Do you care about being on the right side of history?

[QuertyGirl]

I'm an archaeologist so I do have some perspective on the long view of history.

Just wondering if normal people ever think about this?

There have been lots of times where plenty of people have signed up to ideas that we now see as manifestly wrong if not downright abhorrent.

Everything from Nazism, phernology, eugenics, racism to hitting your kids and drink driving, has had otherwise intelligent people campaigning to for them.

Does anyone here look at the modern world and ideas and take a guess how history will treat these ideas?

For a start, I think that homeopathy, plastic grass, how we treat ND people and cars for short trips will all be consigned to the historical scrap heap.

I think it would be harder to get people to do it next time - or within the next few years while it's fresh in memory. People were getting so fed up of it.

Someone said recently that we are living in a "golden age of misogyny".

I've been fighting this fight since 2016. Slowly people are starting to understand that trans rights are a mens rights movement that includes absolutely decimating women's rights back hundreds of years and allowing pedophiles into schools, scouts and such.

I've seen so much with my own eyes and I want my grandchildren to know their grandmother fought tooth and nail for them.

Ridiculous levels of consumption. Online shopping 24/7 has enabled this on a massive scale. We are using finite resources for brief satisfaction and throwing too much away.
Look at the holiday threads on here - flying several times a year, because they "need a break", or justifying it because of the pandemic. It cannot continue at this level.
The UK is densely populated and the infrastructure isn't supporting this increase enough. We need more doctors surgeries, hospitals and schools.
All I see springing up locally are nail bars, brow bars and cafés..

Why would you care? You'll be dead. If you're an atheist, that means you expect to no longer exist, in general, so why would you care. If you're religious, then generally other ethical principles will be more important to you than being on the the right side of history.

Personally I'd rather be right than on the right side of history.

That makes it sound like I'm saying atheists don't have a moral code, I didn't mean that, just that I don't see why you'd care how future generations think of you if you've passed out of existence. Caring about doing the right thing for those future generations is different.

I have seen the freaking out over the ozone layer, acid rain, ten years to save the planet and Al Gore, yet we are still here.

People should take care of the environment and fly less, eat less avocado etc.

The climate is changing, I think people love cults and won't look at both sides of the science as they prefer to belong than use critical thinking skills.

This.
It is horrifying how easily people go along with things, they are happy to have their rights stripped if they are told its for a goid reason, which makes it a lot easier to take away more for a bad reason.

"Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety."

Yes I think about this from time to time.

Consumerism and how Capitalism will play out as we can't keep expanding materialistically. How woman working seems to have escalated this as we now have dual incomes.

Whether liberalism will cause a spring backwards to a Handmaids Tale situation.

I'm cheery in real life 🙂

Oh fuck yes, there's no way anything like that's going to happen again for a while. Just imagine the Tories trying to bring in any restrictions now. The bigger question is whether in the long term, the experiences of Partygate and of lockdown in general is one of those things that ends up bringing about lasting cultural change. Ie, has it removed the level of trust that was needed for most people to at least somewhat lock down, forever?

This is an interesting question and I do think about being on the right side of history and it's something that I say to late teen dc's when they're making choices. I am surprised that people don't consider it at all and don't seem worried about how the future will consider our actions re: climate change, care and consumption. I also wonder what version of the 'truth' about things like covid and other major world events will become the accepted version.

@ohfook couldn't agree more!

I don't know. I mean despite everything there's still plenty of "in would be even worse under Labour" rhetoric. I don't think they'd have trouble if they told people we'd all die if they didn't again.

I don't understand why people won't view media from those who disagree with their politics, refuse to view media from other countries or refuse to go through science they disagree with?

Why are they so fearful?

I would have more respect for their beliefs if they did, they just llike unthinking cult members otherwise.

I do. There's nowhere near enough trust in the government now. It's been torched.

If it were bad enough that people were actually willing to believe the shower who spent months gaslighting us all about pissups in Downing Street, we'd be in serious social unrest territory, and we wouldn't have the same level of willingness from people in health, food chains etc to go into work that we did in 2020-1.

I have had a few discussions around Covid and how the next generation will look back on the pandemic in history lessons of the future and no doubt think how utterly bonkers some of the behaviours we were subjected to actually were.

I think about this from time to time op. The thing that strikes me as something that will be considered a bit medieval is eating animals. I'm not even a vegetarian, although I could be and pretty much was when my vegetarian son was living at home. I think for reasons of pressure on land, climate change and finding out more about levels of consciousness in animals it could become a thing of the past and be looked at much like cannibalism. I'm not saying I believe this will come to pass, just that I can imagine it being unthinkable in future.
The other thing that's occurred to me lately is related to medicine. I agree with the HCP upthread who said that current medical practice is the best we have available.and is mostly evidence led, but I have just had a mastectomy for dcis and it struck me that having a chunk of flesh cut off because of a few rogue cells is so inelegant, like having a limb hacked off by some Napoleonic era surgeon because it got infected. We seem to be on the cusp of innovations left right and centre in medicine, with immunotherapy and mRNA therapies and genetic science discoveries, so I felt like a specimen from history having this rather crude chop-it-off plan.

I worry that people of the future won't be able to learn from our mistakes because we obliterate them - eg the sanitisation of children's books, the removal of statues and artwork etc.
We shouldn't, for example, forget about slavery and ban any book or artwork that depicts it. We should talk about it, and discuss the statues and paintings with the next generations.

I do think about ethics and fairness a lot. But I don't worry about whether I am on the 'right side' as I am also pragmatic and don't need the validation.
The long view of the how and why people and Governments behave as they do is really interesting.

I've also thought about .the current arrangement of nation states, and how countries broadly speaking have grown over time. England used to beerxia and Wessex and of course Scotland and Wales and n Ireland remain different countries, but over time, and coincidentally as technology allowed communication over greater distances, they coalesced. The US formed a big country v quickly, probably helped by the need for the thirteen colonies to band together to stand up to Britain, but they could have formed separate countries back in the day. The Romans could run a big administrative unit because they had the tech ( proper roads.) The was and am a remainder because I think the EU represents an enlightened of cooperation between states rather than small nations pinging hits off each other. We're settling into an era of competing superpowers but I. An envision a time when global human affairs have a sort of global government of some sort, liKe a more effective UN. We have the technology to do it, so the need for governance of it is already there. Our current geopolitical structures are playing catch up.

I suspect people in 2050 or 2100 will look back on our treatment of animals in disgust. If the world remains at peace, and grows richer, then society will gradually become gentler and kinder. As that happens, the majority will move to vegetarianism, and then, maybe, ban the eating of meat altogether.

Of course, it all depends on science, technology, climate change, overpopulation, etc. Morality is tied to scientific progress. As we get richer, and the standard of living rises, we can afford to be more humane. But if overpopulation and climate change lead to collapse, life will be cheap and people will quickly revert to savagery.

Nope. I care about safeguarding women's and children's rights.

Depends who's writing the future history books I guess so no, I don't. I try and live life according to my values and with respect for everyone.

Botox and fillers will be right up there with arsenic and mouse fur eyebrows.

I absolutely care but who's to say my moral compass won't be looked down upon in years to come?

I hope one day we can look back and think 'imagine when social media had NO regulation' and hope it is banned for kids until they are 18.