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.

As I've got older, i've felt very powerless to influence whats going on around me in any meaningful way so I suppose i look at things in the past and wonder how much say the people had over which side they were on. There are lots of things that happen now that half the population dont agree with, even protest against, but in the future it will say 'the uk did this' and any opposition will be a tiny footnote if mentioned at all.

@lljkk ready post again, I said ventilation is important for CO2. HEPAs work for particulate matter and viruses.

Better air in schools pays for itself in reducing illness - not just in students but teachers too. Their running costs are minimal and you can DIY a Corsi Rosenthal box for £80 and they are quieter and more effective than the DofE recommended ones (Dyson, surprise surprise).

Arguing against a solution that benefits everyone just makes zero sense.

I think the issue with this is its impossible to regulate, I think if it could be done easily it would

But the idea was to save others - so seemed quite sensible.

I think we don't appreciate how much religion steered lives in the past (and for some religions still does) - so the wealthy Victorians took themselves off to church every day which made them good law abiding people in their eyes, however the lower classes were hopeless scum whom they might deign to help, with education etc, or might not and send them as criminals to Australia for stealing a loaf.

Those Puritans (I think it was who sailed off to America) then probably had a major hand in destroying the native people.

So we look back disdainfully on people's behaviour without understanding why things were done.

Glad to hear you'll be paying for it in every office & every school room, @YearoftheRabbit23. Since cost is so minimal.

Yes, I would say you are someone who certainly needs to look at both sides of the science and use critical thinking skills.

Sure you’re aware already but globally we’ll reach peak population soon as birth rate is decreasing overall. Whilst that seems good in terms of natural resources consumed, there wont be enough younger people in the ‘West’ to sustain the current flavour of economics/growth/care expected or the level of globally productivity to sustain us.

I think we'll look back with horror at eating animals, science trials on animals and not allowing women a guilt free CS choice.

100% this.

Not least because it’s the children who have lived through this shit who will be making the decisions for the next generation.

It is so sad that this is what people have now been brainwashed into believing.

Social media absolutely CAN be regulated, and there is easily available technology which would regulate it very well.

Eating meat. I think it’s quite possible that, in 200y, our descendants are discussing taking that statue of Nelson Mandela down on the grounds he was a meat-eater, and others will at that you can’t judge people from 2000 as if they were from 2200, and the first lot will reply that plenty of people knew meat was wrong in 2000 etc etc. Treating other species as a resource to consume.

Completely agree with those who think future generations will be horrified by our treatment of animals.