IDIOCRACY Opening Scene (2006) Mike Judge
Why Hacker News recommends it
HN links it in threads on fertility, IQ and demographics as a famous, if satirical, illustration of the argument.
What it is
The opening scene of the 2006 film Idiocracy, which explains in a short montage how average intelligence declines as less intelligent people have more children.
Recommended by 0 HN commenters across 0 different months, 2020 to 2026.
What Hacker News said
Cites dsego · 2020-11 · on “Why Bother Having Babies?”
Fluff piece, I don't see an answer to the question posed in the title. It mainly discusses fertility differences between different socioeconomic classes. This had been well illustrated in the intro to the fantastic 2006 sf comedy Idiocracy . [this video]
Cites dylanz · 2021-03 · on “Why are fewer men in their 20s having sex?”
The scenario of not wanting to bring a child into an environment that isn't stable is exactly one of the points of the intro to the movie Idiocracy: [this video] I definitely understand 100%... I just thought it sounded extremely familiar. In my personal scenario, I had my first kid (unplanned) when I was 25. It definitely changed the trajectory of my life, and in a good way in my case. Once I knew I was having a kid I really started to take things more seriously and tried to set up as good of an environment as I could. That meant studying a lot, surrounding myself with good families, moving into a place with more exposure to nature, etc. We never owned a home, had retirement saved up, or a lot o
Cites tpmx · 2022-08 · on “How to stay focused while working on your startup and having a 9 to 5”
I don't think anyone is blaming the kids. I mean, the decisions to have the kids were made by adults. I'm in favor of blaming the adults. That said, us nerds probably shouldn't stop reproducing. The intro to Idiocracy (2006) is quite relevant today: [this video] I heard Mike Judge on a podcast about a month ago (JRE) saying that the ability to make that intro was a large factor in his motivation of making the Idiocracy movie in the first place.
Cites Herval_freire · 2023-04 · on “American IQ Scores Have Rapidly Dropped, Proving the 'Reverse Flynn Effect'”
It's useful. You have to think on the macro scale. The evolution of the entire population rather then individuals. On the individual level stupider people reproduce more so evolutionary speaking it's more efficient to be stupid. However if a small portion of the population has high IQ they can move society forward via say the discovery of electricity, mathematics, etc, etc. This propels every individual forward as a whole at the detriment of a few individuals who are to nerdy or geeky to get laid that often. Thus from a high level perspective, there is selection pressure that works on the population of people that makes it so that our genes have the mechanisms in place to produce an occasion
Cites theshrike79 · 2023-06 · on “Global fertility has collapsed, with profound economic consequences”
A conversation about fertility isn't complete without a link to The Idiocracy (2006) opening scene: [this video] (length 4:39) It's surprisingly accurate, even if it's very exaggerated, because that's the premise of the movie. tl;dw "Smart/Rich" people put off having kids to the Perfect Time in their life and never end up having kids or maybe just the one. "Stupid/Poor" people just keep having kids all the time.
Cites dist-epoch · 2026-04 · on “Are We Idiocracy Yet?”
> Unless I'm misremembering, and it did make direct reference to intelligence rather than education and access to it. They literally show IQ numbers in that scene. > Trevor: IQ 138, Carol: IQ 141 vs: > Clevon: IQ 84 [this video]