Sunday, March 17, 2013

Idiocracy-The True Story






Being at least somewhat scientifically literate, as compared to many in a country more fascinated with moronic reality shows and conspiracy theories, to the best of my knowledge the consensus among scientists is that human evolution has ended. The overall idea is that after millions of years struggling to survive on the African savanna where our only real advantage against very toothy and far swifter predators was an ever increasing brain once we settled down into villages and then cities the pressure to evolve stopped.

I would have to say for the most part it was a good bargain, discounting the assorted sword-wielding religious crusaders, various bloodthirsty tyrants, wars in general, greed, and pollution on the whole civilization seems to be pushing at least some of us to use our brains to improve ourselves. We express the better angels of our species in such things as science, music, art, in an attempt to figure out the universe and ourselves.

One problem, while our nobler side seeks to understand existence civilization has also possibly created a cosmic “Catch-22” in which our cushy lifestyle does not punish the stupid among us allowing them to procreate. To be fair I am not just talking about your stereotypical nose-picking redneck upset that his tax dollars are going to support such things as arts and sciences but the Wall Street executive who can lose billions of dollars but yet be rewarded with multi-million dollar bonuses and marry a swimsuit model.

So you think this sound far-fetched?

Is Pampered Humanity getting steadily less Intelligent?


Now Crabtree admits it would not bother him at all if his theory was proved wrong buts lets think about it for a minute. In a world where intelligence is truly valued would this person ever seriously be considered for anything other than a local Avon salesperson much less being a heartbeat away from the Oval Office? 

It is even worse because while all sorts of crazy mistakes are possible when humans are involved the fact that she was a headline speaker at the recent CPAC convention should send waves of nausea through anyone with a milligram of sanity.
Taking a strictly non-political stance here but in all honesty there has been a general slide of visible societal intelligence for decades now. And while much of it can be attributed to simple cultural decay brought on by a media playing to the lowest common denominator among the population at somepoint it seems reasonable that the end result could be the same.
As someone who has regularly looked down upon those mired in the survivalist mindset I have got to admit that just maybe they have it right for all the wrong reasons. Because while devolution back to tree dwelling primates is probably not going to happen Homo sapiens are ugly and cruel creatures in the best of times, take away the thin veneer of rational civilized behavior and anything becomes possible.     

15 comments:

JUDI M. said...

So.....you means it's OK for all those fundamentalist, conservative, revisionist, anti-Department of Education and lover of school vouchers to actually DO what they're doing??? (Must be in the Bible somewhere.....their's only)

Is it nature's way to bring about planned obsolescence?
Or is God just irritated that man birthed the Republican Party.........;-)

Cirze said...

Just finished reading "Deep Ancestry" by Spencer Wells. Worth your while I think. Enjoy!

Africa was a long time ago to most of us who evolved from those traveling north and west. Not that it all wasn't a very long time ago.

But no, it's hardly stopped.

Love ya,

S

MikeP said...

Speaking of CPAC did you see this, Beach? Nice to see them drop the pretenses for a change. ;)

http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/03/15/1729331/cpac-slavery-minority-outreach

Unknown said...

Yes sir, as long as bleeding-heart liberals keep paying ne'erdowells to spit out babies, the strong may not survive, and where will humanity be then?

Pixel Peeper said...

Now don't you be insulting the local Avon sales lady...!

So I didn't recognize many of the people on the left (just a few), but who is the ugly chick on the right?

Unknown said...

Hi, I know for certain I'm getting dumber by the hour. Can't speak for anyone else. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

I don't believe we are done evolving, just that there might not be an us to evolve soon. But I think cybernetic culture will continue to evolve into something we won't recognize. That will happen at a much faster rate than biologic evolution. Science fiction gets me excited. in a good way.

Susan Flett Swiderski said...

Have you seen the movie "Idiocracy"? It's based on the premise that the more intelligent people tend to have fewer children than the um, less than intelligent, so as a whole society becomes dumber. The movie is a comedy, but maybe there's something to it. (You betcha!)

Akelamalu said...

I've been thinking for a while that there are some of the human race who are regressing rather than evolving. :(

Commander Zaius said...

JUDI: Not quite sure what you meant, the last thing I was saying was that such behavior was "ok". Better read my comment to Suzan below.

Suzan: I tend to agree that human evolution is ongoing. In fact I agree with Crabtree's premise that our cushy lifestyle promotes behavior that in hunter-gather societies would get people killed.

Now the question for me is does increased cooperation-the flip side of survival of the fittest-offset the damage done by the evil redneck.Wall Street banker axis.

Mike P: I'll check it out. I've actually been avoiding most news lately. Call it a period of much needed decompression.

Jerry: Interesting.

Pixel: One is a mystery to me as well. LOL!!! So you missed the whole Jersey Shore gang. I wish I was that lucky.

Mike W: Like I mentioned to Suzan I don't believe human evolution is over. As for cybernetics the news the other day that scientists had linked two living rat brains say a lot about where we could be going.

Genetic engineering is also the big question, despite the gnashing of fundamentalist teeth, man-made "improvements" to the human genome are coming.

Yeah, I did see Idiocracy, and in fact it was reading the Crabtree article that reminded me of it.

Akelamalu: Yeah, I agree with that idea completely. I work around numerous people who should have been fixed long ago.

Marja said...

When you look at the ones who's heads stick out there is not much evolvement going on. I do find a lot of wise and evolved people who live simple and humble lives though. There is hope

Randal Graves said...

Bring Socrates here and within a week he'd have his own Zuckerbook page and be surfing for pictures of grumpy cats.

Mr. Charleston said...

Funny, while being scary and true. I am fascinated by the idea that the information age is actually producing less informed people than people with no information source as the only information most people get from the internet is only what they want to see... stuff they have previously searched for... ergo, information evolution has stopped.

Commander Zaius said...

Marja: I do have hope that the cooperative side of the human race is still evolving.

Randal: LOL!!!! I have to wonder that Socrates would have loved Facebook. Although Soc would probably be considered the ultimate Troll. As for Grumpy Cat, he satifies my existential need to wish harm and death on those I find unworthy.

Mr. Charleston: I agree, although I find myself using Google to find the meanings of words and other things.



lime said...

i'd say there is plenty of anecdotal evidence for our rapid backward slide.

Jo ~ said...

dumb up!