Is an Idiocracy-Style Future Possible?
Are we destined to become a society reminiscent of the nightmarish dystopia depicted in the film Idiocracy, where everyone exemplifies the social stereotype of a low-IQ person? We mostly steer clear of fearful discourse about genetic selection against high IQs and dropping IQs in general because it is such a charged topic and our concerns around demographic collapse stand regardless of this scenario’s potential. We only approach this philosophical third rail in order to dispel some common misconceptions.
IQ has a high level of genetic correlation and can be predicted by looking at a person’s genome.[[114]](#_ftn114) The association between genetics and IQ is not small. In fact, this meta-study argues the IQ correlation between adopted brothers and sisters (genetically unrelated people raised together) falls almost to zero in adulthood.[[115]](#_ftn115)
Note: We think this meta study might be overstating the correlation a little. Suffice it to say there is very little argument in the scientific community over whether there is some genetic correlation to IQ. There is, however, debate over things like how big that correlation is, whether that link is concentrated in specific ethnicities (which we spend an entire chapter of this book arguing against), whether IQ is a measure of what we mean when we talk about intelligence in the vernacular (a topic we won’t go into here; do your own research), and whether the genes associated with IQ are stable in the population or declining (what we will focus on in this chapter). For those who are not up to date with what is an “offensive” position vs scientific consensus, we encourage you to read the Wikipedia page on this subject.[[116]](#_ftn116)
We’re pretty sure people who turn a blind eye to the role genetics plays in privilege will be held in the same regard as those who claimed they “didn’t see race” in the 1990s. Acting as though none of your partially inherited traits give you systemic advantages over others—be they height, metabolism, attractiveness, or IQ—only serves to reinforce your unearned privilege and ultimately breeds more systemic inequality. (To be extremely clear, we refer to these two instances in relation to each other because each represents an assumed moral high ground through feigned blindness to systemic advantages one has over others. We are not suggesting that any of these things are linked to race.)
Multiple studies have demonstrated that IQ is dropping by about 0.2 points annually in some regions[[117]](#_ftn117) (though the U.S. seems more resistant to this than other nations). This may seem like a trivial decline, but when you consider the standard deviation of IQ is 15 points, such a decline, if sustained, will lead to a drop by one standard deviation every 75 years. Should this trend hold in those regions, in just 125 years your average human will have an IQ that would (today) qualify someone as intellectually disabled. (Note: While our timelines are probably off, it is highly unlikely that we are wrong about the general trend.)
“But IQ is not a good measure of intelligence!” We, too, find it tedious and often misleading to focus so heavily on IQ. That said, while there is plenty of research separating out IQ from intelligence and we are the last people to pedestalize it (caring far more about initiative and willpower), IQ does correlate with very common standards of achievement and if all of the outcomes with which IQ correlates began to plummet, we would be seriously worried and we think you would, too.
Some papers have argued that this decline in IQ is purely environmental.[[118]](#_ftn118) These arguments fall flat when combined with an orthogonal source of evidence. In his paper, “Natural Selection May be Making Society More Unequal,” David Hugh-Jones wrote: “We found that 23 out of 33 polygenic scores were significantly linked to a person having more or fewer children over their lifetime. … Scores which correlated with lower earnings and education predicted having more children, meaning those scores are being selected for from an evolutionary perspective. Scores which correlated with higher earnings and education predicted having fewer children, meaning that they are being selected against.”[[119]](#_ftn119) This study even shows the polygenic scores correlated with higher earnings and education decreasing within a population over time.[[120]](#_ftn120) This means it is measurable that genes which correlate with high IQ are appearing at lower frequencies in the population over time and genes correlating with high IQ are correlated with lower fertility rates.
Imagine you are trying to determine the maximum speed of a car. One person makes this determination by looking at the engine and running calculations (this is analogous to the study looking at how genes that correlate with IQ also correlate with birth rate). Another person makes this calculation by getting in the car and flooring the accelerator pedal (this is analogous to the various studies measuring declines in IQ at the population level). If the max speed each group independently determines is close, you can be fairly confident in its accuracy. This is what we see above, meaning we’re probably experiencing a meaningful decline in genes associated with high IQ that is likely to be sustained in the future.
How long has this effect been going on? It’s hard to say. This process may have been in the works for a century or more but masked by the Flynn Effect (the phenomenon where increased nutrition drove an increase in IQ over time). It would be fascinating for someone to look at how these genetic markers appear in populations over time. What we can say is that, from the Holocene to the Iron Age, polygenic markers associated with increased educational attainment (today) went up,[[121]](#_ftn121) while (in Rome at least) they started declining after the classical period.[[122]](#_ftn122)
Are we therefore moving toward an Idiocracy-style future? No—for two reasons.
- Cultural groups that aggressively embrace polygenic risk score screening technology will not only be resistant to this decline in average IQ but will see their IQ rapidly increase. Rather than an Idiocracy-style future, we are therefore more likely to see an Eloi and Morlock scenario play out (sans physical predation, one hopes).[[123]](#_ftn123) If you think inequality is bad now, buckle up. While such disparity could be resolved by making polygenic risk score technology widely and cheaply accessible, goodness knows the supervirus will use its mindless slaves to prevent that from ever happening as it thrives on systemic inequality and will do anything in its power to prevent it being resolved.
- Intelligence isn’t the only trait likely to significantly shift over time. In response to other selective pressures discussed in this book, humans will also become more xenophobic, resistant to new ideas, and preferential toward fascist and strict hierarchies. In an Idiocracy-style future, the government is dumb but benevolent, whereas the future toward which we are presently headed resembles more of an ISIS-style society, with humanity divided into equally hateful extremist sects that all hate each other.
Some researchers in the space have told us that human civilization has gone through this cycle dozens of times before. They suggest research like the paper referenced earlier (which identified declining polygenic risk scores associated with educational attainment among Romans before the collapse of the Empire) demonstrate as much. While we don’t disagree with them, this time around ideological extremists who all hate each other will have nukes and the industrial capacity needed to successfully commit mass genocide.
We will gladly brush many offensive facts under the rug because their wide dispersal would hurt more people than it would help. This is not one of them. Failure to address this issue could spell the end of human civilization, and not a painless one either—one that will come with untold suffering which will initially be borne disproportionately by vulnerable groups (particularly LGBT groups and ethnic minorities).
This extinction-level event is an inevitability if we continue down our current path. In order to change course, people must be willing to educate themselves and stop occluding information from those they see as their “lessers” in the name of short-term political/ideological victories.
It is neither virtuous nor pragmatic to shield others from data about shifting IQ or sociological profiles—or avoid it yourself because of what it might imply. Doing so prioritizes the agenda of your political/ideological faction over the suffering of millions of future people. Doing so makes you the oil company worker who ignores a serious leak as doing so is in the company’s best interest. Doing so makes you the campaign worker who suspects your candidate is raping children but chooses not to dig deeper. Doing so makes you the very picture of moral destitution.
Sometimes people ask us why we work so tirelessly on our “cause.” Why, in addition to our day jobs, do we publish books, oversee a foundation, engage in pronatalist advocacy, manage the Index, and operate a school all at the same time? Because by some estimates, our species simply doesn’t have much time left. Between the virus’s shriekers dominating “elite” society and the now-inevitable coming wave of bigoted, tribalistic zealots, we don’t have much time to gather like-minded allies and either form a unified resistance on Earth or get off the planet.
This problem can be solved—but only for the families who opt in to solving it. People often tag our perspective as elitist or accuse us of only wanting to “save” the elite. This is true to an extent—we do only want to save the elite, but define “elite” as anyone willing to stand side-by-side with us against a corrupted world and put in the work and mental effort to save themselves. If only we lived in a world in which this category of people was not so rare.
When we are criticized for this definition of elite, we are reminded of a South Park scene in which Kyle is swimming Cartman to safety and says, “Cartman, you’ve got to swim! Kick with your legs!”
Cartman replies, “I can’t kick, you just have to save me.”
Drowning Kyle cries, “I need your help!” to which Cartman replies curtly, “No, you just have to save me.”
What we absolutely don’t believe is that some people are better than others because they are genetically predisposed to a high IQ.
**While we do believe some people are better than others, it is their “I will” and not their “IQ” that makes them so.** There are people in this world who are lesser than us—people who understand the scope of the threat to our species, as well as the consequences of ignoring it, who reflexively try to obscure or ignore it so their political faction can score points.
This belief in an “elite” as defined by initiative and willpower is why the Collins Institute for the Gifted does not include test scores in its admissions criteria and instead judges students based on their actions. Though people have no control over their genetics and the circumstances into which they are born, they can actively choose to take action that can either help or harm others.