptable.

  • MTK@lemmy.world
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    2 months ago

    I wish, at least the US would have a cool president that isn’t two steps from a stroke