[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)

[inigyou]

Maybe it's number one because it's a prerequisite of everything else

[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?

[Rumple22Stilk]

There is only one way to measure a persons value. their economic output.

If you want to measure something else then measure something else.

[inigyou]

What is economic output?

[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.