Ask Lemmy

We are currently living in an age of literacy. More people (as a percentage of the population) are literate than at any point in human history. Even if people get dumber over time I don't think overall literacy will change much.

In Idiocracy it seemed like most people could still read but only extremely simplified language. What I expect will happen instead--if we do indeed get dumber--is people will just become more easily manipulated. Basically, there will be a lot more suckers as a percentage of the population.

This means that as long as a political party or ideology is willing to adapt to current trends (e.g. accepting gay marriage or at least pretending to) it would become easier and easier to sucker people into voting for their candidates regardless of their actual plans or historical (voting) records. Basically, populism will take over but the specific kind where the candidates just say whatever TF gets people to vote for them and then they go do the exact opposite because the (dumb) voting base that elects them doesn't really pay any attention to their actions, only what the candidate says.

When a voting base becomes made up of extremely dumb suckers we're likely to see "populist" candidates that don't actually give a damn about what they say as long as they get elected and if they do get elected they'll go on a "government shopping spree" enriching themselves and their allies and doing things like appointing their family members to positions of power. The suckers will praise them for actions like this not because they like the results of these policies but because it's easy for them to understand that it hurts the people they've been suckered into hating the most.