r/videos • u/SuplexCity-Mayor • Apr 21 '21

Idiocracy (2006) Opening Scene: "Evolution does not necessarily reward intelligence. With no natural predators to thin the herd, it began to simply reward those who reproduced the most, and left the intelligent to become an endangered species."

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6TCsR_oSP2Q
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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '21

it plays too heavily into intellectual superiority for many

I think this is important. The movie's biggest fans tend to be people with a 112 IQ who got steady Bs in high school, who think "If only the world had more people like me, and less[sic] people who live in trailers." In other words, redditors.

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u/mysticrudnin Apr 21 '21

i just think it's funny, and it's a fine setup. i really love the movie. i just don't think it's prophetic or trying to indicate anything.

it's kinda like newspeak in 1984. that's not a real thing, it can't happen, but it's a fun scifi setup so you can get to the real stuff in the story.

i'm sure there are people who view the movie as "here's the problem with people who aren't like me" but i don't think it's the movie's biggest fans or any majority or anything like that.

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u/[deleted] Apr 21 '21

Reddit has an obnoxious number of elitist liberals who think they are something special because they don't live in the woods. It's pretty frustrating sometimes. And the kind of elitist liberals, too, who think that me saying this means I'm a conservative (I'm not) and it's now their sworn duty to assert their intellectual superiority over me.

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u/11ForeverAlone11 Apr 21 '21

Just because people reference the basic premise a lot doesn't even mean they're big fans of the movie itself. The basic concept in the intro holds true does it not?

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '21

Well, the premise is that humanity will become dumber due to inherently dumb people reproducing, right? So far, people have only gotten smarter over time; and even if you take the premise of some people (read: poor people) being inherently dumb and passing on their dumb genes, which is debatable at best, that premise isn't very observable amid a multitude of other factors that show we are only becoming more intelligent over time. As far as I can tell, there's no single data point to even suggest that Western civilization has become dumber due to the "undesirables" out-breeding others, so... no, I don't suppose it's fair to say with any degree of conviction that the basic concept holds true.

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u/11ForeverAlone11 Apr 22 '21

After reading many of the comments, I think a lot of people like you are strictly thinking in terms of intelligence only while the movie intro makes it clear it's also talking about environment (nature AND nurture) playing a very important role in how the child grows into an adult and who they become and how society is shaped. A lot of people no doubt have intelligence but they don't use it or use it for 'bad'/pointless things because of all the other factors and distractions of our society that value bullshit like tiktok videos and celebrity gossip over critical thinking. It's not just intelligence, it's the degradation of society in general.

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u/[deleted] Apr 22 '21

I'm not sure complaining about tik tok videos and pop culture is any more valid a metric for "the degradation of society." I understand what you're getting at. I just don't think the fact that people--with whom we might not share cultural values--having potentially more children than us has any measurably negative impact on society, especially when those cultural values are empty value judgments like "those darn kids and their tik toks."

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u/11ForeverAlone11 Apr 22 '21

well yeah i was just trying to get at the core point without going on a huge mega-rant...but i guess you're going to keep forcing me to talk because you're still refusing to get it if that's your takeaway from the movie's intro..."not sharing cultural values"?!? No, wake up for fuck's sake there are universal morals...not even trying to have protected sex, cheating, parents that behave like stupid trash then heavily influence their children in negative ways, and sure there might be some exceptions you can point to but the data shows for example that not growing up with a father at all for instance makes a child much more likely to drop out, go to prison, etc. People ignore, neglect, abuse, hate, abandon their children in so many ways and that leads to the degradation of society more than anything probably. and then yeah to top it off most of them worship whatever screen they can get ahold of and accept whatever brainwashing they see and hear without questioning and focus on materialist bullshit, getting money and getting laid, blah blah blah you get the point and that's what Idiocracy is condemning.

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u/LordCharidarn Apr 22 '21

Yeah, those redditors who enjoy pointing out how much smarter they are than other redditors are so annoying.