
Wife-beating and slavery were once acceptable: How will the future judge us? - edw519
http://www.post-gazette.com/pg/10276/1091912-109.stm?cmpid=newspanel
======
enko
Terribly!

Here's some for starters:

\- our total misunderstanding of, and gross inflation of, risk, leading
amongst countless other things to the total demise of intergenerational
friendship and or knowledge transfer for fear of mostly figmented "predators"

\- our laughable superstitions about supernatural gods and demons which still
manage to dominate our politics

\- our inability to use rationality, statistics and outcomes-based thinking to
make decisions, instead resorting to emotion and worst case thinking, to
disastrous effect

\- our idiotic ostrich-like "war on some drugs"

\- our barbaric indifference to the suffering of others

\- our continuing inability to distinguish between race and culture

Actually, typing that I realise how many of them are really due to the
inability to estimate risk.

~~~
teaspoon
If these problems are rooted in our innate inability to estimate risk, then
are they really likely to disappear in the future?

~~~
lincolnq
We'll have computers which will increasingly replace humans in risk
estimation. People will just do what the computer tells them to do.

~~~
rubinelli
We already have expert systems that can estimate some categories of risk very
well. People don't trust them anyway. Personally, I think the problem isn't
accuracy, it's accountability. You can't fire or sue a piece of software that
makes a wrong estimate.

------
AngryParsley
This reminds me of <http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>

It's easy to pick stuff that a portion of society agrees with you on, like
ending drug prohibition, gay marriage, abortion, or immigration. Even more
controversial stuff like ending meat-eating or religion will get nods from a
few people. I'm not going to mention anything really crazy, since I'll get
downvoted as a nut if I do.

I don't blame most people for having the same beliefs as everyone around them,
and I think the future will feel similarly. But while future societies may not
judge us harshly, I think they'll contain things we would judge them for. This
is because we don't have the future's technology, so certain decisions are
already made for us. Most of us don't even think of them as decisions. For
example, we can't easily increase a person's intelligence. If we could, we
would have debates on how best to use this technology and whatnot. Then, maybe
one day it would be considered a form of abuse to not increase your child's
intelligence through drugs or brain implants.

~~~
lionhearted
> I'm not going to mention anything really crazy, since I'll get downvoted as
> a nut if I do.

You mean like democracy?

Edit: Yup, there's the "downvoted as a nut" - I think voting on what your
fellow man can do with his life might be seen as barbaric in the future. Maybe
not, but the idea that 51% of people voting in the USA can enforce their will
on all 300 million citizens is pretty scary to me...

~~~
shpxnvz
_Maybe not, but the idea that 51% of people voting in the USA can enforce
their will on all 300 million citizens is pretty scary to me…_

Luckily that's not quite how it works - we're not a direct democracy. But,
even when a majority of representatives attempts to exert their will on us
citizens, the scope of their will is limited to the powers explicitly granted
them by the constitution and they, within those powers, are further restricted
from infringing on our natural and enumerated rights.

Certainly, a reasonable argument can be made that the legislature does push
the limits with regards to their powers, particularly with respect to the
commerce clause, and we do more arguing in defense of our individual rights
than I think should be necessary, but all-in-all we're not doing too bad. In
any case, we've so far only needed to use our first three boxes [1] in the
defense of liberty. I wouldn't consider it a failure until we find need for
the fourth.

1\. <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty>

~~~
lionhearted
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Four_boxes_of_liberty>

Interesting link, thanks for that.

My view on governance has evolved as I've gotten older - these days I don't
believe in one best form of government, and I think people should generally
live under the government that they wish to.

Thus, I prefer to see rights reserved to the smallest groups of people
practical to make a decision. I'd prefer a lot more decisionmaking to happen
at local levels and state levels in the USA, which gives people more options
for where they want to live and the kind of government they wish to live
under.

Large scale, broad legislation almost always winds up with devil's bargains
that don't quite suit anyone really well, special interests working in
coalitions... it's bad stuff, in my opinion. Of course, everyone agrees with
this for policies they'd like to see happen at a local level, and disagrees
for policies they think everyone should follow. Drug control - local or
national? Well, people who want decriminalization would prefer it locally
decided, which makes it effectively almost legal. People against think it
needs to be nationally decided to be effective. Labor laws? Pro-labor people
want it national, people against want it locally decided. I'd prefer almost
everything is locally decided, but of course, most people will argue that
their favorite policies really have to happen on a national level that
everyone must follow.

~~~
shpxnvz
_My view on governance has evolved as I've gotten older - these days I don't
believe in one best form of government, and I think people should generally
live under the government that they wish to._

Truly, and this too is at the heart of our form of democracy - that our
inalienable rights trump any government's power, and that we as a free people
have the right to choose the government that best serves us. As our founders
made clear when declaring our independence, it is a self-evident truth "that
whenever any form of government becomes destructive to these ends, it is the
right of the people to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new
government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers
in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their safety and
happiness."

That we continue to have, as a people, the natural right and ability as
protected by the second amendment to abolish our government when we see fit,
is (to me) evidence that our founders chose well. That is not to say, of
course, that their choice of government will always be the right one for us.

 _I'd prefer a lot more decisionmaking to happen at local levels and state
levels in the USA, which gives people more options for where they want to live
and the kind of government they wish to live under._

I agree, and this is the reason for my comment on abuse of the commerce
clause. The states, and their localities as they see fit, have complete
control over their governance _except_ where contradicted by federal treaty
and law in pursuance of the constitution. Unfortunately, through the commerce
clause the federal legislature, with precious few rebuttals from SCOTUS, has
long managed to interfere in purely intrastate concerns.

 _Large scale, broad legislation almost always winds up with devil's bargains
that don't quite suit anyone really well, special interests working in
coalitions..._

Yes, agreed. The constitution makes it clear where authority really lies - but
short of SCOTUS revisiting their commerce clause rulings, we'll have to effect
this change on the soap box and at the ballot box, by finding, supporting and
electing national representatives who want to govern us the least.

------
cynicalkane
Consider the school system. I won't go into how bad it is because I bet a lot
of readers here already understand that. What's terrifying is not how bad it
is but how institutionalized it is. What little political will, what little
realization there is that this system is fundamentally broken, becomes drowned
in a sea of hopeless politics.

I think future generations will view our schools as archaic and somewhat
barbaric, kind of like how things like corporal punishment and child labor are
viewed today. Actually, teaching a child a trade is probably less harmful to
his character than sending him to the average public school.

~~~
jbarham
> Actually, teaching a child a trade is probably less harmful to his character
> than sending him to the average public school.

This is not a new idea. It's called apprenticeship and was once widespread in
e.g. Europe. Why it's less common now is largely a combination of changes in
the economy (fewer stable, skilled trades) and society (teenagers being less
willing to accept the obligations of being an apprentice).

~~~
xsmasher
Spending time in among adults and performing real work would have a great
positive effect on kids.

It seems obvious why teenage culture is petty, cruel, and obsessed with
fashion and status; the inmates, trapped in an artificial world and forced to
do fake-work, turn on each other.

------
jacquesm
Possibly the future will judge us by the irreparable damage done to the
environment and our ecosystem and for all the species that we allowed to die
out that they'll never get a chance to see, let alone conserve.

Possibly they will remember us as the ones that killed off the oceans but in
that case there might not be anybody there to remember us at all.

Hopefully they'll remember us as the generation that got off their asses and
decided to do something, that stopped the damage and the wars before it was
too late and that was the first to expand beyond the Earth to avoid having all
our eggs in that one basket.

I'm bullish on the future, now let's make it happen somehow.

------
Revisor
We are the last generation (or one of the last) that doesn't understand our
own brains.

We have electricity, light bulbs and flickering TV and computers screens but
we don't understand our sleep cycle and the circadian rhythm. We are a sleep-
deprived civilization.[1]

Our scientists already know how learning works (semantic encoding and
repetition are the key), but we still cram kids in Austro-Hungarian like
classrooms.[2]

We are the last generation to waste drinking water. Water is already today a
precious resource. In the future this will be even more pronounced.

Great article, got me thinking.

If you're interested, I recommend

[1] The Promise of Sleep: [http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-
Connection-Happ...](http://www.amazon.com/Promise-Sleep-Medicine-Connection-
Happiness/dp/0440509017/)

[2] Brain Rules: [http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-
Thriv...](http://www.amazon.com/Brain-Rules-Principles-Surviving-
Thriving/dp/0979777747/)

~~~
loewenskind
The surface of the earth is 70% water. I refuse to believe that future
generations wont figure out a cost effect way of turning this into drinking
water on the required scales.

------
InfinityX0
This deserves another Paul Graham essay reference: "What You Can't Say".
Graham details how each period of history has something different that we look
back at and think of as horrible. He also uncovers some patterns between them.

Some excerpts:

"In our own time, different societies have wildly varying ideas of what’s ok
and what isn’t. So you can try diffing other cultures’ ideas against ours as
well. / In one culture x is ok, and in another it’s considered shocking. My
hypothesis is that the side that’s shocked is most likely to be the mistaken
one."

"To launch a taboo, a group has to be posed halfway between weakness and
power. A confident group doesn’t need taboos to protect it. It’s not
considered improper to make disparaging remarks about Americans, or the
English. And yet a group has to be powerful enough to enforce a taboo."

"Whatever the reason, there seems a clear correlation between intelligence and
willingness to consider shocking ideas. This isn’t just because smart people
actively work to find holes in conventional thinking. Conventions also have
less hold over them to start with. You can see that in the way they dress."

<http://www.paulgraham.com/say.html>

------
maxklein
I believe in the future it will seem ridiculous that people from many
countries are prevented from traveling to some other richer countries, while
the people from the rich countries can freely move about as they please.

~~~
run4yourlives
There seems to be a common belief, even among the educated, that the security
of nations is somehow completely unrelated to the security of the individual.

In reality, one is the macro; the other, micro. They are solutions to the
exact same problem at a different scale.

The same way that you lock your door, we collectively close a border. The same
way that we call the cops on the drug house, we bomb << entity >> .

So, to re-phrase your future view a little: If you foresee us being able to
dispel the notion of door locks in favour of trusting our fellow humans
completely, you can imagine your border free world.

I am a little more pessimistic, to be honest.

~~~
anigbrowl
The problem with this analogy is that while it's reasonable to think of
oneself as the sole authority over one's own home, that concept does not scale
in any meaningful way to the size of a country, unless the governing power is
vested in a monarchy.

A great many political theses are advanced from all over the political
spectrum in the format of 'You wouldn't tolerate X - so why does the
government? We the people demand an end to X!' However, 'we the people', when
taken as a whole, have a demonstrable tendency to disagree amongst ourselves,
and almost never act in concert. There are all sorts of thing which we should
find surprising or unacceptable within our own homes but whose existence we
accept or at least tolerate within our county, state, or country because
either a majority of our neighbors hold views which differ from ours or
because constitutional or legislative power takes precedence over our own
preferences.

A better analogy might be to consider the country as something similar to an
apartment building or even a small town.You can exert a degree of security
insofar as it serves the common good, but an absolutist approach of the kind
you describe rapidly becomes self-defeating and unsustainable over the longer
term. I might add that absolutism in this context refers to the idea of
abolishing borders as much as to the idea of sealing them. After all, we have
controls in between the borders of US states with limited powers to enforce
prohibitions or requirements unique to that state, from carrying certain
produce to wearing a motorcycle helmet, and these are not considered
especially onerous.

Rather than abolition of borders, I see a trend away from a presumption of
exclusion as the default and towards a policy of neutral vigilance - in other
words, personal migration will come to be seen in the same light as other
trade flows, subject to inspection and monitoring but requiring specific
grounds for interference.

So, suppose you have a business importing silk from China, and the hacky part
is that it's woven in conformity with 6502 assembler code or something. It
comes into the US in a cargo container, and we all accept that DHS/CBP want to
assure themselves that it doesn't include radioactive materials, smallpox, or
marauding silkworm colonies. That done, we expect them to be indifferent to
the question of whether 8-bit silken handkerchief designs will affect the US
economy in positive or negative fashion - that's for the market to discover,
not the customs inspectors, as long as there's no ongoing trade dispute
between China and the US justifying their exclusion in accordance with treaty.

We already have such a policy in place for visiting tourists and
businesspersons from other developed countries, and which is mostly reciprocal
- you can grab your passport and fly to Japan on a whim for up to 90 days, and
vice versa. Within both the US and the EU, the benefits of allowing migration
between the individual member states seems to considerably outweigh the
various costs; economics suggests that rational policymaking on international
migration will go the same way sooner or later.

Of course, this isn't foolproof and the downside of such a policy is that
criminals can exploit such openness to further their wicked ends. But insofar
the number of such people/incidents is low - not least because more people
appreciate the freedoms of the open model, and have a stake in its
preservation - that risk is tolerable.

~~~
run4yourlives
_The problem with this analogy is that while it's reasonable to think of
oneself as the sole authority over one's own home, that concept does not scale
in any meaningful way to the size of a country, unless the governing power is
vested in a monarchy._

What are you talking about? The recognized governments of the world are the
sole powers of the areas of land they control, in the same manner that I might
be recognized as being the master of my domain; in fact more so!

In essence: enough other people agree that they are, so they are. I think
you're reading too far into the analogy to assert that democratic governments
as entities in and of themselves don't fit.

 _That done, we expect them to be indifferent to the question of whether 8-bit
silken handkerchief designs will affect the US economy in positive or negative
fashion - that's for the market to discover, not the customs inspectors, as
long as there's no ongoing trade dispute between China and the US justifying
their exclusion in accordance with treaty._

I'm not sure what part of the planet you live on where this happens. When and
if we actually do establish it with trade, we can start worrying about
immigration.

~~~
anigbrowl
_What are you talking about? The recognized governments of the world are the
sole powers of the areas of land they control, in the same manner that I might
be recognized as being the master of my domain; in fact more so!_

The difference is that while it's relatively easy for you to make a decision
and then act upon it, in a democratic country it's quite rare for the
population to be so unified that the government of the day engages in
completely unilateral actions. Not only is the government constrained by
disagreements among the governed which affect its capacity for unitary
policymaking, it's also usually constrained by constitutional matters which
may prevent it from acting in certain ways despite the clear wishes of a
legitimate majority.

That's why I suggested that scaling up the behavior of a householder to the
size of a country is going to give you a monarchy of some kind. North Korea is
governed by someone who seems to believe that the nation's security is best
served by sealing off the whole country from its neighbors, but I rather doubt
you want to live there.

 _When and if we actually do establish it with trade_

Well this is quite close to what we have now. If you or I decide to start
importing stuff from China, the customs people don't give two hoots about
which particular things are imported in most cases. Nobody, for example, is
going to call you up and say 'we halted your furniture shipment because we
don't like tables with built-in drawers, what the economy needs right now is a
greater supply of chairs.'

~~~
run4yourlives
_The difference is that while it's relatively easy for you to make a decision
and then act upon it, in a democratic country it's quite rare for the
population to be so unified that the government of the day engages in
completely unilateral actions_

Did you miss the whole "Let's go on a desert adventure and finish what dad
started" that happened a few years back?

 _Well this is quite close to what we have now._

No offense, but if you actually think this you are completely ignorant of
world affairs in general, but specifically international trade. Things to
Google: Softwood Lumber, Corn Industry subsidies, Farm subsidies, OPEC.

I could go on...

~~~
anigbrowl
Get a sense of proportion. You are treating edge cases as the norm.

~~~
run4yourlives
They are the norm. Free Trade accommodations are specifically negotiated and
are in fact the real edge cases in the world of trade at the movement. Even
when they do exist, there are often disputes.

Give me one example of an import/export international trade experience that
has not been subject to protectionist measures of some nature and perhaps I
can explore your point some more.

------
zeteo
It may also be possible that the future will hold us responsible for something
that we are very proud of today. I recently re-read "The Lord of the Rings"
and was surprised at the racist / eugenic undertones, which unfortunately date
the book to some degree. One person's chief virtue is that he's of
unadulterated blood, some nation is declining because of mixing of the races
etc. Unbelievable as it may seem today, people once held racism and
segregation as noble ideals. What will our time be known as - the age of
political correctness, maybe?

~~~
cynicalkane
Tolkien explicitly denied that anything in the Lord of the Rings was intended
to be directly allegorical. As I recall, the books don't talk about mixing
races in the sense of subdivisions of humanity; they talk about things like
mixing men and _orcs_ , so it's not really the same as miscegenation.

edit: Apparently I didn't recall well enough. Oh well.

~~~
zeteo
Yes they do. Aragorn is of the purest race of Westernesse, and his special
abilities are in good part based on this. The subjects of prince Imrahil are
sadly mixed in race, although the prince himself is of rather pure breed, etc.
It's not about this being an allegory for England or whatever, it's about the
general world view and the things that are considered noble and admirable.

~~~
bokchoi
And don't forget the barbaric men from the South and their backward ways.

~~~
radu_floricica
Which reminds me that some of the comments in the book are made through the
eyes of the characters. Of course enemy foreigners would seem "orcish" to a
hobbit, because for him orc means evil and enemy means evil (and for the most
part he would be right).

------
simonsquiff
It's interesting how cultures differ on some of these.

I was speaking to a friend who works in China. He says he often discusses with
the locals their appalling treatment of animals, which can be genuinely
shocking to Westerners. He says this is usually met by a swift rebuke "How on
earth can you criticize us for our treatment of animals when your culture
treats your elderly relatives - your own family! - so horrifically, shipping
them off to be ignored in a home for the rest of their lives?". It's a fair
point - people in glass houses...

~~~
potatolicious
Ehh... it's a _point_ , but IMHO not a good one. I'm Chinese and have heard a
lot of this viewpoint from my "own kind" (I don't actually identify culturally
as Chinese, but whatever).

"We're faultless because you've got faults" is a shitty argument no matter
which way it's offered. Or more accurately "we're not going to engage in
intellectual discussion about this issue until you yourself are perfect in
every way". It's dumb and pointless, and is really just defensive
nationalistic kneejerking.

Another common argument I hear from the Chinese is the "you had our turn, so
we get to have ours". It's very common when it comes to environmental issues -
the basic logic is that America was able to burn fossil fuel in a completely
unrestrained way for decades, so why shouldn't China get the same opportunity?

~~~
simonsquiff
I don't think the argument is that they are not faultless. It's that they see
the Western faults (treating their elderly relatives so poorly) as so much
worse than their faults in a related area (treating animals poorly). It's a
valid observation - that our complaining of the poor treatment of sentient
animals is rather undermined by our poor treatment of a much more closer to
home sentient animal.

------
philwelch
Automobiles. I think the future will be horrified that people transported
themselves around in two-ton machines that polluted the air and fatally
crashed into things (and each other) a lot, especially when both before and
after the invention of automobiles we had safer and cleaner options, and
especially when a lot of people spend hours a day sitting in their cars in
stop-and-go traffic.

I have an SUV myself, and the freedom and joy and romance of driving appeals
to me as much as anyone, but at some point, if energy is expensive enough, all
of that will be forgotten, and it'll turn into a horror story.

------
davidcann
As medical technology progresses, it seems obvious that abortion will
eventually be seen as barbaric. A hundred years ago, a baby born prematurely
would die, but now babies live when born at 7 months, 6 months? earlier? Laws
in the US have begun to reflect this. The only logical limit is conception.

At some point, it will no longer be an issue of religion or freedom of the
mother, just like wife-beating must have been the "right if a man."

~~~
lukifer
Conversely, contraception technology may progress to the point that accidental
pregnancy itself becomes a quaint impossibility, sidestepping the moral issues
altogether.

~~~
DavidSJ
Not entirely. People change their mind.

So the question will be (and mainly already is): when is too late to change
your mind?

------
gasull
_What are we doing today that our descendants might condemn tomorrow?_

Over 1M deaths due to US-led invasion of Iraq:

[http://www.projectcensored.org/top-
stories/articles/1-over-o...](http://www.projectcensored.org/top-
stories/articles/1-over-one-million-iraqi-deaths-caused-by-us-occupation/)

[https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Casualties_of...](https://secure.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/en/wiki/Casualties_of_the_Iraq_War#Opinion_Research_Business_.28ORB.29_poll)

~~~
DavidSJ
That number is ten times higher than many (I think most) other estimates. Is
there a reason you prefer their methodology?

------
sgentle
I think the future will judge this as a time of great confusion. Scarcity, the
fundament of our economy, is becoming obsolete. Danger, the most powerful of
human instincts, is largely irrelevant. Our technology gives us so much power
that most decisions we make are no longer "can we?" but "should we?". We are
more isolated than ever, and our nascent internet social models are rarely
enough to sustain more than superficial relationships.

This is not true everywhere, but in most of the western world it is. Social
change lags behind technological. The information age has done wonderful
things, but I think we will be remembered as the first people to deal with the
end of "natural" in any meaningful sense, and of a time spent struggling to
find a replacement that is built, not handed to us by circumstance.

------
speleding
Since no one mentioned it yet: The lack of right to die if you are incurably
ill is shameful

A few countries and states already have euthanasia laws in place (Switzerland,
the Netherlands) but in most other places you are still forced to die a
painful and long drawn out death that is hard on the relatives too.

------
jbrun
Meat consumption - Vegetarianism.

"Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world.

Some prison systems, notably the U.S.

~~~
yummyfajitas
_"Slave" Labour - there are still 26 million slaves in the world._

Not just those 26 million, but there are far more if you count people who
engage in temporary forced labor [1]. Many countries temporarily enslave their
citizens, including Cuba, Denmark, Finland, Iran, North Korea and Israel.

[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and...](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conscription#Countries_with_and_without_mandatory_military_service)

Some prominent US politicians have proposed the US should bring back the
practice (we used to do this):

[http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-
run...](http://www.nydailynews.com/blogs/dc/2010/07/rangel-still-running-
still-pus.html)

[http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-
mandatory-c...](http://www.prisonplanet.com/obama-website-scrubs-mandatory-
community-service-call.html)

[1] This differs from slavery, in the sense that these people cannot be
bought/sold and the duration is limited.

~~~
Avshalom
It differs from slavery, in the sense that these people are still legally
people.

That's not some trivial fucking difference.

~~~
yummyfajitas
Suppose the US passed a law in 1850 saying that slaves are legally people, but
no other changes were made (i.e., the legal person slaves were still forced to
perform labor for their masters). Would that also be a non-trivial difference?

Being defined as a legal person is nice, but it doesn't change the fact that
you are forced (under threat of violence) to work for someone else against
your will.

------
nomurrcy
I'm very surprised that nobody has mentioned the domination of modern banking
over our present society.

Most of the major nations of the world currently pay a fee to private banks
for the privilege of circulating their own currency. Our current debt-backed
money system is unstable and serves to exacerbate and deepen the gap between
the rich and poor and lodges an enormous amount of power in the hands of a few
men.

I believe that should humanity ever squirm out from under the thumb of 'big
banking' we will view the stranglehold it has had on us for the past few
hundred years as a great systemic evil to which we collectively averted our
gaze for a long long time.

------
andreyf
Slavery is still acceptable, as long as it's out-of-sight and out-of-mind. Or
do you expect Dell to have ensured fair wages and working conditions for every
person involved in the resource extraction and manufacture of the machine on
the desk in front of me?

~~~
DavidSJ
Dell offers an opportunity to these employees which, while lousy by Western
standards, is better, in their judgment, than the alternatives available to
them. That's why they have voluntarily accepted the position. Dell has made
their lives better, not worse.

Slaves didn't agree to be slaves.

------
Dove
I have always thought abortion an act of barbarism against which both the past
_and_ the future would revolt. Babies are killed for convenience and profit;
it'd be over the top for comic book villains, and yet it is real.

It won't survive another generation, and will be seen as one of the darkest
black spots in our history.

~~~
Waywocket
>I have always thought abortion an act of barbarism against which both the
past and the future would revolt

Given that the use of abortifacients is well documented for the entire
duration of recorded history, this seems unlikely.

~~~
Dove
Really! That goes strongly against what I think I know about mores and
history. Do you happen to have details or documentation for that claim?

~~~
Waywocket
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_abortion> is as good a place to start
as any.

~~~
lotharbot
> Given that the use of abortifacients is well documented for the entire
> duration of recorded history, this seems unlikely.

From your link, it appears abortion has been _controversial_ for the entire
duration of recorded history. It would be accurate to say that some past
societies would view current abortion practices as barbaric, but perhaps not
all past societies.

~~~
Waywocket
>From your link, it appears abortion has been controversial for the entire
duration of recorded history

Hmm, okay, but I was thinking in terms of a comparison with our current
feelings. It's still controversial _now_ , but it wouldn't really be accurate
to say that 'our society' views the practice as barbaric - though of course
many individuals do, and doubtless always have and will.

I don't believe that we are any more likely to choose abortion now than at any
other point in history. The option is a lot _easier_ now, so the numbers
presumably work out higher, but it's more than just a societal phase that
makes it seem appealing (for want of a better word) to a lot of people.

------
twillerelator
For their own good: locking children up in schools; telling them what to
learn; coercing them in the name of health and education; punishing children
at home.

These things won't happen eventually. Yet future generations will take
education, health and morality _more seriously_ than we do.

~~~
lftl
> punishing children at home

We shouldn't punish children? Even for things they clearly understand are
wrong?

~~~
twillerelator
It sounds crazy, doesn't it? Of course, the idea of not punishing one's _wife_
after she had done something which she understood to be wrong, once upon a
time, also sounded crazy.

This applies to all moral progress. Any prediction about morality that doesn't
shock at least _some_ people is unlikely to be both true and important.

~~~
lftl
I can, in sci-fi sense, imagine a world where we wouldn't need to discipline
children, but it would take some pretty fundamental changes in our
understanding of parenting techniques and probably involve some technology
that doesn't exist today. That puts it pretty far away from "stop beating your
wife" which just required you to... stop beating your wife. Are you thinking
disciplining children instead would be a simple shift from today?

Also, would some acts, like murder, still be punishable? Or are you imagining
a shift so deep that no one would need to be punished.

~~~
twillerelator
I believe in gradual change. Ending the extrajudicial punishment of children
is not such a big step, because it entails only a small extension of human
status (having already incorporated women, slaves, foreigners, etc.)

I doubt that judicial punishment of strangers is going to end anytime soon,
but note how different that is to punishing a family member.

However, now you mention it, there is an interesting similarity. Why does
punishment happen? Not for the reasons most people think. For instance, it
doesn't (and can't) transmit moral knowledge from the punisher to the
punished. Neither does it reliably cause obedience.

In reality, society punishes criminals in order to prevent greater suffering
in the form of larger scale rioting and madness.

Similarly, parents punish children to prevent _themselves_ from going mad. But
if knowledge spread of how to be a better and happier parent then this sort of
punishment would end.

Such knowledge may already exist in basic form:

[http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/introductory_articles...](http://www.takingchildrenseriously.com/introductory_articles_about_TCS)

------
twymer
Personally, my bet would be that the extreme amount of effort we put in to
promoting diversity in educational institutes and the work place will be
something people eventually can't imagine being necessary.

Hopefully.

Edit: I guess I wasn't explicit enough as people took this the wrong way..
What I meant is that diversity will "just happen." I of course realize that it
is a very important thing and that our efforts certainly are a good thing.

~~~
lwhi
Seriously .. WTF? (You don't believe that diversity will be seen as something
that's worthwhile, and you're hoping for this conclusion?)

Or, perhaps I've misread what you're trying to say?

~~~
gxti
Apologies for downvoting you, I did so based on your original post of just
"Seriously .. WTF?". I don't see his post as being WTF-worthy even though I
disagree with it, nor do I condone any such posts since they add nothing of
value to the discussion.

I interpreted his/her post as not against diversity, but against
"diversification" programs like affirmative action as opposed to letting
social entropy run its course. I agree with the sentiment somewhat but I don't
think it meets the criteria for looking back and asking "what was society
thinking?".

~~~
lwhi
That's okay. I saw the post had been downvoted as this led me to assume that
the post was promoting a desire for less diversity .. although after re-
reading I realised that might not be the case. My mistake.

------
jpablo
I was trying to think of things the future can look down on us for, but I can
only come up with:

* Polluting the environment.

* Allowing people to day of easily curable diseases.

Seems like thinking outside of our own times is really hard.

~~~
thrdOriginal
* Gay marriage (lack of)

* Drug prohibition

...always immediately jump out at me; I'm sure there are many, many others.

~~~
moxiemk1
Interestingly, the article didn't mention the first, and barely touched the
second.

Their hypothesis on when something is surely to be condemned in the future
requires universal lack of moral defensibility. Right now, the detractors on
both of these issues are still claiming they are speaking from morality, so
the article didn't list them.

That said, I agree with you. The article, however, implies that these issues
are not yet inevitably going to be looked down on in the future. (whew, run on
sentence much?)

------
city41
On a smaller scale, I believe the future will judge us on our software. ie,
bank websites with security holes in them the size of trucks. Software is
still so young and has a long ways to go. The future might be amazed at how
often we literally put our lives, finances, privacy, etc in the hands of
really poorly written software.

~~~
Vivtek
Yeah, I'll buy this, too. Our software will be like the rounded rocks used in
the Stone Age; people will see it in museums and wonder how people could have
been so naive.

~~~
bruceboughton
If the software even still runs...

------
Cushman
What makes us think that future generations won't be disgusted by _our_ wife-
beating and slavery?

------
swah
How would the past judge us?

~~~
a-priori
They would look at the vast regions of the world that are peaceful, and think
we are foolish for being so trustful of our neighbours.

"Why is Washington not afraid of New York raising an army and marching on the
capital?", they would say. Until the last couple centuries, that's something
you'd have to be afraid of. Yet, that's something that people today would
think is preposterous.

I'm an optimist. I happen to think this is a trend that will continue.

------
njharman
Greed. Which arguably is the reason the other ills (except hatin on old
people) listed in the article exist. But, honestly, believing humans will
evolve beyond greed in the future is far-fetched.

~~~
CWuestefeld
I'd like to turn that on its head. I'd like to see an end to the demagoguery
of greed.

In my perfect world, people understand that when someone makes money, it's
because he's providing something of value to society. And the more money he
makes, the more value he's delivering. The way to encourage people to work
hardest for society is through the incentive of potential riches.

The only sin begotten by greed is the use of force and its little brother,
fraud. So long people openly enter into agreements that they both believe to
be beneficial to themselves, it's no one else's business.

~~~
mmorris
_... when someone makes money, it's because he's providing something of value
to society. And the more money he makes, the more value he's delivering._

I agree that people should receive reward in proportion to the value they
create, but I don't believe that people who make more money are always
delivering more value. The main problem with that idea is the difficulty in
determining how much value a single individual actually generates.

There are plenty of terrible CEOs who destroy the value of the companies they
manage, yet still receive huge salaries and bonus packages, and there are
plenty of great teachers/engineers/others lower on the totem pole who earn a
relative pittance. Is this because of the value they've created, or due to the
CEO's direct proximity to value creation, an ability to convince others of
their importance, and a relatively small supply side? I'd say looking at the
ridiculous increases in the CEO-worker earning gap over the last few decades
it has been warped by factors other than deservedness.

It may be true that there is a correlation between value created and income,
but I think there are too many other factors at play to say that it is a
general rule.

~~~
CWuestefeld
_I don't believe that people who make more money are always delivering more
value._

Then why are people giving them money? What makes you think that you (or some
regulator or something) could do a better job of evaluating their worth.

 _There are plenty of terrible CEOs who destroy the value of the companies
they manage, yet still receive huge salaries and bonus packages_

I think this is a case of the normal human inability to assess the risk of
rare, significant events (and hence our overreaction to terrorist attacks,
child abduction, etc.). While the kind of thing you cite certainly happens
from time to time, I submit that it's much rarer than many people seem to
perceive -- the very fact that they make big news is evidence of how unusual
it is. The hiring of a CEO is a very significant decision that is attended
with a certain amount of risk. On one hand it's important to be able to
attract the best talent available, but on the other hand the calculated risk
may crap out.

Eliminating the risk of losses due to contract buyouts is (obviously, at least
to me) not the solution. I know that I'm not capable of doing the job that my
company's CEO does; I don't know anyone who is. Even if I were technically
capable, I don't think I could handle the responsibility she shoulders,
keeping us all profitably employed. I think she earns everything she gets.

 _I'd say looking at the ridiculous increases in the CEO-worker earning gap
over the last few decades it has been warped by factors other than
deservedness. ... there are plenty of great teachers/engineers/others lower on
the totem pole who earn a relative pittance_

I think that much of that can be attributed to the fact that the market is not
free to assign value as appropriate. For one thing, we have protectionism
preserving low-skill jobs. While the value of an excellent CEO really is
increasing, the value of a low-skill assembly worker is not. But tariffs (
_caused_ in part by the demagoguery of greed, I might add) prevent us from
getting rid of those jobs, which would eventually lead to greater availability
of high-skill jobs.

In the specific case of teachers, the mismatch of contribution to compensation
is explicitly their own fault. The rules that their unions demand we adhere to
disallow us from compensating better those with greater value. The same is
true of other unions (which tends to correspond to those lower on your totem
pole).

~~~
mmorris
_Then why are people giving them money? What makes you think that you (or some
regulator or something) could do a better job of evaluating their worth._

First off, I don't believe that we should impose a different system for
valuing people's salaries, and I didn't mean to imply that if I did. I just
think that there are obvious flaws in the current system. I wish I had an
answer that would fix all the issues, but, of course, it's not that simple.

Essentially, my impression is that you believe that the market which
determines people's salaries is entirely rational, and I disagree. As in most
(all?) marketplaces, it's not really about the value, it's about the
_perceived_ value. Some people (and they are not evenly distributed across all
career paths) are better than others at convincing people they are worth a
lot, so they get paid more. This is partly due to proximity to the money
making process, which is one of the reasons that salespeople are paid so much
(it's easier for them to make an argument based on "look how much money I've
made you!").

In addition, people don't value CEOs (or anyone else for that matter) in a
vacuum. They look at what other CEOs are being paid and are primed to base
their valuation accordingly. If their pay was truly based on value-delivered,
this wouldn't be the case.

I wholeheartedly agree with you that government involvement via tariffs and
salary management is generally a bad thing. It only makes a messy situation
messier. But that doesn't mean the free market is perfect, and examining and
understanding its weaknesses can only benefit us.

------
estel
I think he's missing world poverty. Whilst noone really supports it, it's
entirely morally reprehensible that we don't do more as a society to eradicate
poverty around the world.

------
imr
These are things that should change, however future generations will only
judge us on the ones that progressive politicians are able to legislate away.
The rest will be just as normal for future generations.

The good money is on environmental change. There are already tax incentives
and other programs for that. How society treats both the young (education) and
old (retirement and end of life decisions) will never change.

~~~
parallax7d
I doubt how we treat the young and the elderly will stop changing. Just look
at child labor laws and social security, medicade/care in the US for one
example of radical change.

~~~
imr
The major changes you mention are from 40+ years ago. Social security is only
played with when there is a funding problem on the horizon. I don't see what
is changing for the better.

~~~
parallax7d
Well sure, but you seem to be scoping your statement down to recent events, in
America, and only positive change. Before you were addressing any type of
change in society as a whole, in the future. I was merely pointing out the
vagaries of such over arching statements.

If we are to consider society as a whole, over time, i think things are moving
in a positive direction for the liberties of children and the elderly. It's
hard to predict what may or may not change in American legislation in the
future, but I doubt it will be "nothing".

------
xenophanes
The future will condemn our coercive parenting and our irrational, exclusive
relationships (marriages).

If you think that sounds crazy, that means they are at least candidates for
things people _take for granted_ that are bad (unlike, say, the
environmentalism in the post which is an issue we're all aware of).

If interested, you can find arguments here: <http://fallibleideas.com/>

------
reasonattlm
That we were a culture that had it within our power to stop aging and age-
related death, and chose to bury our heads in the sand and suffer and die
instead. Ignorant suicidal barbarians, they'll call us.

[http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/09/the-scientific-
de...](http://www.fightaging.org/archives/2008/09/the-scientific-debate-that-
will-determine-how-long-we-all-live.php)

~~~
carbocation
We don't blame the past for not discovering penicillin until the 19th-20th
Century (there is debate on the exact date). The future won't blame us for not
discovering {as-yet-undiscovered amazing thing} yet, either.

~~~
NickPollard
I (and many others) blame close-mindedness for holding back Scientific
Progress and the fruits of the Enlightenment. Would Penicillin have been
discovered earlier if people hadn't been so keen to label as 'heresy' what was
just new, potentially valid hypotheses about the universe?

~~~
carbocation
I can agree in part. We must hold people accountable for their beliefs,
actions, and attitudes across time and place. On the other hand, I do not
think that we should underestimate the degree to which serendipity influences
the scientific endeavor.

------
limist
This is philosophy made relevant; there's no evaluation like self-evaluation.

------
ranprieur
Rent and interest. Both are giant rivers of money from the poor to the rich
that we accept without question.

------
krschultz
There are a bunch more to think about:

War? Terrorism? Torture? Are we to believe that for the rest of eternity we
will have these 3 things?

Discriminating against gays? abortion (either that we allowed it at all, or
that people fought against it, I don't even know which will prevail), income
inequality, immigration laws.

------
ArcticCelt
This article seams to propose that morality and civility improve linearly
forever when in fact it's more like the stock market with frequent crashes and
long periods of decline. I am maybe a pessimist but I think that modern
society is near the peak of what we can achieve.

I personally think that it's not enough but I am the minority and my fellow
citizens will simply vote against people who share my ideals. There is too
many people hardwired to be assholes. Maybe if we start tweaking our brains
(what could possibly go wrong) we could reach new milestones but otherwise I
am not holding my breath.

~~~
loewenskind
Move to another country. The US has set up a perfect storm of a shockingly
awful school system, dumbed down media from every angle, emotion in politics
causing people to frame every discussion as "my side = save the US" vs. "their
side = destroy it", etc. creating a large group of people who just can't be
reasoned with.

~~~
a-priori
While I agree these are all concerns, I am skeptical that this is a modern
phenomenon. Were people a generation or two ago really less emotional, or less
prone to black-and-white thinking?

~~~
loewenskind
I think they were probably the same they just didn't spend as much time
thinking (for lack of a better word) about this stuff. It wasn't _that_ long
ago that there was only 15 minutes of news a day on the TV. People were
thinking about it less because they didn't have the option to plug into
political hacks spewing nonsense literally 24/7.

------
lhnz
I like to think that we will do away with the tragedy of the commons and
actually find the solutions that are best for all of us and not just some of
us. (And when I say 'us', I mean that to the widest extent).

------
loewenskind
I don't think the future is going to "judge" us anymore than we really judge
past civilizations. We realize the mistakes they made were usually due to
ignorance just as ours are.

The things they'll shake their heads about will probably be things like:

Having country policies decided by popularity contests instead of research and
(where possible) science.

Spending most of our waking hours making people we don't even personally know
rich instead of finding a way to spend more time enjoying what little life we
had.

------
chewbranca
I'm fairly sure we'll be judged to some extent that we allowed Bush to be
president, twice no less, and also that we spent the first decade of the 21st
century in war.

------
filosofo
The fact that people did bad things at one time doesn't imply that what they
did was accepted generally or approved by moral standards of the time. For
example, many contemporaries opposed the tactics of the Inquisition (mentioned
in the article as the advent of waterboarding).

Using the same logic we could characterize 20th-Century people as accepting
mass-murder, because it was practiced by numerous nations on a never-before-
seen scale.

------
dpatru
Hopefully in the future, people will be more free. They will look back and
wonder why it was once acceptable for governments to:

* confiscate huge percentages of a person's work, thus effectively making working people serfs of the government

* conscript people for war

* conduct wars

* require licensing to practice certain occupations

* restrict freedom to trade and tax commerce

* tolerate public unions

* monopolize the education of children

* force working people to provide pensions and healthcare for non-working people

* imprison people for using drugs in their homes

~~~
pessimizer
I hope that I'm long dead before the time comes when society is wondering why
it was once acceptable to tolerate free association between employees and to
not let people starve who aren't working. I at least hope I have enough kids
to support me once society has horribly failed in that way.

~~~
zargon
Violence does not solve social problems. Forcing people to feed unemployed
people is violent. A future without forced "charity" does not mean people are
left to starve.

~~~
pessimizer
>Violence does not solve social problems.

This is a straw man. Violence can help with social problems sometimes, which
is why we have policemen.

>Forcing people to feed unemployed people is violent.

Agreed.

>A future without forced "charity" does not mean people are left to starve.

Completely false. In a future _with_ forced charity, there will exist people
left to starve because of difficulties in execution, distribution, public
will, or a general lack of resources. Leaving this entirely to the discretion
of individuals will destroy equality of protection, creating a patchwork
(which will likely largely exclude historically discriminated against groups),
and will tend to work against economies of scale.

------
Abid
Jared Diamond works with a similar theme in his book "Collapse" though he goes
further and explores issues that might literally bring about an end to our
societies.

The take-away from both pieces: we should regularly question our beliefs and
values in a larger context - what may seem like a perfectly normal, decent and
harmless thing to us may be doing our society irreparable harm in the long
run.

------
brudgers
The use of violence as an economic and political tool - due to changes in
communications, the tide is already turning.

------
anatoly
Recorded music. The most bewildering thing about us to our descendants 80
years from now would be that millions of people routinely walked around with
headphones, tuned to radio stations, or walked around public spaces,
_listening to exactly the same music over and over again_.

~~~
trafficlight
I don't see how this will change. 80 years ago, people were listening to the
exact same songs over and over again. They only difference is that their
players weren't portable.

------
nova
<http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Information-theoretic_death>

------
DavidSJ
Compulsory schooling is the top of my list, as any society which values
freedom must value the freedom of one's own mind above all.

------
tomerico
Hopefully:

* War

* Garbage

* Pollution

* Taking your shoes off in airports :)

~~~
davidw
> * Taking your shoes off in airports :)

As someone who is not at all fond of flying, hopefully they'll judge the whole
idea of tin cans hurtling through the sky, powered by highly flammable
chemicals as being a bit primitive.

~~~
die_sekte
Looking at current research I would think that in the future plastic cans will
hurtle across the sky, powered by more flammable but biodegradable chemicals.
;)

I think airplanes are here to stay for some time. There are few alternatives,
one of them high speed rail, which has its own problems.

~~~
jbarham
> ...high speed rail, which has its own problems

Oceans come to mind.

~~~
die_sekte
I was actually thinking about the absurdly high cost of high speed tracks
(tens of millions per kilometer). But yeah, oceans are somewhat of a problem.

------
chegra
Patents and Copyrights :D for starters.

------
bearwithclaws
Technology addiction.

------
noverloop
polluters

