Isn't is well-known that higher education correlates with lower birthrates? At the very least college years are prime child-rearing years.

> Educated women delay the onset of childbearing and have fewer children overall compared with less-educated women

https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC3449224/

Yeah, Idiocracy isn't wrong on the facts about our current day scenario. The issue is where it takes that: poor, lower educated people will inevitably have poor, lowered educated children who will in fact get less and less educated as time goes on, and they will take over, leading to... idiocracy.

There's a whole conversation to have about the assumptions in that. Is the implication it's genetic? The children of lower educated people aren't capable of moving to greater things? Or is it societal, that our education system fails the poor and doesn't give them the tools they need to thrive?

The movie isn't really interested in interrogating any of that and I don't think it needs to. Like I said, I see it as a fun movie that isn't that deep. But there's a common thread of opinion on the movie that holds it up as a biting satire ("Idiocracy is a documentary!" is essentially a meme at this point) and those folks don't seem to engage with the topic either. A worrying number of people seem to have a takeaway of "poor people shouldn't procreate as much".

Anyway, to bring it back to the actual topic at hand (and why I originally replied): I think something like VAST goes directly against what Idiocracy implies. We're all potential victims to distractions that reduce our capacity for executive function. A more accurate movie might show people of all financial and educational achievement glued to endless social media feeds.

Education is not a proxy for intelligence. There are plenty of smart people who don’t have formal education (including many in this forum).

Yes, higher education rates lead to lower birth rates. The movie still has eugenics vibes, by implying that the “wrong kind of people” are reproducing.