Idiocracy

I recently watched the movie, Idiocracy. Although it has been out for a few years, I was blissfully unaware of its existence, coasting along in my bubble of ignorance. I was, until a co-worker highly recommended it, saying, “It was a movie that I would truly get.”

And, oh my, did I get it! I get that the future is bleak. I already knew that. From my unlikely and unreasonable fear of Zombies – you know the brain eating ones – I now fear Zombies of another kind: The kind that I am attempting to educate each day. Slated as a comedy, I spent most of the movie terrified!

The premise of this Luke Wilson movie is that an average “Joe” (and his name was indeed Joe) was selected along with a hooker to participate in an Army cryogenics experiment. Needless to say, the experiment floundered and Joe and the hooker woke up 500 years later to a dumbed-down world where with their average intelligence they were now the smartest people in the garbage overrun world!

The movie had a few amusing parts…like the…umm…well I know I snickered a couple times…but behind the, for lack of a better word, Idiocracy, it smacked of truth that many people would just as soon ignore.

Take for instance the ability to read. 500 years from now Idiocracy shows that people are illiterate “white trash” (regardless of actual skin tone) who use pictures to identify everything. For example, in an early scene, Joe is trying to get medical attention shortly after he wakes up in the future. At triage, the nurse mindless stares into space while Joe describes his symptoms, her finger hesitating over each picture depicting a symptom, until she finally decides to just press the question mark button.

Another horrid truth the movie depicts: smart people don’t procreate enough. They put it off until they are stable and able to care for a child. While on the opposite spectrum, intelligence-challenged people over-create, breeding as if they need to colonize their own planet.

All in all, while I try to be optimistic and idealistic, reality keeps a large hammer hovering over my head waiting for the right opportunity to drop. For a long time I have believed in and preached mandatory sterilization (or at the very least some form of birth control ala Gate to Women’s Country, seriously one of the best books out there) of all children at the onset of puberty. Then, after college or some form of job training, there should be a test to see who gets to procreate. It, of course, should be based on a number of things, intelligence among the top things tested for.

Of course I know those who’d object (Vive le Resistance!) but it would be practical to cut out unwanted teen pregnancies. And maybe if someone would take the Vice-Dictatorship, I might reconsider the whole testing thing.