Idiocracy - would have humanity gone extinct eventually?

[CarsonPalmer]

No, once again you miss the point. If you seriously equate Britney Spears to a blue collar worker, if seriously consider her someone who has made a serious effort to improve their own intelligence, you have really gone off the deep end. For God's sake, we're not talking about the idle rich.

That's a gigantic slippery slope. The moment that we as a society don't fault people who try to improve their own intelligence, but aren't cut out for high-level math, or whatever the hell you think they should be shooting for and take a blue-collar job, we don't fault Britney Spears?

[RedImperator]

However, I find you're ignoring the main point of my posts.

No, Brian, I am not and have not ignored your main point, nor any of your ever-growing multiplicity of sub-points, and I dare you to find one I have ignored. I've repeatedly attacked it--the fact that you, later in this paragraph, respond to those attacks is about as conclusive a demonstration you'll find that I haven't been ignoring your main point. However, thank you for bringing up ignoring points. Now I have another piece of evidence for my "Brianeyci has massive projection issues" hypothesis, as we'll see below.

That is, stupid people should feel ashamed, and the more intelligent a person is, the less ashamed he should be.

Vague and contradictory. We're on page three and you still have no useful definition of stupid person, and you say "stupid people should feel ashamed" in one clause, and then in the second you say "everyone should feel ashamed, more or less". So which is it? You're not even bothering to come to a full stop before contradicting yourself anymore.

There is no magical cutoff point. You accused me of picking a golden standard when I did not, but isn't that what you're doing with the Stephen Hawking example?

I asked you a simple, direct question, point blank, in plain English: according to you, should Stephen Hawking feel a non-trivial amount of shame over his intelligence? I asked you because one way or another, your theory is fucked up. Either Stephen Hawking (or any other very intelligent person; I just pulled his name out of a hat) shouldn't feel ashamed of his intelligence, and therefore you've drawn an arbitrary line through the bell curve despite all your protestations to the contrary and endless insistence your theory applies to everyone, or he should feel ashamed, which is absurd on its face.

You chose option three: whine about me bringing it up. And then you accuse me of ignoring your points! Quit your bitching and answer the fucking question.

Why the hell do you mention Stephen Hawking at all, to show my theory that everybody should be ashamed of lacking intelligence to not work for the super-smart, in other words 0.0000....0001% of the population?

Yes, actually, I did, since if it doesn't apply, 1) your mewling that it applies to everyone (when it doesn't apply to only the stupid, of course) is all bullshit, and 2) you have drawn an arbitrary line, since there's no possible objective, useful definition of "super smart". By the way, I'd love to see the source for that 0.0000....0001% figure. Since presumably there's at least one zero in that ellipsis, you've got it calculated to at least the billionth place. Congratulations. Most social theorists are happy with two significant figures.

Give me a break.

Oh please, please stop pointing out the gaping holes and logical inconsistencies of my argument!

Listen, crackhead, you're already getting a break by me not hounding you over every point in my last post to which you didn't respond and didn't concede, like your retardariffic attempt to redefine "should" and "shouldn't", followed by you absolutely crowing about how, somehow, I fucked up. I'm taking it all as an implied concession for now because I don't feel like spending an hour writing this reply; don't press your fucking luck.

The idea worth looking over is whether you can "compensate" for your responsibility to be intelligent by doing other things, and therefore feel no guilt.

Know what an even better idea worth looking over would be? The idea that people should feel "guilt" or "shame" over something fundamentally out of their control in the first place. Genetics and education are the two biggest factors in intelligence--the first nobody can control, and control of the second is as much in the hands of parents and the education system as it is in the students.

But what the fuck, why not? Let's give your premise the benefit of the doubt just this once and see what's what.

Let's take America's premier trailer trash, Britney Spears. She brings happiness to millions of people. Except we still insult her for lack of intelligence.

Because she demonstrates it by routinely acting like an imbecile in public. Are you now conflating stupid actions with lack of intelligence, or can I just add "Why we make fun of Britney Spears" to the list of things you don't understand? Do anyone but total assholes make fun of people who are slow, but mind their own business and don't cause trouble for anyone?

You're not as bad as Britney Spears Red?

I'm not, but you might be. At least Britney has a nice rack now that she's gotten knocked up twice.

That's not my point. The moment you try to say you can compensate for lack of intelligence with things other than improving your own intelligence, you open the doors to this kind of counter-argument.

Only if you're debating a retard. Britney does some good, if only by keeping the spank banks of thirteen year old boys fully stocked, but she also commits astoundingly dumb acts for the entire world to see on a regular basis. Nobody is saying you shouldn't feel embarrassed--or ashamed, if what you did is bad enough--if you fuck up. The issue is with your assertion that you should feel ashamed of yourself if you're not as smart as Stephen Hawking no matter what else you accomplish with your life or how little harm your relative lack of intelligence causes.

Spears doesn't work hard enough and other people do? Why does how hard a person work influence her value.

It's cute how you try to anticipate counterarguments like competent debaters do, defending a point whose entire premise is completely flawed. It's kinda like how my little pseudo-niece throws up her arms and yells "Goal!" when we're watching a football game, even when the other team scores.

If you want to say that real life gets in the way, and a person has other commitments, fine, but that doesn't mean guilt automatically equals zero, because the responsibility to be intelligent is still there. For Spears, and for everyone.

If nothing else, Brian, you have a talent for efficiently jamming multiple absurdities into a minimum amount of space. I'll skip all the obvious jokes and get straight to the rebuttal.

1. According to you, you have a responsibility to be as intelligent as you can...and "as you can" doesn't mean "as much as you can without neglecting the rest of your life." You don't get to feel satisfied even if you'd have to take time off from work to read any more books.

2. You've never really demonstrated why people have a responsibility to be intelligent in the first place. People have lots of responsibilities for which intelligence is a prerequisite: be an informed citizen, obey the law, raise your kids right (if you have them), contribute to society, et cetera. But you seem to be hung up on intelligence for its own sake, by insisting a dumb man who works hard and is a good citizen should still be ashamed of his intelligence. Sorry, but no. Just because you have some kind of complex about your own tremendous deficiencies, doesn't mean the rest of the world has to share it.

[Sikon]

Regarding the question in the opening post about whether the human race in the Idiocracy sci-fi universe would die out, let's look at some existential risks for the real world, then consider how they would be in Idiocracy.

-------- Sudden disasters ---------

Natural disasters:

• Supervolcano if sufficient power: As implied in the previous link, a supervolcano may have taken mankind to the bring of extinction 70,000 years ago, though it would take a much larger eruption to wipe out humans today.
• The way of the dinos: Asteroid impact
• Gamma-ray burst: Perhaps a possibility except this suggests maybe not

Manmade disasters:

• Doomsday war: Requires much more than current nuclear arsenals for extinction.
• Super pandemic, like biological weapons genetically engineered to first spread like colds before starting to kill hosts later: Such leaving so few survivors as for them to die out seems unlikely but not theoretically impossible.
• Grey goo scenarios and similar for the wrong kind of robots under the wrong directives, any type from infectious nanobots to world devastators. In contrast, though, a peaceful transition to posthuman existence wouldn't really count as extinction even if people weren't biologically homo sapiens sapiens anymore.
• High-energy physics accident like strangelet consumption scenario: Though such is included for completeness, there are reasons that is not much of a risk for the foreseeable future. For example, particle collisions already harmlessly happen on earth from cosmic rays that sometimes have much more than the energies of today's particle accelerators.

Other disasters:

• Destructive aliens
• Something unforeseen

-------- Gradual disasters --------

• Stagnant or declining sociopolitical order: One example would be ultimate monopoly, ultimate unchecked power in the form of a harmful world government, such as one preventing exploitation of space with a more severe version of the Moon Agreement.
• Extreme environmental change or depletion of the most readily processed portion of some resources: In likely scenarios, such causes harm without actual human extinction, unless other factors eliminate the normal ability of civilization to technologically adapt.

----------------------------------

I suspect the above might not be a complete list, but the above are what comes to mind. Looking through the existential risks, one can see how they mostly depend upon whether human civilization is planet-bound or not. Even a space civilization only in the solar system would be a lot less vulnerable to extinction. A civilization spread over interstellar distances with the isolation resulting from no FTL would be nearly invulnerable to almost everything.

The chance of one of the sudden disasters occurring tends to be low within a given short timeframe. Yet if a civilization remains relatively primitive and remains only planetary, the likelihood of extinction from some cause sooner or later seems probable in that case. Such would not tend to last an astronomical number of millennia.

When even real-world mankind has a significant risk of failure and extinction, the odds are much worse for the population of the Idiocracy universe. Admittedly, their universal lack of intelligence ironically makes some of the sudden disaster scenarios above less likely (i.e. they are incapable of developing planet-killer technology, etc.), but that is more than counterbalanced by them already being started on a gradual disaster. They aren't going to properly solve even their resource problems, let alone expand into space. Applying suspension of disbelief to the sci-fi scenario presented in the movie, the logical conclusion is that they will probably eventually die out.

A separate topic is the plausibility or implausibility of universal idiocity existing in the first place. The movie seems to take its concept to an excessive extreme in its depiction of the future U.S. There would more plausibly be relative opportunity and selective advantage for some intelligent people. One should think mainly in terms of environment rather than genetics, also avoiding generalizations like judging people too much based on occupation. Differences between people have more to do with environment than genetics. Besides, natural genetic change in a few hundred years would be relatively limited. Think of cultural, societal, and memetic evolution more than genetic evolution. Consider a basic thought of asking if the practical intelligence of people in society could decrease in some situations.

Let's start with the survey of the U.S. National Science Foundation at nsf.gov here indicating that approximately 50% of the population fails to understand that "earth goes around the sun once a year." That is suggestive of the level of scientific knowledge obtained by them after $100,000 to $200,000 cumulative educational spending per person.

Such is rather separate from genetics. Aside from very rare disorders, just about any newborn baby would become someone with decent scientific knowledge if raised and educated right, as it is not that hard for someone expending a little effort to have greater understanding than much of the public today. The opposite effect is also possible from the wrong environment, from the wrong society. Much of the issue is whether or not a person has motivation to learn. One can imagine scenarios where the preceding 50% figure becomes 90%, or 10%, or almost anything else. In general, one can think about public susceptibility to harmful memes, those which increase the chance of decline like human civilization ending up in stagnation and remaining planet-bound until extinction.

I am optimistic, and I don't actually think that a declining future civilization is probable. But it is still a possibility, even though the population would still be well above Idiocracy-level on IQ tests and with more variation. That is a topic interesting to explore in sci-fi, even though Idiocracy was only a comedy that did not do so realistically or entirely appropriately.

[brianeyci]

Before you start replying to all my points, please read the end of this post. I'm responding point-by-point because I think I should because you have to mine, not because I want to continue debate. Thank you.

No, Brian, I am not and have not ignored your main point, nor any of your ever-growing multiplicity of sub-points, and I dare you to find one I have ignored. I've repeatedly attacked it--the fact that you, later in this paragraph, respond to those attacks is about as conclusive a demonstration you'll find that I haven't been ignoring your main point. However, thank you for bringing up ignoring points. Now I have another piece of evidence for my "Brianeyci has massive projection issues" hypothesis, as we'll see below.

I don't have massive projection issues, and my main point has always been going back to that sentence. You're right... a lot of the crap that came after was because I'm a shit debator and got suckered into expanding and making not-well thought out observations. I concede that the blue-collar remark should not have been made, and likely I should've just stuck with my original sentence.

Vague and contradictory. We're on page three and you still have no useful definition of stupid person, and you say "stupid people should feel ashamed" in one clause, and then in the second you say "everyone should feel ashamed, more or less". So which is it? You're not even bothering to come to a full stop before contradicting yourself anymore.

The two are not contradictory. And I've already defined stupid--problem solving ability. Now because I kept expanding, if you missed it, fine, but I don't see what other useful definition of stupid there can be. There is stupid up on the main site's banner, and I've never had to ask what stupid means.

I asked you a simple, direct question, point blank, in plain English: according to you, should Stephen Hawking feel a non-trivial amount of shame over his intelligence? I asked you because one way or another, your theory is fucked up. Either Stephen Hawking (or any other very intelligent person; I just pulled his name out of a hat) shouldn't feel ashamed of his intelligence, and therefore you've drawn an arbitrary line through the bell curve despite all your protestations to the contrary and endless insistence your theory applies to everyone, or he should feel ashamed, which is absurd on its face.

You chose option three: whine about me bringing it up. And then you accuse me of ignoring your points! Quit your bitching and answer the fucking question.

Fine, the non-trivial amount of shame was actually a stupid idea, are you happy? I haven't drawn an arbitrary line through the bell curve... I did not set out to pick scientists as some kind of golden standard, so I didn't modify my theory to account for the super intelligent.

Yes, actually, I did, since if it doesn't apply, 1) your mewling that it applies to everyone (when it doesn't apply to only the stupid, of course) is all bullshit, and 2) you have drawn an arbitrary line, since there's no possible objective, useful definition of "super smart". By the way, I'd love to see the source for that 0.0000....0001% figure. Since presumably there's at least one zero in that ellipsis, you've got it calculated to at least the billionth place. Congratulations. Most social theorists are happy with two significant figures.

The decimal place was hyperbole. My intention was not to draw some arbitrary line.

Oh please, please stop pointing out the gaping holes and logical inconsistencies of my argument!

Listen, crackhead, you're already getting a break by me not hounding you over every point in my last post to which you didn't respond and didn't concede, like your retardariffic attempt to redefine "should" and "shouldn't", followed by you absolutely crowing about how, somehow, I fucked up. I'm taking it all as an implied concession for now because I don't feel like spending an hour writing this reply; don't press your fucking luck.

Okay fine Red. You did not fuck up, nor did you ignore my points. It sure seemed that way when you replied to just that one blue collar sentence, but later you looked at everything.

Know what an even better idea worth looking over would be? The idea that people should feel "guilt" or "shame" over something fundamentally out of their control in the first place. Genetics and education are the two biggest factors in intelligence--the first nobody can control, and control of the second is as much in the hands of parents and the education system as it is in the students.

But what the fuck, why not? Let's give your premise the benefit of the doubt just this once and see what's what.

A person can control his education to some degree has been my argument. I don't see why a person should not feel guilt. I didn't respond to all the points earlier so I didn't explain that Africa part, but my reasoning was even though things are out of your control, it isn't necessarily a good reason not to feel responsibility. If guilt or shame is too harsh a word for it, fine. I was thinking of guilt as a kind of motivation, but on further thought it's not really that great. You are right, okay.

Because she demonstrates it by routinely acting like an imbecile in public. Are you now conflating stupid actions with lack of intelligence, or can I just add "Why we make fun of Britney Spears" to the list of things you don't understand? Do anyone but total assholes make fun of people who are slow, but mind their own business and don't cause trouble for anyone?

I'm aware of her making an ass of herself, but if you want, pick some other celebrity who doesn't make an ass of themself.

Only if you're debating a retard. Britney does some good, if only by keeping the spank banks of thirteen year old boys fully stocked, but she also commits astoundingly dumb acts for the entire world to see on a regular basis. Nobody is saying you shouldn't feel embarrassed--or ashamed, if what you did is bad enough--if you fuck up. The issue is with your assertion that you should feel ashamed of yourself if you're not as smart as Stephen Hawking no matter what else you accomplish with your life or how little harm your relative lack of intelligence causes.

Listen, my argument has never been be as smart as Stephen Hawking to not feel shame. I never intended to draw a line.

1. According to you, you have a responsibility to be as intelligent as you can...and "as you can" doesn't mean "as much as you can without neglecting the rest of your life." You don't get to feel satisfied even if you'd have to take time off from work to read any more books.

I never said a person couldn't feel satisfied. A person can juggle more than one emotion at the same time. Also it was not my intent to say a person should neglect all other parts of his life.

2. You've never really demonstrated why people have a responsibility to be intelligent in the first place. People have lots of responsibilities for which intelligence is a prerequisite: be an informed citizen, obey the law, raise your kids right (if you have them), contribute to society, et cetera. But you seem to be hung up on intelligence for its own sake, by insisting a dumb man who works hard and is a good citizen should still be ashamed of his intelligence. Sorry, but no. Just because you have some kind of complex about your own tremendous deficiencies, doesn't mean the rest of the world has to share it.

I don't have a complex about my own deficiencies. I just made a shit point, and ended up not thinking through the whole thing and making a whole bunch of posts in a row on the same day without standing back and taking a breath.

Anyway Red I responded to this point-by-point because you spent time responding to my posts point-by-point. I don't want to go further, and on further thought you're right about the guilt. So I concede that guilt is not really a good mechanism to increase intelligence. I also want to apologize earlier for the personal snipes, and to everybody who was reading this thread I was an asshole to, Bounty, CarsonPalmer, Surlethe, weedmando, and whoever else. Guilt is not a good mechanism, and fulfilling your responsibilities in other parts of your life is just as important--I know, because relative to truly intelligent people, I'm not intelligent at all, and I have to work crap jobs and will probably end up working many crap jobs after I graduate just to make ends meet. So I'm sorry for the mess.

[Junghalli]

Anyway, about the OP:

It's possible, I think, for humans to survive and yet not be selected back to intelligence, but rather be selected for other survival abilities. For example, ons who live in a forested environment might be selected for tree-climbing, smaller size, and eventually evolve into "lesser" primates.

That's possible, but I think in such a scenario, should civilization as it is collapse, our greatest evolutionary asset would still be our intelligence. An IQ of 50 may be literally retarded by human standards but it's still very smart compared to most animals on this planet, probably even chimpanzees. An IQ of 50 may not be enough to run a civilization but it's still enough to knock together some primitive tools and maybe make and control fire and retain a basic language. And humans don't really have anything else going for them; physically we're pretty weak and slow.

Also, 500 years is probably not enough time for evolution to work, so Idiocracy is more likely just the result of a bad education system combined with a social system where people never need to develop their intellects to survive. Our roomy brains are still functionally intact, just waiting for the right stimulus to get them to work again.

[Surlethe]

It's possible, I think, for humans to survive and yet not be selected back to intelligence, but rather be selected for other survival abilities. For example, ons who live in a forested environment might be selected for tree-climbing, smaller size, and eventually evolve into "lesser" primates.

That's possible, but I think in such a scenario, should civilization as it is collapse, our greatest evolutionary asset would still be our intelligence. An IQ of 50 may be literally retarded by human standards but it's still very smart compared to most animals on this planet, probably even chimpanzees. An IQ of 50 may not be enough to run a civilization but it's still enough to knock together some primitive tools and maybe make and control fire and retain a basic language. And humans don't really have anything else going for them; physically we're pretty weak and slow.

Oh, I never said intelligence wouldn't be an asset, or even our greatest asset. I'm simply saying that there could be situations where natural selection pushes us in a direction that doesn't involve intelligence increasing back to where it is now. For example, in the tree-climbing example, evolution could balance out braincase size and physical size to maximize predator detection, tool-making ability, possibly fire, and ability to climb trees.

[Dominus Atheos]

Here are two clips that explain the movie and how the world got to be that way.

[Darth Servo]

One would think that as soon as stupidity starts limiting the chances for procreation that intelligence would begin to rise again. There isn't a single gene that accounts for intelligence so its not like it can simply be eliminated from the genetic pool.