Idiocracy
Idiocracy
[Cueball is standing in front of three shelves with DVDs, holding a single DVD in his hand looking at the cover. A guy with a white rounded safari hat (Safari Hat from now on) stands behind him.] Cueball: Idiocracy is so true. Safari Hat: I know, right? It used to be that the intelligent, upper classes had more children.
[Zoom on on their heads as Cueball turns towards Safari Hat.] Safari Hat: Sadly, the recent reversal of this trend has dragged IQ scores and average education steadily downward. Cueball: Depressing, huh?
[Zoom out to show Cueball holding the DVD down as Safari Hat lifts on arm towards him.] Safari Hat: Yeah, except everything I just said was wrong. Cueball: Huh? Safari Hat: Wrong. False. The opposite of true.
[Zoom in only on Safari Hat.] Safari Hat: You're like the religious zealots who are burdened by their superiority with the sad duty of decrying the obvious moral decay of each new generation. Safari Hat: And you're just as wrong.
[Zoom out to both as before, but this time it is Cueball who holds up a finger.] Cueball: But look at how popular— Safari Hat: More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did.
[Cueball spreads out his arms (the DVD gone) as Safari Hat has walked out off the panel.] Cueball: Look — all we need is a program that limits breeding to— Safari Hat (off-panel): New theory: Stupid people reproduce more because the alternative is sleeping with you.

The title of this comic is a reference to the dystopian comedy Idiocracy . The film postulates that over about 500 years, society will suffer from a massive decrease in intellectual potential. This development is attributed to the fact that people with a lower IQ are believed to be more likely to reproduce thus more readily pass on their genes.
Cueball professes his approval for the theories represented in the film, and the guy with the white safari hat agrees with him, lamenting the gradual decay in intelligence and education. (Note that Safari Hat is not the same guy as White Hat ! See below.)
But in panel 3, Safari Hat suddenly reveals that all the "facts" he cited were wrong, and we learn that he doesn't support the dysgenic thesis at all. He turns to accuse Cueball of conceited self-righteousness (using religious zealots as an analogy), harshly condemning intelligence dysgenics as an excuse for feeling superior to the rest of society. Cueball's suggestion of birth control for the unintelligent only furthers his attitude. Although it is not named, one thing at work here is the Dunning-Kruger effect — that stupid people don't realize they're stupid.
Safari Hat's punchline, playing on Cueball's birth control suggestion, is a direct insult: it would be better to reproduce with a stupid person than an elitist like Cueball.
It's pretty clear here that Randall is voicing his opinion through Safari Hat, and using Cueball as a straw man.
The title text reflects the opinion. It makes a few cheery comments on the future, but then finishes on a rather sour note about climate change . Climate change is a recurring theme in xkcd.
In fact, a negative correlation between intelligence and fertility is disputed; see the Wikipedia article on the accumulation of disadvantageous genes: dysgenics . And regardless of this the actual absolute IQs in modern societies have been rising, see Flynn effect . This can be paraphrased with the statement, that if the generation of our grandparents would take a today's IQ test, they would barely score an IQ of 70 and be at the limit of intellectual disability.
[Cueball is standing in front of three shelves with DVDs, holding a single DVD in his hand looking at the cover. A guy with a white rounded safari hat (Safari Hat from now on) stands behind him.] Cueball: Idiocracy is so true. Safari Hat: I know, right? It used to be that the intelligent, upper classes had more children.
[Zoom on on their heads as Cueball turns towards Safari Hat.] Safari Hat: Sadly, the recent reversal of this trend has dragged IQ scores and average education steadily downward. Cueball: Depressing, huh?
[Zoom out to show Cueball holding the DVD down as Safari Hat lifts on arm towards him.] Safari Hat: Yeah, except everything I just said was wrong. Cueball: Huh? Safari Hat: Wrong. False. The opposite of true.
[Zoom in only on Safari Hat.] Safari Hat: You're like the religious zealots who are burdened by their superiority with the sad duty of decrying the obvious moral decay of each new generation. Safari Hat: And you're just as wrong.
[Zoom out to both as before, but this time it is Cueball who holds up a finger.] Cueball: But look at how popular— Safari Hat: More harm has been done by people panicked over societal decline than societal decline ever did.
[Cueball spreads out his arms (the DVD gone) as Safari Hat has walked out off the panel.] Cueball: Look — all we need is a program that limits breeding to— Safari Hat (off-panel): New theory: Stupid people reproduce more because the alternative is sleeping with you.
