How will our current society seem in 200 years? Will some things we take for granted be viewed as utterly unacceptable? What might those things be?
- Eating meat?
- Fighting wars?
- Tolerating political idiocy?
- Acquiescing to gross commercialism?
- Believing in ridiculous religious dogmas?
- Ignoring horrible conditions in other nations around the world?
- Accepting huge inequalities in the distribution of wealth, within countries and among them?
Of course, the above list of candidate barbarisms could easily be dismissed as just reflecting one person's prejudices. Completely different lists might come from an individual raised in a desert, or in a rainforest, or in a devout faith-based community, or in a culture where some people are destined to be kept as ignorant slaves while others are born to be their masters.
Are some lists better than others? Can we look at the changes that "civilized" societies have undergone during the past few centuries, and by studying them extrapolate to the future? What sorts of trends represent real advances in the human condition, as opposed to chance, meaningless fluctuations? What does "progress" mean, anyway?
Thursday, July 29, 1999 at 21:27:24 (EDT) = 1999-07-29
(correlates: DiagnosisMortality, NoGrandDesigners, UghYuk, ...)