Idiocracy usually gets criticized for it’s embrace of eugenics. But today I’m going to point out that the future envisioned by the movie is 100% right wing. Not since Red Dawn has a move more closely aligned with reactionary politics.
What’s the conflict of the movie? Stupidity. That’s the cause of all the problems. Not institutions, not systems. Even corporate greed and mismanagement are down to dumb executives. Because if smart and qualified people were in charge, there would be no problems with corporations. Government? Same story, we just need an average white guy with dictatorial power to come in rescue the DEI hires.
I wish.
In Idiocracy the public wanted the smart people in charge, President Camacho even stepped aside when he knew he was unqualified compared to Joe.
In whatever the hell this is, the public demonizes intelligence.Carl Sagan, in 1995:
I have a foreboding of an America in my children’s or grandchildren’s time – when the United States is a service and information economy; when nearly all the manufacturing industries have slipped away to other countries; when awesome technological powers are in the hands of a very few, and no one representing the public interest can even grasp the issues; when the people have lost the ability to set their own agendas or knowledgeably question those in authority; when, clutching our crystals and nervously consulting our horoscopes, our critical faculties in decline, unable to distinguish between what feels good and what’s true, we slide, almost without noticing, back into superstition and darkness…
The dumbing down of American is most evident in the slow decay of substantive content in the enormously influential media, the 30 second sound bites (now down to 10 seconds or less), lowest common denominator programming, credulous presentations on pseudoscience and superstition, but especially a kind of celebration of ignorance
Isaac Asimov in 1980:
There is a cult of ignorance in the United States, and there has always been. The strain of anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
Well that was certainly spot on
People have been saying, “I’m worried because the kids are so dumb” since the dawn of time. This has a couple extra grains of truth thrown in, but not much that wasn’t already apparent.
The majority of the silent generation end their parents weren’t saying that when their kids could finally go to school past second grade.
celebration of ignorance
There’s two sides to that!
People are pretentious and think they know complex issues better than dedicated experts, but they also look down upon them and their institutions as pretentious.
Carl Sagan was spot on, but I think he’d be surprised how much people not just look to superstition and hype, but are so personally confident about warped realities they live in. There’s no nervousness about the crystal clutching, it’s passionate, absolutely certain enthusiasm.
Propaganda has always been a part of America, but I think we were more willing to nod our heads at experts and established institutions in the past. That system let some shady shit slip through, yeah, but it still worked better than what’s going on now.
This.
It’s an absolutely unfair comparison for Camacho, who was a pretty good leader considering the setting of the film.
I guess it shows what I believe: that eventually humanity will tire of punching ourselves if we don’t cause our own extinction first.
we get further past idiocracy every day
President Comacho tried to help the country. He didn’t actively work against it.
Would anyone here prefer the current administration over President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho?
Camacho actually wanted to solve the country’s problems.
No, as others have pointed out, Camacho knew he wasn’t the smartest and listened to the guy who was. That’s leagues above where we are.
Don’t make me beg
not at all
Posts like this are pure cope. Idiocracy was better than the actively malicious government we have now.
They were stupid but not evil.
Nobody in the movie sought to oppress others for their own gain.
Sadly no.
Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho changed his believes when presented with evidence of the contrary and stepped down from power as soon as someone more suitable was found
We are in a timeline where the president of idiocracy would be the better option
Huh. Usually the chain is removed so no one gets hurt or has to be careful.
Am I wrong that the chain is in place?
I wouldn’t be surprised that Musky just grabbed a chainsaw with no safety precautions.
they have chains that just have ball bearings on them so it can still spin… some haunted houses use them
Do you think Elon gives enough of a shit to ask someone?
He got so mad at the government telling him no that he overthrew the US government.
I sure as hell wouldn’t mention that ahead of time.
Yeah it’s CPAC so collateral damage is… acceptable.
The brake is probably ON but I haven’t checked the video to confirm
I would hope it’s at least a super dull chain, but something tells me that’s not it.
Oh we’re there. Remember the Covidiots shitting out their intestinal lining to own the libs?
We been there.
Which one was that? You can, uh, hold the images. Words will do fine here.
Until the dipshits in power start listening to the smartest people on the planet, it will never be close enough.
It’s fucking there.
It’s worse. There is stupidity and ignorance and then there is melevelence and outright hatred.
That thumbs up guy is real and not photoshopped in? Jfc
Not only is he not just some “thumbs up guy” he’s “libertarian” president of Argentina Javier Gerardo Milei… Who is currently doing a bang up job of ruining his country too.
We live in the worst timeline. :/
He is the chainsaw guy. He campaigned using a chainsaw as a prop for slashing budgets.
Terrible what the ring has done to business bilbo
The rest of the world is watching America through splayed fingers, shaking heads with embarrassment.
Is that a Boring Company™ Not-A-Chainsaw™?
I dunno but I really hoped sometime else was going to point out how shitty that chainsaw looks, I’d also love to see Elon cut down a tree without an Internet connection to look it up.
Idiotcrazy*
