What will future generations think ?

T

Teabag

Guest
I got to thinking about what future generations would think of the way the current generation behaved. I mean the current generation often look back at the previous century and wonder how did people let certain things happen. Some examples;
The pointless bloodshed of WWI 1914-1918
WWII, Vietnam etc
The holocaust during WWII
Nuclear attacks, disasters and stockpiling
The indiscretions of the Catholic Church (Ireland and worldwide)
Famine in the modern era
etc

What will someone in 2106 list ? ;
How we destroyed the environment
More famine in the modern era.
...
 


Bit OTT perhaps to equate "The indiscretions of the Catholic Church (Ireland and worldwide)" with the deaths of tens of millions in WWI, the Holocaust and third-world famines respectively?
 
ubiquitous said:
Bit OTT perhaps to equate "The indiscretions of the Catholic Church (Ireland and worldwide)" with the deaths of tens of millions in WWI, the Holocaust and third-world famines respectively?
Click to expand...

I never said anything about them being equal.
 
Fair enough - I still don't understand your logic in including the Irish Catholic Church in the above list - given that it is otherwise populated by two cataclysmic world wars, the systematic extermination of six million Jews and others by the Nazis, the Atomic bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki and the deaths of tens of millions through famine.

Maybe we should compile a list of the world's greatest villains, eg
Adolf Hitler
Mao Se Tung
Joseph Stalin
Charlie Haughey
Pol Pot
Osama Bin Laden
 
 
Ronan, my attempt at irony was obviously too subtle for you.

By the way, following a quick google search I have learned that there are approx 143 million Catholics, and 426 million Muslims, in Africa (sources bbc.co.uk and islamicweb.com respectively).

Given that Islamic teachings on safe sex and the use of condoms are no more liberal (to put it mildly) that those of the Catholic Church, I am puzzled why you choose to blame the latter for the AIDS problem in Africa without mention of the former, (who in terms of numbers of followers have at least 3 times more influence in that continent).
 
I think you miss the point ubiquitous - I am wondering about what future generations will condemn/criticise 'us' for - I am not looking for a list of all the worst bad things that happened in the last 100 years.

For example "Big Brother" - how could they let that stupid show on TV ?!
 
I'd think the list will mostly be environmental as we seem to have stopped having major world wars and confine ourselves to local genocides of a few million rather than the 10s of millions from the first
half of the twentieth century. Yes still terrible.

Assuming we'll just about manage to avoid going nuclear with the Islamic world as they'll eventually
adopt enlightenment values and become as secular as us as their education levels increase. In the same way the inquisitions, witch hunts, public floggings, hanging, drawing and quartering ended in Europe. They're already a good way down that path, closer to where we are now than where we were in medieval times.

Distruction of rain forests.
Defoliation and reduction of arable land.
Burning all carbon. Eventually almost all of it is going to go into the atmosphere. Unless we get nuke
fusion on-line sooner than expected the populations of emerging countries are going to demand western living standards and will burn all their coal.

Global warming and flooding.
The countries worst affected will be the least able to cope e.g. bangladesh

Massive forced emmigration due to environmental disaster.

Bio-diversity. Extinction of tiger, indian elephant and literally millions of other species.

The scenario in the film "Children of Men" will never occur. Our species has become
a pestilence.

That suitably depressing?
 
And people that point out spelling mistakes will be forced to compete
in spelling competitions for the rest of their lives.
 
As a professional educator of our future élite (HA!), I'd venture that future generations will be neither required nor equipped to 'think' about anything.

Harrumph. Call me old-fashioned...
 
GeneralZod said:
Our species has becomea pestilence.
Click to expand...
Yes, I'm sorry to say I think this is true.
As the late great Bill Hicks put it - "We're nothing but a VIRUS with shoes."

The environmentalist James Lovelock came up with the 'Gaia' concept, which proposes that every rock, tree, blade of grass, in fact EVERY living organism or inert object on the planet is part of the greater LIVING super-organism, Gaia - Earth itself.
In his theory, Gaia repairs herself when she is 'sick' just like a living organism.
We ARE a virus - an infection that Gaia will ultimately cure herself of.
 
What gets me is that we can fill newspapers and TV/radio news time with fairly insignificant matters (e.g. Bertie's 50-100k) yet the environmental destruction of the earth is confined to the odd story or documentary.

I mean I am sure Bertie's antics are important but in real terms there should be a news item/section every single day on the the future of the earth's climate and the progress or lack thereof that we are making to prevent/lessen disaster. We have the weather section after every single news bulletin. We should now have a climate section too. We seem to ignore the big picture when it suits us.
 
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