alt Hacker NewsThe thesis of Idiocracy is that society gets dumber in the future because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined and smarter people systematically have fewer children than dumber people, i.e. literal evolutionary selection against human intelligence over many human generations. This is clear in the first several minutes of the movie. People who recognize that this is what that movie is saying often then condemn it for being Nazi-adjacent pro-eugenics propaganda.
In the logic of Idiocracy, the way that an AI would "allow" the future society portrayed in the movie is by letting dumb people systematically have more kids than smart people, and "not allowing" this would entail some kind of coercive eugenics policy aimed at getting smart people to have more kids than they would otherwise be inclined to.
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because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined
None of the points of Idiocracy depend on whether intelligence is by nature or by nurture. The premise of the movie stays exactly the same if you replace those two minutes of backstory with a dysfunctional education system, the return of child labour, an increase in teen pregnancies, and anti-intellectualism in general.
The thesis of Idiocracy is that society gets dumber in the future because intelligence is mostly genetically-determined
Friendly reminder that plenty of nurture is inherited too.
That's the story they used in the movie. It's possible that real life will arrive at a similar situation by completely different means.
Also did you think about why dumber people might have more children? A large part of that reason is national policy choices.
Here is a problem, I am not arguing "Idiocracy: the process as presented in the movie"; I am arguing "Idiocracy; the resulting dumbed down populace". Admittedly, it is a mental shortcut and a bad one since it clearly did not land as I had hoped.
> People who recognize that this is what that movie is saying often then condemn it for being Nazi-adjacent pro-eugenics propaganda.
In this respect, that movie is a great filter for virtue-signalling low-intelligence societal rejects.
Why is saying things that are true called propaganda? Also, it is not just genetics but that is a part of it. The idea is also that parents with lower intelligence will value education for their offspring less and care less about whether their kids learn to read well, etc. Honestly, it just completely obvious and is playing out in real time. It's just obvious.
I recently saw a razor commercial where a man was shaving his cheek. I immediately condemned the company for being Nazi-adjacent propaganda since the actor was one step away from giving himself a Hitler mustache.
Idocracy is basically arguing against the idea that progress is inevitable so we can just sit around and do nothing. Joe’s character development is in his shift away from getting out of the way and toward a follow or lead choice. It’s called out at the start of the movie when he’s sitting on his butt at the military library and his CO is like “you’re not supposed to get out of the way.”