# Snobbery of chronology...can't believe people used to believe that **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [October 27, 2013, 12:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367 "2013-10-27T12:18:01Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![FXMastermind](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fxmastermind/32/7289_2.png) [@FXMastermind](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/FXMastermind)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 10:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/41 "2013-10-28T10:33:59Z")
I find just looking back 60 years ago to be quite enough to enjoy some scientific snobbery. People thought [setting off nuclear bombs was a great idea](http://motherboard.vice.com/blog/the-u-s-s-insane-attempt-to-build-a-harbor-with-a-two-megaton-nuclear-bomb). The most advanced scientists, in fields like geology, astronomy, climatology and medicine, as well as rocket science, genetics and materials, we know more than they did in 1953. ---
**Author:** ![Smeghead](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/f1d935/32.png) [@Smeghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Smeghead)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 4:32pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/42 "2013-10-28T16:32:08Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > Already we are close to immortality through the reading of our DNA. All that is necessary is to pinpoint the aging genes and switch them off, plus correct those genes which select for genetic diseases. There is every likelihood that will occur in the next 80 years. That is a VAST oversimplification. ---
**Author:** ![Find\_Friends](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/c37758/32.png) [@Find\_Friends](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Find_Friends)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 4:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/43 "2013-10-28T16:53:30Z")
There were actually some people, otherwise intelligent, who would loudly insist that there were no errors or contradictions in the Christian Bible (Or other “sacred literature” of their choice). Fortunately, cures for compartmentalized minds were devised late in the 21st century. It is noteworthy that many of these buffoons actually had to be forced into treatment. But they were grateful in retrospection. 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Annie-Xmas](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/ecc23a/32.png) [@Annie-Xmas](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Annie-Xmas)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 6:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/44 "2013-10-28T18:21:36Z")
You know, people use to fear [del]cancer[/del] AIDS so much because they thought the people who caught it were bad people. ---
**Author:** ![BlinkingDuck](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/eada6e/32.png) [@BlinkingDuck](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BlinkingDuck)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 6:36pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/45 "2013-10-28T18:36:41Z")
Can you believe back then they were worried about OVERpopulation??!? ---
**Author:** ![BigT](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/bigt/32/12044_2.png) [@BigT](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BigT)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/46 "2013-10-28T19:00:17Z")
> [@njtt](#): > > You really think that this only applies to the psychologists and psychiatrists, do you? :dubious: > > One thing is very clear to me, those people who single out psychology and psychiatry for their especial disdain, invariably know absolutely zip about any developments in those fields since about 1950 (and often know zip at all, except maybe some garbled fragment of Freud). > > I am not saying current theories probably will not look quaint and primitive in 2500 (if a civilization able to support scientific progress till exists by then), but the same probably applies to much of modern physics – I mean, come on! quantum superposition? a big bang? cosmic inflation? dark energy? Higgs bosons? strings? That is all pretty wild and fanciful stuff. That’s just because there’s a lot more room to grow in those fields. We can’t predict human behavior at anywhere near the level we can predict those other things you mentioned (save maybe the superstrings). I mean, we predicted the Higgs boson and then actually found it where we predicted it. Yet we still aren’t sure how SSRIs actually mediate depression, let alone anxiety. ---
**Author:** ![snowthx](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/snowthx/32/10660_2.png) [@snowthx](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/snowthx)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 7:04pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/47 "2013-10-28T19:04:10Z")
Back in those days, people used to barbarically believe in gods and devils, and worship these things while slitting the throats of other people who did not believe in the same gods and devils. They used to spend a lot of time and effort building baubles and edifices to this worship, while others nearby suffered from hunger. We are lucky humanity evolved and won the fight against ignorance and threw off the shackles of “belief”, liberating ourselves from the ways of the ancient ones, so that we could focus on successfully living together and solving issues for ALL of us. They also had these quaint institutions called “countries” that, get this, used to pride-fully compete and fight one another over resources, and even ideas – this was called “war”. These countries were ruled by those that craved only power over others – they were known as “politicians” and served only their financial masters. ---
**Author:** ![dracoi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/90db22/32.png) [@dracoi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dracoi)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 7:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/48 "2013-10-28T19:23:04Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > To be honest I think the year 2500 is incomprehensibly far away and it is simply not possible for us to look that far ahead. Perhaps the year 2100 is more reasonable. > > Already we are close to immortality through the reading of our DNA. All that is necessary is to pinpoint the aging genes and switch them off, plus correct those genes which select for genetic diseases. There is every likelihood that will occur in the next 80 years. > > It is possible that our children will be the last new humans and they will live indefinitely. > > Then there is the likely merging of man and machine with nanobots and kevlar-like skins to protect the mortal coil. It is but a short step from there to uploading our minds into machines which will be removed from the need for organic food and exist on electrons and photons. The Universe will be wide open. > > I don’t think there will be any people in the normal organic sense by the year 2500 and Earth may have become a mystical legendary memory. The mother planet somewhere out in the arm of a spiral galaxy but noone has been there. This sounds like a lot of the things they said at the 1900 World’s Fair. You know, when they thought those people in 2000 would be living like the Jetsons. You might be right, but if I was a betting man, I’d say that the things you describe are far harder to achieve than they sound like. The future will remarkably different from today… but for reasons you haven’t even thought of. ---
**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:** [October 28, 2013, 7:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/49 "2013-10-28T19:40:12Z")
> [@Ken001](#): > > Already we are close to immortality through the reading of our DNA. All that is necessary is to pinpoint the aging genes and switch them off, plus correct those genes which select for genetic diseases. There is every likelihood that will occur in the next 80 years. You’re making the unsupported assumption that there’s an aging gene there to be turned off. It’s more likely that we get old due to an absence of various anti-aging genes. If that’s the case, then there isn’t a quick genetic fix. We’d need fundamental genetic restructuring to be immortal. ---
**Author:** ![Chronos](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chronos/32/134_2.png) [@Chronos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Chronos)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 7:43pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/50 "2013-10-28T19:43:54Z")
A very great many things will change by 2100, much less 2500, and I couldn’t even begin to imagine most of them. But I guarantee you that Earth, the mother planet, will still be remembered in 2500, and I’d be willing to bet a large sum of money that it’ll remain the seat of the majority of humanity (in whatever form “humanity” takes). ---
**Author:** ![bup](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/6bbea6/32.png) [@bup](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bup)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 7:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/51 "2013-10-28T19:51:55Z")
> [@Chronos](#): > > I guarantee you that Earth, the mother planet, will still be remembered in 2500 What form does this guarantee take? ---
**Author:** ![chargerrich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chargerrich/32/5399_2.png) [@chargerrich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chargerrich)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 8:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/52 "2013-10-28T20:05:04Z")
> [@chappachula](#): > > Those primitive ignoramuses (ignorami?)from about 1965 till 2100 believed that everybody had to be treated equally. Even if somebody was disabled or mentally retarded, they still let him go to school with the normal kids. > It should have been obvious that some people are superior to others…But back then they didn’t know how to read their own genes. > They even let the inferior ones copulate!! Didn’t they try that around 1940… in Germany? ☹ ---
**Author:** ![WordMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/e8c25b/32.png) [@WordMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/WordMan)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 8:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/53 "2013-10-28T20:08:27Z")
I can’t believe humans swapped fluids to reproduce. I can’t believe humans had to leave their _creche-pads_ or show their non-avatar selves to other humans. Stuff couldn’t be delivered to or 3-D printed at your pad? I can’t believe humans didn’t live their lives tracked 24/7 and weren’t monitored predictively for aberrent thoughts or the potential for aberrent actions. I can’t believe humans were expected to make decisions without access to instant Big Data analysis and treading group support. …yeah, we’re doomed. 😉 ---
**Author:** ![chargerrich](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/chargerrich/32/5399_2.png) [@chargerrich](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/chargerrich)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 8:10pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/54 "2013-10-28T20:10:26Z")
Why am I having a flashback to Demolition Man? /heads off to Taco Bell for a fine dining experience… ---
**Author:** ![xizor](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/xizor/32/102_2.png) [@xizor](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/xizor)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 8:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/55 "2013-10-28T20:27:13Z")
I am having a flashback to [Sleepers](http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1yCeFmn_e2c) ---
**Author:** ![GuanoLad](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/guanolad/32/42_2.png) [@GuanoLad](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GuanoLad)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 10:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/56 "2013-10-28T22:22:11Z")
> [@snowthx](#): > > Back in those days, people used to barbarically believe in gods and devils, and worship these things while slitting the throats of other people who did not believe in the same gods and devils. They used to spend a lot of time and effort building baubles and edifices to this worship, while others nearby suffered from hunger. We are lucky humanity evolved and won the fight against ignorance and threw off the shackles of “belief”, liberating ourselves from the ways of the ancient ones, so that we could focus on successfully living together and solving issues for ALL of us. They also had these quaint institutions called “countries” that, get this, used to pride-fully compete and fight one another over resources, and even ideas – this was called “war”. These countries were ruled by those that craved only power over others – they were known as “politicians” and served only their financial masters. Clicks “Like” button. Then “Thumbs Up.” Then adds “This!” comment. ---
**Author:** ![njtt](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/ecd19e/32.png) [@njtt](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/njtt)\ **Post date:** [October 28, 2013, 11:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/57 "2013-10-28T23:11:41Z")
> [@BigT](#): > > That’s just because there’s a lot more room to grow in those fields. We can’t predict human behavior at anywhere near the level we can predict those other things you mentioned (save maybe the superstrings). I mean, we predicted the Higgs boson and then actually found it where we predicted it. Yet we still aren’t sure how SSRIs actually mediate depression, let alone anxiety. Oh I don’t disagree at all.Psychology is a lot harder than physics, which is why we haven’t got very far with it yet (though we have a got a good deal further than many people are aware). What I am objecting to is the attitude that says, in effect “I am a physicist (or engineer) so I must be very smart. I don’t understand what psychologists and psychiatrists are on about, and they don’t have nice clean, definite answers like we physical scientists do, so it must all be bullshit and they must all be idiots.” It is all to common, even on these boards. I may be a bit sensitive because I also came across a particularly blatant example of the “psychology is bullshit and not real science” on Metafilter recently, another board that is usually pretty smart (and where I sometimes lurk, but do not post). ---
**Author:** ![Baker](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/bb73d2/32.png) [@Baker](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Baker)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 1:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/58 "2013-10-29T01:09:09Z")
> [@A Scanner Darkly](#): > > Beware the beast Man, for he is the Devil’s pawn. > Alone among God’s primates, he kills for sport or lust or greed. > Yea, he will murder his brother to possess his brother’s land. Let him not breed in great numbers, for he will make a desert of his home and yours. > Shun him; drive him back into his jungle lair, for he is the harbinger of death. I remember that movie!😃 ---
**Author:** ![Slithy\_Tove](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/slithy_tove/32/18248_2.png) [@Slithy\_Tove](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Slithy_Tove)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 11:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/59 "2013-10-29T11:25:44Z")
2263: I read how they kept the last smallpox vaccine in a lab for a long time. It reminded me of how we keep the last rapist swimming in that tank of breathable fluid, just as a curiosity. He makes a nice counterpoint to the world we live in today: finally free of violence, want and fear. We could start a whirlpool in there and let him die painlessly of hypoxia, but since that asteroid will wipe us all out in two years, we might as well go out on a grace note. ---
**Author:** ![BobLibDem](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/boblibdem/32/3149_2.png) [@BobLibDem](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BobLibDem)\ **Post date:** [October 29, 2013, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367/60 "2013-10-29T12:08:57Z")
They used to cut down trees, make paper, print the news on it, and then throw the whole thing in the trash after a day. They burned fossil fuels? Must have been way before every home had a Mr. Fusion. Space exploration with humans? Instead of robots? Whatever for? Paper currency instead of using retina scanners for transactions. Primitive. They built weapons to kill each other. And thought that owning such weapons was an essential right. Amazing. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/snobbery-of-chronology-cant-believe-people-used-to-believe-that/672367.md?page=4)