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Many times I think "what today will sound absurd in the future?". Our widespread and normalised alcohol abuse is one of the things crossing my mind, and I wond

• patrickk 5y ago
  Gambling ads across much of Europe. It’s pervasive especially around football ad breaks. I have a theory that at some stage VOCs (in furniture, carpets, laminated wood products, paints etc) that lead to sick building syndrome will be heavily clamped down on, but nowadays nobody bats an eyelid at new couches laden with formaldehyde or other substances.
  • mattowen_uk 5y ago
    > Gambling ads across much of Europe. It’s pervasive especially around football ad breaks This. It's awful in the UK. Non-stop gambling adverts everywhere. They have to have a disclaimer on them and link to https://www.begambleaware.org/ https://www.begambleaware.org/ but there's no rules it seems on how short or small the link needs to be. On some ads it literally flashes up for only 1 second at the end.
  • telotortium 5y ago
    > sick building syndrome A lot of that, at least in the US, is due to having houses built more tightly for insulation, which stopped the natural air exchange from drafts that would normally occur. Now the building codes have been revised to mandate that a certain rate of air changes occurs even in houses, usually done using a heat exchanger: https://bcapcodes.org/tools/code-builder/residential/ventilation/ https://bcapcodes.org/tools/code-builder/residential/ventila...
• ramblerman 5y ago
  The lindy effect would argue it's far more unlikely for opinions to change on alcohol than vaping/cocaine in the western world. Lightly abusing some red wine goes back some ways.
  • Aidevah 5y ago
    That's an interesting point, although the ancient Greeks only ever drank diluted wine, and they did believe that you could die from drinking wine at full strength. Undiluted wine was given to the helots so that their drunkenness served as a warning to the spartiates, and the death of one of the Spartan kings was partially attributed to madness caused by drinking undiluted wine, a habit which he picked up from the barbarians (although I admit that particular episode lends itself to many different interpretations).
• anodari 5y ago
  Car accidents.
• tomhunters 5y ago
  That's a nice way of thinking. My mind eventually think of different things that will create different impact in our world.
• intrasight 5y ago
  >normalised alcohol abuse Which the alcohol lobby is obviously fine with. I watched The Expanse this year, and it's something that stands out - the consumption of alcohol.
• odiroot 5y ago
  I really hope we're going to treat sugar consumption like that.
• dkdk8283 5y ago
  What’s the beef with alcohol? Some people like to get fucked up, it’s irritating when I encounter opinions that shame it or otherwise imply that it needs to be stopped. Let those who want it have it.
  • 5e92cb50239222b 5y ago
    I like alcohol despite all its flaws, but it's hard to argue that it's doing an immense amount of damage even to those who don't drink it at all.
    • dkdk8283 5y ago
      Behavior shouldn’t be projected on others. If someone in your life is negatively affecting you consider changing who’s in your life. We are only responsible for ourselves.
      • boomboomsubban 5y ago
        Except children are a thing, and they both can't easily change who's in their lives and their parents are also responsible for them.
        • dkdk8283 5y ago
          I can’t take that argument seriously. “Think of the children” is a dead horse. Parents can also abuse emotions, marijuana, etc. Haven’t seen anyone advocating to curb marijuana here yet.
          • deleted 5y ago
            [deleted]
          • jeromegv 5y ago
            The fact that you can’t understand the argument that alcohol and drug abuse can have serious impact on children means that you have serious blind spots in your life.
• the_gipsy 5y ago
  Maybe Social Network addiction?
• throwaway47292 5y ago
  Alcohol is like the oil of the giant social machine, I believe everything will crumble without it. How many of the jobs that keep the world running can be done if people don't drink to forget? Just imagine the people that have to pee in bottles, being abused on daily basis by their boss, by their customers, and then they cant take drugs? for how long? The facebook moderators, or the call center oberators.. As bad as it is, without some real changes, alcohol is almost mandatory. ps: I don't drink, but most of my friends drink. pps: what i think will sound absurd is the horrific ways of industrial animal farming.
  • adriand 5y ago
    It’s not just the jobs, it’s also the awareness of what we’re doing to the planet and our future. When you get seized by the panicky feeling that we’re on track to end it all, one solution is to say “fuck it” and get drunk. I do it. I’m sure I’m not the only one.
  • platz 5y ago
    I get it, you're special because you don't drink.
    • throwaway47292 5y ago
      i used to be borderline alcoholic, and managed to quit. mainly because my job allowed me to do so.
    • deleted 5y ago
      [deleted]
    • selfhoster11 5y ago
      There are many reasons to not drink, including personal convictions, family history of alcohol abuse, health reasons, religious/belief reasons, not enjoying the feeling of being drunk, or simple lack of interest in drinking in the first place. Do not assume that parent is somehow trying to elevate themselves over anyone, you or drinkers in general.
    • rfrey 5y ago
• enriquto 5y ago
  > what today will sound absurd in the future? The incredible amount of sugar that we eat and give to our kids. There is already a clear trend of "hiding" sugar from the ingredients. The label "No sugars added" gives a really positive meaning. But most processed foods are still chock-full of sugar. I guess in 20 or 30 years sugar products will be labeled with scary labels like tobacco is today. As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health.
  • Sharlin 5y ago
    > As for alcohol, I don't think so. People will still want to get wasted, even knowing that it is bad for the health. Alcohol advertising is already highly regulated compared to past decades. Smoking even more. Even professional magazines in the 60s and 70s used to have alcohol and cigarette ads every few pages. Not to mention that alcohol use was much less frowned upon at the workplace, especially in certain fields.
  • collaborative 5y ago
    I hope you are right about sugar. People are doling out candy to kids like it's their duty these days
    • drewg123 5y ago
      The sad thing is that sugar is everywhere, not just in candy. I was in the local hospital for surgery, and the "juice" they gave me to drink when I was recovering was so sweet that it could have doubled for syrup. The first 2 ingredients were 2 different kinds of sugar. I think its because they were purchasing the cheapest "juice" they could find, but my friends joked that they were trying to give people diabetes to increase business.
  • account42 5y ago
    One negative consequences of the "no sugars added" is that it makes it harder to see how sweet something is because now instead of sugar its all artificial sweeteners in many things that don't need them at all.
• gherkinnn 5y ago
  Humans have been boozing forever. It will stay, to one degree or another. Us painting all sorts of phantasies using crypto and meta-things will be very funny to look back upon. Give it 5 years. Oh the naïveté. Adtech and addiction machines will be another two (partially related) areas that we’ll be shaking our heads at.
  • telesilla 5y ago
    As do many birds and other mammals! Giraffes and that fat New Zealand pigeon come to mind.
    • throwanem 5y ago
      Not just mammals, either! Wasps aren't averse to getting lit up when it's late enough in the season for fruit to have fermented. Sometimes they get too wasted to fly home, like the bald-faced yellowjacket I found sleeping it off on one of my porch windows a few months back - there's a fig tree in my side yard with some branches too high to reach, and it was very popular with her and her sisters for a while this year.
• wallaBBB 5y ago
  >what today will sound absurd in the future? incarcerating people for little weed
  • demosito666 5y ago
    Or any other substance for that matter.
• misja111 5y ago
  The amount of opioids prescribed by dentists and family practitioners.
• platz 5y ago
  Just pick anything anything only invented in the last 5 years. It has a high probability of dying out.
• cblconfederate 5y ago
  Social media vanity and self-promotion is insane compared to any other era in history. It will look absurd in a decade.
• __void 5y ago
  > normalised alcohol abuse I don't think alcohol will ever be banned, man has been using alcohol for more than 10k years[0] and according to some theories[1] it was the consumption of alcohol and protein that favored brain development (disclosure: I come from an Italian region that has the use and abuse of alcohol as one of cornerstones of society, so maybe I'm biased) [0]https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbeverages.html#winebeer https://www.foodtimeline.org/foodbeverages.html#winebeer [1]https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_monkey_hypothesis https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drunken_monkey_hypothesis
• zikduruqe 5y ago
  > what today will sound absurd in the future? Lawns. We spend an unnecessary amount of money, time, energy, chemicals and water on a plant that does not produce food nor any benefit other than it is visually pleasing. It is totally dumb.
  • macinjosh 5y ago
    Me, my dog and my two year old beg to differ that lawns are only about visuals.
  • kown7 5y ago
    It has always been a sign of wealth, i.e. no need to grow crops in front of your castle because you can afford it.
  • OliverM 5y ago
    Lawns do have a flood control benefit in areas with lots of rainfall or that are prone to intense rainstorms. But so would the same land left to grow wild.
  • apozem 5y ago
    If anyone reading this is interested in more environmentally friendly ways to maintain a lawn, look into xeriscaping. If you pick good plants it can turn out really well. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xeriscaping
  • mrctte 5y ago
    That’s far from the only benefit. Lawns have immense recreational value especially for families with children.
  • mmcgaha 5y ago
    If you don't have trees blocking the sun, something will grow in your yard and it will look a lot like a lawn.
  • fullstop 5y ago
    Eh, I'm halfway there. I spend about 45 minutes a week, in the summer, cutting my grass. I don't use fertilizer or weed killer, so a lot of my lawn is actually clover. The benefits of this, for me are: * A place for my kids to play * Friends and family gather there * There are a few raised garden beds, so I get tomatoes, peas, peppers, and lettuce * It isolates me from the wooded area near me. Mice and other pests generally stay over there and not in my house.
• bennysomething 5y ago
  Though alcohol has been normal in western society for 1000s of years, cocaine not really. But yeah booze is awful for people. But I like beer and wine :(
• RalfWausE 5y ago
  What could be more absurd than using a vehicle that weights more than a ton for moving (mostly) a single person?
• spodek 5y ago
  1. Flying at a whim, large vehicles, a/c 24/7, and related profligate fossil fuel burning. Today we think we're living at the peak of progress so far and that people in any other time would wish they were us. Future generations will look back at horror at how we chose temporary indulgence over what makes us most human: caring for each other, especially the helpless and vulnerable, and stewarding nature. 2. Plastic, at least single-use, forever chemicals, and similar chemicals. Soon we will see them like asbestos or marketing cigarettes to kids. Yes, they increase the GDP, but they kill.
• adrianN 5y ago
  Burning fossil fuels. ICEs producing noxious gases right where people live.
• millzlane 5y ago
  Hunger or worldwide famine comes to mind for me.
• XCSme 5y ago
  Eating animals.
• boredumb 5y ago
  There is a reasonable possibility that in 50 years the absurdity will be how taken back by cocaine and it's paraphernalia is if we do go the way of more and more drug legalization. We will look like pearl clutchers or a smug living version of Reefer Madness.
• jl6 5y ago
  > what today will sound absurd in the future? Mark my words: 1. Eating meat 2. Valorizing excess 3. Bonfires and fireworks 4. Anonymity 5. Air, noise, and light pollution 6. Having more than 2 kids 7. Proof of work 8. Buying new stuff all the time 9. Suits, ties and other western formalwear 10. Non-synthetic pornography 11. Academic papers 12. Golf 13. Body modification and tattoos 14. Lawns 15. Running unaudited code 16. Non-tailored medicine 17. Tribal politics 18. Daylight savings time 19. Circumcision 20. Burial 21. Men standing to pee 22. Treating 18-year-olds as full adults 23. Tipping 24. Advertizing 25. Imperial units 26. Coffee fetishization 27. Changing your name when marrying 28. Work-or-starve as the two primary options 29. Cosmetic products 30. Gender 31. Automotive fatalities 32. Demarcation between Movies and TV
  • donkeyd 5y ago
    With this list, you're guaranteed to be right about at least one thing. I'm pretty sure you'll be wrong about more than that though. Unless of course, you're hinting that humanity will go extinct.
    • __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
      Given long enough, he'll be right on all accounts.
      • LocalH 5y ago
        Given long enough, it won't matter, because there won't be anyone around to consider those things "absurd"
        • __MatrixMan__ 5y ago
          And at that point, all 0 people will agree on the absurdity of the list
  • nickkell 5y ago
    > 13. Body modification and tattoos Why do you say that? People have been doing it for hundreds of years and in the west it has become completely acceptable. > 22. Treating 18-year-olds as full adults In the US this isn't absurd even now!
• fsloth 5y ago
  What social circles in which country celebrates binge drinking of alcohol? I would claim there is a huge variance in age groups and global populations of that.
• AussieWog93 5y ago
  >Our widespread and normalised alcohol abuse is one of the things crossing my mind At least in Australia (not known for drinking responsibly!), this was already starting to die off in my generation and the death is just accelerating amongst the next. I wouldn't be surprised if a majority of Aussies born in 2050 didn't regularly drink at all.
• JohnJamesRambo 5y ago
  I think thinking “stonks only go up” will feel very absurd in the next decade. https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/s&p500-mean-reversion.php https://www.currentmarketvaluation.com/models/s&p500-mean-re...
• donkeyd 5y ago
  50 years from now, I'll go with factory farming. I'm guessing that lab grown meat will be our main source of meat for daily cooking and things like burgers, hot dogs, etc. Maybe we'll all get some meat from free roaming animals for special occasions.
• Hoasi 5y ago
  > Many times I think "what today will sound absurd in the future?". NFTs? The just is still out.
• it_does_follow 5y ago
  > what today will sound absurd in the future? I quite seriously suspect that answer will be "24 hour electricity and grocery stores where you can buy food from anywhere in the world" > Our widespread and normalised alcohol abuse Until pandemic we've lived in a fairly teetotaling era. I suspect for the next decade we'll see an increase in casual drinking, becoming more similar to the 1950s. If you watch any films from that era very strong cocktails are basically a standard for just about any social occasion, any time of the day. The pandemic has instantly changed peoples views on alcohol and other drugs, what's coming the immediate future will likely continue this trend. The immediate future generations will likely look back on ours as a bizarre blend of incredibly wasteful prudes. A generation of people who gluttonously destroyed the planet while at the same time being too timid to let themselves enjoy it. I think the reaction will be a large one of revulsion "you destroyed the planet and you didn't even let yourself have fun doing it? you lived at work for what?"
  • dougmwne 5y ago
    I’m curious what you’ve been seeing that’s given you the view that drug and alcohol use has increased a lot post-pandemic. I assume you mean in the US context? I truly hope the answer isn’t 24 hour electricity, given how cheap it is to produce. That would represent a major backslide in human capability. I’m not fully against other drawdown strategies, but surely we can leave the lights on. And yes, we are simultaneously so destructive and so unhappy. What a terrible waste.
    • it_does_follow 5y ago
      > that’s given you the view that drug and alcohol use has increased a lot post-pandemic. It's fairly well studied in the medical literature [0, 1] and reported on pretty regularly in popular media as well [2] 0. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7763183/ https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7763183/ 1. https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle/2770975 https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamanetworkopen/fullarticle... 2. https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/09/22/covid-19-pandemic-heavy-drinking-survey-alkermes/5798036001/ https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/health/2021/09/22/covid-...
• deleted 5y ago
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• si1entstill 5y ago
  > what today will sound absurd in the future? The social acceptability of reliance on caffeine has always struck me as a bit odd. The effects aren't as stark, but I regularly have conversations with friends and coworkers who talk about how miserable they are if they don't get their three cups of coffee in the morning. I also feel that I see a correlation between those who feel they have low energy after the work-day and heavy caffeine users.