# Looking back from the year 3000 **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [September 18, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195 "2006-09-18T16:26:32Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 1
**Author:** ![Little\_Nemo](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/little_nemo/32/3120_2.png) [@Little\_Nemo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Little_Nemo)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/1 "2006-09-18T16:26:32Z")
Imagine it’s approximately a thousand years in the future. What will an average person know about the 20th century? For comparison’s sake, could you name out of memory the five most influential people and five most influential events that happened between the years 901 and 1000? ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 4:35pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/2 "2006-09-18T16:35:02Z")
I’ve been to the year 3000. Nothing has changed, but we live underwater. ---
**Author:** ![The\_Hamster\_King](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/8edcca/32.png) [@The\_Hamster\_King](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/The_Hamster_King)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 5:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/3 "2006-09-18T17:26:24Z")
[QUOTE=Little Nemo] Imagine it’s approximately a thousand years in the future. What will an average person know about the 20th century? [/QUOTE] Adolf Hitler and the moon landing. Hitler will survive as a general-purpose boogyman, like Attila the Hun, but most people won’t have a clear idea of what he did that was so horrible or why he did it. The moon landing will linger on in popular memory as potted-history shorthand for “around the year 2000 there was a major surge forward in technology lasting several hundred years”. Everything else? Sand through the hourglass … . ---
**Author:** ![chowder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/977dab/32.png) [@chowder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chowder)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 5:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/4 "2006-09-18T17:43:03Z")
[QUOTE=jjimm] I’ve been to the year 3000. Nothing has changed, but we live underwater. [/QUOTE] Oh **jjimm** who won the FA CUP? ---
**Author:** ![Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/9de053/32.png) [@Jackknifed\_Juggernaut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Jackknifed_Juggernaut)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 6:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/5 "2006-09-18T18:02:35Z")
31st century school teacher: “You see children, back in the 20th century, people came in different colors and worshipped various imaginary creatures that they called ‘god’. And very often, they’d kill each other simply because of these differences. Aren’t you glad that you didn’t live back then?” At least I hope that the lecture would go something like that. ---
**Author:** ![RealityChuck](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/realitychuck/32/195_2.png) [@RealityChuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RealityChuck)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 6:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/6 "2006-09-18T18:24:35Z")
Probably only that the Psychlos captured Earth and wiped out the dogs’ civilization. The man-animals are much to stupid to train, and probably will need to be dealt with. ---
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 6:29pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/7 "2006-09-18T18:29:16Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Oh **jjimm** who won the FA CUP? [/QUOTE] Not sure, but [Busted](http://www.sing365.com/music/Lyric.nsf/Year-3000-lyrics-Busted/685C69A58CF5BA0748256C52000E8A99) are no. 1 in the charts, and triple breasted women swim around town totally naked! ---
**Author:** ![chappachula](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/d2c977/32.png) [@chappachula](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chappachula)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 6:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/8 "2006-09-18T18:32:33Z")
"well, children, it’s hard to imagine but… people back then used to die without knowing in advance when. They had no real medical knowledge, and they didn’t seem to care–in fact, they actually _celebrated_ the fact that they had no control over their own lives and that each person was different. With no way to know or plan their offspring’s character, they were just …(ugh!)… _born_, the same way animals do it… with random features. Some of them even had deformities. ---
**Author:** ![Baron\_Greenback](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/baron_greenback/32/48_2.png) [@Baron\_Greenback](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baron_Greenback)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 6:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/9 "2006-09-18T18:43:49Z")
If the rate of technological innovation continues at anything like the rate of the last century, and catastrophe can be averted, they will look back on us like we look back on _homo erectus_. ---
**Author:** ![Chez\_Guevara](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/c/aeb1de/32.png) [@Chez\_Guevara](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chez_Guevara)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 7:28pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/10 "2006-09-18T19:28:54Z")
[QUOTE=chowder] Oh **jjimm** who won the FA CUP? [/QUOTE] Manchester Microsoft Kentucky Fried Chicken City. ---
**Author:** ![Sunspace](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sunspace/32/1250_2.png) [@Sunspace](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sunspace)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 7:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/11 "2006-09-18T19:48:14Z")
That was Manchester Microsoft Kentucky Fried Chicken _Luna_ City. And even they almost got stomped by the Erisian team. The high-gravity teams are still out of the running, I’m afraid. ---
**Author:** ![athelas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/5e9695/32.png) [@athelas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/athelas)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 8:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/12 "2006-09-18T20:49:11Z")
“…and people still reproduced organically. No sterile bottles, no gentle decantation. You can all imagine what the shock must have been like. But progress is lovely; everyone is happy nowadays.” I don’t think we’ll necessarily stay at that sort of thing for long, but I think it will happen sometimes between now and then. ---
**Author:** ![ITR\_champion](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/i/c67d28/32.png) [@ITR\_champion](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ITR_champion)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 9:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/13 "2006-09-18T21:15:26Z")
Seeing as most people today associate “the Middle Ages” with Puritan witch burnings, the Spanish Inquisition, and other stuff that didn’t happen in the Middle Ages, I bet that folks in the year 3000 will remember the 20th century mainly for stuff that happened around 2500. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 9:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/14 "2006-09-18T21:27:44Z")
The fact that the past century has been recorded so heavily in so many visual ways, far more than any other, makes me think that it’ll be viewed as something of a watershed in historical understanding. In the same way as the invention of written language, or of the printing press, or the advent of newspapers all provide a method of understanding and connecting with particular eras which is not possible with previous ones, the moving image will be the profound legacy of the 20th century. (And, in **ITR champion** ’s vein, it’ll be blurred with Victorian photography, with the two world wars in the middle of the 200-odd year span.) And BTW, the Champions League in 3000 went to Ipswich State University. ---
**Author:** ![Gary\_Robson](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gary_robson/32/3448_2.png) [@Gary\_Robson](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Gary_Robson)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 9:49pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/15 "2006-09-18T21:49:46Z")
It was a strange time back then, children. It was around the end of the era of privacy. Prior to the 21st century, people often had _no idea_ what their neighbors were doing. Even movie stars had what they called “private lives” where they could do things you couldn’t watch. There was a profession called “paparazzi,” in which people actually made money for taking pictures of people when they didn’t expect it. Employers frequently didn’t know their employees’ hobbies or sexual preferences. When women were asked out on a date (the men did all the asking back then), they had to decide whether to go without knowing the man’s previous sexual history or how he treated his mother. It was a strange time back then… ---
**Author:** ![Mahaloth](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/mahaloth/32/1079_2.png) [@Mahaloth](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mahaloth)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 9:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/16 "2006-09-18T21:55:16Z")
I think the moon landing will be the only event that will remain noteworthy. We actually escaped Earth for the first time. Hitler? Long forgotten by anyone who doesn’t study history. What really did he do that will matter in 3000? The only thing I can remember about the year 11th century is William the Conquerer, and only because I’m half-Brittish. ---
**Author:** ![GorillaMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/50afbb/32.png) [@GorillaMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GorillaMan)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 10:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/17 "2006-09-18T22:42:38Z")
Oh, one more thing…_transistor_. Inventions which seem obvious or commonplace or simply not worth observing can be those which cause massive change. Never mind t’internet…you try the moon landing using valves. ---
**Author:** ![ParentalAdvisory](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/53a042/32.png) [@ParentalAdvisory](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/ParentalAdvisory)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 11:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/18 "2006-09-18T23:42:43Z")
[QUOTE=Struan] …they will look back on us like we look back on _homo erectus_. [/QUOTE] Maybe in 50 to 100 thousand years. Or maybe [you’re right.](http://www.techdigest.tv/2006/09/scientists_inve.html) ---
**Author:** ![Kent\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/kent_clark/32/105_2.png) [@Kent\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kent_Clark)\ **Post date:** [September 18, 2006, 11:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/19 "2006-09-18T23:55:11Z")
We were at war with Eastasia. We had _always_ been at war with Eastasia. ---
**Author:** ![Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spectre_of_pithecanthropus/32/12343_2.png) [@Spectre\_of\_Pithecanthropus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spectre_of_Pithecanthropus)\ **Post date:** [September 19, 2006, 12:00am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195/20 "2006-09-19T00:00:39Z")
[QUOTE=Jackknifed Juggernaut] 31st century school teacher: “You see children, back in the 20th century, people came in different colors and worshipped various imaginary creatures that they called ‘god’. And very often, they’d kill each other simply because of these differences. Aren’t you glad that you didn’t live back then?” At least I hope that the lecture would go something like that. [/QUOTE] At least this will show that the desire to preach and proselytize is not limited to the faithful. [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/looking-back-from-the-year-3000/373195.md?page=2)