this post was submitted on 27 May 2024
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[–] [email protected] 81 points 5 months ago (3 children)

Always worth pointing out:

People were skeptical of toilet water but after Not Sure et al demonstrated that it was effective, they embraced it.

We have people who were skeptical of... modern medicine. And when vaccinations were demonstrated to be effective they... shoved horse medicine up their asses and attacked medical workers.

We are so far past Idiocracy.

[–] [email protected] 41 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Yeah, at least President Camacho was open to other points of view and was willing to defer to an "expert", rather than throw a tantrum because someone didn't immediately compliment and agree with him

[–] [email protected] 22 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Camacho willingly gave over power to the smartest man on earth once he proved himself. We are no where near that advanced of a society!

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago

RIP Cracked.com

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago

I mean, some people are past it... The types that deny sandy hook was real, and that want the guy with orange spray paint on his face to win.

[–] [email protected] -5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

In case you are talking about the COVID vaccine, no, that was not demonstrated to be effective, it was claimed to be. Big difference, especially when Pfizer then wanted a moratorium of 70 YEARS to release the full trial data.

Also, even if they were effective, there was no evidence that they were also safe and didn’t cause any long-term side effects, because such a study was impossible to carry out given the speed at which these vaccines were developed. In fact, the usual requirement for these studies to be done before the product could be put on the market were deliberately waived in order to roll them out as quickly as possible.

People were right to be skeptical of this, and they were right to protest being forced to take them. The people who blindly trusted “the science” are, in fact, the Brawndo consumers here.

[–] [email protected] 34 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 30 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I love that transition so much!

Also, I miss Fuddruckers. Might be one or two left, but nowhere near me anymore.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

As of 2019, Fuddruckers had 49 company-operated restaurants and 107 franchises across the United States and around the world.

Number of locations | 60 (January 2024)

Uh this sounds a little low…:

On June 21, 2021, Black Titan Franchise Systems announced a deal to acquire Fuddruckers for $18.5 million.

Wiki

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

So, a cheap pandemic era purchase, marginal expansion, and I suspect a touch of enshitification to boot. That's a bummer.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

There’s one in Concord, CA.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago (1 children)

I don't think I've ever been to one before. I assume that it's basically a Red Robin with different branding.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Not quite. You order/build your own burger in line before sitting. And one of their claims to fame is that they grind and form their meat on site, rather than shipped frozen.

[–] [email protected] 15 points 5 months ago (3 children)

I genuinely hope this isn't a hot take for anyone here: Social Darwinism is a dumb and destructive ideology and Idiocracy betrays some pretty awful beliefs.

Which is weird because KOTH and Silicon Valley aren't like that.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)

This is where Idiocracy comes from, it was pretty heavily adapted, but might account for any difference in undertones.

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

The original has the guy they resurrected enact a genocide on the 99% of humanity who'd been tainted by dumb genes.

And I mean I'm glad Idiocracy didn't end that way, but it's weird that the original accepts the premise of nazi eugenics, but their only issue seems to be the way it was enacted.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

Didn't the studio take a pretty heavy hand to it? I feel like I've heard that Mike Judge isn't a huge fan of it.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)

Honestly I don't think it's hamful if we set boundaries properly.

You CAN assume:

  1. Dumb people can populate faster.
  2. Many generations of lacking natural predators causes societal decline.

You CANNOT assume:

  1. That one human can judge another on the basis of intellectual capacity.
  2. That the solution to the problem in any way involves untimely death in any amount.
[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago

Not quite Butt-Fuckers level of destruction.

[–] [email protected] 5 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Ah, Idiocracy - that shining beacon of hope, where somehow the USA survives what was clearly a nation-ending process whereby nobody else around the world got dumber (e.g. in Russa or China), only us, but humans somehow gave the people in power (corporations) something valuable enough to allow to continue existence and subsistence.

Over a hundred years ago (30 years before the term "science fiction" was coined) H.G. Wells Time Machine portrayed a similar slant on the populace of the future.

img

The reality is that with Climate Change and automation happening as they are, even those nightmare visions seem increasingly unlikely, as the planet cannot sustain us all and robots replace the need for a worker class of humans anyway. Instead we might end up more like Half-Life where populace decrease becomes more desirable.

Travelers (2016) is an excellent TV show to watch btw - too bad we are unlikely to develop time travel to save us all.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

https://www.gutenberg.org/files/51233/51233-h/51233-h.htm

This is what Idiocracy is an adaptation of. So they are largely in the same camp. The marching morons is only 73 years old, but still a decent amount of time ago.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 5 months ago

The "Golden Era" of sci-fi in the 30s - a delay from the roaring 20s perhaps? - has a lot of stuff along the general lines of "Englishman (never Englishwoman mind you), often from some minor noble heritage, through mysterious means unknown ends up in an area of savages, but through the power of their greater Intelligence, becomes stronger, faster, and outer-smartier than all of those that they outsmart b/c they are smart I tell you, so smart!"

Idiocracy - and Marching Morons I see, and Time Machine as well from 1895 - is thus very much in line with the norm, with the twist that the savage lands are the future from now; the implication being that humanity has not only "reached its peak over all those that came before", but also "peaked, then declined, so that we - here, now - are the pinnacle of all civilization that ever was or ever will be".:-P Which there is a large degree of truth to that - e.g. antibiotic resistance and the enshittification of the internet and the state of ThE eCoNoMy ThO all reveal that we now have less than we ourselves did 10-20 years ago, even if for some that refers more to potential than actual.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago (1 children)
[–] [email protected] 17 points 5 months ago (2 children)

Rather than mutually assured destruction, the clock counts down to how soon the world devolves into the one represented in Idiocracy.

[–] [email protected] 8 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Then it should be past midnight if the pandemic is anything to go by.

[–] [email protected] 4 points 5 months ago

There are still too many outliers capable of critical thinking. Gotta bring down those numbers.

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Will never happen, there's far too many selfish smart people who aren't waiting to have kids. There will be a ruling class as long as we continue on this path.

[–] [email protected] 6 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago) (1 children)

The long-standing pessimist in me agrees, but the hopeful Trekkie in me wishes for better.

[–] [email protected] 3 points 5 months ago

I mean, I'm not saying things can't get better... but they'll never be like Idiocracy. The reason people seem to be getting stupider isn't because of eugenics, it's because of the concerted efforts of those in power to stigmatize intelligence. They're not just going to up and disappear... they're going to exploit the under-educated.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 5 months ago (1 children)

The doomsday clock is already idiocracy.

It's all hyperbole, based on all sorts of assumptions.

Nothing scientific about it.

[–] [email protected] 16 points 5 months ago (1 children)

But does it have what plants crave?

[–] [email protected] 12 points 5 months ago (2 children)

I've got what plants crave.

[–] [email protected] 7 points 5 months ago (1 children)

Username checks out harder than any other username has checked out before

[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago* (last edited 5 months ago)
[–] [email protected] 2 points 5 months ago

Are you sure? I mean, really, what do you have?