Idiocracy

I generally do not do movie reviews, this is not a movie review per se. The fact is one of the few benefits, if you can call it that, of being stationed in Korea is that I get free admission to movies. My wife and I generally make a date of it each weekend; we see whatever they show (good, bad or ugly).

This weekend we saw Idiocracy - it was bad and ugly. However the concept behind the not so humorous comedy is relevant. The setting is a world far into the future; a world where the population consists of the best breeders as opposed to the fittest. In this world ordinary language has been replaced by an amalgamation of street, thug and hillbilly-speak. The popular culture is best described as a mesh of the worst from professional wrestling, NASCAR, MTV and fast food. In the movie a very ordinary Joe, transported to this world by accident, finds it difficult to even communicate – his ordinary words seem pretentious and ancient.

HT to WOW

The idea of a future full of idiots is long overdue, and Judge’s film explains the dumbing down of our culture through both hilarious narration and accompanying visual gags. Given the idiotic course that modern culture seems to be taking and the fact that we’ve evolved beyond natural selection, Judge suggests that it’s only a matter of time before such conventions as proper grammar, reading and writing are derided for being “faggy” and the meek-brained inherit the earth. - Cracked Review

In March of 2005 I came across a study that compared global IQ in 1950 to projected levels out to 2050. In 1950 the global mean IQ was 91.64; by 2005 this had fallen to 88.88. Why? It is simple, the world population is increasing but it is not the most intelligent of our species making most of the babies. I wrote a piece in May theorizing why this is the case.

In fact, unfortunately for mankind, most highly intelligent people have few children, some none at all. Our only predator is other men; every thing we require is easily obtained, this is relatively true even in the poorest conditions. Life is seldom brutish, nasty and short in industrialized nations and even in poor underdeveloped nations survival is not unobtainable. In fact, the populations of some of the poorest nations have exploded.

Consider the welfare mom - society enables the survival of her and her brood. We actually provide more benefits for producing more children. (do not comment that I hate all welfare recipients, it is possible some are in that condition because of no fault of their own).

Here is the real deal, if the lowest among us continue to breed like proverbial rabbits, if we continue to accept trash and garbage passed off as art and entertainment, if we continue to allow our language to degenerate in to single syllable utterances we will find ourselves in a world very similar to the Idiocracy described in the ignorant movie I saw this weekend.

Don’t see the movie!!! Spend the 120 minutes reading a book or talking to someone about something important – better yet, if you are not stupid, make love to your wife or husband, make more smart babies and raise them to be cultured, educated people.

IQ; culture; Idiocracy; comedy; movies