Tuesday, January 13, 2009

Your 100 Year Time Machine

Some ideas that were widely held 100 or 200 years ago now seem shocking or barbaric today. Often we congratulate ourselves for thinking that we are so much more enlightened than our parents. But it seems unlikely that we've somehow reached the end of this process: I would guess that in 100 years, our descendants will look back at us just like we look back at people 100 years ago.

So here's the question: What are the ideas or practices that are uncontroversial and widely accepted today — and that you personally find unobjectionable — that you think might be seen as barbaric or immoral one hundred years from now? Ideas or practices that you personally find barbaric or immoral today aren't eligible. You can't just predict that some day the world will realize you were right and that your minority opinion will become majority opinion. Think of things that you actually don't find all that objectionable that you can imagine being seen as immoral or otherwise outrageous a century from now.

Eating meat, maybe?

This great meme is slightly adapted from volokh.com

2 comments:

Mark Brentano January 16, 2009 8:36 AM  

Handing out antibiotics as though they were sweeties. Compromised immune systems in the gene pool, anyone?

YouDontKnowMe January 16, 2009 10:57 AM  

Drinking alcohol?

Smoking also springs to mind, but alcohol certainly.

Ronald Reagan

"There are no constraints on the human mind, no walls around the human spirit, no barriers to our progress except those we ourselves erect."

Lady Thatcher

"If you lead a country like Britain, a strong country, a country which has taken a lead in world affairs in good times and in bad, a country that is always reliable, then you have to have a touch of iron about you."

Voltaire

"Stand upright, speak thy thoughts, declare The truth thou hast, that all may share; Be bold, proclaim it everywhere: They only live who dare."

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