Gentlemen, you can’t fight in here! This is the war room!

This is America, I'm sure we can do both at the same time.

Idiocracy is eugenicist propaganda.

The rise of stupidity has nothing to do with genetics and everything to do with the deliberate dismantling of public education.

Oooor it could just be a stupid ass comedy with a ridiculous premise that just happened to hit close to the mark written by the guy who made bevis and butthead, and not some grand propaganda piece by a shadowy cabal

I'm a big fan of Mike Judge, normally, but the concept that stupid people are out-breeding intelligent people and that this will lead to a planet of idiots is literally Eugenics 101

Edit: you'll notice (if you haven't been failed by your education 😊) that I made no mention of shadowy cabals, but that doesn't magically invalidate my point any more than the fact that movie's writer made some good cartoons back in the day

My point was more that I’m like 99.9999999% sure that wasn’t the intent. Not everything is a conspiracy.

Edit: thanks for calling me stupid, that’s super classy. Two things. You heavily implied it, you even said it’s propaganda, which requires intent. Also, this is a shitpost community. We cool?

And Silicon Valley (the show) is a perfect distillation of the tech sector that's adding fuel to fire.

Again, I never mentioned any conspiracy. You're reading things into my comment that aren't there. His intent has no real bearing on the matter.

I also doubt it was his intent, but "accidentally pro-eugenics" is still "pro-eugenics."

It's a funny movie that's easy to draw comparisons to as far as how brazenly stupid things have become, but it has always bothered me when people call it "prophetic," as it implicitly accepts some deeply flawed aspects of its premise.

Is The Handmaid's Tale written by a misogynist?

The purpose of a thing is what it does

The term "propaganda" was used. That requires intent.

When I win the lottery, I'm gonna start a pacifist hippie commune and call it The War Room.

Might raid the English on weekends, though.

Hundreds of people participated in the production of that film. Maybe thousands. Because it's a film. It takes a big social collective effort.

I would say that if you have a society that produces a feature length film whose basic premise is deeply eugenic and could plausibly be mistaken for intentionally-produced pro-eugenics propaganda, that you have a society deeply steeped in eugenics as a concept, maybe even moreso than one which would intentionally produce such a film as propaganda.

As someone else said: the purpose of the thing is to do what it does.

No, because that's a massively false equivalency.

The plot of Idiocracy explicitly accepts the eugenecist premise that 'genetically stupid' people breeding will result in a planet of idiots, whereas the Handmaid's Tale merely demonstrates the result of misogynist policies being implemented by society.

Pacifist hippie communes can have a little battle, as a treat

IDK, while I agree that the broad stupidity that we see today is more to do with poor education and not really genetics at all, there is something to be said that if you have stupid parents they'll probably fail to educate you. Further, that stupid (uneducated) people do have kids more often than smart (educated) people. I wouldn't say that's a genetic issue though.

I feel torn because I do agree that we have a systemic problem, I'm a consequentialist not a virtue ethicist.

But on a raw emotional level as an educated person, I also can't help but blame broad stupidity on our situation as something individuals largely indulge in. Where I find the average person to be intolerably incurious or unwilling to re-examine their own beliefs and I never really inter-personally want to interact with them.

What’s crazy is I can’t tell if that’s a real quote or not

Yeah, what happens outside of the commune stays outside of the commune.

Plus it doesn't count if it happens in a different time zone 😉

Normally I hate to take media like this too seriously, but if it’s going to be seen as a legitimate social commentary it’s right to point out its flaws. This comment is spot on. Blaming genetics for the decline of civilization is exactly eugenics.

If it was it still wouldn’t be in the top 10 of craziest shit he’s said/done

I don't remember genetics being mentioned as the reason in the movie. How do you know it isn't about something like social inheritance?

Idiocracy is way too optimistic

Agreed. I would completely believe someone if they said this was a real quote. That’s how weird he is.

I'd tack on Don't Look Up for another real depiction of how we got here. Film was scripted pre-covid and more an allegory on climate change, but it applied just the same.

You realise you'll have to answer to the Coca-Cola Company?

It's from Dr. Strangelove.

But JD says that kind of thing all the time, just not literally that phrase.

People who think Idiocracy is how evolution works are less-informed and more dangerous than creationists. The idea that society is collapsing because people are "breeding wrong" is historically competitive with any religion for getting innocent people slaughtered.

Only if I don't get the president on the phone!

Predicted or helped create?

TL;DR: Media is weird.

helped create?

Only in a "don't build the torment nexus" way 🤷🏻

Propaganda? lol what?

Did you miss the actual themes of the film?

Most of the future's stupidity is shown as cultural and institutional, not hereditary.

Remember people weren't having kids because they were concerned about the market, their careers, and time. The emphasis is on what certain peoples values are, and those values are passed down. Not genetics.

This is the same society in which millions of people voted Republican because they thought Trump was an honest and genius businessman, and was going to end all wars and make everyone rich.

You can't imagine how hundreds of people there wouldn't catch or care about a flawed minor presence of a niche concern in a low budget comedy movie?

It's not even "deeply" eugenic. The movie isn't about those themes at all. It's a minor part of the setup to the world and doesn't matter otherwise. Like the person above said, is 101 level stuff. The kind of stuff that gets referenced or used accidentally. This isn't something like Birth of a Nation or Atlas Shrugged in terms of purposefully rationalizing a specific worldview.

How many people has Idiocracy convinced that eugenics is the way forward?

The 101 level of things is so basic that it can be used accidentally, as Mike Judge has explicitly confirmed was the case.

You'll notice that the movie does not have any themes or morals any eugenics outside of using a basic and limited concept of it as the premise for the world.

Idiocracy is more about what the world will be like when everyone is stupid rather than how everyone in the world will get stupid.

Him and general ripper are both against flouride in the water.

I've quite honestly found Dr Strangelove to be kind of comforting these last couple of months.

If you've never seen it it's worth a watch.

The film doesn't mention genetics at all. The redneck family in the intro is greedy and inattentive and lets their children run wild. They're socially stupid, not genetically.

my brother in christ have you even watched the fucking movie? it doesn't even try to pretend it's not about the "wrong people" having too many kids, it has scenes explicitly dedicated to showing that. whether they intended it that way or not, that's the movie that got made.

Yeah I remember watching that movie and then talking to my wife afterwards and she said something like "it was a little too on the nose about climate change."

And I said "climate change? I thought that movie was about COVID!"

It just goes to show that we're good at politicizing just about any large disaster rather than addressing the actual issue.

Never seen Idiocracy, but there is a clear correlation between low IQ and making lotsa babies. There's a somewhat famous sci-fi short story called The Marching Morons that I'd bet Idiocracy got ideas from.

I was about to look it up.

(Just did. It's from the movie.)

Stupid people tend to make more babies. OTOH, we should be overrun à la The Marching Morons, yet IQs go up every generation (in the West, no idea about elsewhere). 🤷🏼‍♂️

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/25131282/

There's probably others that I'm not aware of, but in addition to being an amazing movie, it's the only black and white movie I know of where the acting is natural rather than looking like someone putting on a performance.

Propaganda doesn't have to be convincing to be propaganda. When people are saying we live in Idiocracy, it's not a very far leap to say that we need policies in place to direct the growth of the human population. That idea is eugenics.

I'm talking about something's purpose being what it does. If it doesn't do that thing, then that can't be its purpose.

So how many people is the movie influencing about eugenics and come out of it with such strong opinions?

It is literally the opening sequence. Well educated people focusing on their careers and having less children, whilst uneducated, unemployed people breed like rats. It's not even subtle, it has infographics. Surprised you missed it. Love the film, have issues with the premise.