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From the article: "My favorite along these lines is a classic, Cyril Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons." It's the original version of "Idiocracy" — the basic id

From the article: "My favorite along these lines is a classic, Cyril Kornbluth's "The Marching Morons." It's the original version of "Idiocracy" — the basic idea is that selection now favors the stupid, and so if we go forward in time, that's what we'll see. The concept is simple and well-drawn; the consequences unexpected." I would say the current state of American politics is a warning sign for this condition. edit: quote was taken from John Hawks, Paleoanthropologist, University of Wisconsin, Madison:

lukifer 16y ago
The hidden assumption of "Idiocracy" is that survival of the fittest is the only selection mechanism. Even if survival and breeding become trivial, sexual selection will continue, and many intelligent people will only want to mate with others of their kind, even if they become overwhelmed numbers-wise. I understand, though, that the film is an allegory, and as such it succeeds admirably. In terms of the downward trajectory of our political and cultural discourse, it is disturbingly spot-on. Reminds me a little of the prescience of "Network": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29
- hugh3 16y ago
  The hidden assumption of "Idiocracy" is that survival of the fittest is the only selection mechanism. Even if survival and breeding become trivial, sexual selection will continue, and many intelligent people will only want to mate with others of their kind, even if they become overwhelmed numbers-wise. And how will this help? I suppose you could model this in a simple way. First you could assume that the IQ of a child is the average of the IQs of its parents (don't bother telling me that's a false assumption, of course it is, but we're making a simple model here). Then, you could put in certain assumptions about the likelihood of two people meeting, and the likelihood of them mating if they do (lots of adjustable parameters here including the unwillingness to mate with somebody too much smarter or dumber than yourself). Throw in additional "dumb people breed more" parameters and see what happens to the simulation. Under certain values of the parameters, you'll just see a slide into idiocracy. But if you make people pickier about their mating partners you might wind up seeing a split into two entirely separate breeding populations -- one smart, one dumb. It would be an interesting set of simulations to do.
- barrkel 16y ago
  You only need a small difference in relative fitness for an allele to completely wipe out another over a relatively short timespan; the only counteracting agent I think is the increased global mobility of intelligent people such that it's reasonable for them to cover vast distances to still find one another, so we may instead end up with a two-class strain. On the other hand, religious zealots opposed to birth control may get the upper hand. I don't think there's a necessary intrinsic correlation between religious zealotry and intelligence. Religion by itself is largely about ingroup / outgroup dynamics and power structures, which don't seem to have necessary positive or negative relationships with intelligence.

lukifer 16y ago

The hidden assumption of "Idiocracy" is that survival of the fittest is the only selection mechanism. Even if survival and breeding become trivial, sexual selection will continue, and many intelligent people will only want to mate with others of their kind, even if they become overwhelmed numbers-wise. I understand, though, that the film is an allegory, and as such it succeeds admirably. In terms of the downward trajectory of our political and cultural discourse, it is disturbingly spot-on. Reminds me a little of the prescience of "Network": http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_%28film%29

hugh3 16y ago
The hidden assumption of "Idiocracy" is that survival of the fittest is the only selection mechanism. Even if survival and breeding become trivial, sexual selection will continue, and many intelligent people will only want to mate with others of their kind, even if they become overwhelmed numbers-wise. And how will this help? I suppose you could model this in a simple way. First you could assume that the IQ of a child is the average of the IQs of its parents (don't bother telling me that's a false assumption, of course it is, but we're making a simple model here). Then, you could put in certain assumptions about the likelihood of two people meeting, and the likelihood of them mating if they do (lots of adjustable parameters here including the unwillingness to mate with somebody too much smarter or dumber than yourself). Throw in additional "dumb people breed more" parameters and see what happens to the simulation. Under certain values of the parameters, you'll just see a slide into idiocracy. But if you make people pickier about their mating partners you might wind up seeing a split into two entirely separate breeding populations -- one smart, one dumb. It would be an interesting set of simulations to do.
barrkel 16y ago
You only need a small difference in relative fitness for an allele to completely wipe out another over a relatively short timespan; the only counteracting agent I think is the increased global mobility of intelligent people such that it's reasonable for them to cover vast distances to still find one another, so we may instead end up with a two-class strain. On the other hand, religious zealots opposed to birth control may get the upper hand. I don't think there's a necessary intrinsic correlation between religious zealotry and intelligence. Religion by itself is largely about ingroup / outgroup dynamics and power structures, which don't seem to have necessary positive or negative relationships with intelligence.