Turns out the most fantastic assumption was that it would take 500 years for a society to degrade to that level. Culture can decay much faster than genes.
Another one is that the larger-than-life, bloviating leader presiding over everything actually had the foresight to find the smartest person on the planet and put them to work fixing things.
President Camacho would be an improvement over what the US has now.
Culture can also be recovered way faster. If a gene goes extinct then we’re waiting for random mutation in an advantageous environment for it to reappear.
When the costume designer was thinking about the kinds of shoes the people in this 'idiotic' future would be wearing, she found a small startup that made some pretty ridiculously looking and cheap shoes that she was sure were safe to use for the movie because they were definitely not going to catch on.
> Idiocracy was released as scheduled but only in seven cities (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Mike Judge's hometown, Austin, Texas),
When they say “Los Angeles” I think they mean some random theater in the middle of nowhere north of the Los grapevine canyon.
I lived in Ventura when idiocracy came out and a friend happened to be driving San francisco to San Diego that weekend so we met and saw the movie in that theater. There were only a couple of other people there - but it was a mid-afternoon showing.
It really felt isolated. Maybe on the edge of Santa Clarita.
Idiocracy, just like 1984, is the catchall exemple someone will use when having no idea on how to articulate their feelings about a society they don't like.
Turns out the most fantastic assumption was that it would take 500 years for a society to degrade to that level. Culture can decay much faster than genes.
Another one is that the larger-than-life, bloviating leader presiding over everything actually had the foresight to find the smartest person on the planet and put them to work fixing things.
President Camacho would be an improvement over what the US has now.
Culture can also be recovered way faster. If a gene goes extinct then we’re waiting for random mutation in an advantageous environment for it to reappear.
We're still on track towards converging with a President Mountain Dew Camacho timeline. Proof: our Dept of Ed security is literally a founder of WWE.
My favorite piece of Idiocracy trivia:
When the costume designer was thinking about the kinds of shoes the people in this 'idiotic' future would be wearing, she found a small startup that made some pretty ridiculously looking and cheap shoes that she was sure were safe to use for the movie because they were definitely not going to catch on.
Those shoes were Crocs.
> Idiocracy was released as scheduled but only in seven cities (Los Angeles, Atlanta, Toronto, Chicago, Dallas, Houston, and Mike Judge's hometown, Austin, Texas),
When they say “Los Angeles” I think they mean some random theater in the middle of nowhere north of the Los grapevine canyon.
I lived in Ventura when idiocracy came out and a friend happened to be driving San francisco to San Diego that weekend so we met and saw the movie in that theater. There were only a couple of other people there - but it was a mid-afternoon showing.
It really felt isolated. Maybe on the edge of Santa Clarita.
The film was absurdist. Here's another realistic take: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dqs8D3xfxsc (despite the clickbait title sounding like anti-intellectualism)
We thought it was abusurdist, turns out it's a ballparkish estimate of where we're headed in 20 years if the current trends and leadership keep it up.
- declaring vaccines as bad science
- attacking academia as "elites" to be despised
- attacking all higher education
- highlighting the 50s —a period of terrible racial, gender,etc equality— as the height of US civilization
- putting a health conspiracy nut like RFK in charge of our health. Surprised food babe wasn't his selection since she's much more attractive.
- equating tariffs as the same thing as a trade deficit
Recently watched Mickey 17 and it reminded me a bit of Idiocracy. Maybe someone is looking for related movies.
Sometimes I feel that Idiocracy is a documentary :)
No idea why this is trending? ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
I guess you haven’t seen the news lately. I envy you :)
Or why Hacker News comments on this one are quiet as the graveyard...
Beyond us! Said the forum that quitely helped shape the technocracy
Or why it was flagged...
more people need to know about https://news.ycombinator.com/active
Sometimes the title says it all. :)
This is the perfect example of HN becoming Front-Page of Reddit with just a different color of paint. Self aggrandizing posts and comments.
Lol. However our current situation is more akin to "Egocracy".
Horrible-- maybe leave the neologisms to the people who can tell latin and greek apart
Idiocracy, just like 1984, is the catchall exemple someone will use when having no idea on how to articulate their feelings about a society they don't like.