The "average" IQ score falls below 100, despite 100 being the definition of average IQ. However, this could very well be the result of the testers not adjusting the scoring system to account for everybody's stupidity, because their intelligence has diminished as well.
Or maybe Joe's IQ dwarfs their IQ and the narrator is in fact mathematically accurate.
Dr Lexus attempts to comfort Joe Bauers by telling him of other 'tards' living 'kickass lives' - including his first wife who became a pilot. Given the inverted logic of the tests, this isn't just a throwaway line - people sharing similar traits to Joe (ie, normal intelligence by modern standards, or close to it) might well be out there doing the jobs that are just a little too complicated for the rest of the population. Certainly there's someone out there at least smart enough to fly a jumbo jet during the film, although since it gets shot down we'll never know if they were smart enough to land it.
And given the technical skills needed for repair, upkeep, and especially navigation and ground support of planes, commercial flight would likely be as disastrous as we see even with perfectly competent pilots.
The question involving buckets may sound Easier Than Easy, but it could actually be a test of common sense and patience. The question begins with "if you have a bucket that holds two gallons, and another bucket that holds five gallons", an impatient person would blurt out "seven". A patient, rational person would wait for the question to end, allowing them to hear, "how many buckets do you have?" It could actually have been a good trick question.
Similar questions are also part of competency exams, though they usually are more involved than counting the buckets.
Maybe part of the reason for the decline in intelligence and capabilities is that the best people were sent off to colonize other planets and were thereby removed from the gene pool.
Nope; the movie is very clear about it. This decline is because dumber people "breed like rabbits" while smarter people have few children.
President Dwayne Alizondo Mountain Dew Herbert Camacho seems unusually likeable (since he understands that there are people smarter than him, and saves Joe from the mob) when one considers that everyone else in the future is both a moron and a Jerkass. But his character was inspired by the voters who weren’t doctrinaire Republicans who voted for Bush because, unlike Gore or Kerry, he was “a guy you’d wanna have a beer with.” With that in mind, of course Camacho would be likeable and personable. This also entails that he be at least a little smarter than everyone else, because true, willful ignorance is an inherently unsympathetic trait, especially for those who don’t get better.
The "Time Masheen" claiming that Charlie Chaplin was the evil dictator trying to takeover the world seems like a silly joke, but considering the people in this world don't have any respect for even a whiff of intellectualism, it is easy to see why any historical study is practically non-existent.
When he gets to prison, Joe takes an IQ test that is so good, that President Camacho immediately gives him a cabinet position. It is possible Camacho set up these tests so that he could find someone with the intelligence to solve America's pressing problems.
Brawndo going bankrupt after Joe orders that the crops be given only water makes sense: Branwdo has not only monopolized much of the soft drink industry but even utilities since Brawndo is used in water fountains and irrigation. The switch would severely impact Brawndo's bottom line in a way that would be too fast to fix.
There's a moment toward the end where Hormel Chavez, the star of Ow! My Balls!, has his voice partly cracking when he speaks. Considering how the testicles produce testosterone which, among other things, elongates male vocal cords to produce a deeper voice, it would sort-of make sense for a grown man who's repeatedly Groin Attacked to sometimes sound like he's still going through puberty as a minor side effect.
Fridge Horror
The Stinger in which Upgrayedd emerges from his hibernation pod. This is a man who is used to living by his wits and his ability to manipulate people into doing what he wants. He is so terrifying that Rita fears him 500 years into the future, constantly stating that Upgrayedd will find her and get his money. Now, this man is in the future, surrounded by people who literally live on their selfish whims and desires and a ready market willing to buy whatever Upgrayedd will sell. It's truly horrifying to think what kind of empire he will have in a few years, being sent into a world almost tailor-made for a man of his skills.
That Rita fears him is a Running Gag, but the stinger shows this is wise. Presumably, as the smartest woman alive (and pretty clearly smarter than Joe), she's likely safe from him — and is implied to have years to prepare.
The riot scene shows a jumbo jet nose-diving and crash landing in a fiery blaze. It seems funny at first until you realize that looked like a commercial airplane, ya know with passengers in it.
While the film portrays the stupidity of 2505 as the result of dumb people outbreeding smart people, there could be another explanation: mega-corporations have deliberately manipulated society for centuries into giving them everything they want. Brawndo was able to buy out not just politicians, but entire government agencies and make their product ubiquitous enough that people treat Brawndo consumption as a scientific fact. Corporations have gained a ridiculous degree of power in society, and it is implied their power extends beyond replacing water itself. And the way they've wielded that power is why society has broken down.
A woman tries to buy some fries from a Carl's Jr. kiosk. Though she clearly paid, the box that comes out of the dispenser is empty. When she argues with the machine that it didn't give her anything, the machine responds by spraying her face with some kind of mist that instantly turns her docile (and she eventually just wanders off). Meanwhile, her two children are left there, while the kiosk states "you are an unfit mother, your children are now the property of Carl's Jr." The machine couldn't give food it didn't have (as a result of the mentioned dust bowl), yet charged the woman anyway, and then stole her kids because she couldn't feed them. How many kids ended up being corporate property this way? Brrr! Later, a fat guard that checks Joe in when he arrives in prison has a Carl's Jr. logo tattooed beneath his right ear, suggesting he was raised by that company and labeled as their property...
It can be deduced from above that entire generations of children are "adopted" by corporations and indoctrinated into being mindless consumers. Dr. Lexus was raised by the Lexus corporation, Frito was raised by Frito's. Schools don't just instill into people that Brawndo is healthy, but that corporations and their aims ought to be respected. It is even possible they discouraged any kind of higher learning or critical thinking, considering how much mockery Joe gets for his relative intelligence and eloquence.
Costco apparently provides law degrees. A moron like Frito being allowed to get a law degree seems like an absurd joke, but there may be a more sinister reason: in the ancient past, Costco was able to rig the courts to not only give themselves immunity, but deliberately churn out bad lawyers and public defenders so nobody could stop them from taking control of the legal system. Perhaps even more menacingly, they used the corrupted legal system to silence past dissenters from standing up to them. The reason why Joe is mistreated in court and the prisons are so bad is that they were set up to persecute people like him.
Unfortunately, the corporations' plans worked too well: they have succeeded in manipulating society so much, there is nobody left who could reverse course, even with things like a Dust Bowl approaching. Everybody alive takes the bullshit and manipulations spewed by these mega-corporations as a given fact and lacks the mental ability to resist, thus why society seems to be drifting toward some sort of collapse. Even the Brawndo CEO apparently ended up buying the propaganda his ancestors spewed and has no clue how to stop his company from laying people off. It is telling that Camacho is so desperate to find anybody to solve the problem he recruits someone who is (technically) a convicted felon to serve in his cabinet.
Joe and Rita marrying and having kids is nice and all, but what's going to happen if and when they need to seek medical attention for any reason? Would there be any intelligent doctors to properly treat them? Was that machine with the three reader prongs even giving the correct diagnosis?
There is a good explanation for why there is a drought aside from Brawndo accidentally salting the Earth: considering how much water it takes to make soft drinks, and the entire water supply has been replaced with Brawndo, it is obvious that after centuries of abuse, the reserves of fresh water have become horribly drained. Lowering the production of Brawndo alone might be environmentally beneficial since just using pure water is more environmentally friendly than just spending time and energy making an energy drink.
None of the problems presented in the movie will be fixed quickly enough to save the millions that will die shortly from malnutrition and disease. Joe may find himself President of an empty world unless drastic steps are taken.
Brawndo is about one of the only things anyone in the future drinks, and in one scene, a mother is seen force-feeding a bottle of it to her baby, with the baby trying to shove it away. It says a lot about the future if infants are smarter than adults, at least enough to know that this drink is bad for them...
Notice how in the future no elderly people are seen... Considering the rancid lifestyle and diet of the dumbed down society, we see no elders because people probably die of heart failure, diabetes and other diseases before reaching their 60s...
What if the avalanche didn't uncover the pods? Joe and Rita would end trapped in them in some unspecified time, when something causes the pods to warm up.
"And what about the nuc-"nucular" reactor in Florida? It's broke and leaky and something's happening." Uh...
One of the Cabinet members ends every sentence with "brought to you by Carl's Jr." explaining that they pay him every time he does. How do they know he's saying it?
One could infer that they paid him to say it in public, but he’s too incompetent to realize that.
Or they have no way of checking, they just take his word for it. Whatever secretary is in charge of giving him the money doesn't care. He comes in for his weekly paycheck and they ask how many times he's said it. He answers, "Uh, I dunno, a whole buncha times. A lot. Like, ten, or, like... twenty. Brought to you by Carl's Jr."
The film seemingly overlooks that half the workforce has lost their jobs, sparking an economic collapse that would make The Great Depression seem tame. Unless Joe's agricultural reforms create some kind of boom, the American people are headed for some rough times.
