[soblemprolver]

I couldn't finish "Idiocracy" because the underlying eugenics nonsense made me angry enough not to enjoy the comedy anymore.

It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true.

If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged.

But there is no need to disproof this because there is no evidence that it has any truth to it.

[gambiting]

That's like being angry at Star wars because the very first title text says "long time ago", and we know humans didn't go into space long time ago duh.

[names_are_hard]

> If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged.

Why? Can you elaborate on that? Did the emergence of property and currency cause a negative correlation between intelligence and number of offspring?

[vintermann]

I think there's so much ill-founded assumptions in eugenics BS that it's hard to know where to start, but as a genealogist, I can personally verify that upper or middle class, wealthier people, presumably the sort eugenicists identify with, clearly had at least a 2-3 generations head start on the demographic transition where I come from.

There are other trends, there's always some groups of people who started having fewer kids earlier or later for reasons not obviously related to class - but class is the big one.

[arnorhs]

> It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans and thus intelligence declines unironically. There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true.

you seem pretty convinced that intelligence plays an important role in natural selection. I'd argue that decisiveness, confidence, looks, social skills all play a more important role. (I'm not saying that's a good thing)

I'm interested in understanding your point of view, can you elaborate on what you mean by "There is no joke in that"?

[cryptonym]

Can't remember in details that part of the film. Was it explicitly eugenics? Otherwise it could be seen as not getting the same education, depending on parental situation.

[input_sh]

It's in the opening scene, where poor, "low IQ" couple complains about getting another child again by accident while a suburban "high IQ" couple was hesitant to start making children until it was too late (the husband dies). "Low IQ" couple's son grows up into a stupid, sexy jock and it goes on from there for generations.

So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt.

[lelanthran]

> So yes, eugenics was pretty much an integral part of the premise. IQ bubbles even pop up on the screen during those scenes, just to remove any shadow of a doubt.

Is that really how we use the word "eugenics", though? That scene you refer to explicitly explained that Natural Selection does not necessarily select for intelligence.

So while some people are calling it "Eugenics", it's what we more typically call Natural Selection, Evolutionary Pressure, etc.

Eugenics implies that the selection criteria was not natural. The scene you mention makes it clear that, in-universe anyway, the selection criteria was entirely natural and not a pressure imposed by humans.

[input_sh]

I agree that it doesn't explicitly show someone tilting the scales, but that doesn't mean that eugenics are not an integral part of the premise in a "if we don't do something about this, this is what the world will look like" kind of way.

I still like the movie, but like with any 20+ years old comedies, I can recognise issues with its premise which would be more-or-less unacceptable today. In 2006... not as much. The future is now, old man!

[lelanthran]

> Come on, use your brain a little:

Classy

> does that scene imply that we should do something to tilt the scales in the opposite direction?

No, it did not.

> I agree that it doesn't explicitly show someone tilting the scales, but that doesn't mean that eugenics are not an integral part of the premise in a "if we don't do something about this, this is what the world will look like" kind of way.

And, to you, "Do something about this" means only one thing - forcefully stopping classes of people from reproducing?

[coldtea]

>It made me angry because makes the point that natural selection has become ineffective on humans

So it's a documentary?

Even the basic reproductive instinct has become "ineffective on humans".

>There is no joke in that - all jokes build upon the assumption of this being true

No, there are countless jokes in the movie that don't depend about how the world became stupid (be it cultural or genetics or combination) at all. Literally all of them are like that.

>If it were true, then decline wouldn't have begun in the 19th or 20th century but around the time that property and currencies emerged.

Why, did the movie say it's the result of "property and currencies"? And even if somebody said so, who said it's just about "property and currencies" merely being a thing that starts this decline, and not surpassing some level of development of property and currencies (e.g. late capitalism), which prevents mitigating factors from working?