This thread was somewhat hijacked by Blake’s assertion that historical trends aren’t always linear or unidirectional, and the debate that followed.
I suppose this is true. If you drop an egg onto a concrete sidewalk, it doesn’t always break. Sometimes it bounces and rolls away. Sometimes it turns into a dragon.
That said, most social phenomena in human history have shown a linear progression. Human rights. Scientific knowledge. That sort of thing.
I did, by the way, choose “appalled” in the thread title carefully. It is without doubt that the inhabitants of the next century will think that many of the things we did were silly, quaint, or stupid–much as we think about Victorians putting little dresses on piano legs. They may even particpate in “twenty-first century revivals,” like the current steampunk fad. What I want to see speculation on is specifically what 22nd-century people will see as disgusting or abhorrent.
Had to see a doctor for medical reasons instead of using our nanobots to maintain our body’s health
Had so many separate nations.
Spoke so many separate languages.
Didn’t have human accessory items like implantable or wearable language translation devices to allow us to communicate with people who used the few remaining languages of the world.
I’ve always thought that eventually there will come a time when people are absolutely disgusted at the idea that we were so primitive that people had to go volunteer to have blood taken out of them with a needle so that other people who have had accidents or need surgery can put those other people’s blood in them.
As it happens, I read this about five minutes after watching a video on CNN showing a bunch of males in Afghanistan cheering the shooting of a female who had apparently been involved in an extra-marital affair.
I’d hate to think what that was a linear progression of…
also, i think the original list items of capital punishment, smoking, and discrimination will dominate political debate for a good long while. in fact, i don’t think capital punishment and discrimination will ever be fully wiped away.
I’m going to avoid making social predictions, since these lists seem to revolve around “everyone will agree with me and will be disgusted that anyone ever thought otherwise”.
Technologically speaking, I predict the future-people will find it hard to believe that we;
-Relied on blood and organ donors rather than cloning
-Didn’t have digital HUDs superimposed on our field of vision
-Drove cars that didn’t have autopilot
-Didn’t always have the ability to take pictures or video of everything at any time
-Received TV/radio signals over the air
-Used big computers that took up an entire desk
Peter Singer, whatever else you think of him, came up with a great metaphor for the progress of human ethics: the expanding circle. Humans are tribal critters, and we draw a circle around ourselves and the beings we care for. In our prehistory, that circle included only our extended family, but as we have progressed as a species and in society, we have tended to expand that circle to include an ever-greater swath of beings: our clan, our village, our tribe, our nation, and now human rights. It’s not perfectly linear, but it is a tendency, and it’s somewhat rare (though not unheard-of) for a society to contract that circle.
Everything we do would probably appall them. Their technology will likely be so far advanced that ours will look to them, comparable to how 1900 technology looks to us.
I also believe that, although I cannot be specific, many of our medical processes will seem strange, sloppy, or ineffective.
They’ll be appalled that we knew about the cause of global climate change and what was going to happen to the earth as a result, and yet did nothing, at the only time when it could have been damped if not completely stopped.
They’ll be in awe of the accomplishments. Remember that John Titor had to come back for an IBM 5100 mainframe.
Everything is impossible until it isn’t. —Jean Luc Picard
The Straight Dope will have posters exclaiming over their great-grandparents’ rotary-dial phones that still work on whatever passes for a phone network. Except in Saskatchewan.
I’m not optimistic, however, that humanity can avoid extinction in the next 100 years.
As a means of comparison…
1911 > A measles epidemic in Rotuma in Fiji kills one seventh of the population
Remember the “Bird Flu” epidmemic? How many people did it kill and what was the impact of the measures to prevent it?
Mind you at the same time…
1912 > Herrick first describes heart disease resulting from hardening of the arteries
and if I’m not wrong the 1912 Noble Prize for medicine was given for a method to transplant arteries - so that’s not so far from what we have today.
1914
Research.United States.
==Apr.10 > Alexis Carrel performs the first successful heart surgery, on a dog
This is interesting - 100 years ago was the beginning of heart surgery - so in some ways we haven’t really come that far in terms of medicine in the last 100 years - for the next 100?
Who knows? For stem cells, when my first daughter was born it was little more than a minor fad, when my second was born it was basically de-rigeur to save the stem cells, and there is real belief that they will be of benefit in her lifetime.
Not intervening against regimes like Kim’s North Korea [1]
Abortion
Opposing nuclear power
Banning pot
Political correctness
Modern “art”
Modern music
Justin Bieber
Lady Gaga
Of course this assumes my Probable Optimal Future scenario…
[1] Think sort of like how we criticize the Victorians for the Congo Free State…
Just being primitive, doesn’t mean being “appalled”, I mean we aren’t appalled that our Stone Age ancestors lived in caves for example.