Idiocracy On the Bus

I've recently seen the movie Idiocracy. In case you aren't aware: The protagonist (played by Luke Wilson) is an astoundingly average army guy. He is chosen to participate in a human cryogenic experiment where he is frozen for a year. The army needs a woman test subject and ends up hiring a woman-of-the-evening (played by Maya Rudolph). Due to various mistakes they are forgotten for 500 years.

They wake up during the Great Garbage Avalanche of 2505. The IQ of the world has become so low that these two are the smartest people on the planet. Various gag jokes involving the idiots of the world occur, and it's a pretty funny movie in general. The reasoning behind why the world is so stupid is that idiots have tons of kids (often by mistake) and smart people have fewer. The movie is an interesting commentary that is quite serious underneath the veneer of gags. Our culture values stupidity. Intelligent, affluent, and well-off people also severely limit child-bearing. One Slate reviewer even equated the movie to the incredibly somber Children of Men.

I don't usually take such a hard line on the subject. I believe that our culture will come back to valuing intelligence. Sure, Paris Hilton is still prominent, but she and her ilk are fading. I maintain this optimism except for one time: when I'm on the bus.

I take the bus nearly every day to work. Living in Berkeley, you see an incredible mix of people. I haven't lost faith in the intelligence of our society because of the bums, mumblers, panhandlers, and smelly hippies. I recognize that they get attracted to Berkeley and the bus in disproportionate numbers. Plus, they're just going along as best they can. No, I feel like the world will have a garbage avalanche because of 16-22 year olds.

Certain members of this age group do things that defy rational explanation. Why, for example, are they playing music on their cell phones with an incredibly poor, tinny quality? What's the point? It sounds terrible and drains your battery needlessly. And the kids gather around the crappy music and listen to it. I've even seen some of the more tech-savvy kids crank up their iPod volume and listen to the music on the earpieces (which are earpieces, not speakers!) with that same metallic, drill-into-your-brain sound quality.

I realize that kids always feel the need to broadcast their music loudly and annoyingly. I did it in high school. I used to drive my mom's Sunfire through the suburbs and blast Incubus or Metallica on the tiny speakers. At least people outside the car could hear the bass. I'm also reminded of the previous generation's punkers and rappers who used to carry around the huge boomboxes. (The nerds took them to task in Star Trek IV when Spock incapacitated a punker on a bus across the Golden Gate Bridge because he refused to turn off his music.) I wouldn't mind the music if it was played with any quality. Why did our standards for sound quality decline so much among the asshole teenager crowd? What is happening to our rebellious youth?

And where did the word "hella" come from? Of course, I can read Urban Dictionary's entries. It may have come from San Francisco or Oakland/Berkeley. It means "very" in most circumstances, but it originally meant "hell of a lot of". Some examples: "people on the bus are hella stupid" or "my pet-peeves are hella numerous" or "I have hella indignation". Fine. Say it a little. It's local and fun. But I have observed halves of phone conversations where "hella" was used at least twice per sentence. How do you expect to find a job when you speak like a moron? Saying "like" too often is annoying, but at least that's a word in the English language.

I have other problems with our youth that aren't found on the bus. Some kids nowadays are so incredibly dumb that they don't understand basic principles about the internet. While "Web 2.0" is about sharing and collaboration, it retains the ideas from "Web 1.0": accessibility and
retention. The stuff you post can be accessed by a huge number of people if they were so inclined. And they will continue to be able to access it for years to come. So don't post pictures of you smoking illegal substances on MySpace. Try to refrain from talking about cheating in a class on LiveJournal. That will come back to haunt you, sometimes sooner rather than later. The cheating incident actually happened: a student in an astro course tried to solicit answers on homework through her LJ page and was turned in by another student. OOPS! I try to practice what I preach with this blog. I don't have my real name anywhere, but I'm sure that it can be connected with some searching.

OK, end rant. It's time for my prune juice and a nap.