Are We Idiocracy Yet?
by jdiiufccuskal on 4/7/2026, 9:57:39 AM
Comments
by: bsenftner
I attended an audience testing screener for Idiocracy before the film's final edit. I could not believe my eyes and ears, I loved it unlike anything I'd seen before, it was the hardest US culture satire I'd seen up to that point. Then the lights came up and the audience started giving their reviews, in an open mike fashion. They all identified with the "idiots" and were indignant insulted, and angry. I remember making eye contact with Mike Judge like "WTF!" It was an early screener and I think that reaction was a surprise to the film team. I own a copy and watch it more than once a year. One of my favorite hard satires.
4/7/2026, 11:28:34 AM
by: netcan
Idiocracy hit a lot of superficial/thematic nails on the head with its silliness.<p>"Don't Look Up" captures a lot more of the actual dynamics. Instead of anti-eugenics making brains feeble, the people are just normal humans made stupid by their cultural environment, incentives and suchlike.
4/7/2026, 10:55:08 AM
by: clejack
I watched this movie really late. Let's say within the past 2 years or so. After watching it, all I could think was, "This isn't a comedy, it's a tragedy."<p>It felt way too close to home.
4/7/2026, 10:44:00 AM
by: input_sh
Not quite sure "Ow My Balls / Jackass" argument should count, the Jackass franchise is older than Idiocracy and was most likely an inspiration for that bit.
4/7/2026, 11:03:56 AM
by: lelanthran
I just finished up Pluribus S01; to me this could have been a take on AI.<p>The AI could have been The Joined; a population of beings who want only to make the remaining humans happy, by giving humans what they want, but they (The Joined) also acknowledge that in the long run their approach will result in an almost an Extinction-Level , mass starvation, etc.
4/7/2026, 12:10:32 PM
by: yen223
"A character is literally named 'Upgraydd' with creative spelling. In the future, names have become increasingly absurd — just random syllables, product names, and numbers."<p>Upgraydd was from our time wasn't he
4/7/2026, 10:33:42 AM
by: beatthatflight
Love it. Although I'm not sure which is the darkest timeline given <a href="https://www.howclosetoblackmirror.com/" rel="nofollow">https://www.howclosetoblackmirror.com/</a>
4/7/2026, 10:31:34 AM
by: Esophagus4
As I got older, I always wondered if everyone thought they were the smart one and everyone <i>else</i> must be the idiocracy.<p>I seem to remember Homer Simpson thinking something to that effect (“Boy, everyone is stupid except me”).<p>I can imagine that happening today, esp politically.
4/7/2026, 11:57:19 AM
by: 8-prime
Funny, just today I talked with a co-worker about how be both feel like we are approaching Idiocracy.<p>His nephew 'watered' their plants with Coke. Not quite Mountain Dew, but also not far off.
4/7/2026, 10:32:04 AM
by: Terr_
The profusion of LLMs with secret weights and prompts will also give us the <i>The Truman Show</i>'s false-friendships, product placement, and fraudulent recommendations.<p><i>Without</i> also making us famous or taking care of our daily needs.
4/7/2026, 10:37:04 AM
by: HexPhantom
As a cultural mirror, it's pretty entertaining
4/7/2026, 12:01:51 PM
by: michaelermer
And he even missed crocs... <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSkqybtwBk" rel="nofollow">https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bmSkqybtwBk</a>
4/7/2026, 11:11:03 AM
by: axegon_
Only 78%? That can't be right.
4/7/2026, 10:35:24 AM
by: roysting
Man, that font used for the individual attribute evaluation percentage badge is horrible.<p>I’m guessing based on the color coding that what could also be a slanted and italicized 1 is actually slanted and italicized 7, but talk about a horrible font, on top of what looks like about 10 different other fonts used on the site.<p>I guess that is in keeping with the theme; the Idiocracy status tracking site is also Idiocracy.
4/7/2026, 10:43:50 AM
by: AllegedAlec
We've had this discourse happen again and again over the last... Christ, 20 years fuck me.<p>At some point people have to start realizing "oh wait, maybe the current situation isn't unique and people have felt like this since forever".
4/7/2026, 12:05:18 PM
by: seydor
- "Brought to you by Carl's Jr. They pay me every time i say it" vs "Mysterious trading patterns follow Trump into war"<p>- "Florida's in Georgia, dumbass" vs "We setled Aberbaijan and Albania"<p>- "Secretary of education is kinda stupid, but he 's president's brother" vs "Donald Trump's White House is a family affair"<p>I ve been watching Idiocracy over and over for years, as a documentary.<p>In many ways the movie is more merciful than reality. Frito , a really dumb man who purchased his "lawyer degree" in costco, could afford his own comfy apartment and car. He was not addicted on his phone all day , constantly worried about what others think of him. The govt would take care of your neglected kids. Employment by brawndo kept the world quiet. Leaders were too dumb to make wars. People too dumb to make culture wars. Their president was smarter.<p>The misspellings in signage though, is comedically reminiscent of AI image generators.
4/7/2026, 11:43:02 AM
by: jbgt
A series that hits even closer is BrainDead, about an alien that gets into politicians' heads and polarizes them completely. It's very fun, and each episode recap at the beginning is done via lyrics of a folky song. Worth a watch and laugh. And cry.
4/7/2026, 11:07:30 AM
by: aristofun
I don’t share any of the pessimism.<p>If you are at least tiny bit curious about looking beyond your IT bubble you know that the majority of population has always been dumb. It’s just biological fact of life.<p>For better or worse hundreds years ago they didn’t get any power. Today they got internet, got exposure and got power. Nothing is changing on a fundamental human nature or statistical level.
4/7/2026, 11:49:18 AM
by: blamestross
Every time Idiocracy comes up, I feel obligated to point out that it is WILDLY optimistic. The people are dumb, not evil. They struggle to adapt and learn, but are willing to try and willing to accept new information with evidence.<p>We are not so lucky in reality.
4/7/2026, 10:44:23 AM
by: dintech
I love this, thank you.
4/7/2026, 11:41:45 AM
by: deadbabe
The one thing that still should give you hope is that the Idiocracy <i>is</i> reversible, unlike other things such as climate change or nuclear Armageddon.
4/7/2026, 11:52:35 AM
by: unleaded
am i the only one that sees the irony in this website being made entirely with AI? Especially as it's so simple.
4/7/2026, 12:01:50 PM
by: Juliate
The satire we need today is how we sort it out.
4/7/2026, 10:30:29 AM
by: llbbdd
This epic comparison once again wins the internet for today, gentlesirs
4/7/2026, 10:50:38 AM
by: DontchaKnowit
I mean, you could probably make these comparispns in 2006 when the movie came out. Perhaps it wasnt prophetic but rather just a sature of the general human condition
4/7/2026, 11:18:06 AM
by: iso1631
Idiocracy looks more and more utopian
4/7/2026, 11:06:55 AM
by:
4/7/2026, 9:57:39 AM
by: LightBug1
You never go full Idiocracy.<p>(But never say never).
4/7/2026, 10:56:31 AM
by: marxisttemp
Why do Redditors and tech people love comparing things to this weird, pro-eugenics movie so much?
4/7/2026, 11:41:51 AM
by: i_love_retros
I don't think it mentions the hot new sport we have in our reality where two men run full pelt into each other. Yeah boi
4/7/2026, 10:51:14 AM
by: Hikikomori
They might have been stupid but did they do anything truly bad/evil like the current US regime?
4/7/2026, 10:42:04 AM
by: CodeCompost
The Idiotic Republic of America. There is no god but the Dollar.
4/7/2026, 10:31:11 AM
by: einpoklum
In Idiocracy, president Camacho actually had the decent idea of trying listen to (somewhat) reasonable people with relevant abilities or skills rather than insisting that his failures are actually successes and just trying to force it until that worked. Thank you for your attention to this matter.
4/7/2026, 10:28:59 AM
by: keybored
I watched the eugenicist trailer and decided that it wasn’t for me. I guess that makes me an idiot.<p>(Really—there are far more salient points that promot that conclusion about myself.)
4/7/2026, 11:22:02 AM
by: michaelashley29
is it just me learning that donald trump is a wwe hall of famer??!
4/7/2026, 11:06:03 AM
by: jMyles
I hear people make this comparison all the time, and while it is facially a bit funny I guess, I really don't think it holds up in any serious way.<p>What is so similar about our world to that of idiocracy? In almost all the ways that matter, it seems like we are going in the opposite direction.<p>* The primary plot point of idiocracy is that poor (and thus, stupid - the film never explains why this correlation exists in that universe, though) people are the only ones who reproduce. For this reason, there is evolutionary pressure toward decreased intelligence. It's an odious premise on its face IMO, and certainly not what is happening in the USA: our birth rates are declining _because_ people are not economically stable.<p>* President Camacho is the exact inverse of Trump: he is stupid, uninformed, disconnected, and has few resources to address the challenges he faces, but he makes good-faith efforts to do so at every turn. And he seems to be sincere and transparent. Trump's illusion runs precisely counter to this: he has every resource he can possibly need, but chooses to enrich himself and his friends instead of advancing the public interest.<p>Virtually every plot point of Idiocracy can be broken down this way. I see very, very little of the film universe that is consistent with our sociopolitical trajectory.<p>If you want a Mike Judge film that shines light on uncomfortable truths about 21st-century America, the obvious choice is Office Space.
4/7/2026, 10:44:26 AM
by: WAbdal
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4/7/2026, 12:03:02 PM
by: eatonphil
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4/7/2026, 11:52:17 AM
by: fleroviumna
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4/7/2026, 12:09:35 PM
by: bedardbrandon89
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4/7/2026, 11:38:17 AM
by: jdidoforjrjrj
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4/7/2026, 10:46:38 AM
by: api
I think you could have done this in the 1980s and 1990s and found a lot of fits: MTV, reality shows, daytime TV, junk food everywhere, pop music becoming increasingly trite and simple, newspapers and commentary declining toward grade school level vocabulary.<p>In the 50s you would have had suburban conformity and doctors recommending cigarettes. In the 60s you had people trying to become enlightened by taking drugs and listening to con men claiming to be Eastern gurus. In the 70s you had dumb new age cults and a lot of very bad movies and ugly fashion.<p>Mass media and any culture dominated by mass media tends to race to the bottom. There are many forces that drive it. Dumb culture is loud and viral. Lies and bullshit cost zero to produce and are expensive to debunk. Quality takes time and cost to make and drowns in quantity.<p>Attempts to frantically fight these forces normally turn into their own dystopias, usually taking the form of authoritarian nightmares or moralistic crusades. These often end up looking deeply stupid in retrospect too.<p>Yet we are still here. So somehow quality finds a way.<p>As you look back in time things look less dumb because of survivorship bias. The dumb shit is forgotten.<p>Our age will be remembered as when we taught the sand to think, made rockets that land vertically, returned to the Moon, and developed quantum computers.<p>Nobody will remember that we used AI to make TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG TUNG SAHUR, that the guy with the rocket company acted like a thirteen year old 4chan edgelord, or that our president during the return to the moon couldn’t speak complete sentences.
4/7/2026, 11:12:49 AM
by: simian1983
I present HTTP://TrumpCamacho.com without further comment.
4/7/2026, 10:44:34 AM
by: lifestyleguru
Aren't you all proud that anywhere in the world you go there is a fridge with coca cola, so it's a sound and solid investment? Smart people of HN and reddit?
4/7/2026, 10:37:27 AM
by: froggiemeow
This is just silly to portray idiocracy as a prediction of the future.<p>Yes the current president of America is a movie actor, this was not idiocracy predicting the future, Ronald Reagan was a movie actor president before idiocracy came out.<p>The movie satirised what was already happening, there is nothing special about nowadays.
4/7/2026, 10:59:23 AM
by: Froztnova
Intelligence is watching Idiocracy and identifying with it profoundly when you're younger.<p>Wisdom is looking back at how much you liked Idiocracy and cringing at the fact that you gleefully and uncritically swallowed a eugenics tract.<p>Oops!
4/7/2026, 11:52:47 AM