[amelius]

If somebody told me 25 years ago that in the future we all would have a TV on our office desk with 100 channels I would not have believed them. Yet ... the current situation is worse! Thinking of it in terms of mental disorders, I don't think that is going to help much.

[stronglikedan]

The current situation was foretold 20 years ago in the prescient documentary named Idiocracy.

[afavour]

I’d argue Idiocracy is actually quite the opposite of what the OP was talking about. It has a mildly eugenics-y vibe where the world is bad because poor, stupid people have poor, stupid kids that outnumber the smart ones.

OP is talking about something environmental that can affect anyone.

[skinfaxi]

Isn't is well-known that higher education correlates with lower birthrates? At the very least college years are prime child-rearing years.

> Educated women delay the onset of childbearing and have fewer children overall compared with less-educated women

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3449224/

[afavour]

Yeah, Idiocracy isn't wrong on the facts about our current day scenario. The issue is where it takes that: poor, lower educated people will inevitably have poor, lowered educated children who will in fact get less and less educated as time goes on, and they will take over, leading to... idiocracy.

There's a whole conversation to have about the assumptions in that. Is the implication it's genetic? The children of lower educated people aren't capable of moving to greater things? Or is it societal, that our education system fails the poor and doesn't give them the tools they need to thrive?

The movie isn't really interested in interrogating any of that and I don't think it needs to. Like I said, I see it as a fun movie that isn't that deep. But there's a common thread of opinion on the movie that holds it up as a biting satire ("Idiocracy is a documentary!" is essentially a meme at this point) and those folks don't seem to engage with the topic either. A worrying number of people seem to have a takeaway of "poor people shouldn't procreate as much".

Anyway, to bring it back to the actual topic at hand (and why I originally replied): I think something like VAST goes directly against what Idiocracy implies. We're all potential victims to distractions that reduce our capacity for executive function. A more accurate movie might show people of all financial and educational achievement glued to endless social media feeds.

[nixon_why69]

You could also look at it as a metaphor for the continued debasement of american public life and mass media. Or an excuse to make lots of dick jokes.

[inigyou]

If it's even a little bit genetic, the idiocracy effect still holds up

[sitkack]

The number one goal in a functioning democracy should be to have the highest possible education rate.

[maerF0x0]

Number one? Highest?

I disagree with the extremes.

Why wouldn't self defense be number one, in many cases/times?

Why wouldn't we simply stop spending on education at break even ROI? (to be clear that's not the same as the education creates a salary bump equal to the tuition ... there are Nth order effects of education that should be priced into my point)

[pohl]

I always saw the mechanism being that Clevon created more offspring without instilling good memes.

[CollinEMac]

Idiocracy's mechanism isn't as solid as it seems though even if high educated people do tend to have have less kid. The movie basically suggests "smart people have smart kids, dumb people have dumb kids, repeat forever." But you'd expect kids of very high or very low IQ parents to land closer to average in general. The "compounding" thing the movie relies on isn't really how it works in life.

And even if the premise of Idiocracy were true, less intelligent people aren't worth less than more intelligent people. That's the "eugenics-y vibe" problem mentioned earlier that makes the movie uncomfortable for some people.

[Rumple22Stilk]

>less intelligent people aren't worth less than more intelligent people

Yes, they obviously are? Just an absurd thing to state.

[inigyou]

How do you measure a person's value?

[kaikai]

Education is not a proxy for intelligence. There are plenty of smart people who don’t have formal education (including many in this forum).

Yes, higher education rates lead to lower birth rates. The movie still has eugenics vibes, by implying that the “wrong kind of people” are reproducing.

[kyle-rb]

I agree that the overall premise is somewhat eugenics-y, but I overlook that on the basis that it's a comedy movie from 2005 and it's easier to swallow than something like "aliens abducted all the world's smart people"[0] or something. There are still some good themes on over-reliance on automation without understanding it.

The Idiocracy line that I think about the most these days is "Brawndo stock dropped to zero and the computer did that auto-layoff thing to everybody."

[0] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lllrpcd8vbk

[drblast]

Satire pokes fun at what is happening right now; it's not predicting anything. Just like 1984 warned of the dangers of totalitarianism that was already happening, Idiocracy was about current U.S. culture at the time. It wouldn't have been funny if our culture weren't already like that 20 years ago.

The premise is just a silly one so that there's a plot-based reason to show an exaggerated version of what was already happening culturally. It's not intended to be the point of the movie.

[jahnu]

Honestly, as fun as the film is I’ve noticed people very rarely mention that disturbing premise.

[afavour]

Yeah I don't hate the movie by any means I just think it isn't as deep as people often credit it as being.

…and if you do credit it with incisive societal commentary you kind of have to engage with the weird implications of what it's saying rather than just come away feeling superior about not being one of the dumb underclass.

[collingreen]

The point of the commentary isn't cryofreezing or the eugenics/handwaved-backstory. Those are a few minute intro just creating the setting and don't make sense nor do they have anything to do with the rest of the plot.

The fun in idiocy is the "isnt this dumb!" take on a bunch of society that is one big dumb step worse than current life but certainly recognizable.

Everything turned into advertising. Costco expanding into everything. Brainless tv and the related celebrities (that people love for the gimmick but don't give a shit about as people). Health care that only supports a diagnosis by matching to a few kid-friendly tiles. Politics as professional wrestling, nepotism, incompetence, and overpromising. For a related laugh, go look at one of the online quizzes from 2016 about "which of these ten quotes are from a real presidential candidate and which are from president comacho".

Idiocracy is a fun, silly satire that is nearly a cartoon, from a bunch of folks who made a bunch of successful social commentary cartoons. It very much isn't a eugenics story - if Mike judge were actually writing that as the intent I think it would be dark and with a vicious ruling class.

[svachalek]

It would be interesting to remake it, replacing the premise that people are genetically stupid with just the idea that they're habitually stupid from generations of reliance on AI and social media.

[deepsun]

An with proper view on the management. You see, Idiocracy is too optimistic, because their leader genuinely tried to solve a global problem, which is already unbelievable today. Moreover, when their plan didn't work, they really listened to their experts and changed their mind. It's too good.

[kaikai]

Wall-e!

[Electricniko]

There is an even darker, older story with a similar premise. And it also has undertones of today with the billionaires' promise of space colonization.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

[mindslight]

Idiocracy is downright optimistic compared to our current society.

Citizens have one single piece of identification, and it's not even electronic. Their location is only tracked when discrete scanners manage to see that identification. Medical care is provided promptly. Joe Bowers's court case wasn't decided by political meddling, and the two minute hates were only focused on him after he was found guilty. There are security holes in the implementation of the prison that allow intelligent individuals to escape the machine. The president has leadership, speaking ability, policy planning, honesty, work ethic, intelligence, humility, and outright patriotism. Starbucks seems like respectable open employment for adults rather than children being trafficked to some island in secret. Joe Bower's aptitude was eventually recognized and appreciated - the society wants to get better.

Like all sci-fi, Idiocracy was largely a reflection of the society it was written in. A society that had values we've long since given up on.

[deepsun]

Their leader tried to solve a global problem, not calling it a hoax. When their plan didn't work, they really listened to experts, whatever they had, and changed approach. Too optimistic even for modern times I would say.

[Froztnova]

https://xkcd.com/603/

[mindslight]

Sure, my last sentence was a bit of a broad brush. But anything more substantive that focuses on direct sources of rot usually attracts partisans who don't like the messages.

[tezza]

I would add that Brazil (1985) foretold this 41 years ago.

The civil servants are addicted to their personal TV and only pause watching it compulsively when the boss comes around. As soon as the boss is out of sight they resume their fixation.

From memory it is a loop of a cowboy galloping on a horse.

[stevenwoo]

We are “Amusing Ourselves to Death”.

[Barbing]

  In the introduction to Amusing Ourselves to Death, Postman said that the contemporary world was better reflected by Aldous Huxley's Brave New World, whose public was oppressed by their addiction to amusement, rather than by Orwell's work, where they were oppressed by state violence.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amusing_Ourselves_to_Death

Thanks for the reminder to read this.

[OccamsMirror]

¿Por qué no los dos?

[Barbing]

Removed that line just before commenting :)

[amelius]

It's incidentally one of the explanations for the Fermi paradox.

"Alien species may isolate themselves in virtual worlds"

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fermi_paradox#Hypothetical_exp...

[projektfu]

Yes, VAST is specifically not ADHD, although a disorder is really defined by how it affects you. For example, some people worry too much, other people have generalized anxiety disorder, and the effect it has on your life is what separates normal from disordered.

"The person finds it difficult to control the worry.... The anxiety, worry, or physical symptoms cause clinically significant distress or impairment in social, occupational, or other important areas of functioning." DSM-IV/V

Some of the strategies used to help people with ADHD are used to help with VAST-related loss of focus and procrastination, but medication is probably not recommended for those diagnosed as not having ADHD but likely having VAST.

[bluefirebrand]

It's funny, I googled VAST and the AI search insisting that it's the same as ADHD, it's just a reframing of it

It sounds similar but almost coming at it from the opposite angle. ADHD is when your brain's baseline is not producing or using dopamine properly. VAST almost sounds like a sort of burnout, where your brain is overwhelmed and cannot process stuff anymore. The symptoms are the same, the effects are the same, but the cause is different.

ADHD root cause is internal lack of stimulation, VAST root cause is external overwhelming stimulation. That's how I understand things anyways

[BigTTYGothGF]

I would have believed them, my tv at home had more than 100 channels at the time, and I think we all knew back then that usable video streaming was coming sooner or later.