Buzz
Do you ever reflect on the past and wonder how our ancestors could have been so naive and primitive? There was a time when doctors believed bloodletting would heal people. Slavery was widespread. People used to wipe with their hands (or worse) when toilet paper didn't exist. And, at one point, kings were treated like infallible gods.
Although we've come a long way from those times, it's clear that, despite our advancements, we're still getting many things wrong. A century from now, future generations might look back at us and think, 'How did these primitive people manage to survive with such absurd practices?'
As predicted by the author, here are 10 outdated beliefs and systems in today's society that will make future generations view us as barbarians.
10. Driving Cars Manually
In the future, driving cars, planes, or really any vehicles will be a thing of the past. True pilots will be a rare sight. People will look back at our era when we drove ourselves around, colliding with each other on the road, and they'll probably wonder why we were so reckless.
In the US, car accidents claim the lives of 40,000 people every year. Cars, while necessary, are essentially machines of death. Yet, we still need to get places—our jobs and daily routines often demand it, and walking or biking isn't always an option.
While it's clear that we will continue to rely on cars for now, future generations will likely move past the dangers of human error with technology similar to self-driving cars like those created by Google.
This groundbreaking technology has already undergone more than a million miles of real-world testing with impressive results. There has only been one recorded accident where a Google car was at fault, and it was minor.
With these advancements, it's not hard to imagine that autonomous vehicles will soon dominate transportation, making the world of driving safer than ever before.
9. Using the Toilet
For as long as humanity has existed, one thing has remained constant—the need to relieve ourselves. Over the centuries, we’ve come up with countless creative solutions to deal with this essential need.
In ancient times, people would do their business in the forest, often wiping with leaves, if they bothered at all. Those near a stream might have used it to clean themselves, but many others suffered from the lack of hygiene.
In ancient Rome, public restrooms existed where people would relieve themselves into a flowing stream of water and wipe with a cloth. And yes, that same cloth would often be passed down to the next person.
In recent years, we've introduced toilet paper and wet wipes into our daily lives. While we might pride ourselves on how hygienic we are, future generations will likely see our reliance on toilets and wipes as highly unsanitary. They’ll view us as a primitive society, much like a tribe that defecates in a shared pit.
But if the people of the future won't need toilet paper or toilets, how will they go about their business?
It’s important not to assume that they’ll even need to poop at all. With advancements in biological science and genetically engineered food, it’s entirely possible that food will be designed for complete digestion, leaving no waste behind. In that case, there would be no poop to speak of.
Even more likely, future 'toilets' will be fully automated to handle the entire process, meaning we will never have to touch our own waste again.
8. Labeling Based on Gender
At present, society is in the midst of a heated debate over gender. We have men who identify as women, women who identify as men, and individuals who aren’t even sure they want to fit into any of these outdated categories.
There are constant disputes over which gender earns more, which one is more privileged, and a host of other issues that arise from dividing people into just two groups, as though we’re in competition with each other.
In the future, it’s probable that these gender-related conflicts will be a thing of the past. With advancements in gene editing and surgical techniques, people will be able to reshape their bodies as they wish, rendering gender debates obsolete.
Ideas like 'male' and 'female' will lose their significance. This doesn’t mean we’ll all become sexless, but gender will no longer divide us. Anyone will be able to transform into whatever identity they choose—whether that’s someone with multiple genders or a woman who becomes a man.
As a result, future generations will look back at our biased views based on gender and consider us as primitive as apes.
7. Governing Through a Two-Party System
In the medieval period, kings and queens held power across various regions of Europe. Looking back, we now see how misguided they were in allowing unelected rulers to control every aspect of their subjects' lives.
Today, we live in a democracy—a concept passed down from the Romans and the Greeks. Yet, despite all its advancements, we still behave childishly with our current two-party system of Republicans and Democrats.
Regardless of whether our recently elected presidents are from the Republican or Democratic party, they end up following the same pattern: growing the national debt, eroding personal freedoms, and making false promises to appear appealing.
Einstein famously said that insanity is 'doing the same thing repeatedly and expecting different results.' So, why do we continue to elect the same people from the same parties, only to hope that the economy will miraculously improve or that the ongoing wars will simply disappear?
Doesn’t it make sense that we should elect leaders who will govern differently if we truly want to see improvement? If we stay on this divisive path—acting like children fighting for different teams—how can we ever expect our government to get any better?
Ultimately, future generations will look at our presidents and the entire election system and laugh. A lot.
6. Fighting the War on Drugs
In the name of justice, we incarcerate numerous individuals who use illegal drugs. We claim we’re doing society a favor by removing these 'undesirables'. Over 70% of the criminals in America are imprisoned for nonviolent offenses, with more than half of them incarcerated for drug-related crimes.
The majority of drug users are engaged with one of these four substances: marijuana, cocaine, methamphetamine, and heroin. Marijuana, in comparison to many over-the-counter or prescription drugs, is relatively harmless. Anyone who has experienced both alcohol and marijuana can confirm that alcohol is the more dangerous substance. Yet, one could land you in prison, while the other may not.
Cocaine is a stimulant that heightens energy and focus—think of it as a more intense version of coffee. Methamphetamine suppresses appetite, boosts energy, and gives an overall feeling of happiness. It’s also used in medical treatments for people with obesity. Heroin, commonly prescribed as a painkiller, is not always a gateway to addiction when administered as part of medical care.
Despite the relatively innocuous nature of these four substances, possessing them can, and often does, ruin countless lives due to our severe laws. As evidenced by growing support for marijuana users and other non-violent drug offenders, the war on drugs is likely to end in the near future. Many states are already projected to legalize marijuana soon.
The future society will reflect on this time and wonder how we could have been so harsh toward others simply because we failed to understand them. A person should have the right to do whatever they wish with their own body. This is fundamental morality.
5. Poor Health Care
In every possible way, our healthcare system is failing. It is far too expensive and far too difficult to access. People are dying because of it.
This isn't a recent issue. For the last 20 years, we've been arguing about healthcare reform. The problem is so evident that we don't need to be from the future to recognize it's a pressing issue.
Barack Obama and others have tried to improve the system with the Affordable Care Act, yet many people are still not wealthy enough to cover their medical expenses. It remains a complex web of issues that still lacks resolution.
We can't predict exactly what the healthcare system of the future will look like, but we do know it can't be worse than what we have now. In 100 years, people will hopefully look back and be baffled by our inability to recognize the obvious solutions right before us.
4. Factory-Style Education
With a father who taught biology in a public school near the slums of Memphis, a mother who taught English at a private school overseas, a stepfather who was a geography teacher in public schools in Northwest Arkansas, and grandparents who were university professors for decades, I consider myself deeply acquainted with modern education. In fact, I've witnessed every troubling aspect of it.
The fundamental issue with our education system today is that we haven't updated our methods in nearly a century. We continue to treat children as if they are factory machines being assembled. We attempt—and fail—to teach every child the same lessons at the same time. It's as though we expect them all to become identical individuals with identical responsibilities.
But every person learns at their own pace, absorbing different things at different times. Not everyone wants, or even needs, to learn the same things. Forcing every child down a single, rigid path to meet uniform standards will inevitably lead to both educational and societal issues.
From a biological perspective, humans are not wired to learn this way. For no logical reason, we've created a system that goes against every human instinct—and it produces poor results.
When education was first becoming standardized in the modern world, any form of education was considered an improvement over none. But now that nearly every country on Earth has some version of standardized education, an assembly-line approach to teaching has lost its relevance.
Our educational system fails to collaborate effectively with the Information Age. We have the immense power of the Internet, which contains nearly everything imaginable, yet we fail to harness it in our teaching methods for children.
Is it any surprise that children dread school when it's made so dull and repetitive? In the future, education will undergo a profound transformation. It won't focus on rote memorization or solving the same problem repeatedly. Instead, the focus will shift to applying knowledge practically and developing critical thinking skills.
Children studying in space academies on Mars will look up at the cosmos and question how humanity ever managed to endure something as primitive as traditional schooling.
3. War
Albert Einstein was undeniably intelligent, and most people would agree on that. Many would even regard him as a genius. He once famously stated, 'I know not with what weapons World War III will be fought, but World War IV will be fought with sticks and stones.'
While everyone acknowledges the intelligence of the person who made this statement, his bleak outlook is certainly debatable. For many years, it was believed that a nuclear war would bring about the end of the world. Yet, despite having nuclear power since 1945, that outcome hasn't come to pass. Perhaps this suggests that humans are more capable than we often assume. Maybe war isn't as necessary as we think. Maybe it's not something we can't avoid.
At this juncture, no one can confidently predict whether war will ever truly cease. Perhaps humanity is simply unable to rise above the primitive notion of killing. After all, disagreements will always exist, and the only way to resolve major conflicts seems to be through battle, doesn't it?
However, it's also possible that one day we will surpass the greatest obstacle of all. The pointless loss of life may become a thing of the past. If such a time ever arrives, future generations will look back at the eras filled with violence and feel deep regret for their forebears.
2. Manual Labor
In the distant past, we constructed our buildings using nothing but raw human strength. Stones were carried for miles on our fragile bodies, and animals bore the brunt of our labor. Not too long ago, southern plantations relied on enslaved people to plant and harvest crops under the relentless sun.
Today, we have large machines that handle much of the work for us: tractors, cranes, semi-trucks, and bulldozers. However, there are still numerous modern-day jobs that demand long hours of grueling labor from people.
Lumberjacks, factory workers, and construction workers spend their days toiling away, trying to perform their tasks with the tools at their disposal. In doing so, they risk injuring themselves just to earn a living.
But as our tools continue to improve and robots start taking over more of our manual tasks, we may eventually reach a point where people no longer need to jeopardize their physical well-being to earn money. Society will have moved beyond the perils of labor, and machines will likely handle many—if not all—of the dangerous jobs for us.
1. Radical Global Warming Environmentalism
At present, we often use global warming as a scapegoat for excessive destruction. We treat it as our ominous warning, our dark force that must be appeased through carbon taxes. It's an easy trap to fall into since so few truly grasp the science of climate change. Those who do are often paid to exaggerate just how severe and catastrophic global warming is. It's not personal for them; it’s simply part of the job.
The issue lies in that we blame global warming—a problem that can't be fixed without finding a new energy source—when we should be addressing the issues that are within our control and can save lives. We should focus on engineering stronger levees, creating improved flood warning systems, teaching advanced irrigation methods, and more.
So let’s unite to save lives in tangible ways instead of trying to placate climate deities by imposing harsh regulations on impoverished nations, as some environmentalists suggest.
If we could stop fixating on the damaging aspects of fossil fuels and instead come together under a shared goal of making real, positive change, future generations might not look back and question our wisdom as much.
