Wednesday, May 09, 2007

PZ Myers on morons

Pharyngula: There are no marching morons

I watched Idiocracy and enjoyed it. But I was uncomfortable with the premise though I didn't really know why. Now Dr. PZ Myers wrote a post that made me realize why I was so uncomfortable with the premise of the movie.
...the primary plot point of the movie Idiocracy. It's also the premise behind eugenics and behind a lot of right-wing phony elitism. It's wrong. It was a very popular story, but the reason isn't complimentary: it fed into a strain of self-serving smugness in science-fiction fandom, the idea that people who read SF are special and brilliant and superior, we are the technological geniuses and far-seeing futurists, while the mundanes leech off our vision. The eugenics movement built on the same us-vs.-them mentality, that there are superiors and inferiors, and the inferiors breed like cockroaches.
Of course in the Philippines, there's evidence that the morons have become a breeding population and running/ruining the country. :)

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