# What is something that is "business as usual" now that will be seen as horrible in the future? **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [November 1, 2013, 1:21pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836 "2013-11-01T13:21:51Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![TheSeaOtter](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/ed655f/32.png) [@TheSeaOtter](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TheSeaOtter)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 7:41pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/21 "2013-11-01T19:41:54Z")
> [@Stringbean](#): > > Probably burning all the fossil fuels we do, provided the predictions about anthropogenic global warming prove valid. That was my first thought - in a few generations, the prevailing view will likely be “Back then, there was already perfectly good science that proved that fossil fuels so on were wrecking the whole planet, yet they kept doing it. What a bunch of jerks!” ---
**Author:** ![KarlGauss](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/karlgauss/32/3713_2.png) [@KarlGauss](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/KarlGauss)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 7:55pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/22 "2013-11-01T19:55:52Z")
Obligate Star Trek quotes (from Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home): **McCoy** : [McCoy, masked and in surgical garb, passes an elderly woman groaning on a gurney in the hallway] What’s the matter with you? **Elderly patient** : [weakly] Kidney [pause] **Elderly patient** : dialysis. **McCoy** : [geniunely surprised] Dialysis? [musing to himself] **McCoy** : What is this, the Dark Ages? [He turns back to the patient and hands her a large white pill] **McCoy** : Here, [pause] **McCoy** : you swallow that, and if you have any more problems, just call me! [He pats her cheek and leaves] And, a bit later: **McCoy** : Chemotherapy! Dialysis! Sounds more like the goddam Spanish Inquisition! ---
**Author:** ![Lemur866](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/lemur866/32/434_2.png) [@Lemur866](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lemur866)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 9:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/23 "2013-11-01T21:20:38Z")
> [@yellowjacketcoder](#): > > I think today’s realpolitik of allowing human rights abuses in other countries because “we just don’t want to get involved” or “they’re a big trade partner” will be dimly viewed in the future. > > I hope the “spend tons on military and minimally on research” trend gets the same treatment but I think that will be quite a ways down the line. So how do we stop human rights abuses in unspecified other countries without invading them? I mean, it’s all very well to talk about how we have an obligation to stop human rights abuses in China in the abstract, but what does that mean in particular? Stop trading with China unless they follow the bill of rights? How is that going to work? Or to put it another way, people today think slavery is wrong. Now suppose you’re an abolitionist in 1850. You think, just like modern people, that slavery is wrong, and you’d like to stop it. How do you go about stopping slavery? Advocate a civil war over it? ---
**Author:** ![TriPolar](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tripolar/32/3008_2.png) [@TriPolar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/TriPolar)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 9:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/24 "2013-11-01T21:42:58Z")
I think the idea that everyone has to go out and find a job in the private sector (or the public sector jobs that are ‘approved of’) will one day go away. The world’s needs are likely to be served by a small percentage of people working in the private sector and most people will have jobs serving the public needs. It’s inevitable, and the sooner the better. ---
**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:** [November 1, 2013, 10:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/25 "2013-11-01T22:20:09Z")
> [@Human\_Action](#): > > Just speculation, but: > > Reproducing at will, without an extensive government-run approval process. > … > Practicing a religion. Those are somewhat odd speculations, since attempts have been made to wipe out both, and those attempts are what’s now viewed as horrible. The attempt to have the government fully or partially determine who can have children was eugenics, not something looked back on with fondness these days. People such as Robespierre, Lenin, and Mao have attempted to stamp out religion as we know it. (Unsuccessfully, of course.) That’s not regarded as a great idea these days either. ---
**Author:** ![Aspidistra](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aspidistra/32/3894_2.png) [@Aspidistra](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Aspidistra)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 11:07pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/26 "2013-11-01T23:07:54Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So how do we stop human rights abuses in unspecified other countries without invading them? I mean, it’s all very well to talk about how we have an obligation to stop human rights abuses in China in the abstract, but what does that mean in particular? Abolish the concept of the “passport”. All humans are equal, regardless of birthplace. Universal Schengen Zone across the whole of planet earth. IOW, what Napier said. ---
**Author:** ![JRDelirious](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jrdelirious/32/9531_2.png) [@JRDelirious](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JRDelirious)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 11:16pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/27 "2013-11-01T23:16:17Z")
Deja Vu from the “what will they think of us in 500 years” thread? So far all pretty predictable, and largely based on preexisting sociocultural trends and on things that a not-insignificant fraction wishes were _already_ considered censurable; save for the Bones McCoy/medical science bit, which would come under the heading of horrified because of how crude and primitive, not because it was immoral (imagine someone from today’s First World, observing a US Civil War battle hospital…). I would then if given the chance go along the lines of Post #3: that in a world that DOES have the productive capacity to sustain its population, a huge part of them are allowed to be taken down by lack of adequate food or drinking water and/or by easily preventable or curable health conditions, and it’s just par for the course. They may be horrified that it took so long to be straightened out and that it was for so long considered an externality that it was not efficient to address. (…now I’m wondering about the reverse question – what that today WE consider horrible or morally reprehensible _beyond immediate predictable social trends_, will one day be accepted as no big deal .) ---
**Author:** ![aruvqan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/aruvqan/32/2891_2.png) [@aruvqan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/aruvqan)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 11:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/28 "2013-11-01T23:50:09Z")
> [@iiandyiiii](#): > > Even if vat-meat becomes cheap and tasty, there will always be holdouts for the real thing. There will be entire sub-cultures of “natural foodists” who demand to eat meat from a once-living animal, and there will be high-end restaurants that advertise “real pork chops!” and the like. So I think there will always be a small population of these animals. Then I will be able to make a profit selling my free ranged critters that have been raised very humanely. I can’t make any sort of living doing it now, I can’t raise enough that would make it profitable to be bought as a batch by a slaughterhouse [they generally will not buy in quantities of less that hundreds of chickens at a time, or a dozen cows or several dozen sheep. And to operate a slaughtering house on the farm requires so many insane hoops that need to be jumped through it is impossible to do now realistically.] Though I swear I think I actually have an idea how I could produce cloned vat seafood right now - and if it is started from samples taken from living exemplars that are not killed in the process, it would be acceptable for people who object to cruelty and animal slavery to purchase. I simply lack the funding to give it a go. ---
**Author:** ![PSXer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/48db29/32.png) [@PSXer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PSXer)\ **Post date:** [November 1, 2013, 11:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/29 "2013-11-01T23:54:57Z")
Yeah and I know how to build a car that runs on water I just need a few million to get off the ground ---
**Author:** ![Honesty](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/f04885/32.png) [@Honesty](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Honesty)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:10am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/30 "2013-11-02T00:10:15Z")
Capitalism War on Drugs Advertising (as much as we have now) Running peacetime deficits Treatment of Arabs War on Unions (e.g. teachers, civil servants, etc) - Honesty ---
**Author:** ![Wesley\_Clark](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/wesley_clark/32/20581_2.png) [@Wesley\_Clark](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wesley_Clark)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/31 "2013-11-02T00:42:16Z")
Stigma and criminalization of the mentally ill. ---
**Author:** ![alphaboi867](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/alphaboi867/32/3898_2.png) [@alphaboi867](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/alphaboi867)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 1:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/32 "2013-11-02T01:52:58Z")
> [@Miller](#): > > Initially, sure, but given a few generations of people who have grown up eating vat meat? If 95% of the people in a country have never eaten meat from a slaughtered animal, I don’t think it’ll be that hard to convince them that no one should eat meat from a slaughtered animal, and have the practice banned outright. I wonder how widespread acceptance of vat meat effects the cannibalism taboo? “Long pork” seems to show up in every sci-fi story with artificial meat. ---
**Author:** ![yellowjacketcoder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/y/4bbf92/32.png) [@yellowjacketcoder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/yellowjacketcoder)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 2:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/33 "2013-11-02T02:31:17Z")
> [@Lemur866](#): > > So how do we stop human rights abuses in unspecified other countries without invading them? I mean, it’s all very well to talk about how we have an obligation to stop human rights abuses in China in the abstract, but what does that mean in particular? > > Stop trading with China unless they follow the bill of rights? How is that going to work? > > Or to put it another way, people today think slavery is wrong. Now suppose you’re an abolitionist in 1850. You think, just like modern people, that slavery is wrong, and you’d like to stop it. How do you go about stopping slavery? Advocate a civil war over it? I wish I had the answer to those questions. I don’t. The thread was “what will people look back and say ‘OMG’ over” not “how do we fix those problems”. The abolitionist in 1850 probably doesn’t have any realistic options for stopping slavery. I don’t have realistic options for allowing free speech for Chinese citizens. That doesn’t mean people 100 years from now will think it was hunky dory. (It doesn’t mean they will know what we should have done either). ---
**Author:** ![Max\_the\_Immortal](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/6de8d8/32.png) [@Max\_the\_Immortal](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Max_the_Immortal)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 4:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/34 "2013-11-02T04:49:01Z")
I can’t help but think of the _The Culture_ series of novels. The Culture is for the most part a kinder and gentler society than ours, but a lot its people come across to the reader as smug, pampered, assholes. They get no benefit from (let alone depend on) eating animals, supporting capitalism, polluting, owning slaves, or pretty much anything else mentioned in this thread. They’ve never experienced any form of want, yet smugly condemn the barbarians who, when confronted with these issues, don’t voluntarily impoverish themselves. In _Excession_, one of their Minds (advanced AIs) speculates along the lines of: “What if we’re not morally superior at all? What if it just looks that way because doing the right thing never requires us to make sacrifices? Maybe we’d prove to be much worse than most barbarians if put to the test.” ---
**Author:** ![El\_Zagna](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/d2c977/32.png) [@El\_Zagna](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Zagna)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 5:23am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/35 "2013-11-02T05:23:36Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Violent sports like boxing MMA and even football are gonna be seen the way we see gladiatorial combat now. That’s the first thing that popped into my mind. We may already be seeing this happen with the sudden concern about concussions. ---
**Author:** ![GIGObuster](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/gigobuster/32/421_2.png) [@GIGObuster](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/GIGObuster)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 5:33am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/36 "2013-11-02T05:33:25Z")
> [@Honesty](#): > > War on Drugs Speaking of that, I do think Americans in the future will agree that a lot of the people incarcerated now thanks to the war on drugs were political prisoners. ---
**Author:** ![Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/f04885/32.png) [@Qin\_Shi\_Huangdi](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Qin_Shi_Huangdi)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 6:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/37 "2013-11-02T06:57:40Z")
-Legalized abortion (along with certain cases of tolerated infanticide as per the Groningen protocal) -War on Drugs -Poverty being considered a moral failing -White flight, in particular from public schools -Casual divorce -Opposition to nuclear power -Modern pop culture (“twerking”, reality shows, rap music, modern art, and similar examples of degeneracy) -Obsession with novelty -Toleration of genocide, ethnic cleansing, and mass murder (for example in Darfur) ---
**Author:** ![Pjen](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/3d9bf3/32.png) [@Pjen](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Pjen)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 7:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/38 "2013-11-02T07:24:26Z")
The whole question of personal responsibility. Once it is scientifically confirmed that free will and responsibility is a pseudo-scientific myth and that responsibility is a social construct, the entire system of addressing ‘deviant human behaviour’ will change making modern penal and other social control policies seem as medieval as I currently find them. Judicial killing, mass incarceration as vengeance and so on. ---
**Author:** ![VinylTurnip](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/v/b2d939/32.png) [@VinylTurnip](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/VinylTurnip)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 10:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/39 "2013-11-02T10:41:18Z")
> [@Pjen](#): > > The whole question of personal responsibility. Once it is scientifically confirmed that free will and responsibility is a pseudo-scientific myth and that responsibility is a social construct, the entire system of addressing ‘deviant human behaviour’ will change making modern penal and other social control policies seem as medieval as I currently find them. > > Judicial killing, mass incarceration as vengeance and so on. So in this new Age of Enlightenment will there be a perfected Ludovico technique, or do we all collectively shrug our shoulders and say “oh well, murderers gonna murder”? ---
**Author:** ![marshmallow](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/df705f/32.png) [@marshmallow](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/marshmallow)\ **Post date:** [November 2, 2013, 12:03pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836/40 "2013-11-02T12:03:21Z")
> [@DigitalC](#): > > Violent sports like boxing MMA and even football are gonna be seen the way we see gladiatorial combat now. Awesome? [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836.md?page=1) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-is-something-that-is-business-as-usual-now-that-will-be-seen-as-horrible-in-the-future/672836.md?page=3)