Works have meanings beyond their surface-level detail and literal meaning. They also have themes and clear implications. And Idiocracy certainly has those. It has clear undertones of eugenics.

The first is the clear implication that population demographics require active management. In the movie, there was no mass government program to encourage births among those of low intelligence and discourage births among the intelligent. This situation developed entirely naturally through culture acting on its own. A viewer could only conclude that if this horrible future is to be avoided, that we need to start worrying a lot more about who is reproducing in what numbers. We either need government mandates or major cultural initiatives to encourage reproduction among the deserving. Idiocracy never outright endorses eugenics, but the implication is obvious. Writers aren’t idiots. They know the clear implications of their work. You don’t end up with a political movie that clearly implies the solution is genocide without realizing that’s the obvious implication.

The second is the theme that intelligence is something that can be bred or selected for at all through the social stratification we have now. Are those with PhDs really more intelligent, by writ of birth, than those that never graduate high school? Or it mostly about circumstances of birth, opportunities, personal choices, or even neonatal environmental pollutant exposure? Do we have any real evidence that intelligence differences within the species are something that can truly be selected for? Hell, what kind of intelligence are we talking about? Scholastic ability, emotional intelligence, executive reasoning, etc? There are many types of intelligence. And the very idea that the poor and those of lower educational attainment are of genetically lower intelligence is a key eugenics theme.

Yes, Idiocracy never comes right out and explicitly endorses eugenics. But the implications and themes are undeniably pro-eugenics.

Potash for quota I need. But no potash have I. However, tungsten I have. Is anyone I can I trade tungsten for potash?

Yup. For whatever reason (likely regulations), most dispensaries are set up a lot like traditional general stores. Everything behind the counter.

Wood science, I suppose.

Your hair is the roof of your mouth.

If theft is this bad, these stores should just switch back to the traditional model used by pharmacies and general stores. Consider this photo of a traditional pharmacy:

Or this old general store:

This is what these businesses used to look like. In traditional pharmacies and general stores, most goods were kept behind counters or at the very least within direct view of those behind counters. A traditional dry good store might literally just be a big counter in the front with a huge warehouse in the back. You show up with a list of goods you want, and the clerk would run into the back and grab everything you wanted.

The model of a store with aisles that customers wander through is not the historical norm. As industrialization improved, the relative costs of goods lowered, while the relative cost of labor increased. So it made sense for stores to accept a higher level of theft and shopliting by offloading the item-picking process to their customers. They got the customers to do a lot of the work for them, but in exchange they accepted a higher level of theft.

Now they’re trying to have things both ways. They still want customers to do all the work of picking out their purchases from the shelves, but they’ve decided they don’t like the level of shoplifting that level of low labor cost business inevitably produces. They want the customers to do most of the labor of clerks, but they don’t want to accept the level of theft that inevitably produces.

I honestly wonder, is it illegal to simply unlock those things, if you have no intention of actually stealing from them? It’s not like they use particularly high security locks. You can probably buy some simple lock raking or cylinder lock tools.

Is it actually violating a law to unlock one of those cases if you don’t have any intention of actually stealing something?

My bugbear with Mc’D’s is how they now always ask you if you are using their damned app.

I know I shouldn’t, and that they’re just teenagers reading from a script. But I just can’t help myself. Whenever they ask if I’ll be using the app, I flippantly reply, “nah, I don’t want Ronald reading my email.”

The ability to pay for subsidies has no relation to the source of the funds. What matters is GDP, overall national wealth. And Norway is only slightly ahead of the US. Considering the US’s far superior manufacturing capability, if Norway could go all electric, than the US certainly could have by now. Norway’s had to import almost all its electric cars; the US can make its own cars.

I prefer the conspiracy ouroboros:

Conspiracy theories do not generate spontaneously. They’re all crafted deliberately by a nefarious cabal of corporate interests to distract and manipulate the public.

This man needs to be sentenced to 10 years solitary confinement in a room with 100 electronically controlled vuvuzelas serenading him at all hours of the day and night.

“Look at the racist things I saw down at the Klan rally!”

No shit. Why are you sharing it?

Depends, are you an Indian prince that has been kept in isolation your entire life to hide the pain of the world from your eyes?

I suggest relocating the Greeks to Iceland and the Icelanders to Greece.

I just always imagine that those ads are the vivid hallucinations of a patient in a mental hospital.

Perhaps. But if that’s the case, then I’m pretty sure that makes Mac OS Eastern Orthodox.

What oddball OS would be Ethiopian Orthodox?

Linux distros are just the new “101 flavors of Protestantism,” complete with radical zealots who believe you will go to Hell for choosing the wrong one.

You’re assuming the law will be applied consistently.

I’ve come up with the most cursed business idea in history.

I envision founding what is effectively a suspiciously cheap home-cleaning service. Like a cleaning service, we’ll require access to your home. We’ll need a key or door code. However, we don’t actually ever send anyone to clean your house.

Instead, we let you do the cleaning. We don’t DO the cleaning. We INSPECT your cleaning. When signing up for our service, you’re signing up to have a cleaning inspector show up to your house at any random time between 8 AM and 5 PM. It will be completely at random. It could be months between the random inspections, or you could get inspected 3 days in a row.

The inspector will be a form of your choosing. You can sign up for an angry boot camp drill-instructor type. You can sign up for someone who will more have the vibe of a grossed-out boyfriend/girlfriend. Or they can send a team of older inspectors that will make it feel like you’re being berated by your parents. The choice of shame is up to you!

The inspectors will go through your home, call you a slob, and belittle your cleaning ability. We won’t make it too ridiculous. By default, they would just expect you to keep things clean and neat, not lab-grade sterile. But if your laundry pile grows, you need to dust, or the bathrooms are a mess? Well you’re going to hear about it! If you are present, they will shame you in person. Regardless if you are there or not, you will be sent a report documenting in disgusting detail all the messes and cleaning errors in your house. The report will be filled with professional-grade photos of your filth. And to provide further damning motivation? The report will be posted on the public internet for anyone to view for free.

Note: customers who are clearly using this as a sex thing will be dropped from the service.

Morning? You mean good forenoon to you sir!