Idiocracy (2006)

[Lance]

I don't know how I missed it for the better part of a decade but I'm currently watching the 2006 movie Idiocracy.

Private Joe Bauers, the definition of "average American", is selected by the Pentagon to be the guinea pig for a top-secret hibernation program. Forgotten, he awakes five centuries in the future. He discovers a society so incredibly dumbed down that he's easily the most intelligent person alive.

The idea is that more intelligent members of our current population reproduce at a far slower rate that the less intelligent. Over many generations, the average intelligence of the entire population is severely reduced.

The movie itself, so far, is a cute blonde (stupid but entertaining) but the premise scares the crap out of me.

I wonder if there is any evidence this is actually happening or could actually happen. Nature doesn't seem to select for intelligence anymore so you have to wonder...

[Мастер]

I do not know what the time trend on intelligence is.

I do recall some discussion of this film at this board; it seemed to be popular among our younger friends from Michigan. (I liked it also.)

I liked the response to the Wilson brother's question about having to train his replacement . . .

[Lance]

Um, uh oh: average human intelligence trend

[Arneb]

Sevey ral reasons may play a role here.

1 - Intelligence, lieke, say, creativity or musicaltity, is only weakly inherited. Very intelligent, or musical people, were children of rather simple, and amusical people, and they had rather mediocre offspring. The longest musical dynasty I can think of are the Bachs, and they carried for only three generations. Inteklligence isnÄt body length, and the film is wrong from the start, because a true idicracy wouldn't have been able to maintain a level oof techology sufficient to keep a cryobank humming.
2 - Intelligence is eminently trainable. It is debatable whether truely exceptional things can be achieved by training and repetition alone, but they sure go along way. Leopold Mozart, Laszlo Polgar, and Ante Kostelic aren't parents I wanted to have grown up under, but they cerainly proved a point - that you can expand, if not downright create, top talent by relentless training from early on.
3 - "Intelligence" is what the intelligence test measures. We western couch potatos may actually be better at it than a pygmee bush hunter and gatherer, but that is why we have been doing these tests all the time since entering school - they are kind of an abstraction of the abilities that make a good pupil in Western schools. A gang of pygmee hunter-gatherers would find you made some very stupid moves before being eaten by that lion.

So all in all, large-scale cheeseburger-swilling lard-assism and the TV stuoidity force-feeder do a lot more to make idiocracy possible than do any bad genes. You are right that intelligence isn't necessarily a positive marker for reproductional success, but the species' success (it is estimated that none of our forebear species ever numbered more than a few 100,000) is largely attributable to our large and capable brains.

As a note of caution, the premise of the film served as a pretext for much, much worse things. It stands at the beginning of eugenics, the notion that "higher" (basically, for all the eugenicists, "higher" was where they were) members of the species should try to kill "lower" ones, or at least, prevent them from procreating, in order not to be "dragged down" by them. These ideas were given as explicit reasons to kill thousands of mentally ill or handicapped people in the "euthanasia" programs by the Nazis that served as test runs for later genocides. I think you better don't go there.

[Мастер]

As a note of caution, the premise of the film served as a pretext for much, much worse things. It stands at the beginning of eugenics, the notion that "higher" (basically, for all the eugenicists, "higher" was where they were) members of the species should try to kill "lower" ones, or at least, prevent them from procreating, in order not to be "dragged down" by them. These ideas were given as explicit reasons to kill thousands of mentally ill or handicapped people in the "euthanasia" programs by the Nazis that served as test runs for later genocides. I think you better don't go there.

The film has a positive message, that you should exploit the stupidity of the Untermenschen for your own benefit by becoming their leader, rather than killing them.

[MM_Dandy]

I think the phrase "the dumbing down of <society>" goes back a very, very long ways. And yet, we still seem to be able to make new breakthroughs all of the time.

[Arneb]

I think the phrase "the dumbing down of <society>" goes back a very, very long ways. And yet, we still seem to be able to make new breakthroughs all of the time.

Absolutely. Whenever I read someone rant on the Internet about how everything was golden when he (usually he) was young, how they workde hard, and how all the young 'uns nowadays are as stupid as they are sissiyish, I ususally quip, "as every generation before it, this one is the worst the world has ever seen".

The film has a positive message, that you should exploit the stupidity of the Untermenschen for your own benefit by becoming their leader, rather than killing them.

Oh, the Nazis had that idea, too. The only "race" they really wanted to "eradicate" were the Jews. IIRC, it was Himmler himself who said that the Slavs would still have their uses, as a kind of semihuman slave tribe held, fed, put to work and bred in captivity to the whims of the Herrenmenschen. For the Western peoples he foresaw a future where they acted as kind of little cousins or poor relations to their Germanic overlords. After the Endsieg the flock (having been lead astry, now doubt, by Jewish capitalistis) would quickly come to their senses and put aside such follies as democracy, freedom and capitalism in order to flourish, in their own little way, under the benevolent Führerschaft of their superior German educators and supervisors.

Really, all we did was all just for your own good. You really have to see that, don't you.

[Мастер]

After the Endsieg the flock . . . would quickly come to their senses and put aside such follies as democracy, freedom and capitalism

Well, he was right about that!

[Lance]

I just saw a story on CNN about how much of Europe and Japan are encouraging their populations to do more procreating. Apparently the women are having fewer that the required 2.1 children each to maintain the current population.

And so it begins...

[Мастер]

I just saw a story on CNN about how much of Europe and Japan are encouraging their populations to do more procreating. Apparently the women are having fewer that the required 2.1 children each to maintain the current population.

And so it begins...

A lot of countries have that problem. In fact, I'm not sure whether your country would be growing, if not for immigration.

[Arneb]

I just saw a story on CNN about how much of Europe and Japan are encouraging their populations to do more procreating. Apparently the women are having fewer that the required 2.1 children each to maintain the current population.

And so it begins...

It's been high on the agenda for more than a decade here. Serious social problems are expected when the baby boomer genereation reach old age and there are fewer and fewer hands to wipe their asses.

The US are somewhat below self-reproduction at 1.88 children/woman, but that is easily compensated for by imigration.

[Мастер]

but that is easily compensated for by imigration.

I did that once. Methinks that at the time, circumstances considered, it wasn't such a bad decision. I wouldn't go today, though.

[Halcyon Dayz, FCD]

The same thing is expected to happen in developing countries.
There's a strong correlation between standard of living (particularly health care and social services) and birth rates.
The reason they are still growing rapidly is because there are still so many young people from their baby booms who are having families right now.

[Lance]

Yes, the story did also mention that the U.S., due to immigration and the fact that new immigrants tend to reproduce at a higher rate, is still growing strongly and should continue to do so through the period the study covered (until 2050).

[Lance]

So soon, we will be able to take you all over without so much as a fight.

[Мастер]

So soon, we will be able to take you all over without so much as a fight.

Your country's colonisation of Iraq went extremely well, didn't it.

[Lance]

Your country's colonisation of Iraq went extremely well, didn't it.

Had that actually been the goal I think the outcome would have been much different.

[Мастер]

Do you think it would be better or worse than the outcome in which a third of Iraq is controlled by a group so brutal that even al-Qaeda disowned them?

[Lance]

That's a good question, but I can't imagine it could get much worse.

My point above was that I think, had we wanted to, we could have easily occupied and subdued the country. I am not, however, saying that would have necessarily been good.

[Мастер]

The US defeated the Iraqi military without too much fuss. But occupy and subdue (is it that different than what was actually tried?) is a rather more difficult thing.

But, this topic sent me off reading a bit, and I found the Wikipedia page on Hafizullah Amin, President of Afghanistan. It includes this remarkable passage.

The assault on the palace began shortly afterward.[81] During the attack Amin still believed the Soviet Union was on his side, and told his adjutant, "The Soviets will help us".[82] The adjutant replied that it was the Soviets who were attacking them; Amin initially replied that this was a lie.

[Lance]

But occupy and subdue (is it that different than what was actually tried?) is a rather more difficult thing.

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we specifically said we didn't want to occupy the country.

And when I say "occupy", I mean like we did with Japan after WWII, with General Douglas MacArthur running the whole show.

[Мастер]

Yeah, I'm pretty sure we specifically said we didn't want to occupy the country.

Well, perhaps not permanently, but I have a hard time saying that there was not at least a temporary occupation.

And when I say "occupy", I mean like we did with Japan after WWII, with General Douglas MacArthur running the whole show.

There weren't really any insurgencies in either Germany or Japan, were there?

If so, that's interesting. I wonder what the key factors were that made the outcomes so different. I mean, you'd think Germany would be able to fight an occupation at least as well as Iraq, but they didn't. And it was several years. The Iraqi insurgencies took a while to get going - after the 2003 invasion, a lot of the European airlines were even planning regular service to Baghdad airport before it all started to turn nasty. But the occupation of Germany lasted for years, it doesn't seem like the answer would be "there wasn't enough time". Is it that Germany was a much more cohesive society than Iraq? Or did the Americans (and British, and French, and Soviets) in 1945 do a much better job convincing the defeated country "we're getting this place back, eventually" than the Americans of 2003?

[Lance]

I guess to me, a successful occupation would have been to see it through until the insurgents were completely defeated as well.

The failure is that we didn't see it through, and now we're going back. Just like the first time (1990-91).

[Мастер]

I guess to me, a successful occupation would have been to see it through until the insurgents were completely defeated as well.

Is that even a feasible goal? Certainly, some insurgencies have been defeated, but others went on for years and years and years, until the occupying power decided, this isn't fun any more, let's go home. In Iraq, I had the impression new insurgents were being manufactured as quickly as old insurgents were reaching the end of their useful service life.

So I guess my question is, why? Why did lots of people in Iraq hate the occupation so much, that they were willing to risk dying while fighting against it, whereas no such insurgency developed in Germany or Japan after the war? Could the insurgency have been avoided (or at least not so bad) in Iraq if the US/UK handled it better? Or was it inevitable? Were Germany and Japan so hopelessly exhausted by a brutal military struggle, that no one was able or willing to take up arms fighting the occupying powers? If so, could Iraq have been similarly defeated, with sufficient effort? Or was there some other fundamental difference between the situations?

I don't know the answers.

The failure is that we didn't see it through, and now we're going back. Just like the first time (1990-91).

I can completely respect the attitude, don't invade Iraq, in 2003. But, once an invasion takes place, I rather felt like it is incumbent on the invaders to stay until things were mostly put back together again. But as reprehensible as I find breaking a country and then walking away without paying for it, it seems years of foreign intervention do not seem to be making the situation any better.

I saw one pundit (can't think who it was) saying what was going on was essentially a repeat of the Iraq-Iran war, but with the US supporting Iran this time. How the times change.

[MM_Dandy]

The remaining publicly recognized (as legitimate) leaders of both Germany and Japan publicly capitulated to the Allied forces before either occupation was officially underway. I'm sure that it is far more nuanced then that alone, but I do believe that that is a primary reason either occupation succeeded where Iraq has been a failure.