IDIOCRACY ... spoilers

[Charlie Noodles]

But today, I think, is not really a case of genetic stupidity; not an inferior brain. It is a dislike of intellectualism and learning that our culture is conditioning us with.

Do you believe we’re due for a renaissance? Perhaps something like a new ‘atomic age’ to renew interest in scholarly pursuits when there’s a significant technological achievement?

 

[Dr Doran]

must say that I hardly think that liberal concentrations have any monopoly on idiocy and misinformation. A recent trip through rural america will show that. No offence to either.

Ha ha! I agree.

 

[Dr Doran]

But today, I think, is not really a case of genetic stupidity; not an inferior brain. It is a dislike of intellectualism and learning that our culture is conditioning us with.

I agree completely. This is why I teach Latin and ancient history and at some point soon, ancient Greek.

Do you believe we’re due for a renaissance? Perhaps something like a new ‘atomic age’ to renew interest in scholarly pursuits when there’s a significant technological achievement?

My tarot card reading skills could use some polishing ... I hope so!

 

[Dr Doran]

If a movie makes fun of most of America, it is natural that the movie chans would assume most of america would want to see it. And rightly so. I would be this movie would not do that well in many average american movie houses.

But Beavis and Butt-Head makes fun of America and everyone loves THAT and wants to see it. South Park, too. In addition, sometimes the dummies who are being made fun of in satires like this take the satire not as a satire, but very differently -- as, indeed, a source of pride. "YEAAAH!" The massive punkrocker and skinhead following of Clockwork Orange most definitely seems to take Alex as worthy of emulation rather than as a despicable piece of (admittedly amusingly eloquent) filth.

To me the funniest/saddest thing in the whole film was the idea that if you speak in complete sentences or read a book you are "gay" or a "fag." I have seen that attitude amongst several different groups in this country. I won't name names.

(Nice to see you again, btw, Matteo! Come back to SF some time.)

 

[The Shirt]

So many of my friends - who are very intelligent, cool people - are choosing to have kids later in life but many are choosing to have none at all. All the people who would be great mums and dads are just not having them.

I was wholeheartedly upset by this part of the movie. I completely associate with those who choose to wait until later in life to begin thinking about having children. I myself wanted to get my career on track. Now my opportunities to have children dwindle before my eyes while some just keep 'cranking the little ones out' without much intention to care for them. (I have yet to see the neighbor with 7 children ever play with her kids in the yard much less even check on them). I'd be a cool mom but have no intention of ever even having more than one child.

I had a hard time laughing throughout the movie as I was in serious upheaval about this truth in our generation.

 

[Dr Doran]

I was wholeheartedly upset by this part of the movie. I completely associate with those who choose to wait until later in life to begin thinking about having children. I myself wanted to get my career on track. Now my opportunities to have children dwindle before my eyes while some just keep 'cranking the little ones out' without much intention to care for them. (I have yet to see the neighbor with 7 children ever play with her kids in the yard much less even check on them). I'd be a cool mom but have no intention of ever even having more than one child.

I had a hard time laughing throughout the movie as I was in serious upheaval about this truth in our generation.

Yes, Shirt, I waited also. I'm 38 and my only child thus far is almost 2. My wife is 34. We have a few more years. 1 - 2 more children with luck. The fact that this movie pointed out this very important eugenics lesson made the movie more impressive to me. A good comedy is often horrifying, so to me it is a positive thing that IDIOCRACY was so hard to laugh at.

I highly highly highly recommend the superb article by the American demographer Philip Longman in the March/April 2006 FOREIGN POLICY which details this precise problem very, very well. It has everything to do with what you are saying and it concerns many other important things too, and has influenced my thinking on several issues.

If you cannot get free access to the article but wish to read it, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

 

[Charlie Noodles]

I'd expect something akin to Gattaca to cancel out any dysgenics issue in society, though.

 

[jamespowers]

But today, I think, is not really a case of genetic stupidity; not an inferior brain. It is a dislike of intellectualism and learning that our culture is conditioning us with.

Ah but is the dislike of intellectualism the result of genetic stupidity and thus the complete inability to understand it? There would then be the inferior brain with our culture backing it up. :eusa_doh:

 

[jamespowers]

Yes, Shirt, I waited also. I'm 38 and my only child thus far is almost 2. My wife is 34. We have a few more years. 1 - 2 more children with luck. The fact that this movie pointed out this very important eugenics lesson made the movie more impressive to me. A good comedy is often horrifying, so to me it is a positive thing that IDIOCRACY was so hard to laugh at.

I highly highly highly recommend the superb article by the American demographer Philip Longman in the March/April 2006 FOREIGN POLICY which details this precise problem very, very well. It has everything to do with what you are saying and it concerns many other important things too, and has influenced my thinking on several issues.

If you cannot get free access to the article but wish to read it, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

You are behind. You need one more to catch up.

 

[Dr Doran]

Ah but is the dislike of intellectualism the result of genetic stupidity and thus the complete inability to understand it? There would then be the inferior brain with our culture backing it up. :eusa_doh:

An utterly fascinating issue.

If a population gets biologically stupider for one reason or another (water supply poisoned for generations, for example), culture will follow.

If culture gets stupider for one reason or another (decisions by the leaders to discourage learning either deliberately to make the population easier to manage, or the leaders simply stop rewarding intellectual achievement or mete it out equally to everyone regardless of merit) we will expect the population to get genetically stupider as dumb folks outbreed clever ones.

Cultural changes are more easily changeable than genetic ones. Even after many many generations of culturally-enforced stupidity, many people will be born with a great capacity for brilliance or at least cleverness. Of course, if their brains are dampened by poor nutrition and poor stimulation in the organism's formative years, then that capacity will never be reached.

Fascinating stuff. As those of you who know me personally may know, I haven't much of a political axe to grind and I am very moderate politically, so I don't fit any of my thinking (to my knowledge at least) into a political mode of Left or Right. I aspire to be as objective and unbiased as possible politically. I only want what works to make people flourish and achieve as much as they can (and I suspect most people want this too, regardless of their politics).

I don't know the answer.

 

[jamespowers]

More than likely the later than the former. Genetic selection can be just as easily enforced by culture and thus give you the stupid out breeding the clever and the clever being forced to pay for it. Some would even say that this is happening now with certain people being excoriated for achievement while other than sit around on the dole and have tons of children. That latest stats I saw mentioned that it might be in the order of 3 to 1.
I often find that we are becoming more and more of a kakistocracy as time progresses. :eusa_doh:
As for that later issue, I am in the Winston Churchill camp as to age and such thoughts.

An utterly fascinating issue.

If a population gets biologically stupider for one reason or another (water supply poisoned for generations, for example), culture will follow.

If culture gets stupider for one reason or another (decisions by the leaders to discourage learning either deliberately to make the population easier to manage, or the leaders simply stop rewarding intellectual achievement or mete it out equally to everyone regardless of merit) we will expect the population to get genetically stupider as dumb folks outbreed clever ones.

Cultural changes are more easily changeable than genetic ones. Even after many many generations of culturally-enforced stupidity, many people will be born with a great capacity for brilliance or at least cleverness. Of course, if their brains are dampened by poor nutrition and poor stimulation in the organism's formative years, then that capacity will never be reached.

Fascinating stuff. As those of you who know me personally may know, I haven't much of a political axe to grind and I am very moderate politically, so I don't fit any of my thinking (to my knowledge at least) into a political mode of Left or Right. I aspire to be as objective and unbiased as possible politically. I only want what works to make people flourish and achieve as much as they can (and I suspect most people want this too, regardless of their politics).

I don't know the answer.

 

[Dr Doran]

More than likely the later than the former. Genetic selection can be just as easily enforced by culture and thus give you the stupid out breeding the clever and the clever being forced to pay for it.

That takes many, many, many generations.

But I agree with your larger point that evolution is continuing to happen in front of our very eyes. It hasn't stopped, and it will never stop.

H. G. Wells' The Time Machine is a perfect illustration of this. One of my alltime favorite books. Even aside from the time travel stuff itself, which has (in some senses) very little to do with the point of the book.

Larry Niven plays with this a bit in the Ringworld books too, especially with the vampires on Ringworld.

 

[Dr Doran]

I'd expect something akin to Gattaca to cancel out any dysgenics issue in society, though.

A fine film illustrating the downside to all this eugenic thought. (And much more visually pleasurable than IDIOCRACY.)
Perhaps it should be viewed as a counterweight to some of the less charitable thoughts that may form in a viewer's head upon watching IDIOCRACY.

 

[Diamondback]

That takes many, many, many generations.

Depends on the rate of breeding, too--if the underperformers follow the old biological rule about "breed early and often" while the overclocked go fewer and later, that's counterintuitive to the theory of "natural selection", and akin to the intelligentsia being "selectively bred" out of the gene-pool.

I tremble when I think of where the mean IQ of this country will be when my children (assuming I ever have any) reach my age...

 

[jamespowers]

Depends on the rate of breeding, too--if the underperformers follow the old biological rule about "breed early and often" while the overclocked go fewer and later, that's counterintuitive to the theory of "natural selection", and akin to the intelligentsia being "selectively bred" out of the gene-pool.

I tremble when I think of where the mean IQ of this country will be when my children (assuming I ever have any) reach my age...

Exactly but I just didn't take it quite that far. :eusa_doh: You often see such circumvention of the generational theory when children are having children. Generations are not the typical 25 years apart when that happens. Grandparents under 40.
The clever are not really "bred out" but instead out bred and outnumbered thus creating more to fuel the kakistocracy in the available breeding pool. :eusa_doh:
You are scaring me now DB.

 

[Dr Doran]

Depends on the rate of breeding, too--if the underperformers follow the old biological rule about "breed early and often" while the overclocked go fewer and later, that's counterintuitive to the theory of "natural selection", and akin to the intelligentsia being "selectively bred" out of the gene-pool.

I tremble when I think of where the mean IQ of this country will be when my children (assuming I ever have any) reach my age...

Natural selection is replaced by social selection ... a good thing in some senses, since this way the most brutal do not survive as often as do people who can make a living (and invest in their offspring) using smarts and charity and all those good things. (That is my leftist side speaking.) But a bad thing if the social system rewards dumbness and laziness. (That is my conservative side speaking.)

I don't think the mean IQ will lower too fast. Probably in a few hundred years. The mean IQ is in fact rising (although it is automatically lowered to 100) due to a fairly unexplained set of factors known collectively as the "Flynn Effect."

The "rate of breeding" problem is referred to by demographers and population biologists as the "r/K spectrum."

On the r end of the spectrum are those organisms (e.g. fleas) which breed lots of offspring, contribute very low or no parental investment, and assume that some will die and some will live.

On the K end of the spectrum are organisms that produce very few offspring and dedicate a great deal of parental investment in time and resources.

Numerically speaking the r win out, but the K have certain advantages as well.

Again, I have no idea what to do. We should all use this model from population biology as a lesson to take good care of our children, I suppose, as good of care as we can.

Again, beyond this I don't know what to say. May all persons live good and productive lives.

 

[Diamondback]

You often see such circumvention of the generational theory when children are having children. Generations are not the typical 25 years apart when that happens. Grandparents under 40.
...
You are scaring me now DB.

Are you kidding? With my life, I'll probably still be a virgin at 40, as my own mother takes entirely too much delight in snarking at me about... lol Scaring you? How so?

May all persons live good and productive lives.

Amen.

 

[Dr Doran]

KAKISTOCRACY ...

For those who do not speak Greek, kakos means 'bad' and was used in elite classical Athenian texts, mainly of the 4th century BC, to mean bad, ugly and most of all (in my translation) worthless.

It is thought to be an onomatopoeic root from the same source as the (later, but apparently independent) English baby-word "caca."

The opposite was kalos meaning fine, good, or beautiful or (in my translation) worthy or worthwhile.

 

[jamespowers]

For those who do not speak Greek, kakos means 'bad' and was used in elite classical Athenian texts, mainly of the 4th century BC, to mean bad, ugly and most of all (in my translation) worthless.

It is thought to be an onomatopoeic root from the same source as the (later, but apparently independent) English baby-word "caca."

The opposite was kalos meaning fine, good, or beautiful or (in my translation) worthy or worthwhile.

In short, a kakistocracy is the rule by the least qualified among us---the stupid.

 

[reetpleat]

Yes, Shirt, I waited also. I'm 38 and my only child thus far is almost 2. My wife is 34. We have a few more years. 1 - 2 more children with luck. The fact that this movie pointed out this very important eugenics lesson made the movie more impressive to me. A good comedy is often horrifying, so to me it is a positive thing that IDIOCRACY was so hard to laugh at.

I highly highly highly recommend the superb article by the American demographer Philip Longman in the March/April 2006 FOREIGN POLICY which details this precise problem very, very well. It has everything to do with what you are saying and it concerns many other important things too, and has influenced my thinking on several issues.

If you cannot get free access to the article but wish to read it, PM me and I'll see what I can do.

Perhaps there is evidence to the contrary, but I personally believe that intelligence is not all that subject to genetics and we will not likely devolve genetically, at least not for thousands of years. However, i do not discount the importance of cultural heredity, and so many Americans are being raised with low expectations and a disdain for intelligence like you commented on. This is dangerous indeed.

whatever you think of the current prez, I am profoundly disturbed that Americans seem to value the qualities of being a "regular guy" over intellect.

I am not saying GW is not intelligent. But in the last election, his victory seemed to be over the fact that people responded much better to his aw shucks regular guy attitude than to the detached intellectualism of kerry. Yes, issues may have come into play, but in the end, people voted on personality.

Perhaps it has always been that way. I will not deny that Clinton (claimed by many to be one of our most intelligent presidents) still won his elections not on that, but on his social in intelligence and perhaps savvy ability to come across as an aw shucks good ol boy from Arkansas.

Fortunately, while the next election still might come down to partisanship and unimportant issues, no one is disparaging either candidate for lack of intellect. While I have my preference, I have respect for both candidates.

In the end, I do think that if children are raised with ignorance and lack of caring about knowledge and intelligence, then they will be the same and pass that on to their children.

On the other hand, have not the ignorant and frivolous always been with us?