By any measure, people are smarter today than they ever have been in the past.
I suspect we are better educated overall, but people are not "smarter".
http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/are-you-smarter...
Re:Mike Judge, the Bard of Suck
by PhasmaFelis on Friday April 14, 2017 @04:03PM
(#14116842)
> I disagree. Idiocracy IMHO was designed to show one possible result - in satirical form - of the race to the bottom that we see every day.
It's pretty disturbing that it explicitly endorses eugenics to do that, though.
Edit: If you disagree, please explain how "the world is going to hell because stupid people are breeding too much" isn't eugenics.
Re:Mike Judge, the Bard of Suck
by CamperBob2 on Friday April 14, 2017 @07:49PM
(#14118380)
That's not the definition of eugenics. Eugenics implies taking deliberate action to influence the gene pool in a direction that you believe/hope will be beneficial.
Because eugenics means doing something about it, usually with state power. Also, eugenics is the negation of the movie's premise, not the movie's premise.
Perhaps they would encourage smart people to go against their instincts and breed more.
Re:Mike Judge, the Bard of Suck
by PhasmaFelis on Saturday April 15, 2017 @06:41PM
(#14123239)
That's eugenics, yes. And, just to be clear, it wouldn't actually work, because the whole decline-of-society thing that we're annoyed about is cultural, not genetic, and doesn't work the way you think it does. https://xkcd.com/603/
If it's a "cheap way to feel smart", then perhaps those that feel smart merely by watching the movie don't realize they are part of it.
Others don't need to feel smart, and simply find it funny and disquieting. I thought it was a brilliant satire when I watched it some years ago.