If people in 300 years time look back at us
Discussion
... what would they be horrified by us doing?
Obviously we look back at things like slavery with disgust (barring a few posters in NP&E perhaps) and judge the people of that time by our modern standards.
So how will people in 300 years time judge us? What things are we doing now, and think of as normal, that will be unthinkable and evil in the not too distant future?
A couple of things I've considered are the environmental damage we're doing to the earth, and also rearing and eating animals for food. On the latter, I am a meat-eater - love a nice steak but equally wouldn't want to see the inside of an abattoir and find it hard to reconcile breeding and raising a sentient being only to kill it (often quite young) to consume when there are many alternative protein sources available. Would that make me akin to a slave trader to our future selves?
What else? What other societal or personal norms do we have that could fall into this category?
Just a random musing, happy to delete the topic if it's already been covered, or is just a bit rubbish :-)
Obviously we look back at things like slavery with disgust (barring a few posters in NP&E perhaps) and judge the people of that time by our modern standards.
So how will people in 300 years time judge us? What things are we doing now, and think of as normal, that will be unthinkable and evil in the not too distant future?
A couple of things I've considered are the environmental damage we're doing to the earth, and also rearing and eating animals for food. On the latter, I am a meat-eater - love a nice steak but equally wouldn't want to see the inside of an abattoir and find it hard to reconcile breeding and raising a sentient being only to kill it (often quite young) to consume when there are many alternative protein sources available. Would that make me akin to a slave trader to our future selves?
What else? What other societal or personal norms do we have that could fall into this category?
Just a random musing, happy to delete the topic if it's already been covered, or is just a bit rubbish :-)
Much like the difference between Ancient Rome and the Late roman empire,
They will look at the difference between modern architecture, art and fashion etc. and what came before and wonder what the f
k happened to cause everyone in the world to stop bothering with making anything attractive any more and replacing everything with concrete boxes, tracksuit bottoms and "conceptual art"
They will look at the difference between modern architecture, art and fashion etc. and what came before and wonder what the f
k happened to cause everyone in the world to stop bothering with making anything attractive any more and replacing everything with concrete boxes, tracksuit bottoms and "conceptual art"They'll be thinking - i wonder if the stories are real - of people and machines on the moon and mars, of abundance of energy and other resources for 5% of the humans on this planet but not the rest, the technological folly of space play grounds, of how people had personal computers and transportation, and.. free time.
Professor Barney said:
... what would they be horrified by us doing?
Obviously we look back at things like slavery with disgust (barring a few posters in NP&E perhaps) and judge the people of that time by our modern standards.
So how will people in 300 years time judge us? What things are we doing now, and think of as normal, that will be unthinkable and evil in the not too distant future?
A couple of things I've considered are the environmental damage we're doing to the earth, and also rearing and eating animals for food. On the latter, I am a meat-eater - love a nice steak but equally wouldn't want to see the inside of an abattoir and find it hard to reconcile breeding and raising a sentient being only to kill it (often quite young) to consume when there are many alternative protein sources available. Would that make me akin to a slave trader to our future selves?
What else? What other societal or personal norms do we have that could fall into this category?
Just a random musing, happy to delete the topic if it's already been covered, or is just a bit rubbish :-)
Meat really is the obvious one I think.Obviously we look back at things like slavery with disgust (barring a few posters in NP&E perhaps) and judge the people of that time by our modern standards.
So how will people in 300 years time judge us? What things are we doing now, and think of as normal, that will be unthinkable and evil in the not too distant future?
A couple of things I've considered are the environmental damage we're doing to the earth, and also rearing and eating animals for food. On the latter, I am a meat-eater - love a nice steak but equally wouldn't want to see the inside of an abattoir and find it hard to reconcile breeding and raising a sentient being only to kill it (often quite young) to consume when there are many alternative protein sources available. Would that make me akin to a slave trader to our future selves?
What else? What other societal or personal norms do we have that could fall into this category?
Just a random musing, happy to delete the topic if it's already been covered, or is just a bit rubbish :-)
I don't intend on stopping eating meat any time soon, but I have invested in a venture capital/investment company that deals with non-meat based protein sources.
Like it or not, it'll happen eventually.
People 300 years from the future will probably be appalled at some of the jobs we used to actually do. Binmen, mining, abbatoir, landfill sites etc. in much the same way that I was pretty appalled when my father in law was telling me about the 'jam boy' on his holiday in the Gambia 30 years ago.
BoRED S2upid said:
The concept of the billionaire (one can hope) they will be looking back at the likes of Musk, Gates and Bezos in horror at the amount of personal wealth they were allowed to accumulate. Governments will soon crack down on it.
Or not.
It goes through cycles. We've been here before. Read up on "The Gilded Age" of American multi-millionaires of the second half of the 19th century.Or not.
The pace of change is only going to increase. If humans are around in 300 years time then looking back on us would be akin to us looking back thousands of years.
Maybe with the advent of AI exponentially overtaking I they'll deem it odd that we made decisions for ourselves.
I imagine they'd be horrified that we let another human operate on us, let alone doing it with knives and sewing kits.
ICE will seem vastly more antiquated to them than steam does to us.
Fusion power has probably been a thing for more than 200 years and has long since been miniaturized meaning the concept of running out of power has disappeared.
Even work itself of any description will probably seem odd.
Maybe they'll wonder in amazement at our ability to see things at a distance of more than a few feet or what it would have felt like to know you're going to die one day.
Maybe with the advent of AI exponentially overtaking I they'll deem it odd that we made decisions for ourselves.
I imagine they'd be horrified that we let another human operate on us, let alone doing it with knives and sewing kits.
ICE will seem vastly more antiquated to them than steam does to us.
Fusion power has probably been a thing for more than 200 years and has long since been miniaturized meaning the concept of running out of power has disappeared.
Even work itself of any description will probably seem odd.
Maybe they'll wonder in amazement at our ability to see things at a distance of more than a few feet or what it would have felt like to know you're going to die one day.
Eric Mc said:
Pixelpeep 135 said:
religion.
How we let a collection of stories (supposedly) written thousands of years ago shape our values and behaviours in the modern world with such blind conviction that we were prepared to murder people to get our point across.
Wanna bet?How we let a collection of stories (supposedly) written thousands of years ago shape our values and behaviours in the modern world with such blind conviction that we were prepared to murder people to get our point across.
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