this post was submitted on 21 Feb 2025
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Political Memes

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[–] [email protected] 207 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago) (4 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 80 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

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

[–] [email protected] 55 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

The majority of the silent generation end their parents weren't saying that when their kids could finally go to school past second grade.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

Well that was certainly spot on

[–] [email protected] 43 points 4 weeks ago

This.

It's an absolutely unfair comparison for Camacho, who was a pretty good leader considering the setting of the film.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 1 month ago

I guess it shows what I believe: that eventually humanity will tire of punching ourselves if we don't cause our own extinction first.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 4 weeks ago

we get further past idiocracy every day

[–] [email protected] 87 points 1 month ago (1 children)

Posts like this are pure cope. Idiocracy was better than the actively malicious government we have now.

[–] [email protected] 25 points 4 weeks ago

They were stupid but not evil.

Nobody in the movie sought to oppress others for their own gain.

[–] [email protected] 82 points 4 weeks ago

President Comacho tried to help the country. He didn't actively work against it.

[–] [email protected] 45 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Would anyone here prefer the current administration over President Dwayne Elizondo Mountain Dew Camacho?

[–] [email protected] 41 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 40 points 4 weeks ago

Camacho actually wanted to solve the country's problems.

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago
[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago

Don't make me beg

[–] [email protected] 32 points 4 weeks ago

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

[–] [email protected] 25 points 1 month ago (2 children)

Oh we're there. Remember the Covidiots shitting out their intestinal lining to own the libs?

We been there.

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[–] [email protected] 24 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

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.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

embrace of eugenics

I genuinely don't know where this comes from? Did I miss something in the movie?

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago

Recognizing a trend versus being a proponent of the most horrible to approach it is an Idiocracy level leap in logic. The movie does not endorse eugenics in any way. At most, it displays a caricature of things, like genetics, as movies are apt to do.

[–] [email protected] 11 points 4 weeks ago (4 children)

Because its premise is that stupid parents exclusively get stupid children, and stupid parents gets more children than intelligent parents. That is how the world ends up as it is in the movie.

But that is of course not how intelligence works. Stupid parents can get intelligent children, otherwise intelligent people would never have existed in the first place.

Of course that doesn't make the movie embrace eugenics. It is just an unimportantfictional premise meant to explain why the world is at it is in the movie.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago) (3 children)

But that is of course not how intelligence works.

But intelligence is influenced by genetics. Early twin studies of adult individuals have found a heritability of IQ between 57% and 73%, with some recent studies showing heritability for IQ as high as 80%.

NYWATDBIDSYWV

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[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 weeks ago (5 children)

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?

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

I wouldn’t be surprised that Musky just grabbed a chainsaw with no safety precautions.

[–] [email protected] 9 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

they have chains that just have ball bearings on them so it can still spin… some haunted houses use them

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

I sure as hell wouldn't mention that ahead of time.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

Yeah it's CPAC so collateral damage is... acceptable.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

I would hope it's at least a super dull chain, but something tells me that's not it.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

The brake is probably ON but I haven't checked the video to confirm

[–] [email protected] 16 points 1 month ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 14 points 1 month ago

It's worse. There is stupidity and ignorance and then there is melevelence and outright hatred.

[–] [email protected] 13 points 4 weeks ago (2 children)

That thumbs up guy is real and not photoshopped in? Jfc

[–] [email protected] 20 points 4 weeks ago

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. :/

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago

He is the chainsaw guy. He campaigned using a chainsaw as a prop for slashing budgets.

[–] [email protected] 12 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

Terrible what the ring has done to business bilbo

[–] [email protected] 10 points 4 weeks ago

Until the dipshits in power start listening to the smartest people on the planet, it will never be close enough.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 4 weeks ago (1 children)

Is that a Boring Company(tm) Not-A-Chainsaw(tm)?

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

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.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 4 weeks ago

I can’t believe Elon pulled out his hooker chasin’ chainsaw on stage.

That thing would probably break if you tried to cut a log with it.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Looks unfriendly. This is how Friendship looks like:

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago* (last edited 4 weeks ago)

Idiotcrazy*

[–] [email protected] 2 points 4 weeks ago

Is that Rob Dyrdek holding a chainsaw next to an excited Hobbit? Is that what I'm looking at here?

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