The source of the problem was misdiagnosed, though. Idiocracy predicted that idiots would eventually outnumber smart people because the latter are supposedly much more ambivalent about having kids. I don’t think that’s actually true—the “smart” aren’t necessarily having fewer kids than the “idiots.” The real problem is idiots have disproportionate political representation simply because of where they live. That’s especially relevant in the United States, where states with tiny populations have the same number of Senators as states with tens of millions of people.

Also, smart people are often less likely to vote when both options seem bad, whereas people driven by propaganda have no such hesitation and will turn out in droves—a problem Bertrand Russell highlighted quite clearly [1].

[1]: https://economicsociology.org/2023/11/30/in-the-modern-world...

We are a republic of 50 states, who are only willing to work together because they are represented. I’ve lived in NY, MO, CA and TX. The cultures and beliefs are different in each, and the people you seem to call “idiots” I have never found to be idiots. They just don’t prioritize nearly the same things you do, and may have radically different values

> Idiocracy predicted that idiots would eventually outnumber smart people because the latter are supposedly much more ambivalent about having kids

To be fair, it was just a funny and easy to explain introduction to the movie's premise. If it was made today it may have had a montage of people outsourcing their thinking skills to AI or something along these lines.

Idiocracy is a fable about our time. Setting his story in the future helps Mike Judge to maintain plausible deniability, but the movie is there to validate your sneaking suspicion that everything is kind of stupid.

> the “smart” aren’t necessarily having fewer kids than the “idiots.”

They are: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fertility_and_intelligence

There are some confounding factors, like education and income also affecting fertility, and correlated with most measures of intelligence, but that doesn't actually affect the diagnosis - regardless of if intelligence directly lowers fertility, or if the effect is mediated by e.g. education, the net effect is that smarter people have fewer children (in our current environment).

> The real problem is idiots have disproportionate political representation simply because of where they live. That’s especially relevant in the United States

This lets Americans off the hook far too easily. Trump won an absolute majority this time, and the GOP won the house too. For the Senate you will have to do your own research because I’m on mobile, but last time I checked the actual effect (estimated) on Senate outcomes is very modest.

They are. For example, literally nobody should be having kids rn in US, because the next decade is gonna be pretty horrible. But people still are, because they are none the wiser.