by TheDude » Thu 27 Mar 2008, 18:11:48
$this->bbcode_second_pass_quote('DomusAlbion', 'V')iew the Mike Judge movie Idiocracy to get one take on this idea.
Or read CM Kornbluth's story
The Marching Morons for another. Wells' Morlocks and Eloi are also devolved humans.
Reading
Riddley Walker by Russel Hoban, which takes place a couple thousand years from now, in the area around "Cambry" (Canterbury) and "Do It Over" (Dover). Spelling is all over the place, technology is Iron Age - lots of machines to dig up for the iron. An era of revolts against "cleverness" is part of folk memory too. Whether people have actually devolved mentally I can't quite tell but people are thoroughly confused about how things worked - one character has a bit of ancient text, likely from a tourist guidebook, describing the mural depicting the life of St. Eustace, into which he reads all sorts of false assumptions. Fascinating book.