I rented
Idiocracy this weekend. What a great, yet
disturbing, movie.
Disturbing because it is so close to the truth.
While it is supposed to be 500 years in the future it instead seems like 15 or 20 years in the future. Much like the family tree scene in the beginning of the movie, today the "smart", educated people have fewer kids and the stupid hillbillies are having alot of kids.
People who speak and write intelligently are laughed at.
In addition, our public schools are already dumbed down and our colleges are being dumbed down because HS graduates can't read or write at a college level.
At a "good" suburban high school an English teacher lamented to me that she ultimately has to show a video for the reading assignments that she has given because the students either cannot read at the level necessary or simply will not do the work.
Also, the reality TV segments of Idiocracy are also very close to what we have today. Next we'll have real-time reality TV where the populous votes on who lives and dies, as well as votes on our politicians and each policy, much like the Doctor Who episode Vengeance on Varos, (which wouldn't be such a bad thing, at least in regards to politicians).