4 ms·

> 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

by 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!
- jl6 5y ago
  Re body modification, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that people have been doing all manner of terrible things for centuries and many of those remain acceptable, even increasingly so. The pendulum may yet swing the other way. I’m betting on this one becoming viewed the same way we view testing in production.
  - Bjartr 5y ago
    "centuries" undershoots the persistence of tattooing by several millennia. Direct evidence of humans having tattoos dates back to ~3200 BC with the remains of Ötzi "the Iceman". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi#Skeletal_details_and_tattooing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi#Skeletal_details_and...
AussieWog93 5y ago
A decent chunk of those appeal to fundamental desires that (for better or worse) are a part of the human condition and I can't imagine them disappearing any time soon. I really do hope we move away from an economy that relies on advertising to produce consumer demand at an unhealthy scale, though.
- linspace 5y ago
  You are obviously talking about point 15, running unaudited code. Who knows, the future can be surprising.
snarf21 5y ago
Go over to The Long Now and place some bets on those. I think you will be wrong on almost all of these.
mda 5y ago
Mark my words, at least 60% of your list is BS.
- jl6 5y ago
  Which 20 items do you think will never sound absurd?
  - deleted 5y ago
    [deleted]
sergioisidoro 5y ago
The only thing I disagree is "Body modification and tattoos". If any they will pick up a lot from here, with implantable technology. We will want to break free from our meat hardware, and body modifications is a step towards that.
- LocalH 5y ago
  Not to mention body modification has a rich, long history in humanity that's not going away anytime soon.
  - celeritascelery 5y ago
    As do most other things on that list
astrojams 5y ago
I would love to live in this world.
reedf1 5y ago
I agree with some (especially meat) but many of these seem like personal moralization.
intrasight 5y ago
OMG - what a coincidence is the timing of this thread as I happen to re-watch Demolition Man last night. Fun movie from 1993 that touches on the absurdity of both things we allow and things we don't allow.
anthk 5y ago
Most of those do not apply in lots of Europe: At least 2, 14, 19, 23 and 25.
__MatrixMan__ 5y ago
I think we'll break the association between sex and gender, and we'll create contexts of more-than-two human genders, but types are too popular a feature in programming languages for me to believe that genders will ever find their way out of human languages--they both provide useful ways to reduce uncertainty while making concise references. If everybody is a "they" then pronouns become less useful. Maybe we'll go through a stage like that while we rebel against binary-only gendered thinking, but eventually we'll want useful pronouns again and we'll reinvent gender.
cataphract 5y ago
If having more than 2 kids is absurd, there won't be much of a future, since the population will eventually decline to 0.
- it_does_follow 5y ago
  I'm not sure you're aware of the future we're facing right now. Continued unchecked growth coupled with increasing consumption is heading us towards an ecological catastrophe that quite seriously threatens the possibility of extinction, and at the very least looks like complete collapse of industrial civilization. There is nothing worse you can do for the environment than bring another life into the world, especially if you live in the developed world.
mmmpop 5y ago
This list is complete nonsense because you didn't stick a year on it. Love love love the golf haters though. Sorry it's too hard for you.
- nickkell 5y ago
  Thousands of years of evolution and we're still swinging clubs
newbamboo 5y ago
21 is highly dubious and therefore 30 is too.
tomerv 5y ago
I seriously doubt many of your predictions. 2. Valorizing excess Not sure what exactly you mean by this, but having more than you need and showing off is basic human behavior, and I don't see a reason that will change. 3. Bonfires and fireworks Bonfires are fun and so are fireworks. They have some downsides, but not more than many other fun things we allow. 4. Anonymity There will always be places where you can act anonymously or pseudo anonymously. See 4chan and bitcoin for example. 5. Air, noise, and light pollution There will always be the next kind of not-yet-illegal pollution, and the person to profit from inflicting it upon the rest of us. 6. Having more than 2 kids Most people will have 1-3 kids, some will have more. Nothing absurd about reproducing. 8. Buying new stuff all the time See 1 12. Golf Might be less popular, but why absurd? 13. Body modification and tattoos Basic human desire to control your body and what you look like. If anything it will be more popular as technology improves. 15. Running unaudited code With the halting problem on one hand (making automatic auditing impossible) and the high value of software on the other, I don't see any way around this anytime soon. Maybe some AI based solution. 16. Non-tailored medicine One prediction I fully agree with! Especially many invasive examinations we consider standard today. 17. Tribal politics Human nature... 20. Burial Also human nature. Not the American style burial with the huge casket and embalming and whatnot. But some kind of burial will always be the norm. 21. Men standing to pee ??? 23. Tipping 24. Advertizing Human nature... 31. Automotive fatalities Maybe on the road. But what about space fatalities?

by jl6 5y ago

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!

jl6 5y ago
Re body modification, I’m sure you’ll appreciate that people have been doing all manner of terrible things for centuries and many of those remain acceptable, even increasingly so. The pendulum may yet swing the other way. I’m betting on this one becoming viewed the same way we view testing in production.
- Bjartr 5y ago
  "centuries" undershoots the persistence of tattooing by several millennia. Direct evidence of humans having tattoos dates back to ~3200 BC with the remains of Ötzi "the Iceman". https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi#Skeletal_details_and_tattooing https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/%C3%96tzi#Skeletal_details_and...

AussieWog93 5y ago

A decent chunk of those appeal to fundamental desires that (for better or worse) are a part of the human condition and I can't imagine them disappearing any time soon. I really do hope we move away from an economy that relies on advertising to produce consumer demand at an unhealthy scale, though.

linspace 5y ago
You are obviously talking about point 15, running unaudited code. Who knows, the future can be surprising.

snarf21 5y ago

Go over to The Long Now and place some bets on those. I think you will be wrong on almost all of these.

mda 5y ago

Mark my words, at least 60% of your list is BS.

jl6 5y ago
Which 20 items do you think will never sound absurd?
- deleted 5y ago
  [deleted]

sergioisidoro 5y ago

The only thing I disagree is "Body modification and tattoos". If any they will pick up a lot from here, with implantable technology. We will want to break free from our meat hardware, and body modifications is a step towards that.

LocalH 5y ago
Not to mention body modification has a rich, long history in humanity that's not going away anytime soon.
- celeritascelery 5y ago
  As do most other things on that list

astrojams 5y ago

I would love to live in this world.

reedf1 5y ago

I agree with some (especially meat) but many of these seem like personal moralization.

intrasight 5y ago

OMG - what a coincidence is the timing of this thread as I happen to re-watch Demolition Man last night. Fun movie from 1993 that touches on the absurdity of both things we allow and things we don't allow.

anthk 5y ago

Most of those do not apply in lots of Europe: At least 2, 14, 19, 23 and 25.

__MatrixMan__ 5y ago

I think we'll break the association between sex and gender, and we'll create contexts of more-than-two human genders, but types are too popular a feature in programming languages for me to believe that genders will ever find their way out of human languages--they both provide useful ways to reduce uncertainty while making concise references. If everybody is a "they" then pronouns become less useful. Maybe we'll go through a stage like that while we rebel against binary-only gendered thinking, but eventually we'll want useful pronouns again and we'll reinvent gender.

cataphract 5y ago

If having more than 2 kids is absurd, there won't be much of a future, since the population will eventually decline to 0.

it_does_follow 5y ago
I'm not sure you're aware of the future we're facing right now. Continued unchecked growth coupled with increasing consumption is heading us towards an ecological catastrophe that quite seriously threatens the possibility of extinction, and at the very least looks like complete collapse of industrial civilization. There is nothing worse you can do for the environment than bring another life into the world, especially if you live in the developed world.

mmmpop 5y ago

This list is complete nonsense because you didn't stick a year on it. Love love love the golf haters though. Sorry it's too hard for you.

nickkell 5y ago
Thousands of years of evolution and we're still swinging clubs

newbamboo 5y ago

21 is highly dubious and therefore 30 is too.

tomerv 5y ago

I seriously doubt many of your predictions. 2. Valorizing excess Not sure what exactly you mean by this, but having more than you need and showing off is basic human behavior, and I don't see a reason that will change. 3. Bonfires and fireworks Bonfires are fun and so are fireworks. They have some downsides, but not more than many other fun things we allow. 4. Anonymity There will always be places where you can act anonymously or pseudo anonymously. See 4chan and bitcoin for example. 5. Air, noise, and light pollution There will always be the next kind of not-yet-illegal pollution, and the person to profit from inflicting it upon the rest of us. 6. Having more than 2 kids Most people will have 1-3 kids, some will have more. Nothing absurd about reproducing. 8. Buying new stuff all the time See 1 12. Golf Might be less popular, but why absurd? 13. Body modification and tattoos Basic human desire to control your body and what you look like. If anything it will be more popular as technology improves. 15. Running unaudited code With the halting problem on one hand (making automatic auditing impossible) and the high value of software on the other, I don't see any way around this anytime soon. Maybe some AI based solution. 16. Non-tailored medicine One prediction I fully agree with! Especially many invasive examinations we consider standard today. 17. Tribal politics Human nature... 20. Burial Also human nature. Not the American style burial with the huge casket and embalming and whatnot. But some kind of burial will always be the norm. 21. Men standing to pee ??? 23. Tipping 24. Advertizing Human nature... 31. Automotive fatalities Maybe on the road. But what about space fatalities?