Morality

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Four hundred years ago statements which seem common sense (or almost) to Westerners now would have been seen by most as ludicrous, heretical, dangerous, perhaps even evil. Statements like "No one race is superior to any other", "Slavery is wrong", "Men and women should be equal". Other beliefs which would have been uncontroversial in 1602 - in the divine right of Kings - have similarly died out, and further planks of historical morality (hierarchical deference, the work ethic) are under sustained attack.

So my question is - what statements and ideas that we take for granted now will seem stupid, or abhorrent, in 2402 (if man is still alive, if woman can survive, etc.)?

― Tom, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That anyone could make money out of the internet...

― CarsmileSteve, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

intellectual property?

― Alan Trewartha, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That we ate animals and otherwise tortured them. And I speak as an omnivore and all.

― Ned Raggett, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

If general trend of modernity continues (ie continued expansion of rights to groups of people/species that have hitherto been denied them on grounds of presence/absence of arbitrarily specified qualities: exactly what Ned said above, with PLUS trees having versions of rights etc as in C Stone's arguments.

If intimations of 'postmodernity' (in this limited sense) pan out and extrapolate: collapse of rights-based discourse in re issues of justice and morality.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

yeah, maybe in the future the idea of having any kind of obligations to other people will seem laughably arcane.

― DV, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Actually that's not what I meant (altho' it's conceivable also). I meant like an abstract, universal conception of rights that inhere in individuals, and that other concepts of morality - local, contextual, multiple, open to negotiation and as interested in communities (physical and of interest) as units.

Actual answer to Tom's question: by 2402, the idea of the nation-state will be long dead on grounds that it has turned out to be both too large and too small to organise social/political/ethical life effectively.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

That we drive around in cars. Every now and again, when waiting for a cross signal, I catch a glimpse of how Dickensian our streets will seem in the future... Traffic scenes in a movies will become these impossibly out-of-reach weird sociological treasures, documents of these loud contraptions made out of metal tubing and smoke... the honking... the sheer number of them... it will be oviously undesirable to replicate this age of inefficiency but there will be a guilty nostalgia. Unless we've rediscovered horses by then.

― Tracer Hand, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'd hope to think that the concept of war would be laughable. And shoes, because we'll all have titanium feet.

― Jonnie, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In 400 years time, people will have definetely made a start at colonising other planets...so humankind will be faced with many ethical problems regarding the use of resources on these other planets/ alien lifeforms.

I also think the human life-span (i.e living longer and the consequences thereof) will lead to many future moral debates over euthanasia/cryogenics etc. They will almost certainly find it amusing that we were freezing people now. The future is scary.

― jel --, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

My answer is possibly influenced by Logan's Run and Soylent Green.

― jel --, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

In 2402 it will be laughable that we kicked up such a fuss over clones. Everyone will have a couple of clones in their families.

― Genevieve, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Tracer = dead on. Also, I'd like to think people will find it laughable that we didn't all grow some proportion of our own food. 'What?', they'll say when they jump temporalities to visit us. 'You didn't even know how to provide a reasonable proportion of your own protein needs? You hadn't worked out the benefits of a closer connection with the soil that feeds you? Look at my little permagarden [provides window into future using sophisticated visioning device], see how it teems with life, with geraniums and beanplants, tomatoes and nastursiums." And when they say 'take me to your leaders', they'll mean allotment holders and organic gardeners. This = pure wishful thinking, obv.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Idea that nuclear family as basic unit of society and most desirable structure for raising a child will also = dead duck, if mutations in shape of family historically are anything to go by, plus likely influence of reproductive technologies.

― Ellie, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Eek, that one might be scarily prescient -- the notion of the "individual" keeps expanding (and rightfully so), but the end station here is a society of autonomous non-familial units whose every behavior is seen as purely elective (if not blamed on top-level cultural influences like professional wrestling or acne medication). I also suspect the meat thing, although I think our moral repugnance for meat-eating will be based less on actual rethinking of the act and more on animals seeming rarer and more special and thus less and less like exploitable resources: i.e. you wouldn't eat a unicorn, would you?

― Nitsuh, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

No, you'd grind up its horn as a virginity restorative treatment. Rarity is no prevention of exploitation sadly.

― Tom, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

STUDENT ANSWER AHOY! People will find it insane that cannabis was illegal.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

it's weird though "This is a battle between good and evil, right and wrong" - Slaem WItch Trials or State of the Union address?

― Queen G-bah Humbug, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

nah, by 2402 cannabis will be re-criminalised when it became clear that everyone in the entire world had become dull as fuck.

― Mark C, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Individuals, private interests and gov'ts will not be allowed to externalize the costs of their pursuits wrt the commons (i.e. you will not be able to spew co2, shit, bad water, chemicals, etc.) Right now the cost of stuff mostly reflects the cost of resources of creation, in the future it will also have to reflect the cost of side impacts and future disposal. I guess this is more structural than moral, but I think it has a moral component.

400 years is pretty distant, there is a part of me that fears a Rapa Nui type scenario. Technology vs. Resource Depletion: FITE!

― Hunter, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Cannabis will be recriminalised when it became clear that everyone in the entire world had become as dull as fuck

Yes and Pink Floyd begin to reassemble their zombified corpses for a world tour.

― Ronan, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

There's at least one fairly obvious ethical problem I can think of regarding the use of resources on alien lifeforms...

― Dan Perry, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm finding it hard enough to work out where to eat tomorrow night. However, the belief that the big majority of the population is entirely heterosexual surely can't be sustained for another century, let alone four.

In artistic terms, I think realism will be seen as a passing movement, not some fundamental aim of art.

― Martin Skidmore, Wednesday, 17 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Back in the dark ages you used to have to pull something out of the microwave halfway through to stir it, which was an annoying distraction and necessitated put down one's cigarette for 10 seconds, thank god humanity woke up and solved this problem

― dave q, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Natural childbirth will seem both grotesque and primitive too them - and quite possibly obscenely irresponsible.

― Pete, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

in 2402 not being excellent to one another will seem stupid and abhorrent

― mark s, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

What do you mean by 'natural' Pete? I mean it's hardly very natural right now is it with drugs & injections aplenty if you want them. And caesarian section is not a particularly safe alternative (obviously it's great for some women but the whole 'caesarean on demand' culture is not a positive step in health terms).

― Emma, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

All babies will be cooked up in a portable camping stove like device.

Or made out of Metal to resemble Halley Joel Osment.

― Pete, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Imagine the fun that could be had walking round Crouch End with a magnet if all the babies were metal!

― Emma, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

You could be like a sinister 21st century Pied Piper with a trail of babies attched behind you. Leading them all down to Finsbury Park ,Aaarghhh!

― Jonnie, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

too posh to push!!

― mark s, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Only it would be a 25th century Pied Piper. You couldn't even sell the metal babies to a scrap metal dealer to melt down as the lack of cars will have put them all out of business.

― Emma, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Sex will be like it is in Demolition Man!

― jel --, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The idea that there is such a thing as "verbal obscenity," and that it consists of a small set of common words. (This one is already going the way of the passenger pigeon, actually, viz. recent FCC "safe harbor" guidelines, "shit" making it onto prime-time network TV, etc.)

I can also very easily imagine someone in 100 years saying "wait--you fucked up the atmosphere because you met your energy needs by _burning FOSSIL FUELS_?!? You _did_ have a sun up in the sky, right? And wind? And you burned FOSSIL FUELS? Jesus--how much did those cost to get out of the GROUND?!?"

― Douglas, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

douglas, will tourette's have been cured by then? or WHAT?

― mark s, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Of course. The first step to removing offense from mere language is to remove Tourettes. Will people still be able to say offensive sentences though? Or will all offence be removed?

― Pete, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I am offended by the turn this thread has taken.

― Dan Perry, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

I find offense in all I see. Mere DISCUSSION of offense leads to mental pestilence.

― Ned Raggett, Thursday, 18 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Will people still be able to say offensive sentences though? Or will all offence be removed?

Pete: It's highly likely that people will just find other ways to be offensive....all without saying a word.

― Nichole Graham, Friday, 19 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Apart from vegetarianism, which might well become universal, I tend to think it will be more like a cycle. I tend to worry that statements like "No one race is superior to any other", "Slavery is wrong", "Men and women should be equal", "Homosexuality is OK" might well start to be unfashionable again. Pessimistic. Sorry.

Maybe incest will catch on

― N., Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

Well, new studies have revealed that apparently it's okay to do it with your cousin. Je ne blague pas.

― Tracer Hand, Monday, 22 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

The Victorians married cousins all the time, Tracer.

― Christine "Green Leafy Dragon" Indigo, Saturday, 27 April 2002 00:00 (twenty-three years ago)

five months pass...

How long can a beanplant survive Without water. Thi sis for my science fair project PLEASE HELP!!!!!!!!!!!!!

― Jonathan Yan, Thursday, 3 October 2002 20:42 (twenty-three years ago)

I can't wait to be nostalgic about traffic jams.

― Maria (Maria), Thursday, 3 October 2002 21:20 (twenty-three years ago)

There will definately be televised games where people have to run for thier lives through various obsticles, and score points by running over people in thier cars on cross country races

― A Nairn (moretap), Thursday, 3 October 2002 22:33 (twenty-three years ago)

I'm going to invert Ned's answer and say that people in the future will be amazed that we didn't torture animals more before eating the filthy buggers.

― Dan Perry (Dan Perry), Thursday, 3 October 2002 22:41 (twenty-three years ago)

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