Except that going by the “theory” behind such works, the inhabitants of the Third World already are all stupid. They are poor, and if poverty is due to genetic stupidity that means that they are all less intelligent than rich white American Christians. If they weren’t stupid, they wouldn’t be poor, supposedly. Just as “obviously” the reason non whites have less money in America is because they are innately less intelligent than the Master Race.
Well, since I seem to be in a negative mood today… 
Idiocracy is an extremely cynical movie. But if anything, the actual movie just highlights how implausible it’s central premise is: that each generation is more stupid and lazy than the last.
People have been complaining about “kids these days getting stupider and lazier” for at least two-thousand years. If it were true, we should already be living in the idiocracy, and our distant ancestors should all be supermen instead of ignorant, starving peasants.
Only half of my ancestors were supermen, the other half were wonder women.
I think the secret cabal in the movie were space aliens, breeding humans as tasty cattle. Same universe as To Serve Man.
Do you have any compelling evidence that this* isn’t *the case? 
I keed, I keed. (Mostly.)
But I do have a stupid Idiocracy inspired question: Would spraying Gatorade really kill crops? I mean, it’s mostly water and sugar (and it has electrolytes!) and it’s isotonic, so what’s the problem, exactly?
Or is it that what’s isotonic for humans is hypertonic to plants?
Fuck off, I’m eating.
Go away! ‘Batin’!
The premise is blatantly ripped off from Cyril M. Kornbluth’s classic SF story, “The Marching Morons.” Back when it was written (in 1951), our knowledge of the nature of intelligence was not what it is today, and Kornbluth was showing a dystopia, based upon the implications of his earlier story, “The Little Black Bag.”
One difference in Kornbluth was that he did indicate that there were still smart people around, and they were the ones who actually kept things from collapsing – and the pressure was getting to be too much for them.
The major objection I have with the film – which I liked a lot – was that they neglected to give Kornbluth proper credit.
Well, it really is a completely different story, and the shared premise is older than Kornbluth (and was not invented by SF writers). Can’t give Verne or Wells credit for every space-travel story.
I always assumed it was the whole world that had become stupid, because:
-
We would have been invaded by foreign countries the instant we became too stupid to defend ourselves;
-
The opening narration shows the planet Earth;
-
Er, well, the U.S. is supposed to be the best at everything… so if the U.S. is stupid, then every other place on Earth must be even stupider, right?
While the movie’s opening mentions natural selection and survival of the fittest, it never clearly states that people were breeding stupid. It’s just the stupid people in society having so many more kids and not having anything to teach them and the dumbing-down of society in general that does the damage. Think of all the wasted potential in the millions of children being born into a world full of stupid.
Re Joe and Rita and their kids: it’s not about how smart Joe is, it’s that no one else is smart enough to help him do what needs to be done. In a way, Pres. Camacho is a capable leader, because he knows how to talk to these people in a way that will get their attention and address their concerns… sorta. For a little while. He’s like a king in a world full of slack-jawed peasants. Their leader would have to be a big, tall, imposing sort of person.
There must be a lot of nearly-average IQ people that we don’t see in the movie running things behind the scenes. Putting the crop irrigators in place and making sure the Carl’s Jr. food vending machines stay full and the Brawndo CEO guy and the people who invented the three probe medical diagnostic equipment. And what happens to all the prostitutes when they’re too old, and where are all the pregnant women? Nearly all of the women of childbearing years must be pregnant nearly all the time. Who takes care of their children? Where are all the children? And doesn’t anybody ever get sad when people die in a plane crash or run their cars off the unfinished overpass? We’re not talking about Monday Night Rehabilitation mob mentality here. People are not just stupid, they’re kind of emotionally stunted, too. 
Yes, I know I’m thinking about this way too much.
In the movie, it was explained that the sodium content of Brawndo (the Gatorade expy) eventually proved much for the plants to take after several hundred years of application and build-up in the soil.
Whenever you try to delve too deeply into this movie, just keep in mind the society depicted in Idiocracy is supposed to be a grossly exaggerated parody of the U.S. during the first decade of the 21st century.
At the risk of sounding pompous and faggy, I believe 500 years would be long enough for all societies to rise technologically and then sink into Idiocracy. There may have been a period when one country was dominant because it hadn’t yet turned stupid, but eventually they all did. The only escape is through the combination of the Brawndo crisis and the deus ex machina of Joe.
Quoth Wendell Wagner:
That would be a valid criticism if the movie were about the future, but it’s not. It’s just set in the future. But like all science fiction, it’s about the present.
I don’t see where you’re getting this. Under the scenario described in the movie, people in the third world would be vastly more capable than those in the first world, because the third world does not have the advanced medical technology and extensive social safety net that keeps the first world morons alive. Some guy in Guatemala does something stupid and ruptures a testicle, he never has any kids. Some guy in Georgia does exactly the same thing, and there’s a medical procedure that can fix his 'nads, and he keeps on having more kids. The end result is the third world keeps getting smarter, because their morons keep dying, and the first world keeps getting dumber, because our morons are thriving. At least until Guatemala reaches some sort of tipping point, where the intelligent citizens have refined and improved their society to the point where they can keep the idiots alive and fertile just as well as the US, at which point they start backsliding too - but at that point, they’re a first world nation.