# What will future generations despise us for? **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [October 6, 2014, 8:55am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529 "2014-10-06T08:55:15Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 11\ **Page:** 4
**Author:** ![tomndebb](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/b9e5f3/32.png) [@tomndebb](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tomndebb)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 8:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/61 "2014-10-07T20:38:03Z")
This really did not turn into a debate. I am moving this informal poll to IMHO. ( **MOIDALIZE** , don’t be a jerk.) [/Moderating] ---
**Author:** ![Rodgers01](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/r/b19c9b/32.png) [@Rodgers01](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Rodgers01)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/62 "2014-10-07T21:11:52Z")
> [@Velocity](#): > > They’ll think, “Those people didn’t support incestuous marriage or polygamy? How intolerant!” This is a very real possibility. > [@Rune](#): > > Also future history is made by the people populating the future. Since religious and conservative people tend to have a lot more children than liberals and non-religious, the right side of history may perhaps be a lot more religious and conservative than you imagine. This is very true. It could well be that people of the future will look back in horror on our legalization of gay marriage, abortions, separation of church and state, and so on. History is not necessarily a straight line of things getting ever more liberal/open. It also depends who “wins” the future and gets to write their version of history. Our descendants may hate us for supporting Israel and/or Taiwan. Other things they may hate us for: legal cigarettes male circumcision I don’t know if this is something they’d “despise” us for, but I suspect they’ll think we are pretty disgusting, unhygienic, overly hairy people, and that we live crazily dangerous lives - e.g. the number of fatalities we’re willing to accept from car accidents. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:24pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/63 "2014-10-07T21:24:27Z")
You realize that in the u.s. alone we let 2.5 million people a year die. It is probably physically possible and even within our technology to preserve the brains of these people in such a way that their neural structures can be later copied and emulated. I’m not saying that cryonics as offered by Alcor/CI necessarily works, but that this is not a technical problem our civilization is incapable of solving at the present time. I mean, a single major hospital commonly spends more than a billion dollars a year extending the lives of it’s patients only slightly. Yet we spend not even 1 million working out a way to preserve and scan our brains, a technology that could defeat death completely. (well, at least until the heat death, I suppose) In a century or so we’ll have the technology such that no one need ever die for any reason. It’ll probably be possible to make backup copies of neural structures such that the dead can be revived from their last backup. Imagine how monstrous our primitive, indifferent medicine will seem then. We’re letting all the ww2 veterans fade into oblivion instead of preserving their knowledge for the record. The Vietnam vets are next. And so on. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 9:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/64 "2014-10-07T21:26:43Z")
> [@Rodgers01](#): > > legal cigarettes I bet legal cigarettes will seem about as stupidly dangerous as the [Radium ore Revigator - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Radium_Ore_Revigator) and [Shoe-fitting fluoroscope - Wikipedia](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shoe-fitting_fluoroscope) seem to us today. ---
**Author:** ![Hari\_Seldon](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hari_seldon/32/5173_2.png) [@Hari\_Seldon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hari_Seldon)\ **Post date:** [October 7, 2014, 11:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/65 "2014-10-07T23:34:48Z")
How can they have been so abysmally stupid as to allow animal raisers to breed antibiotic resistant bacteria and leave us with all these incurable infections? How could they have put so many people in prison for selling and smoking a mostly harmless weed? How could they have been so dumb as to get involved in wars in the Middle East, despite having no knowledge of the region? ---
**Author:** ![Marley23](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/45deac/32.png) [@Marley23](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Marley23)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 1:31am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/66 "2014-10-08T01:31:47Z")
> [@Hari\_Seldon](#): > > How could they have put so many people in prison for selling and smoking a mostly harmless weed? That’s a good one. Shit, a lot of people have figured this one out _today_. > [@](#): > > How could they have been so dumb as to get involved in wars in the Middle East, despite having no knowledge of the region? “Tradition!” ---
**Author:** ![Leaffan](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/leaffan/32/299_2.png) [@Leaffan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Leaffan)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 2:09am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/67 "2014-10-08T02:09:31Z")
> [@Habeed](#): > > You realize that in the u.s. alone we let 2.5 million people a year die. It is probably physically possible and even within our technology to preserve the brains of these people in such a way that their neural structures can be later copied and emulated. I’m not saying that cryonics as offered by Alcor/CI necessarily works, but that this is not a technical problem our civilization is incapable of solving at the present time. > > I mean, a single major hospital commonly spends more than a billion dollars a year extending the lives of it’s patients only slightly. Yet we spend not even 1 million working out a way to preserve and scan our brains, a technology that could defeat death completely. (well, at least until the heat death, I suppose) > > In a century or so we’ll have the technology such that no one need ever die for any reason. It’ll probably be possible to make backup copies of neural structures such that the dead can be revived from their last backup. > > Imagine how monstrous our primitive, indifferent medicine will seem then. We’re letting all the ww2 veterans fade into oblivion instead of preserving their knowledge for the record. The Vietnam vets are next. And so on. I completely disagree with everything in this post. We cannot and will not be able to back up the human brain. Ever. Way too complex and memories are chemical in nature. No. Not gonna happen. ---
**Author:** ![Habeed](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/a587f6/32.png) [@Habeed](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Habeed)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/68 "2014-10-08T03:21:18Z")
> [@Leaffan](#): > > I completely disagree with everything in this post. We cannot and will not be able to back up the human brain. Ever. Way too complex and memories are chemical in nature. No. Not gonna happen. Based on a gut feeling or do you have actual cites for this? The brain isn’t magic. It’s a set of circuit connections that obey rules due to physical laws. Also, there’s a strong reason to think that the brain has a lot of redundancy such that even if you missed some connections and/or your simulation were not completely accurate (off by a small amount), you would still end up with very similar output signals from the simulated brain. I can cite about 5 papers showing all this, trivially, but don’t want to waste my time if you simply believe the above based on “faith”. ---
**Author:** ![msmith537](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/d9b06d/32.png) [@msmith537](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/msmith537)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:44am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/69 "2014-10-08T03:44:49Z")
Our intellect. > [@Leaffan](#): > > I completely disagree with everything in this post. We cannot and will not be able to back up the human brain. Ever. Way too complex and memories are chemical in nature. No. Not gonna happen. Future generations will despise you for your lack of trying.:mad: Seriously, how can you say that. A brain just stores and processes information. It may be complex, but so is my cell phone compared to one from a decade ago. > [@Darth\_Panda](#): > > Faing to colonize mars in time… > > Now, it’s too late. Why? Is Mars going somewhere?:eek: ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 3:49am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/70 "2014-10-08T03:49:13Z")
Porn Surely future tech will evolve human sexual reproduction and pleasure from the messy, animalistic enterprise it is today, into a more refined and clinical recreational activity. One can only hope. ---
**Author:** ![Tibby](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/tibby/32/17030_2.png) [@Tibby](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tibby)\ **Post date:** [October 8, 2014, 4:12am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529/71 "2014-10-08T04:12:11Z")
…I mean, since I’ve been off my Androgel, I see “bumping uglies” for what it really is: bumping uglies. I’m embarrassed for my generation and all generations leading up to ours for our fornicating ways. Our distant progeny will collectively cry, “ewwwww, look what they used to do!” [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/what-will-future-generations-despise-us-for/700529.md?page=3)