A Look at Idiocracy

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

I think the Daily Show as a specimen kinda contends that overall sentiment.

[CharlesPhipps]

Except it very much is. There isn't much to improve it beyond doing what you can to impair it through the development of a child.

I don't think you understand the purpose of education. Which is to educate.

I say this as a teacher that the problem for 90% of people is not birth but the fact they're not educated in questioning their assumptions, history, philosophy, and other important things. Indeed, people actually attempt to remove higher education.

[Nealithi]

Except it very much is. There isn't much to improve it beyond doing what you can to impair it through the development of a child.

I don't think you understand the purpose of education. Which is to educate.

I say this as a teacher that the problem for 90% of people is not birth but the fact they're not educated in questioning their assumptions, history, philosophy, and other important things. Indeed, people actually attempt to remove higher education.

I will probably regret this.
However, I assume by higher education you mean college?

If so, then yeah I want it removed in several ways and areas. Or at the very least altered. And the reason is that it is too uneven. I have seen a business hire someone with a college degree that could not do what a high school to technical school graduate did daily. But they would hire them and pay them more because the degree looks nice. While the same job denied another man's engineering degree because they did not like his college. That was the US government BTW.

Flipside I have seen businesses wanting a college education for entry level positions. IE minimum wage. Now why would anyone rack up the debt to go to college to earn the same amount you could get pumping gas?

My third higher education gripe is that you should not need a college education to correct the lies told you by general educators Incorrect science, history aimed closer to propaganda than truth, etc.

[CrypticMirror]

Flipside I have seen businesses wanting a college education for entry level positions. IE minimum wage. Now why would anyone rack up the debt to go to college to earn the same amount you could get pumping gas?

The real problem, and the one nobody really wants to admit because it means radically restructuring our entire society and ideological basis, is that thanks to automation, and some other factors but mainly automation, that there are more people than there are employment opportunities. The stupid entry requirements for minimum wage jobs are just a way to keep the applications for each job down to the manageable levels that HR folks can cope with. And thanks to automation, even that is changing since filling an application out online allows the almighty algorithm to do the work of dozens of HR people. And it is only going to get worse from here.

We need to work out a system that allows people to live without the traditional employment structures, and gig economy and influencer ain't gonna cut it either.

[CharlesPhipps]

My general opinion is everyone should be allowed to go to college for free. The goal of college should not be to "get job" because reducing the benefits of it to employment is another sign of the stupidity of society that reduces people to resources.

A more educated and well-informed society is its own reward.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

My general opinion is everyone should be allowed to go to college for free. The goal of college should not be to "get job" because reducing the benefits of it to employment is another sign of the stupidity of society that reduces people to resources.

A more educated and well-informed society is its own reward.

Yeah it's a matter of specialization.

[Beastro]

Except it very much is. There isn't much to improve it beyond doing what you can to impair it through the development of a child.

I don't think you understand the purpose of education. Which is to educate.

I say this as a teacher that the problem for 90% of people is not birth but the fact they're not educated in questioning their assumptions, history, philosophy, and other important things. Indeed, people actually attempt to remove higher education.

We're speaking of the Eugenics issue of a century ago which lies at the heart of the film, that stupid people breed stupider people, so you shouldn't let them breed. I was speaking specifically of individual capacity for intelligence capacity, given the tangent we were on, not what you do with your intelligence to mold it. In the same way I was speaking of the negative aspects to impair that, like drinking as a teen, which will mess with you no matter how well educated you are.

I realize I was off posting that given the impact enrichment has on the developing mind of infants that effectively increases the size of the bowl and how much it's capable of being filled with later on.

With all that said, I do agree with you. Too often in the intelligence debate we focus too much on nature or direct nurture and discount the influence of one's culture. I understand though why that's ignored; it then opens up the can of worms over different cultures have positive and negative aspects with those denigrating education standing out like sore thumbs.

My general opinion is everyone should be allowed to go to college for free. The goal of college should not be to "get job" because reducing the benefits of it to employment is another sign of the stupidity of society that reduces people to resources.

A more educated and well-informed society is its own reward.

The Efficiency Mindset dominates the Modern World now. One huge aspect of that is what people value the most, which always seems to boil down to the economy. A god dominates the world at presents in people's mind, and its Mammon.

[BridgeConsoleMasher]

Mike Judge wasn't calling for systematic social eradication of dumb people. Everything in the movie can be explained through cultural practice. Intelligence isn't supposed to be considered solely innate or genetic. You guys very well know that education is an applied discipline.

That being said, the modern practice of how we view media aims to be aware of the representational value of media, deliberate or otherwise. That's still not necessarily a direct implication though.

[Thebestoftherest]

There are moments where the people of this world could be more if they tried.

[TulipQulqu]

Mike Judge wasn't calling for systematic social eradication of dumb people. Everything in the movie can be explained through cultural practice. Intelligence isn't supposed to be considered solely innate or genetic. You guys very well know that education is an applied discipline.

That being said, the modern practice of how we view media aims to be aware of the representational value of media, deliberate or otherwise. That's still not necessarily a direct implication though.

My contention is just that there is a nasty subtext there, and it is something worth talking about when analyzing the movie.

I would believe Mike Judge if he said that he didn't realized that subtext was there while making the movie. It is just denying the existence of that subtext that bothers me.