in 100 years, what will be considered "stupid things people did back then"

[gevorg]

barbaric circumcision

 

[JamesV]

Facebook/Twitter/Tumblr/Pinterest/etc.

This.

Future people will be dumfounded how people in this day gave away all their information for free, and how we post profanities and other things we'd never like a prospective employer or even spouse to see for example...

 

[Ichinisan]

Not knowing how to use the three sea shells...

This. :awe:

 

[Ruptga]

Judging by the 100 year predictions of the 1900s, nothing any of us are really thinking about.

 

[OVerLoRDI]

Driving

 

[JMapleton]

1. Drive cars fueled by fossil fuels.
2. Eat food that uses pesticides.
3. Using packaging containing plastics and non biodegradables.
4. Using anything with chemicals.
5. Buy useless knick knacks that get used for 5 years and then throw into a landfill.

I hope that society will come full circle to realize our foolish advance into more and more chemically/man made materials and products is causing our doom and we will instead use our knowledge to create a sustainable lifestyle while still maintaining most of the quality of life. The future is not the future. The past is the future.

 

[JMapleton]

Also, I think they'll mock our fear of nuclear power in general.

I think the opposite. Nuclear is of the past and is to be feared. It's too much of a hazard, even if the risk is low. The potential destruction is devastating. It's something you cannot clean up easily. Wind and solar is the future.

 

[JMapleton]

Everyday hazards that haven't been recognized yet due to insufficient study.

Breathing steel dust in metro stations for example.

I often wonder that on cutting knives. Are microscopic shavings of metal entering our food and then we eat them which gets small shavings lodged in our digestive system? Could that be a cause for cancer or some other poisoning?

 

[SsupernovaE]

I would hope one is the way we 'cure' cancer these days. It's pretty damned barbaric.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MMaGnpVaSGQ

 

[ctark]

Removing foreskin for cause of some invisible sky man.

 

[Sukhoi]

Fracking

High expectations of low-density renewable energy (wind, solar)

Genetically modifying anything, and cloning

Underfunding of space travel research

 

[JPS35]

This:

http://forums.anandtech.com/showthread.php?t=2390151

 

[Captante]

Cooking food in plastic.

 

[Grooveriding]

fapping

 

[Maximilian]

Asking about canned tuna on a tech forum

 

[pcgeek11]

All of the politically correct stupidity we are suffering with today.

 

[darkswordsman17]

1. Drive cars fueled by fossil fuels.
2. Eat food that uses pesticides.
3. Using packaging containing plastics and non biodegradables.
4. Using anything with chemicals.
5. Buy useless knick knacks that get used for 5 years and then throw into a landfill.

I hope that society will come full circle to realize our foolish advance into more and more chemically/man made materials and products is causing our doom and we will instead use our knowledge to create a sustainable lifestyle while still maintaining most of the quality of life. The future is not the future. The past is the future.

1. I think that's a big possibility. Right now it just plain is not feasible to do that (if you want to maintain anything resembling the functionality of transportation as it is now) though. With time hopefully it will be.
2. That might be a possibility but I think you're misguided on why. Plants actually produce and develop their own pesticides for instance. A lot of "man made" pesticides are derived from natural ones. It would probably be possible to remove the genes for pesticide production from plants and then grow them in closed farms (read an article recently about someone in Japan doing that, well the closed farm part, and its quite successful and they're looking to expand). Pesticides are horribly overblown boogeyman, especially if you have any hope of feeding the world's ever expanding population.
3. This is kinda misguided as well. Plastics have tons of uses and many are quite recyclable and pose very little problem with regards to leeching. The real problem with plastics right now is us just throwing them in the trash and then us throwing trash into waterways, although there are solutions to the pollution issue being worked on (I believe they have bacteria that can eat the plastic and turn it into something more useful). We can actually make plastic from organic material that are highly biodegradable too (plastic as a term is fairly meaningless as it actually describes a wide variety of things, including the total opposite of what you seem to think of them as). It's a fair point that better plastics would help solve a lot of the issues with them.
4. Awesome, so we're going to give up water? Chemical is a totally meaningless term insofar as you're using it as chemicals does not only describe things like chemical cleaners or chemical weapons. You literally would not and could not live without chemicals.
5. I don't see that changing and actually see that increasing, especially with printers that are only improving our ability to make such things.

This is just nonsense. It being "natural" or "chemical" or man made is totally meaningless as both nature and man are working with the same basis and the stuff you complain about are highly responsible for you existing in the first place. You think nature gives a shit about you living or not? It absolutely does not. Uranium is natural, doesn't make it any better for us to handle directly.

Ugh, really? Really? The future is not the future? So time travel? I know what you meant and sorry but it's so laughably silly that it perfectly epitomizes the ignorance of most of the things you posted.

I see a lot of the typical ignorance of people that don't understand the basic science involved in this stuff which makes your thoughts actual nonsense (I'm not saying that flippantly, if you actually knew this stuff you'd realize that the phrases you use as boogeymen are total nonsense as they are terms that describe basically everything including "good" things that are beneficial) and what you think is the worst thing ever (man developing things) is actually the solution to the actual problems that you misdiagnose (it's actually pretty similar science that led to the creation of man-made stuff as well as learning about our own health, and both have been responsible for the quality of life you frankly take for granted).

Fracking

High expectations of low-density renewable energy (wind, solar)

Genetically modifying anything, and cloning

Underfunding of space travel research

Maybe the manner that its done now, but I don't see things like fracking or mining going anywhere. Even if we have molecular replicators we still have to get the molecules from somewhere.

We really haven't come even close to realizing the potential of those, so I'd disagree. It's not the end all be all certainly, but they will (hopefully) play a major role in our future electricity production.

I sure hope not as that would mean your immune system would no longer work. I sure hope you're not someone who things immunizations are bad because they *gasp* genetically modify us. You also hopefully realize that nature genetically modifies things like crazy, in fact you wouldn't exist if it didn't. Cloning actually could be very beneficial. Also, um, twins! Point is cloning actually occurs "naturally" too.

I definitely hope so! Even with the woeful state of scientific funding in general these days we've had mountains of advancements. But that's all the more reason for people to learn about all science and understand why a lot of the boogeymen they think of are really anything but.

I think the opposite. Nuclear is of the past and is to be feared. It's too much of a hazard, even if the risk is low. The potential destruction is devastating. It's something you cannot clean up easily. Wind and solar is the future.

You think the opposite and think its only to be feared because you're ignorant. Wind and solar can't really meet our energy needs.

Fusion is better in every way, it produces more energy, uses more common elements, it's safer (easier to contain and once you shutdown the reaction it's off so there's no "meltdown" like with fission reactors), and it produces a loooot less nasty stuff (effectively it does not produce nuclear waste as you know it). Unfortunately we're seemingly pretty far away from realizing nuclear fusion's potential.

In the meantime, newer reactors actually enable us to burn fuel waste from our current reactors, are safer (not as safe as fusion), produce more energy, and produce less waste.

Also, where exactly do you think solar energy actually comes from? You do realize the stars are giant stellar nuclear reactors, right? Again, you literally would not exist without nuclear reactions, and anything and everything we achieve from here on out is dependent on it.

Likely the best option for energy going forward is a mix of solar, wind/tidal/other kinetic, and nuclear. Maybe we might find some way to harness heat energy from within the Earth better as well. But nuclear will and should be a pivotal part of the future for us.

 

[xSauronx]

Removing foreskin for cause of some invisible sky man.

But "the scientific evidence is clear that the benefits outweigh the risks," added Mermin, who oversees the agency's programs on HIV and other sexually transmitted diseases.

These are the first federal guidelines on circumcision, a brief medical procedure that involves cutting away the foreskin around the tip of the penis. Germs can grow underneath the foreskin, and CDC officials say the procedure can lower a male's risk of sexually-transmitted diseases, penile cancer and even urinary tract infections.

http://www.today.com/health/circumcision-benefits-outweigh-risks-cdc-says-1D80331010

 

[Skyclad1uhm1]

Not having a mandatory IQ test before being allowed to procreate.

 

[Fingolfin269]

Poisoning yourself with radiation to kill cancer.

 

[inachu]

grown adult men sucking on baby suckers in public all because of that stupid rap song- I'm baby man!

The trend only last 3-4 years.

I laughed at all of them.

 

[inachu]

Not having a mandatory IQ test before being allowed to procreate.

Star Trek TNG Worf's son says, THE HIGHER THE FEWER.

Which is true. The higher the IQ the less chance you will have a baby thus defeating any self righteous ideology should live on forever because it will not.


But I do wish it worked out as the way you meant it to.

 

[brainhulk]

Those retards screwed us by creating ai

 

[JMapleton]

You think the opposite and think its only to be feared because you're ignorant. Wind and solar can't really meet our energy needs.

You're assuming we live in a stable world where these things can be easily controlled and the risks can be mitigated.

Nuclear is an extreme hazard in a time of war, economic strife, or biological crisis (pandemic, etc).

As long as nuclear plants exists, every decade or two, we will see a major disaster. Fukishima reminded us of that.

Do you think society will continue to live the suburban dream without serious interruption over the next 100 years? Serious war (which we haven't seen since WWII), serious threats of terrorism, economic depression (much worse than 2008), natural or engineered pandemics are all a possibility which puts the management of nuclear plants at risk.

I'm not paranoid by any means, but over long long periods of time these things can and do happen. Society is not always stable and you need a constantly stable society to manage nuclear plants safely.

One screw up or world event can cause MASSIVE pollution to be purged into the ocean or land, disrupting the food supply and causing massive areas to become uninhabitable.

 

[Ruptga]

Major nuclear disaster: People within 30 miles have an increase in lifetime cancer rates.
Major oil disaster: Oil all over the gulf coast.

Neither one is negligible, but coal plants release more radiation than nuclear plants do, even accounting for a nuclear disaster every few decades. Large scale tidal, wind, solar, and hydroelectric power can disrupt ecosystems, and hydrothermal power can increase earthquakes in an area. Every single energy source requires responsible management, including fission.