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It’s comforting to know that while things may seem to be going in one direction, the opposite is actually happening. IQ isn’t a static measurement, nor is it all that useful… However it has been trending upwards ever since it’s inception. Meaning that what 100 IQ currently is used to be closer to 130 back in our grandparents time.
That was true for the past, but IIRC recent studies have shown that this trend reverses for the first time
Well shucks I’m out of date. Thanks for catching me up.
Are your studies based on united states, North America, “first world” countries, or global?
E.g. here, and since I’m not a big fan of dailymail, a direct link to I think the study they mean, so yeah, US…
that direct link had a concerning title, but then there was this paragraph:
research and meta-analyses over the last two decades suggest that the Flynn effect had already stagnated or begun to reverse. In a meta-analysis examining IQ scores across 31 countries from 1909 to 2013, Pietschnig and Voracek (2015) found that the magnitude of higher IQ scores observed for newer cohorts has declined. Dutton and Lynn (2013) found Finnish IQ scores had differed −2.0 IQ points (0.13 SD) from 1997 to 2009, while French IQ scores differed −3.8 IQ points (0.25 SD) from 1999 to 2009 (Dutton and Lynn, 2015); for these studies, more recent samples had lower IQ scores than previous samples. In a meta-analysis examining nine original studies that observed a reverse Flynn effect, differences ranged between −0.38 IQ points (0.03 SD) and −4.3 IQ points (0.29 SD) per decade (Dutton, van der Linden, and Lynn, 2016). Recent evidence within German-speaking countries, also suggests that the magnitude of higher visual-spatial ability scores in newer cohorts could be declining across certain regions of Europe (Pietschnig and Gittler, 2015).
Linking to a ton of other studies, which is enough data for me to consider acceptable.
Yeah no maybe do some introspection if the misanthropic eugenics movie seems relatable.
It’s not relatable, it’s prophetic…
Only if you assume there’s no bad actors behind the decline in intelligent discourse in the world.
How the world gets into that state isn’t the part of the movie that’s prophetic…
We also don’t have working cryogenics etc…
It was not supposed to be an instructional video
wait, what country is on six year election cycles and has elections this year
Russia?
Putin already
wonasserted complete control over electoral system.
Mexico. Six year presidential term, and they had elections this year.
Well the senate and most governors are on a six year cycle
I would estimate 1/3rd of each
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Surely about 1/6 or so!
lol – yep its scary true
When you realize that Idiocracy is way better than where we’re headed.
They had to make the future people somewhat likable and sympathetic for a comedy movie. In reality, they’d be much more short tempered, racist, sexist, and violent.
Than neofeudalism/technofeudalism? Sure.
People are not more stupid than before. They are just more ignorant, bigoted, lazy, and scared. And this is not an accidental outcome.
People are definitely not more bigoted and ignorant. They just feel it’s now safer to express their bigotry.
Possible.
They just feel it’s now safer to express their bigotry.
Which has a memetic effect on the population. The more bigotry ideas are expressed, the more new people feel that those ideas have value. Andrew Tate is an example of a super spreader.
Nooo! It’s because stupid people have too much sex and smart people don’t breed enough! Probably part of the gay agenda! /s
Pleeeeaase don’t think about the fact that this movie is kind of basically supporting pushing eugenics… It’s totally a political commentary about how bad Republicans are, and definitely not actually propagating hardcore Randian Libertarian ideals in its insistence that certain types of people are just inherently, genetically, more suited to rule over others.
It isn’t supporting any sort of selective breeding program at all, in fact it’s the exact opposite: it’s saying that all people should be raising kids to avoid a situation where the culture nosedives to the lowest common denominator. The supporting characters start coming around towards the end of the movie because they are not inherently stupid, just brainwashed.
Just because it doesn’t support an explicit breeding program, doesn’t mean it can’t dabble in negative eugenics.
For someone that says he isn’t pro-eugenics, Mike Judge certainly made a very pro-eugenics movie. It’s simply undeniable, whatever his intentions.
A common criticism of Idiocracy is that it’s most appreciated by some of the people it purports to mock, faux intellectuals. I don’t think it’s a coincidence how many of its most fervent online supporters lack the intellectual honesty to admit such an obvious fact.
A common criticism of Idiocracy is that it’s most appreciated by some of the people it purports to mock, faux intellectuals.
Given how much on the movie is spent dunking on stupid people (i.e. stand-ins for republicans), I don’t think that’s surprising at all.
It does have one anti-capitalist theme (the megacorp buying the FDA), so, I don’t know, if it’s exactly Randian, per se.
I mean, the movie doesn’t actually know what it’s trying to be. It’s a dystopia where everyone is too stupid to function, but a megacorp has zero difficulty arranging the infrastructure and logistics needed to water crops with sports drinks, while also engaging in massive regulatory capture to make this happen. It’s a world where intelligence has disappeared but they somehow have super advanced scifi tech everywhere that hasn’t broken down even though logically no one should have a clue how to maintain it. Oh, and despite being apparently the worst possible future, as soon as someone comparitively smart shows up they immediately put him in charge of the country instead of, say, handing it over to said megacorp.
Idiocracy is an incoherent mess masquerading as satire, while it’s only cogent point is “I hate anyone who has ever shopped at Walmart.”
As a counter to you comment: Quiet you. No one cares what the anti fun police think.
Each one of these things is it’s own commentary, that is all. Judge obviously wasn’t doing cohesive world building; he was just squeezing together all the commentary he has on why people are hypocritical idiots. All the way down the the eugenics bit.
Since that’s where the conversation started, let’s go to eugenics first. I would wager the writer has expienced the ‘cautious successful people with no kids’ trope a million times in real life and in his very successful career. He made it his own when he contrasted it with the Jerry Springer types; which was very culturally dominant at that time. Yes, we look at it today and only see the problematic eugenics message; but I imagine the writers regret when he sees the most intelligent, affectionate, people he knows never being able to do what the dummy’s on Springer find all to easy.
The writers world is one on the brink of collapse. All because technology was so advance it was self sustaining, at least for a time. The excess it provided made society’s need for education, social structure, and governance evaporate. The time leading up to when Not Sure showed up could have been a cultural revolution of art and space exploration but instead was plagued with reality TV, fart humor, and fast food. All things that were dominating the culture when the writer wrote the script. Taken to the most extreme, focus on making more Gatorade then could ever be consumed would be in line with societies priorities at the time.
Finally, Not Sure becoming president was a simple, funny, way to advance the story. It would be unkind for the author to make all this commentary without giving the audience a polite instruction that could help circumvent our tragic future. That comment being, just feed the plants water. Meaning stop with the idiocy. You don’t have to listen to the, “smartest man in the world” because Not Sure was just an ordinary 20th century guy and even he knew that plants need water.
I’ve always found it funny how I’ve seen folks from both ideological sides point to this film as a satire of what’s wrong with the other. It’s a simple satire, but that’s what makes it effective.
Judge is master at this type of commentary. Beavis and butthead was making fun of how stupid the MTV audience was. The same audience that adopted and Beavis and Butthead just as fast as it was incepted.
King of the hill is the ultimate “Steven Colbert is a sincere conservative show.” In king of the hill Hank is a nieve Texan that buys into every bullshit “American exceptionalism” type idealogy there is. He then humanizes him and shows how every single time Hank is returning to “American values” he’s just being nieve and if he were born anywhere else he would be just as liberal as he is a “conservative.”
You are indeed proving you point here 😂
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Between the lead fuel, plastics, and possibly other issues not yet proven to be an issue like food colorings and preservatives, we may actually be dumber today than 150 years ago.
We just have access to more platforms to share our opinions and people have access to more sources of information to reinforce their bad opinions.
During the Spanish flu people were fighting against preventive measures, the anti Vax movement existed in the late 1800s (example for those who read French https://www.ledevoir.com/societe/634164/la-grogne-contre-les-vaccins-et-les-mesures-sanitaires-des-le-xixe-siecle ), there’s always been people supporting fascists and so on…
Doctors used to refuse to wash their hands before performing surgery.
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You vastly underestimate the amount of smoke (both pollution and intentional) and lead and toxic dyes and alcohol and cocaine and heroin that people consumed 150 years ago. Not to mention the rampant disease.
That didn’t effect nearly the entire population as leaded gasoline.
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I’d much prefer Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho as president tbf
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I don’t like idiocracy bc irl the opposition is not actually stupid, they know exactly what they are doing. Also the eugenics is not fantastic
But those who are voting for them apparently are…
And constantly just calling them stupid will totally fix things. It totally won’t puff up their stubbornness where they oppose your ideas out of spite.
No, I didn’t assume it does fix things. But it seems to be the truth, or they’re sadomasochistic (which doesn’t look like it).
Would you rather like them to be called egoistic, anxious, brain-insufficient (okay that’s another way to call them stupid ^^) and illiterate? I just can’t fathom to vote for these guys, they just say things, which they won’t do to get power, and then try to hold onto it in any way they can, and in the meantime destroy what previous systemic democracy has build up over a long time.
Fixing this, would require more education, but those guys try to vote for guys who are against education…
Lead will do that to people
The pseudoscience behind it is straight from eugenics.
That is the thing.
Idiocracy is a universe where intelligence is shunned. Being smart is a bad thing and reading books can get you beaten up. It is basically anti-intelligence.
While in our universe we have more of a pseudoscience problem. People who want to be smart, it is revered. But they fall for pseudo-intelligence. (Flatearthers, anti-vaxxers, climate deniers, …)
Despite that, its depiction of an ignorant society unaware of the technology supporting it was incredibly prophetic. If we ignore the “dumb people reproducing” bit, we can see it as a warning about how an uneducated society is detrimental for everyone.
I mean, we have flat earthers, for fuck’s sake.
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Eugenics (by some definitions) doesn’t even have to be unethical if you turn left off of “state-enforced sterilization highway” and on to “provide the opportunity to let people optimise their children’s genome street”. It is basically transhumanism at that point. Probably still some problems there, but at least its not coercive, and its also already possible today. Equality of access to polygenetic screening I say!
The problem is it’s also a society without users and abusers. It’s just a story about dumb people.
But the reason society seems to be trending stupider isn’t because we’re naturally focusing on shunning intelligence… it’s because the rich and powerful are using their influence to put that idea in our heads. They want a stupider, and more malleable, society to manipulate.
That is the biggest problem we’re facing right now. And ignoring the root cause basically means you’re pushing a boulder up a steep hill, just for it to roll back down again.
We always had village idiots. Social Media just allowed them to find each other.
I’m not worried with flat earthers as much as theocrats amd other form of politically motivated extremism.
Welcome to Costco, I love you.
He’s required to say that. Sadly, he doesn’t actually love you.
He does and nothing you say can change my mind. We will get married and have hundreds of babies.
As far as I understand this, this isn’t something like an actual degree, it’s something like a diploma, you get if you finish what we in europe call a technical/specialized high school (the 3 year, not the 4 year one (where you can seek higher education)).
You’re exactly right. It’s just a timely coincidence, given a bit of creative leeway on my part.
I wish, at least the US would have a cool president that isn’t two steps from a stroke
idiocracy is a stupid movie that promote eugenics. I’m so tired of seeing people hailing it as some sort of genius movie when the only thing it has is “aren’t other people stoopid? durr” wow easy there you’re making my brain hurt with all this brilliant analysis. fuck idiocracy.
It’s a funny movie. But I get what you’re saying, people use it as an example of why the real world is going downhill, and those people are unknowingly promoting eugenics.
The movie itself doesn’t promote anything. Don’t blame Mike Judge for stupid fandoms.
i don’t subscribe to that idea. if it didn’t promote anything it wouldn’t be brought up constantly.
Are you claiming that the movie doesn’t have a political message?
I’ll bite. Besides the 5 minute plot device intro that is never referenced again in the entire movie, what message does it have? I could see maybe a vague anti corporate message, but all of the movie seems tongue in cheek, including the intro.
And if eugenics is the only political message you can think of, at least we can both be glad it failed and that this comedy movie has only been taken as a joke.
Well said
Brother it’s not “promoting” anything, it’s a fucking satirical comedy
“Satirical comedies” are famous for not having a political message. /s
The political message is certainly not “eugenics is good”, it’s “corporatocracy is bad”. The movie doesn’t “promote” eugenics.
too bad they didn’t call the movie corporatocracy then, isn’t it. almost like that wasn’t the main point for them.
even if corporate power was the central point, which it isn’t because it’s a liberal movie and not a leftist one, it ties the corporate power to people being stupid (due to dysgenics and not the education system btw) rather than a very deliberate and systematic takeover by people who very well knew what they were doing. because that’s how it is in real life, but the movie completely blunders that.
That bit about the corporation is just a relatively minor plot point. The corporation didn’t make the people stupid. Even the CEO didn’t know what he was doing (which is a horrible satire of a corporation, too).
The whole premise of the movie, the whole conflict and the thing the title is referencing is: Stupid people outbreed smart people.
That’s a eugenicist viewpoint. It just is.
what do you think satire means? are you a cinemasins fan or something? those sentences do not follow each other.
I’m pretty sure the eugenics portion of the film is done more as a gag than a Literal endorsement of eugenics.
Watching the film as a whole illustrates the way in which corporations are not only in positions of power, but are also taking the role of the arbiter of truth. It builds on this by showing how that leads to anti-intellectualism among the masses as they no longer form their own opinions, but defer to those of corporations.
This is just my interpretation.
i don’t understand why the premise is set up that way. maybe I’m remembering it wrong but i don’t remember the premise being a red herring or anything; they played it pretty straight.
the movie could have been totally valid if it actually looked into real causes of intellectual decline, which is about education first and foremost, but instead they go with the breeder mentality, and not only give credence to IQ which is bs in and of itself, but suggest that it’s inherited.
someone else in these comments says oh it doesn’t necessarily mean it’s genetic but ignorant people are likely to raise their children to be ignorant or whatever… but that’s just steelmanning the movie’s premise. it’s how not the movie plays it. they straight up suggest it’s intelligence rather than education and tie it directly to breeding rather than socioeconomic conditions and political manipulation.
If there was a movies circlejerk community on lemmy, this would be the top of all time post.
on the internet*.
And then you have people jumping in saying IDIOCRACY EUGENICS only to eventually get curbstomped again despite arguing against one of the most tongue-in-cheek movies ever made…
The anti-circle jerk has finally come back around though so that’s nice.
only to eventually get curbstomped again
No circlejerking going on here, no siree!
