# What seemingly rational or normal beliefs of today will be discredited in 100 years?

**URL:** <https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411>\
**Category:** Great Debates\
**Created:** [May 20, 2003, 10:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411 "2003-05-20T22:40:22Z")\
**Posts on this page:** 20\
**Page:** 7

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**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 12:15pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/121 "2003-05-23T12:15:13Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by SentientMeat \*  
> \*\*As I sit here munching on a meat-filled sandwich, I wonder whether the killing and eating of animals might in the 22nd century seem like the keeping of slaves in the 18th. \*\*

SentientMeat, your posting let’s me think you have you high moral grounds on killing/eating animals. How come that you eat meat?

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**Author:** ![SentientMeat](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/43a26b/32.png) [@SentientMeat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/SentientMeat)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 1:14pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/122 "2003-05-23T13:14:13Z")

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**flonks** , without wishing to turn this into an animal-rights debate I would point out that I only “wondered”, and in my defense I buy free-range and don’t eat meat very often anyway.

But yes, I must admit the possibility that I am guilty of moral cowardice and hypocrisy in continuing to do something that I know, deep down, is wrong.

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**Author:** ![flonks](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/3ab097/32.png) [@flonks](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/flonks)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 1:25pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/123 "2003-05-23T13:25:50Z")

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Sentient Meat, I heartfully agree, I think that in the future mankind will change very much with respect to vegetarianism. Or perhaps it’s only wishful thinking…

There are some arguments though. Mankind renounced canibalism at some point, so perhaps some day we will stop eating meat?

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**Author:** ![PatrickM](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/7feea3/32.png) [@PatrickM](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/PatrickM)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 1:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/124 "2003-05-23T13:33:48Z")

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Returning briefly to the OP, I’m hoping that trickle down economics and the notion that one increases government revenues by cutting taxes on the most well off will be discredited by then.

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**Author:** ![eburacum45](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/eburacum45/32/8690_2.png) [@eburacum45](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/eburacum45)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 1:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/125 "2003-05-23T13:40:56Z")

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This is only supposed to be a forum about the next hundred years-  
but I see artificial food and particularly meat becoming important, although real meat from dead animals might well remain popular.  
And why not have cannibalism and autophagy, if you can clone yourself?  
But perhaps not in the next hundred years, eh.

* * *

Sci-fi worldbuilding at  
[http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html](http://www.orionsarm.com/main.html)  
story

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**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:** [May 23, 2003, 4:22pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/126 "2003-05-23T16:22:30Z")

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**flonks** , I don’t think cannibalism was ever even close in any way to being as pervasive as carnivorism among humans. So it was very easy to “renounce”.

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 4:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/127 "2003-05-23T16:31:34Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr. B \*  
> **Ahhhh. Good. Now who benefits from Canada’s SARS? With borders as permeable as ours, how come we haven’t had the outbreak? Is it Socialist medicine that’s to blame? Or is it politics?**

The outbreak has been kept in Toronto because Toronto and Ontario health authorities were very rapid and effective at containing it, as opposed to the Chinese effort, which was plodding and half-assed. It’s that simple; it stayed in Toronto hospitals because Toronto quarantined them right away, enagaged in a massive public education effort, and threw a lot of medical resources at it. Nothing unsurprising about that. Canada has a better health care system than China.

Canada does not have “socialist medicine.” What’s that, anyway, medicine where the proletariats own the stethoscopes?

> [@](#):
>
> SARS is documented to be especially virulent against people of Sino descent or origin.

Got a cite for that? Sounds like racist bullshit. The fact that the outbreak started in China does not mean Chinese people are unusually susceptible to it.

Again, _if you have actual evidence of what SARS is, present it._

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**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 5:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/128 "2003-05-23T17:27:13Z")

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RickJay has apparently been living under a rock for the last few decades.

\>\>\>And they noted the ethnic background: Eight of the 10  
patients were Asian; two were not – one an elderly man who had been in the emergency department of Scarborough Grace hospital [near fatality #2, Chi Kwai Tse] and the other a 62-year-old man who had just recentlyreturned from a trip to Southeast Asia, where the disease is believed tohave originated." (National Post, April 8, 2003)\<\<\<  
Just one Canadian report – the others are unavailable at the moment, but one was from a Quebec paper, so consider the source.

Are you aware of sickle-cell anemia? Is it racist to say this anemia is more prevalent in blacks?

Merriam-Webster – Socialism: 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.

Canada has this kind of medical system.

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**Author:** ![Mayor\_McJesus](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/ce73a5/32.png) [@Mayor\_McJesus](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mayor_McJesus)\
**Post date:** [May 23, 2003, 11:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/129 "2003-05-23T23:51:50Z")

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Great topic. As a preface to most of these posts, we should note that in May 1903, few people would have predicted what two brothers from Ohio would do that December, let alone what would happen in 100 years. Still, this a fun discussion.

Let us look into the future.

The future, Conan?

Yes. All the way to the year 2103.

In the yeeeeear two-thousand, one hundred three…

People will mock our non-interactive forms of entertainment; our beloved movies, TV and recorded music, as well as our primitive “Internet.”

Nobody will say “computer” anymore. The concept of a specific, contained calculating device will seem archaic next to the ubiquitous technology of 2103. Whatever they have, though, will still crash all the time and give them unintelligible, cryptic error messages. Some things are just constant.

One of the major, seemingly-indestructible world powers of today will be gone and others will have come and gone, like the Soviets and Nazis of the past century. Just check out a map from 1903. Global politics will be unimaginably different.

People will have discovered proof of a form of life somewhere outside earth. It will be boring to non-scientists, like algae or something rather than a ray-gun blasting space monster. Eventually, people will wonder what the big deal was.

Someone will devise a weapon significantly more powerful than anything we have today. Our best weapons, like the Ohio-class nuclear submarines (any of which could, single-handedly, kill us all), will seem quaint compared to god-knows-what they’ll have in 100 years. Think of how menacing a circa 1900 battleship sounds today. Never underestimate humanity’s ability to hurt each other.

Finally…

Fans will refer to our late-20th/early-21st century baseball as the “dead ball era.”

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 4:32am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/130 "2003-05-24T04:32:01Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr. B \*  
> **\>\>\>And they noted the ethnic background: Eight of the 10  
> patients were Asian; two were not – one an elderly man who had been in the emergency department of Scarborough Grace hospital [near fatality #2, Chi Kwai Tse] and the other a 62-year-old man who had just recentlyreturned from a trip to Southeast Asia, where the disease is believed tohave originated." (National Post, April 8, 2003)\<\<\<**

Do you or do you not have actual evidence - e.g. MEDICAL EVIDENCE - that Asians are more prone to SARS infections? Yes, or no? I don’t mean that the infected people were mostly Chinese; they caught it first because their relatives brought it from China.

Do you have a cite for medical evidence of an Asian predisposition to SARS infection? **Yes or no?** Show me a cite to someone who has found a pathological shred of evidence of this claim.

The fact that sickle-cell anemia is more prevalent in blacks has nothing to do with it, I am afraid. It’s a different disease. You need to provide evidence supporting your claim with respect to SARS. Do you have this evidence?

> [@](#):
>
> Merriam-Webster – Socialism: 1 : any of various economic and political theories advocating collective or governmental ownership and administration of the means of production and distribution of goods.
> 
> Canada has this kind of medical system. \*\*

No, it doesn’t. Like a lot of Americans, you’re simply ignorant of the facts here. Canada’s medical providers are almost universally private. Hospitals, family doctors, spoecialist clinics - mostly private. Canada has a universal system for personal health _insurance,_ not for actually setting up and providing the care. You may want to actually learn about it before commenting on it.

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**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\
**Post date:** [May 24, 2003, 5:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/131 "2003-05-24T17:57:54Z")

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\>\>\> Like a lot of Americans, you’re simply ignorant of the facts here.\<\<\<  
All right, sorry you chose to play the Ugly American card. Like a lot of Canadians, although by and large intelligent (much more than your US counterparts), you are effete, out of touch and ignorant about what’s really going on in America. What’s more, you personally accused me of passing racist information, for which there are thousands of cases to show viruses from an isolated group of humans is FAR more virulent when introduced into another group of humans, in which there is no immunity or natural antigenic behavior. (I hope I don’t have to “cite” this for you, case by case, but just have a look at your history book: Native Americans and smallpox, European cultures and malaria, African tribes and rhinoviruses).

Now back to the subject. I have spent an inordinate amount of time in the Canadian medical system, through “private” practice and through emergency hospitals. I know how weak your system is, and it’s largely due to the fact that your system is public and overburdened by red tape. Your talented doctor material flees to Europe, – or \<GASP\> – the US.

SARS has put a minor crimp in Canada’s tourism industry, and now your Independence Day is fast approaching. Just imagine if the hordes are turned away from the regular activities (Changing of the Guard, downing a 2-4, hearing “When I’m Calling Youuuuuuu” sung by a Mountie in drag)… Canadians have pissed off the current administration of the US, through policy, through national opinion as represented in the Press and through the anti-war invective.

\>\>\> Do you have a cite for medical evidence of an Asian predisposition to SARS infection? Yes or no? Show me a cite to someone who has found a pathological shred of evidence of this claim.\<\<\<  
I have a “cite.” I am unable to give it to you. I can tell you **it is highly suspect** that 8 of 10 people in the article I referenced were from a pool of hundreds in the “SARS field” inside a Toronto hospital. Are you going to tell me it was a predominantly Asian hospital? Come on, you’re obviously a smart person. Who suffers from a Toronto outbreak?

I was first tipped off by a rather innocuous article in _Science News_ about the ethnicity of the victims, juxtaposed with the introduction in (the US over the last decade) of “Asian Flu,” to which whites (80%), elderly (6%), diabetics (4%) and otherwise immunologically infirm (3%) were most susceptible. And I hasten to say _most susceptible_, because we were looking at a very large data pool, with a moderate degree of uncertainty because of societal issues, like reporting of “scarlet letter” diseases like HIV/AIDS or Herpes that can leave one’s immunity severely compromised.

Asian Flu was and is only one little virus. SARS is a whole lot of them, and don’t try telling me it’s from a civet or a chicken. Give me a break.

**To get back to the OP, in 100 years, SARS will be known to have been a weaponized version of a bunch of viruses, targeted at a certain group of people who had no innate resistance to any of the viruses making up the composite.**

Here is a compendium from ISIS (this landed on my desk at the lab recently and has really helped open our eyes):

“The coronavirus was atypical. It rapidly infected cells in culture dishes, something that other human coronaviruses do not do. Viruses from the lung tissue in Toronto patients readily infected monkey kidney cells, and **no known human coronavirus infects that cell line.** ” {emphasis added}

“DiRisi’s laboratory has a virus detector chip capable of screening for 1 200 viruses all at once. When samples sent from the Centers of Disease Control and Prevention in the United States (CDC) were screened, several species of coronaviruses lit up…”

“It is not even necessary to intentionally create lethal viruses, if one so wishes. It is actually much faster and much more effective to let random recombination and mutation take place in the test tube. Using a technique called “molecular breeding” millions of recombinants can be generated in a matter of minutes. These can be screen for improved function in the case of enzymes, or increased virulence, in the case of viruses and bacteria.”

[http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BioTerrorismAndSARS.php](http://www.i-sis.org.uk/BioTerrorismAndSARS.php)

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**Author:** ![BeatenMan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/3ab097/32.png) [@BeatenMan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BeatenMan)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 12:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/132 "2003-05-25T00:22:16Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by bnorton \*  
> \*\*People will view the enormous gap between the haves and the have-nots in much the same way as we currently view slavery. \*\*

Karl Marx said the same thing 100 years ago

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**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:** [May 25, 2003, 3:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/133 "2003-05-25T03:34:07Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by BeatenMan \*  
> \*\*Karl Marx said the same thing 100 years ago \*\*

No kidding? Well, I guess I’m just extending the deadline.

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**Author:** ![RickJay](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/bb73d2/32.png) [@RickJay](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/RickJay)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 4:52am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/134 "2003-05-25T04:52:48Z")

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> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr. B \*  
> \*\* have a “cite.” I am unable to give it to you. \*\*

This is, of course, a rather obvious admission that you have no cite at all to support your claims. I’m sure we’d be very interested to hear it if you could come up with one.

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**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 5:45am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/135 "2003-05-25T05:45:30Z")

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RJ: Almost eleven hours and that’s the most you could refute? Just because I’m unable to offer “a cite,” to the open air doesn’t mean there’s a lack of White Paper on the subject. I think that’s the debate tactic called “shielding,” but we’re not on the Sasquatch High Dynamic Debaters: you may wish to reconsider your argument and think about what’s really going on. I’m on your side, you know?

At any rate, any consumable data at the present time is highly restricted. I can just tell you underground, non-publishable findings from _healthwatch_ are sporadically available, and there are cached versions of newspaper reports (one from Quebec) out there about SARS’ demography. It’s available, just no one wants to really look at it.

The worst part is it’s just like that movie _Confessions of a Dangerous Mind_, the most absurd part that everyone seems to miss is no one’s even _pretending_ to ignore the Elephant in the Living Room, even the present-day audience.

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**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\
**Post date:** [May 25, 2003, 5:46am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/136 "2003-05-25T05:46:39Z")

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Wow. _That_ was my 100th post? \<shudder\>

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**Author:** ![Swoop](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/s/b77776/32.png) [@Swoop](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Swoop)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 10:34am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/137 "2003-05-27T10:34:55Z")

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Mr B - I’m genuinely curious about the disease theories you’ve touched on, in particular AIDS and Mad cow, please could you expound? my email address is [gpz11@hotmail.com](mailto:gpz11@hotmail.com)

As for general predictions… as has been noted, apart from wishful thinking there isn’t much to be said. HOWEVER… if so-called conspiracy theories ever should turn out to be more… the impact on subsequent mind-set adjustments could be unimaginable.

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**Author:** ![Optihut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/o/edb3f5/32.png) [@Optihut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Optihut)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 11:36am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/138 "2003-05-27T11:36:56Z")

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Capital Punishment will be just an unpleasent memory from the past.

Speedlimit-harrassment by the government will unfortunately continue and even Germany will have one in a hundred years (then again, with all the oil worries at the moment, it remains to be seen how many private cars will be left in a hundred years or whether that concept is outdated by then).

Religion won’t go away, even though the trend is clear: First people saw a god behind every bush and lightning strike. Then came polytheism, then the trinity of father, son and the holy ghost. In the here and now we’ve got monotheism. Not going deep into mathematics with fractions and imaginary numbers, the next reduction from 1 is quite obvious 😉

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**Author:** ![APB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/8e8cbc/32.png) [@APB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/APB)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 12:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/139 "2003-05-27T12:24:26Z")

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[hijack]

> [@](#):
>
> \*Originally posted by Mr. B \*  
> **RickJay: I’m sorry you support the Warren Commission’s view of the murder. In particular, there’s a picture I think you’d find quite interesting, grainy as it seems. It’s from the December, 1963 edition of POST magazine that shows a figure who looks an awful lot like Oswald, standing in the doorway as the president is clutching his throat. Believe what you want – we’ll know the truth soon enough.**

[What makes you think that the truth about that particular photograph hasn’t come out already?](http://mcadams.posc.mu.edu/oswald_doorway.htm) (Courtesy of the excellent site already recommended by **SentientMeat**.)

[/hijack]

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**Author:** ![El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/e/41988e/32.png) [@El\_Cid\_Viscoso](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/El_Cid_Viscoso)\
**Post date:** [May 27, 2003, 1:53pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-seemingly-rational-or-normal-beliefs-of-today-will-be-discredited-in-100-years/176411/140 "2003-05-27T13:53:28Z")

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For the love of God, it’s not Lovelady.

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