Transcript 11/09/09 Alex Ortiz #10 Tournament of Ten

[gsabc]

I believed you before but now you have the research to prove it. I guess the logic is the same now as it was then. Wealthier more educated people tend to have children later.

This was the main subject of the 2005 Mike Judge movie "Idiocracy", where the planet becomes dumber because the lesser educated people continue to crank out babies while the more intelligent people wait until after they have established themselves and often that is too long.
Pretty funny and scary thesis.

That idea is a lot older than 2005, and Judge (and even Kornbluth) were hardly the first to come up with it. Check this out, PKS. Classic SF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

PKS didn't claim, nor even imply, that the idea originated with Mike Judge...

Didn't say he did. Just pointing out some other, and IMO better, uses of the same idea.

[Estonut]

That idea is a lot older than 2005, and Judge (and even Kornbluth) were hardly the first to come up with it. Check this out, PKS. Classic SF.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Marching_Morons

PKS didn't claim, nor even imply, that the idea originated with Mike Judge...

Didn't say he did. Just pointing out some other, and IMO better, uses of the same idea.

OK, I guess you didn't. Had you not included the phrase "and Judge (and even Kornbluth) were hardly the first to come up with it," I wouldn't have inferred it.

[Jeemie]

Tournament of Ten

Alex Ortiz #10
Stamford, CT

Alex won $50K during her original appearance on 9/25/09. She would lose $25K if she misses this question.

With the 45 seconds for the million dollar question and the timed banked during her first appearance, Alex has a total of 2:56.

$1M Which First Lady was a ninth-generation descendant of Pocahontas?
A. Helen Taft
B. Edith Wilson
C. Bess Truman
D. Mamie Eisenhower

Alex says she has heard this, but doesn’t recall who.

Alex decides not to risk her previous winnings.

Spoiler

B. Edith Wilson (1:19)

Let's see...nine generations, roughly 30 years per generation, Pocahontas was in the late 1500s, so we're looking for someone born in the 1850s or thereabouts. Which of these women was likely to have been born then? Probably not C or D because their husbands were presidents in the 50s, and since I went to William Howard Taft Junior High School and all the stuff we learned about the Tafts didn't include this, it has to be Edith Wilson. Now all that reasoning is easy from the comfort of a recliner; in the HS I probably would have walked away.

Answer:
$1M B. Edith Wilson

[/quote]

This is exactly how I reasoned it out- although I didn't have the luxury of having gone to William Howard Taft Junior High, but I didn't recall that his wife was noted for anything "special".

So a 50:50 shot of losing $25K v. potentially gaining $950K? I would have gone for it!

[Bob78164]

This was the main subject of the 2005 Mike Judge movie "Idiocracy", where the planet becomes dumber because the lesser educated people continue to crank out babies while the more intelligent people wait until after they have established themselves and often that is too long. Pretty funny and scary thesis.

That sounds an awful lot like The Marching Morons by C.M. Kornbluth. Was the movie based on the story? --Bob

[Bob78164]

I wonder whether guillotine06 would have known the answer to this question or guessed correctly. If not, perhaps he can release some of the frustration from being evicted from the Tournament of Ten at literally the last possible moment. --Bob