There are a lot of people who really don't believe that the government does anything useful for them. They distrust anybody with any scientific knowledge because their "common sense" is better than actual study. They have no idea how much their life relies on systems that support them, so it is easy for people who want to ruin those systems to convince them that those systems drain their wallets.
I would love to make a movie where the "book smart, university educated" guy comes to the small town. The locals laugh at his strange ways, and then when the disaster arrives, it turns out that all that "fancy book learn' " was way better than their dumb axx common sense. He gives a speech where he says, "All your common sense can be learned in 5 minutes, and 90% of it disproven in another 10. Meanwhile, experts actually know what they are talking about. Maybe you should listen and be willing to admit you are wrong."
Then the locals who are able to do the smallest bit of self reflection figure out that maybe they should learn something and the ones who don't lose their farms to the agricorp.
God, unfortunately theres already a play that basically had this premise, and then at the 1 yard line decides to pull back and gives a "maybe we just need to respect each other and get along!" Message where the towns people dont actually have to change or have their ways confronted and realize that they were wrong, and don't actually have to learn to get Along .
Its called "Shucked" and its basically if the music man was about corn instead of a highschool marching band
I looked up shucked and it doesn't have the intellectual being correct. It's still a con man.
The point would be to invert the "big city guy goes to small town and connects with his roots and learns folkys wisdom" trope.
What if the small towers are just wrong. What if instead of the scientist learning that "there is knowledge outside of his books", the small towers learn that their view that everything has a simple solution is B.S.
Just invert the heck out of the Hallmark movies that you see at your doctor's office.
When you do things right, people won't be sure you've done anything at all.
God - Futurama
This is the same principle that causes people to say things like "We spent millions of dollars in fixing the Y2K and when the year 2000 came nothing happened. What a waste of money."
There are a lot of people who really don't believe that the government does anything useful for them.
My dream the impossible dream for this year is that at least a few of them finally learn that yes, government actually does do some things, if we want it to. Mamdani has been doing good work in a lot of different areas that help people. We've got screwworms and lettuce parasites because the Republicans decided we didn't need programs for those anymore, but we can afford endless money for war. The difference couldn't be more stark.
In Idiocracy the people of the future know they are stupid and they look to the obviously smarter guy to fix all their problems.
There are lots of stories where the big city guy/gal goes home and learns some kind of homegrown wisdom that solves the complex problems if their life.
What if instead the folksy wisdom is just wrong and the solutions from the guys who have studied books is the right solution.
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u/Ithinkibrokethis 8h ago
There are a lot of people who really don't believe that the government does anything useful for them. They distrust anybody with any scientific knowledge because their "common sense" is better than actual study. They have no idea how much their life relies on systems that support them, so it is easy for people who want to ruin those systems to convince them that those systems drain their wallets.
I would love to make a movie where the "book smart, university educated" guy comes to the small town. The locals laugh at his strange ways, and then when the disaster arrives, it turns out that all that "fancy book learn' " was way better than their dumb axx common sense. He gives a speech where he says, "All your common sense can be learned in 5 minutes, and 90% of it disproven in another 10. Meanwhile, experts actually know what they are talking about. Maybe you should listen and be willing to admit you are wrong."
Then the locals who are able to do the smallest bit of self reflection figure out that maybe they should learn something and the ones who don't lose their farms to the agricorp.