To wonder what happens in society now that will be frowned upon by our descendants

[Dylaninthemovies1]

There is lots of things our ancestors did in the past that we quite rightly think are morally reprehensible.

I’m wondering how history will judge us! What things will our descendants judge us for?

I’m thinking:
Destroying the environment
People in 3rd world country making our clothes for peanuts

I hope to fuck I am allowed to decide when I have had enough and it's time to go

Definitely this too!

Two women being killed a week by a current or former partner. And nearly nobody batting an eyelid cos that's just how things are, isn't it?

That we perpetuate they myth that people can change sex instead of changing society to allow people to live their lives comfortably within the sex they are.

That we allow people to still use slug pellets when we know the damage they cause other wildlife

Throwaway plastic and polystyrene in landfill (which will still be there in a thousand years for people to see/dig up).

Fossil fuels.

As much as I hate to admit it, rearing animals for food and eating meat.

Completely unnecessarily eating meat

Massive wealth divide and flashy billionaire lifestyles - thousands starving and living in abject poverty while others swanned around in their superyachts and private jets. This has always made me feel sick but people seem to love watching rich people being rich on TV etc.

Drinking. Sugar. Rolling back women's and girls rights. Losing the Girl Guides and Brownies.

Yes to smoking. I am regularly astonished at how many people still do it, including young people who were brought up aware of the dangers.

Also that we didn't simply ban it. The year 2000 would have been an ideal landmark opportunity (although any year would have done or still would) - at any time before 2015 (preferably earlier), the government could so easily have announced that nobody born after 2000 would ever be legally allowed to smoke. Then, once the last older addict had died, they would simply not be legally on sale anywhere in the country.

There are plenty of other things where older people retain 'grandad rights' for life but later-born people don't get them. One of my own Grandads was old enough to start driving before the driving test came in, so he drove for the rest of his life without ever having to take a test. From 1935 (IIRC) to 1997, you had to take a practical test and then, after that, a theory test as well.

If you've never had a privilege/right, you can't complain that it's been taken away. They've taken away the right to free university tuition (a good thing), so why they couldn't do it with smoking (a very bad thing) baffles me.

Sugar consumption and how much of our food isnt for nutrition (as much as I love sugar..)
Obesity

This thread sounds like the future is going to be some sort of utopia.
I'm not convinced tbh.

I agree that in the future it will (I hope) be possible to opt to die rather than live for years with advanced dementia. I think it will be seen as madness to keep some alive just because you can when their “life” has become a hell.

Otoh there may well be so many people living till 120 with 30-40 years of poor quality life that it will be normal to have to house several elderly relations with no help from a bankrupted state and people of the future will look at us with envy having had the option of care homes (however dubious).

Allowing transgender women to use women only spaces

I disagree. I think that's going to be the norm in the future, in the West at least, probably not in, say, the Gulf.

The way things are going there might not be any descendants around to frown about our choices.

There was a programme on Channel 4 several years back called 'After Life' and they were endlessly going on about the fact that, once humans were extinct, there would be nobody left to maintain libraries, spectacular buildings and lots of other things that absolutely nobody except for humans could care less about! I might have been continually shouting at the telly whilst watching

This thread sounds like the future is going to be some sort of utopia.
I'm not convinced tbh.

I agree completely.
If there's one thing that we learn from history, it's that people never learn from history.

Producing TV like Jeremy Kyle and Naked attraction.

Making dogs wear silly outfits.

Grey kitchens.

Buttock implants.

That weird trend where lots of people pretend they like eating olives. Give it up, no-one believes you.

Eating meat and dairy.

Knowing how much we are fucking the environment and doing nothing about it

White male privilege

How women are still often expected to give up work or take lesser paid roles after having children because employers aren't flexible / partners not supportive

The unfair distribution of wealth. It's totally shameful that some individuals have managed to acquire billions of pounds whilst others can't afford to eat.

Selfies too.

"Grandma, when you went to see the Pyramids, the Taj Mahal, the Grand Canyon and all of these other breathtaking places, why did you only take a picture of yourself looking at it?!"

Trident.

I think it’s going to be something you’d never guess. E.g. to someone even 100 years ago saying that LGBTQ+ rights would have progressed as far as they have would have provoked horror and outrage. If you’d asked them at the time what would people judge them about in future generations they’d never have said gay rights. They’d probably point to WW1 or something. So for that reason I doubt it will be something that people are already up in arms about (with the possible exception of climate change) but more something that is completely taken for granted like eating meat or not allowing children to vote, for example.

Sugar as said above. Probably animals - my vegan son thinks we will look back and hardly imagine we had cows in fields and ate eggs and drank milk and did not treat animals properly under the law and that kind of thing. I don't share those views on animals.

However cannot really tell.

The interesting philosophical issue is whether there are objective rights and wrong or if that is something that changes and separately whether we get better at it or worse at it as time goes on Most younger people in every generation think theirs has the best new ideas and that we have developed further and better than that there is a natural constant progression. Whereas arguably living with just a few humans on a planet who hunt and gather and leave no trace which is how we were for about 1m years might have been the best there ever was!

I worry that there won't be any "people's" history, only official records. How much of what we know about our past comes from the discovery of letters and diaries which are all done electronically now and will be lost as the technology they're stored on becomes obsolete?

Racism
Rapists being allowed to self-identify into women’s prisons, and women publically receiving rape threats and death threats for questioning this.
Animal cruelty - including the gassing of live chicks
Commercial surrogacy
Brexit

And the environment, of course. I think that will be the biggest issue for our grandchildren.

We don't know, do we? Otherwise if we knew, we'd stop doing it now.