Forum adverts like this one are shown to any user who is not logged in. Join us by filling out a tiny 3 field form and you will get your own, free, dakka user account which gives a good range of benefits to you: No adverts like this in the forums anymore. Times and dates in your local timezone. Full tracking of what you have read so you can skip to your first unread post, easily see what has changed since you last logged in, and easily see what is new at a glance. Email notifications for threads you want to watch closely. Being a part of the oldest wargaming community on the net. If you are already a member then feel free to login now.

There's a thread about the movie Idiocracy here.

I'd like to steer people towards the "original" idiocracy, a short sf story called "The marching morons".

Now this was written in 1951 and is in some ways very prophetic and relevant to today's world.

Yes, it's dated in some ways, it doesn't have the modern methods of contraception we have today, it denies the possibility of space travel, it doesn't deal with genetic engineering. But its fundamental message still holds true today.

It's not a happy story, but if you like idiocracy and want to see the dark origins of it, you should read "the marching morons".

It's available free here: http://mysite.du.edu/~treddell/3780/Kornbluth_The-Marching-Morons.pdf

This belongs in the fiction section, as the story in question has nothing to do with reality. Its fundamental message was garbage then, and it's garbage now.

 Peregrine wrote:
This belongs in the fiction section, as the story in question has nothing to do with reality. Its fundamental message was garbage then, and it's garbage now.

Did you post this same comment on the idiocracy thread?

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
This belongs in the fiction section, as the story in question has nothing to do with reality. Its fundamental message was garbage then, and it's garbage now.

Did you post this same comment on the idiocracy thread?

Pretty much. Idiocracy is also nonsense that has nothing to do with reality. If I'm remembering wrong and I didn't post there then I apologize for missing the thread.

 Peregrine wrote:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:

 Peregrine wrote:
This belongs in the fiction section, as the story in question has nothing to do with reality. Its fundamental message was garbage then, and it's garbage now.

Did you post this same comment on the idiocracy thread?

Pretty much. Idiocracy is also nonsense that has nothing to do with reality. If I'm remembering wrong and I didn't post there then I apologize for missing the thread.

I have this thing about hypocrisy, which is why i asmed before i responded.

As to your comment, TMM is a commentary about a problem that is becoming more and more serious in modern society.

I think quality and access to education, and the state of information fed to people via social media and trash TV, to be a much bigger influence on the intelligence of society than a concern that only stupid people have children.

Education seems to be underfunded everywhere and it’s the norm for pupils to have at least one subject taught long term without a subject specialist. That is affecting things a lot more than the belief that in another 100 years there will be an appreciable impact of stupid people having more children. I mean there have only been a couple generations since the 50s, do you really think that’s enough time to dumb down society?

Seeing this article recently reminded me of TMM.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
As to your comment, TMM is a commentary about a problem that is becoming more and more serious in modern society.

No, it's a failed attempt at commentary on a nonexistent problem. It makes multiple incorrect assumptions:

1) That intelligence is primarily a heritable trait rather than one that is primarily influenced by the environment. And that, as a result, the "morons" are permanently doomed to low intelligence and education is not an option. In reality intelligence is strongly influenced by the environment. A child growing up in poverty is going to struggle in life no matter how smart they are as a result of their genes, simply because they don't have the opportunities for education and success that someone with more money would have. But give that child better access to education, enough job security and income to be able to afford to spend time on personal development, etc, and they will do much better. The supposed trap of permanent low intelligence does not exist.

2) That birth rate is a product of low intelligence rather than low wealth and standard of living, and as a result the lowest-intelligence people will out-breed everyone else. In reality birth rate drops as standard of living improves, especially in the modern world where birth control is easy to get. The birth rate problem is not an unsolvable one, improve standards of living for the masses and birth rates drop.

3) That intelligence can be quantified as a single scale, preferably evaluated with a single IQ score, and easily judged as "morons" vs. "elites". In reality intelligence is far more complicated and IQ scores are pseudoscientific garbage.

4) That modern technology is somehow damaging our intelligence, disregarding the fact that our use of tools is what makes us unique as a species and that similar advances in technology did not create a sub-race of "morons". The TMM argument has to handwave away the fact that, for example, inventing writing allowed us to store information in permanent form instead of having to remember it but nobody would seriously argue that we were better off 10,000 years ago.

In short, it's the same tired old "KIDS THESE DAYS ARE STUPID AND DO NOT RESPECT THEIR ELDERS, OUR CIVILIZATION IS CLEARLY IN DECLINE" nonsense that people have been coming up with for all of recorded history, and probably longer.


Automatically Appended Next Post:

 Techpriestsupport wrote:
Seeing this article recently reminded me of TMM.

https://www.newyorker.com/humor/borowitz-report/scientists-earth-endangered-by-new-strain-of-fact-resistant-humans

You do realize that this is a humor piece posted on a parody site, right?

Please continue the discussion in the existing thread.