I honestly believe that Idiocracy is one of the most important films of the last 10 years

Idiocracy is a fairly silly comedy from Mike Judge, forewarning us of the consequences of a world where the moronic and promiscuous breed like rabbits yet the smart and conserved “put careers first” and undergo family planning, usually resulting in fewer children – if any.

It’s been a while since I actually watched the film, but the story unfolds with Luke Wilson playing “The Average Man”, an Army private with average stats across the board – including IQ, blood pressure, height, weight, etc. who is ordered to take part in the US government’s experiments in cryogenic freezing. What was planned as short stint in stasis to ensure the freezing was safe becomes a 500 year Futurama-esque cryo-sleep after Luke Wilson’s character is forgotten. After 500 years of the below-average breeding more ferociously than the above-average the population’s average has shifted negatively making the now-thawed “Average Man” suddenly the smartest person in the world.

We laugh at how all clothing is now a billboard for a brand, how people are influenced 100% by advertising and believe everything they hear (resulting in the presidents winning on popularity alone and the population trying to water their crops with Gatorade), how hyper-inflation has left $1,000,000 nearly worthless and how all sport is contact sport that involves blood and death on a very Smash TV/Running Man/Gladiatorial scale, but the picture painted from the first few minutes of the film is really enough to pin down the real message, which is nicely ribboned up in a feel-good comedy; Being frank, the smarter half of our population have some tough choices to make that will affect the fate of mankind on Earth.

It’s difficult to discuss without sounding like a snob, but it has become clear since Thomas Malthus first spoke out that the world cannot handle an ever-growing population and many argue that we’re already beyond the point of over-population, with only modern technology for efficient food production keeping us afloat. Major religious beliefs, lack of sex education (sometimes DUE to religious beliefs overriding the schools) and the lure of child benefits (as a way to survive without being obliged to contribute to the economy) have nudged certain underprivileged groups worldwide to experience exponential population explosions over the last century, with the offspring more likely to adopt similar outlooks and get stuck into the same socio-economic cycles.

On the other hand, the people who strive to make a difference in the world have a tendency to plan and map their route through life and tick each box as they reach them. Education for an additional 5-10 years before working, working before getting a house, a house before marriage, marriage before children. Family planning tries to fit around each partner’s career plans so the time and money (from their own pocket) to have and raise children is reduced so usually fewer children are had between “settling” and “menopause”. These children also typically have “better” upbringings, with fastidious parents more willing to pay out for private schooling, tutoring and imposing work ethic – with their own life as an example of success – as the only way to get what you want.

The result of this, at first glace, would be a growth in population for those without the same chances in life causing a negative shift of the meaning of average with the above-average or intellectually valued workforce essentially shrinking into the minority. It’s been seriously considered in the past that the human species may split a few hundred thousand years down the line from the lack of inter-class breeding. This may be an extreme prediction, but this social divide is no different than the geographical divides such as new rivers or mountains that force one specie to diversify into two separate species in nature. The future 500 years down the line portrayed in Idiocracy may appear to be outlandish and is likely a vision of things to come providing they were not regulated (which we hope they are), but the actual future may not differ much from this if population growth isn’t curbed.

There’s no easy way to implant the idea of controlling the birth rate into general acceptance without being compared to eugenicists of the past and sympathising with modern China’s one-child policy but simple education on sustainability, economics and sex education can increase support for having children later, when there is sufficient monetary and emotional support already available from the family. Of course despite the rational reasons to go ahead it’s still difficult to pull the trigger without politicians gambling their reputation and company resources on trying to fix a problem that the bulk of the Western world won’t perceive as a problem until it’s too late to correct. So, for now, it’s in the hands of the individuals. Which means mainly the individuals who understand it’s importance, which means they have probably read into the situation, which in turn likely places them into the above-average intelligence band.

One option is to ignore it since everybody else is, have as many children as you want or can support comfortably and then die old enough to see them grow up but young enough to die before you feel the consequences. The consequences would be a continued explosion of the global population but a more even distribution of backgrounds and genetics going through to the next generation. Another option would be to plan ahead to have only 1-2 children, so the eventual death of you and your partner keeps the your contribution to the population at a balance or slight decline, which is great for the global population but for those who aren’t willing to control birth rates will soon become a majority of the gene pool.

The sensible option seems to be adoption – to foster a child and raise them as your own. This can present opportunities to a child who previously had none and allow them to flourish while also controlling population growth – creating a home for a child in need over creating a child. The downside is that your own genetic material won’t make it into the next generation – the meaning of life, in the Darwinian view – unless you have another child. However, the increased acceptance of homosexual couples and marriages has affected the rate of adoption and some now see adoption of babies and very young children as reserved for homosexual couples who reject surrogates but are looking to raise a child.

My point, and opinion, stands at the fact of until we master terraforming and colonising far-off worlds to disperse our population we need to take action to target the causes of these problems and slow the growing global population before we hit the ceiling of Earth’s sustainability and face all the disasters that come with breaking through it. I realise there’s a horrendous amount of gray areas – both politically, scientifically and ethically – in taking most courses of action, and I also realise that most individuals alone probably can’t make a difference to the course of human evolution, but passively wishing the problems of the future away could unfurl as a disaster for mankind.

And that’s where I run out of steam on the topic. If you wish to contribute to this discussion, fact check or counter-argue, feel free to do so.