alt Hacker NewsI’d argue Idiocracy is actually quite the opposite of what the OP was talking about. It has a mildly eugenics-y vibe where the world is bad because poor, stupid people have poor, stupid kids that outnumber the smart ones.
OP is talking about something environmental that can affect anyone.
Replies
Satire pokes fun at what is happening right now; it's not predicting anything. Just like 1984 warned of the dangers of totalitarianism that was already happening, Idiocracy was about current U.S. culture at the time. It wouldn't have been funny if our culture weren't already like that 20 years ago.
The premise is just a silly one so that there's a plot-based reason to show an exaggerated version of what was already happening culturally. It's not intended to be the point of the movie.
Isn't is well-known that higher education correlates with lower birthrates? At the very least college years are prime child-rearing years.
> Educated women delay the onset of childbearing and have fewer children overall compared with less-educated women
Honestly, as fun as the film is I’ve noticed people very rarely mention that disturbing premise.
I agree that the overall premise is somewhat eugenics-y, but I overlook that on the basis that it's a comedy movie from 2005 and it's easier to swallow than something like "aliens abducted all the world's smart people"[0] or something. There are still some good themes on over-reliance on automation without understanding it.
The Idiocracy line that I think about the most these days is "Brawndo stock dropped to zero and the computer did that auto-layoff thing to everybody."
[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lllrpcd8vbk