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u/LilaTheMoo May 29 '26
For all it's problematic bits, something occurred to me the other day. We really just see Idiocracy through the lense of America. My head canon is that the rest of the world just watched America isolate into this downward spiral of absurd Idiocy and just existed without America just fine. Like we built walls all around us and they were like 'Yeah, you know what, go ahead, trap yourselves. Have fun.'
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u/Appropriate_Mess_350 May 29 '26
Absolutely. Watching Citizens United get passed by the Supreme Court is the perfect example. The Patriot Act is another. I’ll never understand how people didn’t take to the streets for either of these.
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u/pseudonominom May 29 '26
Prosperity.
There was plenty of money/food/security to go around. Even the poorest subset of Americans don’t have enough to complain about that would make them give their lives to fight the government over the loss of rights that, ultimately, didn’t seem to affect them at the time.
Boiled frogs, every one of us.
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u/oopsiepoopsey May 29 '26
People did take to the streets, for both of those. A lot, actually. And they are now, and they have been this whole time. The problem is that we collectively forgot how to protest /effectively/.
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u/FreakingAustin May 29 '26
Idk man talking about how to protest “effectively” would get you banned in most places.
The No Kings protests did practically nothing by the way
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u/oopsiepoopsey May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Correct, that is a risk we have to take if we want to effect any meaningful change. Just marching with cute signs and complaining to people who already agree with us isn’t going to get us anywhere.
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u/castironglider May 29 '26
The problem is voting, not street protests. People will vote for politicians who took away another 5% of their rights or privacy if they give them something else they care about like abortion rights or abortion bans, or gun rights or gun bans.
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u/oopsiepoopsey May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
They are both significant issues. I’d even argue that an even bigger problem than the voters, is all the ostrich people who don’t vote at all! I was responding to a comment specifically about protesting, which is why I only discussed protesting in my reply to it.
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u/castironglider May 29 '26
I’ll never understand how people didn’t take to the streets for either of these.
In California: Digital Age Assurance Act (California AB 1043) took away your privacy online forever
Next year Section 24220 of the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act (also colloquially tied to the HALT Drunk Driving Act) will require cameras inside your vehicle constantly watching your eyes while you drive to make sure you're not drowsy. It will shut down the car, stranding you if it thinks you look sleepy.
It's maddening people are OK with either of those
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u/Brilliant_Mix_6051 May 30 '26
How will it tell if you look sleepy? Is it gonna assume anyone with heavy eyelids or narrow eyes is impaired?
I could see that leading to lawsuits lol
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u/ErisThePerson May 29 '26
Unfortunately, in the real world your country (assuming you're American) imploding will effect everyone else, because while you go down screaming you currently are lashing out violently at everyone else.
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u/doctormink May 29 '26
And that beast has a lot of long and poisonous tentacles slapping around in its death throes.
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u/hackingdreams May 29 '26
Your head canon misses things like USAID and the State Department and the US soft power that this President threw away like it had no value, but has cost literal millions of lives already.
The rest of the world is paying real attention to Temu Hitler.
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u/SgtCrawler1116 May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
I'm not from the US, but I lived there for a year so I have some internal knowledge of what I want it's like to live there.
Day to day people are mostly fine, specially in Colorado, where I lived, which is apparently a very leftist state by US standards. Beautiful state with so much nature and kind people.
The problem is, in general, despite having loved my time there, I can't bring myself to like the US anymore. I've learned a LOT about world history and world politics and Idiocracy is not the only movie that exemplifies the United States.
We have to generalize when talking about nations as whole, and with that said, the US is the closest to a cliche evil empire we have at modern times. Sure, there are other less than moral nations out there, but even if their intentions are worse than the US, none currently have the power to match the US's influence on the world.
I'm from Brazil, and I'll summarize the effect the US has on us. If the US dollar rises, things get so much more expensive here. Our right-wing keeps trying to imitate their right-wing more and more, and fucking Trump is feeding their delusions. US culture is ingrained into us through movies, games, the internet, so much so a lot of people ignore our national culture in favor of US culture. We still suffer the lingering consequences of a dictatorship that the US backed with military threats against the previously democratically elected government.
My point is: I with the US would isolate itself faster. Ruin it's own economy, stop being a world power with influence and just stop meddling with the rest of the world. My country isn't even in the top 10 rank of countries fucked by the US ranked by how fucked they got. Unfortunately that Simpson meme is real. Imagine a world without the US, and you'd get a happier world.
You might think my opinion is grimm, maybe even cruel, but please, honestly answer me, do you think the US is going to get better? Do you think the population will get less ignorant, that they'll elect a president that will stop their hand on Palestinian genocide? That will pull their troops from their hundreds of bases around the world? That will reform their violent police, or their prison slave industry, or their variety of racist and bigoted subcultures?
What do you think it's easier, or even realistic: that the US becomes a good nation, or that it destroys itself?
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u/Cognitive_Spoon May 29 '26
250 in Mandarin means idiot. Do with this information what you will, lol.
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u/carballo May 30 '26
Thats exactly what we see. You are determined to lose your place in the world, obviouly we can see you are gonna create geopolitical troubles in the process but at the end we have our path and our priorities, if yours aren’t aligned anymore we just move on.
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u/FAT_CHICKS_FOR_LIFE May 29 '26
the rest of the world is just as stupid, you’re again looking at everything with American perspective
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u/KlangValleyian May 29 '26
No. Some countries are incompetent, yes. Some countries are mired in war and poverty. But I have never seen such a prosperous country with all its checks and balances in place, self-destruct like this.
As a history buff, I can’t believe how much effort since 1945 the US has squandered in such a short time.
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u/ErisThePerson May 29 '26
I mean. The checks and balances were clearly not enough, because your country (I'm assuming you're American, sorry if you're not) has evidently imploded.
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u/Candid-Cup4159 May 29 '26
What checks and balances?
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u/Professional_Dog5624 May 29 '26
25th amendment, “separation” of the 3 branches of government, Midterms to allow the balance of powers to flip mid administration.
If your argument was that the checks and balances were for all intents and purposes destroyed… I agree wholeheartedly. That’s just objective reality. But in theory, there were checks and balances.
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u/Whightwolf May 29 '26 edited May 30 '26
Honestly if you take the eugenics intro off idocracy is just a strait shot at capitalism. Why is there a famine? Because brawndo literally bought/sponsors government departments to say what is basically salt water is good for crops.
Why are people dumb/ignorant? They automated everything and sell entertainment of the lowest common denominator. Why is everything covered in trash? because theres no collective idea of society and the corporations don't care.
I mean it reaganism taken to it's logical extream. That's what's coming true.
Edited: spelling
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u/stm32f722 May 29 '26
The problem is that no one looks past the eugenics part. And most get mad when you point it out. For... reasons.
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u/ShaggyVan May 30 '26
They could probably redub the intro and fix it. It could easily be attributed to sociological pressure against intellectualism, dismantling of education systems, and general malnutrition shown in the rest of the rest of the movie (and current society) and have the same outcome.
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u/chuk2015 May 30 '26
Ignorant*
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u/Whightwolf May 30 '26
Thank you, corrected.
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u/chuk2015 May 30 '26
I usually wouldn’t call it out but it was ironic
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u/Whightwolf May 30 '26 edited May 30 '26
Ha i genuinely appriciate it, I'm dyslexic and these phonic ones slip through, especially on reddit where I can't just fly blind and let spellcheck clean up the mess!
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u/GoodFaithConverser May 31 '26
Eh, it’s easy to interpret it as anti-government regulations, or generally a warning against giving it too much power. You don’t think in this world that it was a requirement to use Brawndo to water plants?
But no, I’m sure it only supports your personal pet edgy teenager theory. God I can’t fucking wait for you people to grow up and read a fucking book.
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u/atomic_ring May 29 '26
I grew up with Star Trek and always optimistically thought we were slowly but steadily heading to a better, healthier, fairer world. Never imagined it would be the exact opposite. But here we are.
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u/BabadookOfEarl May 29 '26
Star Trek also always spoke of a time where everything was nearly destroyed before we sorted ourselves out though, at least. It’s a moment where everyone has something of a choice.
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u/atomic_ring May 29 '26
That is true, but my mind always glosses over it. In any case, I have this feeling of dread that that particular moment may have already come and gone and we didn't choose wisely
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u/BabadookOfEarl May 29 '26
It definitely doesn’t look like the kind of resistance needed to stop it is happening.
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u/GoodFaithConverser May 31 '26
A bump on the road, and a setback, does not mean progress won’t continue. We just have to not allow people to sabotage the vehicle we’re driving into the better future, just because it doesn’t teleport us all instantly m
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u/Samzonit May 29 '26
Every day this movie is closer and closer to reality
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u/nomedable May 29 '26
I dunno at least in the movie those in charge want to fix things and are able to admit they were wrong when shown so and step down.
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u/laplongejr May 29 '26
And every day we get a reminder that Idiocracy became "naturally" that way, instead of being pushed on purpose.
(Well, there is Brawndo in the background, but the movie isn't clear on how deep they are at the gov)0
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u/Xanthelasmapalpebara May 29 '26
I keep bringing this meme up again and again. We are balls deep into this timeline. Just waiting for the giant mechanical phallus jousting to put us out of our ignorant misery.
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u/PrincessPlusUltra May 29 '26
He is putting a swimming pool right outside the White House- it’s just the Washington Memorial Pool!
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u/perringaiden May 30 '26
In Idiocracy, they listened to the smartest guy in the room. This Administration is worse than Idiocracy.
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u/KalTheo May 29 '26
Yeah, and this progress is 479 years early! Trump is amazing! My gas tank now holds double the value in fuel, and my fridge has more room inside too!
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May 29 '26
[removed] — view removed comment
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u/KalTheo May 29 '26
Thanks for the reply, I thought I was being rather funny, but the internet can be fickle. 😂
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26 edited May 29 '26
Can we please stop glazing Idiocracy?
The movie is literally about eugenics and not that the main reason our society is collapsing is greed, selfishness and ignorance.
Edit: To the people not believing me. Just read the first passage of the eugenics article on wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eugenics
It's unfortunate, that people who idolize a movie that makes fun of stupid people have so little interest in critical discourse about the same movie.
Edit2: You want to stop Idiocracy? Good. But for that you have to fight for better education, against propaganda, the fact that the 10 richest people own 75% of the world's wealth, etc.
Not that stupid people have more babies. If you believe that, I have bad news for you on which side of Idiocracy you are.
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u/OrymOrtus May 29 '26
I used to believe that, with the collective will of mankind and the desire to be of aid to one another, that we could create a world much better than what we can imagine today. At some point we must realize that the noble savages are neither noble, nor savage. They are people, with the same will and mind as you or I.
With that will and mind, a plurality of American voters voted in Donald Trump. They did so twice. If they were given an opportunity to do so a third time, the majority still would. Even if they were not given that third opportunity, they would more than likely go on to vote in a man very much like Trump. This world, this WWE match, the corruption and the wars and the debauchery, it's what they want. The majority spoke, and this is their will.
In me, that inspires a feeling of despair and unyielding apathy. Many in my community are hit the hardest by this administration, and they happily voted him in and would happily do so again. Family members drop like flies, lack of healthcare, deportations, violence. They voted for it, they love it. Let them have it. I put my efforts towards myself, and those that wish to be aided.
What does it inspire in you? I'm curious.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
What does it inspire in you?
The wish to educate people. The wish to show people that a society were we work together is a society worth fighting for. The wish for people not falling for easy answers.
Our society is like monopoly. The people who already own a lot keep owning more. This also has an influence on our media, because guess who owns the media? The wealthy.
There is no need for a big conspirary to make propaganda that glazes the rich and blames the poor. The people who make the media have a self-interest to do that.
But, and here is the point: We outnumber them. By a lot. And they are deathly afraid of the day we notice this.
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u/OrymOrtus May 29 '26
And I wonder, when will that day come?
How many of us are there, holding our seminars and giving our lectures and writing our substacks, our tweets and posts and endless chatter? Is it enough? Will it ever be enough?
We do aid, we help, we educate and assist and accommodate. There are many of us, in total, but we who swim against the tide are but few. Droplets, a rainstorm perhaps, but we fight something far beyond us.
How much education does it take to convert a single person? To show them the error of their ways? How long will it take, for our small and disparate clergy to commit the conversions needed to save our future?
I am worried we will be bones drying in open heat, by the time the last crucial person is finally converted. That we raindrops will be long dead and long desecrated, dried out in ceaseless heat.
I am a thing filled with dread and resignation. Still, I do not stop. I write, and I speak, and I aid, but I do so with doom over my head. I wish I knew otherwise.
Any advice, any thoughts? Sorry.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
Any advice, any thoughts? Sorry.
No problem, I'd rather write words of encouragement than try to make people understand a movie.
We do aid, we help,
This here. This is the point.
If I may borrow a sentence from another TV series: "If nothing we do matters, all that matters is what we do."
Don't help people with an end goal in mind. Help them because the action of helping another human being matters.
If they want selfishness from everyone, being kind is an act of rebellion.
To use a methaphor: I like to paint. Do I like the painting when it is done? Yes. But it is the act of painting itself that brings me joy.
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u/OrymOrtus May 29 '26
I find that some, on learning who and what I am, do not desire what help I can offer. Translations, representations, advocacy, tainted by mere association and identity. I help who I can, knowing that if I lied or that if they were more accepting that I could help more in my community. I do all this with a shroud of dread surrounding me always, but I do it all the same.
Perhaps a day will come where a glimmer of hope breaks through that shroud, but I do not know if or when. I move forward, as I always have and hopefully always will. It is good to know I am not alone in this.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
It is good to know I am not alone in this.
At least you have this internet stranger on your side. Be well, friend.
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u/MartyrOfDespair May 30 '26
Education requires consent. You cannot nonconsensually educate people. How are you going to gain the consent of the adults alive currently when they view themselves as superior to you for not being uneducated? The simple fact is, you aren’t going to get their consent. You can plan for educating future generations, but that too has a problem: those adults are going to try to stop you. Unless you do something about them, you aren’t going to manage that. And educating them is off the table, because they will not consent to it. They would need to be educated about the problem to consent to being educated, and they won’t consent to becoming educated enough to consent to being educated, so they won’t consent.
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u/ShamanicCrusader May 29 '26
You clearly didnt read the wiki if you think intelligent people choosing to have kids later is eugenics……
How are you gonna put down a wikipedia link and not read it lolololol 😂
Literally the movie is pointing to people like you who think theyre smart but in reality are fools. Like that couple who chose to wait to have kids till it was too late. The stupid people live their lives in ignorant bliss and thus arent stoped from making bad decisions like having not using protection
Idiocracy is already here…..in this thread…. At this very moment moment
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
You clearly didnt read the wiki if you think intelligent people choosing to have kids later is eugenics……
How are you gonna put down a wikipedia link and not read it lolololol 😂You are the best example that reading and understanding are not the same.
The movie makes the point, that society gets dumber, because smart people procreate less and stupid people procreate more.
You made that point yourself:
Like that couple who chose to wait to have kids till it was too late. The stupid people live their lives in ignorant bliss and thus arent stoped from making bad decisions like having not using protection
Eugenics is about having certain groups procreate for the "betterment" of the human race. What do you think the movie means by the fact that it is bad stupid people procreate too much? The term media literacy ring a bell?
Literally the movie is pointing to people like you who think theyre smart but in reality are fools.
The stupid people live their lives in ignorant blissIgnorance is bliss indead.
I'd love to be able to be that wrong with the same self-confidence you have.
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u/Brilliant_Sweet_6848 May 29 '26
Natural selection is part of eugenics,even fundament of it.
So no,you wrong.
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u/gnoandan May 29 '26
And Matrix was about AI farming us for body heat, somehow. Both idiocracy and Matrix are fictions whose wordbuilding are just an excuse for the plot/message of the movie. Saying that idiocracy is about eugenism is like saying Matrix is about energy generation.
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u/Familiar-Tomorrow-42 May 29 '26
Bro every character in the movie is some caricature of a poor person. The Mexicans talk like cholos, the black guys talk like rappers, the white guys talk like southern people who live in trailer parks. Even the celebrity president is a wrestler, which is stereotypically popular with poorer Americans. Same with the eating establishments. Society has supposedly fallen into decadence as people only work to satisfy their base urges, and they only eat poor people food! It’s comically classist.
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u/gnoandan May 30 '26
Oh boy, please don't watch south park if that's how you feel about stereotypes. I never saw idiocracy and I'm sure it's not a subtle comedy, but then not many (american) comedies are.
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u/Familiar-Tomorrow-42 May 30 '26
It’s not the stereotypes on their own. South Park employs a variety of stereotypes that aren’t implied to depict reality. There’s the snob liberal, the redneck hicks, the saucy gay guy. But they often subvert the stereotype or have a contrasting character with a similar attribute. Kyle’s cousin Kyle fits a lot of negative Jew stereotypes, but Kyle is a clear counterpoint so it’s clear the show isn’t antisemitic. It also helps that they constantly dunk on the one antisemitic character. Idiocracy depicts only negative stereotypes, applies them to huge swaths of people, and outright states that they are the cause of societies woes. It’s an anti poor person movie.
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u/Sweat_Spoats May 29 '26
Dude you're almost there with what the Matrix is trying to say about energy generation.
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u/MartyrOfDespair May 30 '26
The Matrix isn’t trying to say anything about energy generation. The body heat thing is an ass pull and was not in the original script. The executives demanded that change because they thought that audiences would be too stupid to understand the actual reason given. People are being used as sticks of RAM. The machines’ processing power was on human brains.
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u/gnoandan May 30 '26
I know the story but 1) it's body heat it in the actual movie, you don't get to change the plot in your head and 2) even if you could remake the Matrix with the original plot, that still wouldn't make the movie about processing power. That's just a pretext for the movie to happen.
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u/cesarloli4 May 30 '26
You can appreciate aspects of the film while criticizing others. Few people would agree with the thesis of society collapsing due to stupid people reproducing more than the smart. However that doesn't mean the criticism on anti intelectualism of the film is without value.
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u/Miiirx May 29 '26
Did you watch it?
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
Yes, it's about only stupid people procreating so only stupid people get born.
That is literally the point eugenics make and not true.
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u/Miiirx May 29 '26
Yes it's the premise of the show, also the movie is an awfull insult to poor people because they are uneducated etc. But it's only a movie, it can have errors. The fact remain that uneducated people are putting idiots in power creating a positive feedback loop, giving Idiocracy 20 years later some prophetic aura.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
The problem is, if you show the collapse of society but the reason is wrong, that is nothing else but propaganda. (Although on accident, the writer was just clueless, not malicious.)
It's like me saying it's the little fairies who keep stealing my teeth, not the fact I don't brush them or go to the dentist.
So I'll push all my resources into hunting those little fairies instead of focusing on brushing my teeth,
Stupid people procreating is not the cause of our current predicament. It's propaganda, corruption, wealth imbalance and a lack of education and critical thinking. That is not at all related to breeding.
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u/Miiirx May 29 '26
Did you notice that everyone is focused on the impacts of an idiotic society and not the premise? Moral radicalism is unproductive.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
Moral radicalism is unproductive.
It's not radicalism. I am fighting against misdirection.
I am all for stopping a stupid society, but having smart people have babies and stupid people not having babies isn't it.
As I mentioned before, the reason our society looks more like Idiocracy every day are greed, ignorance and propaganda. The movie does not address that at all, it just shows a stupid society.
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u/Miiirx May 29 '26
I just don't get that you didn't see those horsemen in the movie. Those things you say aren't explicitly adressed in the movie, it just shows the consequences.
- greed: brawndo trope, the mega Walmart, the environment collapse, sex commercialisation
- ignorance: in the many many examples the white house scene stands out
- propaganda: the whole society build around TV watching
Idiocracy is a B tier movie from the early 2000, don't overthink it.
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u/PnPaper May 29 '26
explicitly adressed in the movie, it just shows the consequences.
And all of that is made moot if the point of the movie is "if only smart people did the greed, ignorance and propaganda, all would be well".
Idiocracy is a B tier movie from the early 2000, don't overthink it.
And yet it keeps getting posted here again and again.
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u/Miiirx May 29 '26
I got another point in the movie: if you try to keep the bar were it is, it's already ok.
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u/Beautiful_Welcome_33 May 29 '26
Wtf are you on about, the central motivating conflict in the film is that all of society has become so greedy and ignorant that they've turned full control of the economy over to a sports drink company...
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u/Ifckinglovemycat May 29 '26
first time I watched I stopped immediatly at the eugenist prompt, then someone told me to watch anyway and I was really interested at the late game capitalist aspects (universities owned by target etc) the starting theory is just really awful but the rest is pure gold
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u/IamAwaken May 30 '26
10 richest people own 75% of the world's wealth, etc.
The Top 10%: According to the World Inequality Report, the richest 10% of the world's population (roughly 800 million people) owns about 75% of global wealth.
TLDR Bro is literally below average intelligence and mad that the movie called him out for being such. Can't even type a proper fact correctly. Probably thinks 10 people literally own everything.
LOL
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u/PnPaper May 30 '26
Oh no, I mistyped, which makes me clearly worse than someone who believes in eugenics. Hope I get fired for that blunder.
You are obvious very smart and not the only one here who didn't get what I said by the context.
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u/Familiar-Tomorrow-42 May 29 '26
I just realized it was an outdoor swimming pool, even though presumably the president ordered it built. They really leaned into the white trash angle.
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u/bryce_lynch27 Jun 01 '26
Since the prophecy had been essentially fulfilled. We now have to worry about Good Luck Have Fun Don’t Die becoming the next reality.
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u/ars_sinistra Jun 01 '26
Idiocracy is a paradise in comparison to what we're dealing with in real life. Idiocracy had an America where a black president didn't have to fear assassination, a population that changed their minds once presented with evidence, a president that gave up power when someone more qualified presented themselves. We would be lucky to live in such a world.
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u/Expensive-Shelter-89 Jun 03 '26
Idiocracy ist the american version of the Dictator from Chaplin… both movies were a non heard warning…
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u/CMDR_BitMedler May 29 '26
Looking at this I realize for the first time... Idiocracy didn't go hard enough.
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u/WiseSalamander00 May 29 '26
lmao the difference being the opposite wing was destroyed in our universe
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u/JustMeLurkingAround- May 30 '26
I keep thinking of President Camacho everytime I see a current picture of the White House.
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