What's something that's viewed as socially acceptable today that you think will become unacceptable 20 years from now?

The Giant Korean@lemmy.world to Ask Lemmy@lemmy.world – 232 points –
312

Exposing children to social media.

Putting your kids on social media publicly.

The kids that grew up with it will probably see the harm caused and not want to pass that on.

Yea this. It’s the cigarettes of our generation. “I don’t know, everyone was doing it back then”, we’ll all say.

And our blind acceptance of it all, to the point of allowing it to replace journalism and politics, will be seen as dumb in the same way we now breath in some cigarette smoke and see it as obviously unhealthy.

I think the dumbing effect it’s having on us as a society might even stop us from ever having realizations like his ever again though

I don't know about that. Younger millenials that grew up with social media are having kids and I see them posting about it.

For better or worse, I think social media is here to stay in some form or another. Maybe theyll fight harder to put some limits on it but I'm skeptical

Even when the US was down to like 20% smokers, in some European countries it was in the high 40s. Social media will DEFINITELY stick around. The question is how it's viewed.

I agree with you fundamentally. How do you feel about social media that is decentralized, open source, and non-corporate like Lemmy, Friendica, Pixelfed, et? I think these decentralized platforms are much less toxic because toxic people quickly get banned and shared with others. Furthermore, I think that with proper education of what social media is and what the positives and negatives are - including adverse consequencies - could be very beneficial. When social media is done in a positive way, it can be a great way to build friendships and exchange ideas and information. That much said the corporate social media is awful and in no way would I want to subject children to it as it could set them up for psychological trauma with real and lasting consequences to their mental health.

Would still not expose my kids. Anonymity brings out the worst in folks. And social media gets used for bullying no matter the platform.

As an adult, able to practice some opsec, and kcomfortable with their sense of self. Fine.

As kids, mine won’t have access. I have had family comment because we ask for our kids not be to put on Facebook. They understand a bit more now, 10 years later, but only to a point.

I can respect where you're coming from, and largely, because I feel the same way. I am in no way qualified to give you any paternal advice because I don't have children of my own. I can only speak to the mistakes my parents made on my brother and I which actually subjected us to ridicule and bullying from classmates. My parents carefully managed what my brother and I would be allowed and not allowed to watch on TV. One of the results of this was not knowing what The Simpsons was all about when the first episode aired. The fact that we had no idea what our peers were talking about left us in a bad way. Now granted, our parents never explained to us the reasons and benefits for doing what it was they were doing so it felt autocratic. If I had to guess, you are probably taking a very different path that helps your children to understand the reasoning why they would be better off, sans social media.

There is a point where you cant control kids, outside influences just become too much.. My job isnt to shelter them at that point, but to teach them to navigate a world that doesnt care about them, while also teaching them to be confident in their choices and strong. You cant please everyone, but that doesnt mean you need to be an asshole or inconsiderate.

My older is approaching that. And my job will shift from one of protection to more advisory role with interventions only when absolutely necessary. It is what it is. Maybe my kids get bullied, actually its probable. Many bullies take out their frustration with homelife on others and my kids probably wont have too much of that to inflict on others. Ive seen it first hand. My parents were abusive by modern standards. I wasnt a bully myself (that I recall), but i didnt stand in the way of others that may have been. I was bullied to, probably not as much as others because I'm a bigger guy. But definitely because of my race.

What matters is how you deal with it and carry it. That said, moderation in all things will help. Mine wont be the first to have a cell phone, but probably not the last either. I dont plan to have any parental controls on there, they just teach deception and break trust. So whatever social media the kids are into will probably have my kids on it. The job isnt going to be to protect them from that, but to teach them to manage it and deal with it responsibly and keep their guard up.

Also, has anyone tried to tell a kid not to do something? It doesn't work lol. What kinda childhood did y'all have? Cause I very distinctly remember how kids were constantly getting around my school's filters. I remember how many people got stuff like alcohol and tobacco from their friends. Every kid figured out how to watch porn from an early age, too, despite the fact that all these arguments against social media apply to porn (and arguably porn is worse for people simply because of the unrealistic and unhealthy expectations it sets).

I'm not saying don't have rules just because your kids will break them. But accessing social media is such a hilariously easy rule to break. And kids won't respect you if they disagree strongly with your rules. Setting a "no alcohol" rule is socially acceptable, but a "no social media" rule is just gonna breed rebellion. Unlike alcohol, they're gonna be exposed to it every day through their friends. Their friends will send them links in chats. They will find ways around your rules and they'll resent you for them.

At best, you can just delay how long before kids get exposed to social media and how long before they figure out how to get around your rules. But the last one won't take long. My parents had stupid rules surrounding the internet and I learned fast how to get around them.

The much better approach is to talk to your kids. Teach them the dangers. Build a good rapport with them so that they trust you and will talk to you if they're being bullied or the likes. If you just ban something, your kids are gonna use it anyway but without any knowledge of the dangers and they will not come to you if something goes wrong. This is the exact same issue that comes up with alcohol and sex. It's not a new problem. Just a new thing being banned by a new generation.

I wasn't allowed to watch the Simpsons or Blossom when growing up either because they were too rude and adult respectively. I definitely felt left out and kids made fun, but I get it now. Kids will (and DID!) make fun of anything, but I get the idea of sheltering kids. People try to do it today with gun violence. Maybe I feel differently because my parents explained why they were banning them, but "it's trashy" was at least a justification, even if I didn't agree with it.

This isn't social media. I don't know you and I can't pretend to know you. This is a discussion board/ bulletin board/ forum dressed in new clothes, and I'm cool with that.

Hopefully for profit health care, but I'm not holding my breath.

Definitely don't hold your breath.

If you pass out and hit your head, do you know how much that would cost to go to urgent care?

Meat eating is a possibility. I don’t see it being universal, but veganism is on the ride and it makes sense to a lot of people.

It's just not sustainable. Lab-grown meat is here, it just needs to get to scale, get a bit cheaper and boom. Farming and killing animals for food will be obsolete.

Farming as a whole will still not disappear at all, animal agriculture will change, but will also not disappear.

This is the first thing that came to my mind, too. I'm a omnivore myself and admittedly love my meat, but it's very bad for the environment and I can't deny the ethical concerns are there. At the very least, I can see low key vegetarianism being the norm in 20 years, where the norm would simply be to not have meat products, and meat might instead be a more niche diet or simply not the norm.

If lab grown meat manages to become scalable enough, I can also see that nearly completely replacing "real" meat. Once it's at least as affordable, I think "real" meat's days would be numbered. It'd become a thing only for purists/elitists/exotic diners. I would even expect that lab grown meat would eventually become cheaper than "real" meat simply because it would be far faster to grow and take fewer resources than to grow an entire animal to adulthood.

As an aside, would labe grown meat be considered vegan? I think it would be since no animal is harmed in the making of it. I imagine many existing vegans wouldn't want to eat something that tastes like meat, but it would be the thing that converts practically everyone else. I sure don't see why I'd ever want to eat "real" meat again if I could get a comparable lab grown meat that doesn't harm animals and is better for the environment. That's just a win win.

Lab grown meat is grown from cell cultures that were taken from animals that were not capable of consenting to donate these cells.

Hardcore vegans will likely still despise it, but for a lot of less hardcore vegan people it might become an option, especially if marketing hides the origin.

IMHO it's more important that the carbon footprint of growing cell cultures is bigger than that of growing animals. Unless this changes, lab grown meat is not an option to fight global warming.

I think in the grand scheme of things, if you have to ask if something is vegan, it’s probably not worth worrying about too much. Perfect not being the enemy of good and all that.

This definitely. For ethical or cost-effective reasons. I think price is going to be the main incentive. If its a dollar less a pound for lab grown hamburger and options at fast food outlets - we'll definitely be there. Real meat will become the new "fancy food" - wasteful and indulgent spending.

My money is on this one. Once we find a more sustainable way to get meat, and that scales to the globe, whatever that method is, I think the idea of keeping animals only to kill then will quickly be viewed as abhorrent.

Likely won't be as quick as within 20 years, however. Lots of companies currently making a fortune selling meat who will stand in the way of that.

When the quality and cost of labgrown meat matches the real thing - we’ll see the tables turn. Especially if they’re able to produce various *cuts^ and styles.

Traditionally grown meat will go the way of vinyl. Slowly fall out of popularity, then eventually become a status good, popular among aficionados, ignoring its actual inferiority in blind tastings. Calling it now, in 25 years, most US beef will be Kobe style, "we brushed our cows' hair and sang it lullabies" and differentiated by marketing.

Even beyond that, I wouldn't underestimate the power of cultural change. From what I can tell, drugs, sex and clearly defined gender identities are all on the decline in the younger generations in the west. I'm not sure there's any good or clear external force pushing this. I think it's just change. When it comes to eating meat, it's pretty easy to start thinking through why you don't need to do it as much as the typical western diet does, which feels pretty ripe for some form of merely cultural change.

My theory is that drugs, excessive sex and to some extent petty crime are partly a result of boredom for teenagers.

Teenagers today have less reasons to be bored than a generation or two ago. Instead, they’re getting dopamine fixes from social media and gaming.

I’m not sure if that’s related to dieting.

If done right, the cultural climate to change from eating living things to lab grown meat will be as simple as ordering the same dishes at restaurants with substitute ingredients that nobody notices.

And cost. It’s hard to justify a diet change otherwise.

Americans went from eating sheep to cows in the 1800s because cows were cheaper per pound, more resilient to diseases and easier to maintain.

Veganism is popular because it’s still a cost effective diet. Mass farming is compatible with it.

I can easily see “Pepsi Challenge” style ad campaigns where people blindly guess which bite was the real meat - and which one they prefer.

Though, I also see a backlash. In a way that the proliferation of hybrid and electric vehicles created the anti-environmental practice of “coal rolling”, whereas asshats modify their truck engines to produce more pollutants to own the libs.

Teenagers today have less reasons to be bored than a generation or two ago. Instead, they’re getting dopamine fixes from social media and gaming.

I think similarly and have said so before.

Just spitballing, but potentially:

  • undeclared AI usage for photos, video, code, etc
  • driving old beater cars or even nicer old ones like corvettes
  • Being outside during the peak of the day's heat

undeclared AI usage for photos, video, code, etc

I think this is the one. It's this generation's Napster, but the difference is it's not Britney Spears and Metallica getting robbed. It's every artist who ever posted their work to the Internet, and that's a huge, huge deal.

Most modern music is a collection of sounds and samples made by other people put together to create a new track. Then they sing over it using autotune. That has been accepted and normalized by the masses.

I agree with the first two, but the third one will happen only when most things catch on fire during the peak hot times. Workers in Texas don't get water breaks in the current heat wave.

Not being 100% available 24/7/365 will become even less acceptable than its already become.

I'd guess it'd be the opposite for some people who get tired of having to be constantly available.

Yeah I feel like that pendulum is swinging back already.

Yes, there is already laws in Europe to protect the "right to disconnect".

You have the right to not be reachable outside of work hours.

Yeah. There will always be those who push harder and harder for more and more intrusive communication at all hours, but as the pendulum swings back the other way, it will be more and more acceptable to walk away from such jobs and seek out places that show more respect for private time whenever you're off the clock.

SUVs.

There really is no need to haul 3 tons of steel around with you, and as more and more extreme weather events happen you'll have more and more people looking around for others to blame, and oversized cars which are clearly unnecessary for work (especially the ones with Internal Combustion Engines) make for big very visible targets, with the added factor that in some places they're seen as conspicuous displays of wealth (and flaunting wealth will be another thing that's likely to become frowned upon within the next 2 decades).

Not saying that SUVs are all to blame or even that the rich ride them (in my experience they're more the cars of a certain middle class), but they're in that spot of being abundant enough and yet only a minority of cars, easy to spot, often imposing in a showoffish way and logically more poluting that smaller cars, all this right when the impact of Global Warming is really and properly starting to be felt, something which at the current rate will get much worse in 2 decades.

Also, unlike big oil companies SUV owners don't have PR departments with hundreds of millions of dollars of budget to sway the press and swindle the useful idiots.

This thread title is unfortunately about what "you think will" not "you hope and wish and pray will", so super hard disagree. Electric cars are actually going bigger to account for huge batteries, and heavier because of them. Given that's the upswing I find it hard to predict a sudden shift to smaller cars.

The only way it happens (and 20 years is a very long time, so it's possible) is if cars become so expensive and mostly subscription model based like everything else, that car ownership goes down. If driverless electric cars become fleet vehicles in cities, you'd definitely see smaller cars becoming more common to have more on the road and privately replace public infrastructure because we can't invest in that in the USA. So like Uber just illegally ran taxi services in many jurisdictions until it became too popular to fail, expect the same thing from driverless car fleets, a couple of which will get bought by Uber or Lyft. Young people are driving WAY less, so if they prefer to hail a direct driverless taxi to their destination and not pay to own a car, then the bulk of vehicles on the road could downsize. Private passenger cars though, would start being used for more long haul driving instead of the 99% short trips they're currently used in, so I don't see any downward size pressure on those.

Well, there have been a number of announcements of higher density energy storage technologies and that's the direction things have been moving towards already with electric cars (in less than a decade ranges doubled with similarly sized cars), so I don't think there is at all a trend for larger vehicles in that segment due to such pressures.

From what I read (which was not specifically for electric cars) is that SUVs are simply more profitable for manufacturers, hence their investment in designing and heavilly promoting them.

I hope so. I was about to join the smaller end of the SUV crowd, but then I test drove a van. We have a van now. Even more space, better efficiency, and less expensive to buy. Just had to let our pride take a hit and drive the uncool-parents-mobile.

yeah right americans will totally overcome car-based infrastructure brainwashing and learn to hate the thing that they base their identity on totally

just like the confederate flag, totally died out when racism became uncool. and I think you're especially accurate that a widescale global disaster will definitely change people's thinking, that always happens and never redouble their biases with insane conspiracy theories driven by billionaire backed media campaigns

You're disputing something I didn't actually state.

I very explicitly went for SUVs because I actually believe the same as you when it comes to cars in general: 20 years is far too little time for people to completelly turn away from the, especially in car-loving countries with horrible public infrastructure for anything else, like the US.

Sacrificing a minority segment of the car market to appease the masses is not all that hard in 2 decades, whilst completelly changing the transportation infrastructure is damn near impossible.

Fair point! I still disagree insofar as I doubt it will happen in 20 years, but that seems less absurd to believe when you put it that way

I don't know. You don't see many electric stationwagons around and people will want big boots after fossil cars are history. I really really hope you're right though.

We bought a crossover earlier this year and love it, but I would have preferred to get a station wagon if they still existed. My parents had a Camry station wagon when I was a teenager and that thing was amazing.

There is also the shitty situation where because everything on US roads right now are big it actually makes smaller cars less safe in collisions due to relative mass with a likely other party. Also being at eye level with headlights kind of sucks.

SUVs are better than pickup trucks.

Current giganto tax-loophole pickups, sure. I drive a 97 standard bed, mostly for hauling (not a daily). It's a great vehicle for the job. There's probably a couple of safety features I wish it had but "be bigger than any potential collision target" isn't one of them.

My concern is the MPG

Most pickups are not work trucks.

Costco trips are the hardest work they do.

Publicly releasing a crime suspect’s name before conviction. Can’t believe that’s legal, may as well call them guilty until proven innocent.

I read somewhere that doing that makes it harder for the police to just "disappear" you

Hopefully in 20 years we won't have to worry about people being disappeared by the police...

Daily use of fossil cars and motorcycles.

Bringing your religion into other people's business.

Depending on how lab meats come along, meat from slaughtering animals.

Idk man, I think motorcycles will become more and more popular, if there is more environment friendly people in the future they will probably switch to motorcycles and scooters. they are cheaper than a car (especially a used electric car, where the battery will potentially need to be replaced), their fuel efficiency is great, and are smaller than cars, which fit the urbanization trend of being more compact.

ICE motorcycles are loud and their emissions are difficult to filter properly due to size and weight economy. This makes them a much bigger nuisance than electric equivalents, and I think attitudes will shift to reflect this.

They don't have to be loud, people just want them to be

I think basically every single top level comment has zero understanding of what a short time 20 years actually is.

I also expect almost everything that is acceptable today will also still be in 20 years, including nearly every example suggested in this discussion.

The world simply does not change that fast as a general rule.

Completely disagree, but if you haven't been around for at least a couple of sets of twenty years I can see why you would think this.

Someone else gave a great set of things that were different, but really, twenty years ago was almost completely different in nearly every dimension of life I can remember.

In 2003 not only was gay marriage not legal, gay sex and relationships were illegal where I live, and was punishable by prison time.

In 2003 most of the country wasn't online, pagers were more common than cell phones, and 3DFX VooDoo graphics cards were still a thing.

In 2003 I used to smoke inside my community college's cafeteria, where people ate because it was the designated smoking area.

In 2003 minimum wage was $5.15 nationwide, and gas was just a little over a dollar.

In 2003 people didn't use laptops in school and electronics were confiscated on site, sometimes teachers would 'lose' them and you never got it back, and somehow that was an expected outcome - I lost a laser pointer that way.

In 2003 casual homophobia was mainstream, all your friends, and probably you would be making gay jokes, and transphobia was not a concept. I thought transgender people were the same thing as intersex, I didn't know gender transition was possible.

American society was post 9/11 and highly patriotic, even liberal people were unusually patriotic, and politics were probably the most 'neutral' that I've ever seen, it was nothing like they are now, but in general things trended towards cultural conservatism.

I remember being an outcast because I didn't believe in God, and people would casually tell me I was going to go to Hell.

Nah, 20 years is an entirely different cultural paradigm.

23 years ago offices buildings were not locked. No doors were locked. Zero. You didn't need a badge to be in the building. Now in most places you swipe through every single door and you need a badge on a lanyard.

Voodoo cards were largely irrelevant to new buyers by 2001. The Vodoo 5 line was launched in 2000 and wasn't a terrible value, but then Nvidia launched the GeForce 3 in early 2001 and ate their lunch. 3dfx went defunct in 2002 and their assets were bought up by Nvidia.

But your point is completely valid, culture moves slow even when business and technology don't.

I really do mean culture independent of technology though, the entire range of acceptable opinions now versus then is completely unrecognizable, and in many ways my entire thought process and range of ideas are foreign to then as well.

I don't know how old you are but I lived through a completely different experience than you...

I'd been selling and repairing computers for 6+ years by 2003 and had been in the workforce many years before that. I can assure you people were definitely using laptops in schools (as I sold them to them)... Maybe not as ubiquitously as they do now but it was already quite common.

I think we'll just have to agree to disagree on how much things have changed since then ... Now, if you want to go back 30 or 40 years then I can definitely agree we've seen some significant changes.

Hell, the first time I flew out of the country I didn't even need photo ID much less a passport.

Most schools didn't have Wifi in 2003, so it's not clear what "using laptops" would've been. There were computer labs, sure (mostly desktops).

Colleges had ethernet jacks in every desk in improved/modern classrooms (and nothing outside of those). The use of laptops in college was already common, in school - not yet.

Cell phones were already common, but smartphones - not at all. Palm phones were the epitome of "smart phone" - and getting data on/off them was a pain. Many plans still didn't include unlimited calling. Verizon was innovative with offering unlimited calls to a preselect group of numbers.

Not sure what your point is about having sold and repaired computers for 6+ years before 2003. Sure, computers had been sold for far longer than that. But we are talking about what was (and wasn't) commonplace.

In case it still doesn't occur to you, I pointed out that I'd been in the computer business for a number of years already by then to illustrate that I'd already been selling laptops for years to people who intended to use them in school prior to 2003.

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I'm not sure what point you're trying to make.

WiFi is in no way necessary to take notes, write papers, etcetera.

College is certainly included in the definition of "school" so that seems a silly separation to try and make.

Cell phones and smart phones in particular are irrelevant to anything I said.

Do you have a point or are you just trying to disagree with me?

My point is that my experience in my life, to now, across two decades, was drastically different. People still didn't bring a laptop to the community college I went to that year either, I had never seen or heard of it as a practice until later.

I returned back to school about five years later and laptops in classes was common.

We somehow seem to have had drastically different experiences she perspectives from a broadly large geographic region.

For additional perspective my typing class in 1999 used an actual typewriter, not a computer, so socioeconomic factors of my own high school experience and the area I grew up may have actually been that different and potentially atypical to even surrounding areas, it's hard to tell.

That could certainly explain some things seemingly drastically different over that 20 year period for you I suppose then.

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Bro out of that entire list the only one you could contradict was computers, which I definitely don't remember being widespread 20 years ago, and they were certainly nothing like the computers of today in terms of experience. What about, y'know, the whole gay marriage thing? Seems like a pretty dramatic change you've just brushed over.

I was in high school in the nineties and no one had a laptop in class, then when I went into community college, things like online classes were a novelty, with a handful of offerings and a large computer lab because most people didn't have Internet access at home, so you would do your online work there, or at home and bring it to school to upload on a floppy disk.

This was my regional reality, southeast US, but was very much the experience of tens of thousands up until the period of time, 2003, that you're referring to.

Up until then it was only rich people that had Internet access at home, and most of the people I knew would often lose their lights and phones from their parents not being able to pay for utilities.

Some of my experience is skewed towards poverty because that was the social circle I had, but I still never had the impression that the masses actually had Internet or even laptops at home. Most people did have an offline computer, usually five to eight years old though.

Dude... I wasn't rich and it most certainly wasn't "only rich people" that had internet at home.

Hell, I personally had both cable and DSL in my house from 2000-2003 so my wife downloading wouldn't cause latency issues with my gaming.

I also lived in the southeastern US at the time.

In 2005 at a top 50 liberal arts school, I was the only person in almost every class I was in using a laptop to take notes. Huge 200 person lectures there were definitely a few, and in later years I still remember being crazy jealous of a woman who had a laptop with a stylus for drawing econ graphs - one set of classes I wrote manually in - but she was a rarity. My notes were always highly sought after for sharing because I'd have 4 pages typed instead of 2 scrawled and not keeping up.

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I think basically every single top level comment has zero understanding of what a short time 20 years actually is.

I also expect almost everything that is acceptable today will also still be in 20 years, including nearly every example suggested in this discussion.

The world simply does not change that fast as a general rule.

In 2003, you could still smoke indoors in many states/countries who have since made it illegal.

In 2003, cannabis and homosexuality was illegal in many more countries than it is now.

In 2003, there were many more TV shows/movies with ingrained sexism than there are now.

In 2003, having hundreds of "online friends" meant you were a social recluse who only spent time on IRC/MSN messenger.

In 2003, if you met a significant other online, you came up with an elaborate story to hide it.

In 2003, most people had a paper map of the streets folded up in their glove compartment.

In 2003, people still remembered phone numbers, phones all had removable batteries, every phone company had a different OS/charging cable, and no phone had a screen >6 inches big.

(cheating a little here, but I would be remiss not to mention this) In 2000, it wasn't illegal to bring a full water bottle into a plane.

Thanks, but I remember things from 20 years ago and this is an exaggeration in many ways... Or perhaps I should say multiple exaggerations.

Things were far more noticeably different 40+ years ago (which I also remember).

Oh, and for what it's worth, it's still not illegal to bring a full water bottle on a plane. You just can't bring one through security so you have to buy it in the airport after the checkpoints.

Thanks, but I remember things from 20 years ago and this is an exaggeration in many ways… Or perhaps I should say multiple exaggerations.

I remember things from 20 years ago too. Absolutely none of what I said was an exaggeration. Many of these are facts which you can google.

Things were far more noticeably different 40+ years ago (which I also remember).

Sure. Things were way more different 60+ years ago, way way more different 80+ years ago, and way way way more different 100+ years ago. That's not the point though.

Oh, and for what it’s worth, it’s still not illegal to bring a full water bottle on a plane. You just can’t bring one through security so you have to buy it in the airport after the checkpoints.

Ok, you got me there. I should have said:

(cheating a little here, but I would be remiss not to mention this) In 2000, it wasn’t illegal to bring a full water bottle past airport security.

Agree to disagree.

You said "The world simply does not change that fast as a general rule". I presented a few facts, you called them "multiple exaggerations". There's nothing to agree or disagree here - these are facts. You can google laws on homosexuality, cannabis, smoking, and airport security. You can search for when Google Maps was invented. Hell, if you were alive 20 years ago you should just know this.

Maybe you got me confused with another poster - i'm not saying that the past 20 years was the most drastic change in human history. All I'm saying is that there have been significant changes in the last 20 years.

Anyway, it doesn't really matter what you think, so this is my last reply here.

I remember 20 years ago. I remember 40 years ago. It changes pretty fucking fast and it gets faster every year.

I don't have much to say except this take is flat out incorrect

Well then, we have a mutual perception of each other's thoughts on the topic it seems.

I agree, but we should also remember that time is relative. In under 100 years we went from "holy shit our balsa wood plane flew 250 feet" to "one small step for man".

Completely disagree, but if you haven't been around for at least a couple of sets of twenty years I can see why you would think this.

Someone else gave a great set of things that were different, but really, twenty years ago was almost completely different in nearly every dimension of life I can remember.

In 2003 not only was gay marriage not legal, gay sex and relationships were illegal where I live, and was punishable by prison time.

In 2003 most of the country wasn't online, pagers were more common than cell phones, and 3DFX VooDoo graphics cards were still a thing.

In 2003 I used to smoke inside my community college's cafeteria, where people ate because it was the designated smoking area.

In 2003 minimum wage was $5.15 nationwide, and gas was just a little over a dollar.

In 2003 people didn't use laptops in school and electronics were confiscated on site, sometimes teachers would 'lose' them and you never got it back, and somehow that was an expected outcome - I lost a laser pointer that way.

In 2003 casual homophobia was mainstream, all your friends, and probably you would be making gay jokes, and transphobia was not a concept. I thought transgender people were the same thing as intersex, I didn't know gender transition was possible.

American society was post 9/11 and highly patriotic, even liberal people were unusually patriotic, and politics were probably the most 'neutral' that I've ever seen, it was nothing like they are now, but in general things trended towards cultural conservatism.

I remember being an outcast because I didn't believe in God, and people would casually tell me I was going to go to Hell.

Nah, 20 years is an entirely different cultural paradigm.

Yes... The 100 year scale has been far more drastic and interesting a measure of change, particularly in the past century and a half or so.

20 years is a lot of time for change, looking at the speed of how the world is changing now, and looks like it will be faster

I think that you are the one who has zero understanding of how fast culture can change. There are a LOT of things that were considered acceptable 20 years ago but aren't today.

Like what? Keep in mind that's 2003

Well being gay isn't illegal in a bunch of countries, for one. Kind of a big cultural change. Can't smoke indoors like in planes or in restaurants, those are just a couple of the most obvious off the top of my head, but they're far from the only examples.

I know it's just conventional wisdom, but among those who look back and forward and think about this stuff, it's been common conventional wisdom for a century that 20 years is an exceedingly long time for change.

I like Bill Gates' quote the best, "People often overestimate what will happen in the next two years and underestimate what will happen in ten."

https://quoteinvestigator.com/2019/01/03/estimate/

Technological change is far different than social change in terms of what's accepted and what isn't.

Most of the people commenting to me have gotten caught up in that.

Most of the things people are pointing out in terms of social change in acceptance are things like gay marriage, smoking, and cannabis legalization.

What they fail to understand is that attitudes on many of those social issues can be somewhat cyclical and that the drastic changes they are seeing may be more surface level than as deep as they think.

Consider the overturn of Roe v Wade to understand how some of the shorter term "changes" in what's socially acceptable may be subject to revert back in the future.

There are absolutely a shit ton of people whose attitudes towards and acceptance of these things have not changed at all in 20 years.

Anyways, I'm not planning on replying to any more comments on this topic at this point.

It's been done to death.

a lot of the shit in here is just ignorant. I believe a lot will change, but not the shit people are posting. religion?? come on

What do you expect to change with regards to acceptance of religion in the next 20 years?

I don't think much is going to change about religion. People have been religious for .... all of human history and beyond? And they still are. And that comes with all the add-ons: sacrifice and care, bigotry and tribalism, manipulation and lies, false hope and real strength. People will still prostrate before Mecca in 2043 and some people will still mistrust them for it. Swindlers and conmen will still wear the face of spirituality to claim moneyfamepower.

Maybe the one thing that might change, maybe, is homophobia becoming less common in the Abrahamic religions. Maybe. I hope.

How long until the US has its first openly atheist president? There's elections in 2024, 28, 32, 36, 40, and 44. Up to six new people, or as few as three. The first catholic president was in the 60s and it took 60 more years to elect another, and it still came up as an issue. I don't know if that much can change about religion in only 20 years.

Gotcha. I think I misunderstood your original comment.

Thanks for clarifying.

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Eating factory farmed meat. With the way politics is headed there will be some politician at some point in the future trying desperately to defend his high beef consumption in what will become known as Burgergate.

Also, islamophobia in the context of defending religious nutjobs. For instance, it is islamophobic to complain about a muslim (Sikh, in reality) man at an airport because he "looks like a terrorist". It is not islamophobic to suggest that female students should be allowed in public schools just like male students. Both of these things have actually happened, very recently, and the latter was defended because people were scared shitless of being called islamophobic. We have to have some minimum human rights standards that religion cannot interfere with, and blatant sex-based discrimination is one of them. I do not give a flying fuck what your religion teaches you.

How much sedentary time we spend in front of screens. We already know it is ruining our eyes and our sleep cycles.

I think it depends more on what you're doing on those screens. I regularly download books from my local library to read on my phone. People used to read paper books, newspapers, and magazines all the time. Same shit, different means of consumption.

I don't think we know it's ruining our eyes, and screen usage probably doesn't affect circadian rhythms unless it's near bed time. But we do know sitting around all day increases your mortality quite a bit.

Also, blue light filter glasses are a total scam.

Screen time is definitely having a measureable impact on our ocular health

Over time, staring too long at screens can change the structure of the eyeball and lead to atrophy of the glands that keep it moist. Research is now pointing to excessive screen time for the rise in eye disorders, such as dry eye and myopia, which are becoming more common and affect more young people.

[...]

While myopia or nearsightedness has a genetic component, it has been shown to progress faster in people who overuse screens. Human eyes can also become chronically dry if the meibomian glands — a sebaceous gland that helps create protective tear film — become obstructed or atrophy. Meibomian glands secrete meibum, which is a specialized substance containing lipids that protects the eye surface.

It's different than the watery tears that flush the eye. Without a healthy tear film, eyes become dry, sensitive to light and irritated. Research has linked staring at digital devices for long periods without proper blinking to degraded gland function, even in some children.

I stand corrected on screens not being bad for eye health, although I would still argue "ruining our eyes" is a bit of an exaggeration.

excessive alcohol consumption. I'm not saying I think there will be prohibition, but maybe it won't be so normal to get almost blackout drunk, or everyone drinking at parties to be the norm.

I think the increase in really good tasting non alcoholic beer and spirits is telling.

I quit drinking last September and it was the best thing for my mental and physical health I ever did. Lemmy.world/c/stopdrinking has so many people who quit drinking for reasons other than hitting rock bottom.

I would say also the rise of really good alcoholic drinks too. Less mindless drinking, less alcoholism. I agree with this answer, the trend is already started. But think people will always want to get high in some way, do not think total sobriety is likely.

It's one small thing to be thankful for. At the same time that I started losing my tolerance and drinking went from "yea!" to straight "blech", sober curious became more of a trend. Any decent bar/restaurant will have a (good!) mocktail or two, and non-alcoholic beer really has lagers and IPAs figured out.

And I don't feel like there's any social pressure or scrutiny over what I'm (not) drinking.

People who care that you're a non drinker are people with problems that you generally dont want to be a part of.

There's a spectrum between people actually having a problem with you not drinking, and the general social pressure one experiences when out at a bar.

I can see this happening - maybe once marijuana or other recreational drugs become state or federally legalized.

I really hope making fun of gender pronouns isn’t acceptable in 20 years. My name is Ted Cruz and my pronounce are U.S.A.

Not just super lame boomer jokes but shitting on people who feel invisible and pronouns help them feel recognized as a full person.

Now I second this. As a(n aspiring) comedian, I already feel like jokes about pronouns are only playable in rural shitty areas. Nowhere in the cities does that kind of "silly gay people" humor play. because humor is about punching up, and lgbt individuals are nowhere near being a full accepted part of the human experience. we won't have full acceptance of lgbt people in 20 years, but hey, pronoun jokes will definitely be reserved for shitty old people.

Thank you for not doing them even if you possibly could get away with it at some shows. Larry the Cable Guy is a millionaire but you know his grandchildren are going to be ashamed of him as they go to college using money made by telling jokes about trans people in bathrooms. It’s easy but it’s wrong and we all know it.

Having an excessive amount of kids.

Dystopic I know, but hear me out. I think this is already on the cusp of falling out of social norms as there are shows that let the American public gawk on the dynamics of very large families. Of course an "excessive" amount is vague and subjective but there is growing evidence on poorer outcomes for children who may have less nurturing and less family resources due to competition from having too many siblings. I myself come from a large family - so this is casual speculation from having witnessed the VERY different family dynamics from friends who came from single or two-child households.

The whole idea of having a family and where it sits on your life and goals definitely seems on the cusp of permanent change, I agree.

Lots of factors around this. Good answer!!

Smoking around other people

I would argue that its not acceptable now.

I would argue that this depends on location

True. I pretty much grew up on the "no smoking" wave through the late 90s/early 2000s and watched it disappear from public spaces.

It was a trip when my dad brought me to Detroit in my teens for a concert, and lit up inside a restaurant. I saw the server walking over briskly and thinking "Dad, wtf are you doing??". But then she just dropped an ash tray on our table and went on her merry way.

Thats when I realized that the whole world hadn't signed on to the whole "no smoking in public spaces" paradigm.

Go to any large city in the US or anywhere in Europe or Asia. It will blow your mind how acceptable it is.

Not masking during an ongoing pandemic

Lmao, no, that's been a point of contention for over 100 years. No way that's changing any time soon.

Yeah, its funny reading newspapers and stuff from the time of the Influenza pandemic. Despite having happened 100 years ago, it was practically the exact same stuff that we experienced a few years ago.

We’re experiencing it now. The pandemic isn’t over and most people aren’t masking. Meanwhile the life expectancy rate is dropping every year and the number of people who are now disabled is skyrocketing due to Long Covid

Hating on trans folk

I wish, but unfortunately am not very hopeful about this :(

Large parts of the world seem to be headed further in the direction of restricting self determination around your identity and your body. The worst part is seeing almost no-one fighting back. I live in the uk though, so some of that is related to the hellish media landscape here >.<

In the US, youth tackle football. In some places it's already becoming less socially acceptable and I think that trend will continue.

20 years ago was 2003... any idea what was socially acceptable then that isn't now?

Not much, really. 20 years isn't a lot of time.

Think 50 years, or 100 years.

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In 10 years

  • Selling high strength magnets without regulation
  • Petroleum cars

In 100 years?

  • Eating meat
  • Natural gas stoves
  • Oil/Natural gas furnaces
  • Anonymous online communities
  • Not wearing a sort of body-camera in most professions

In 1000 years?

  • Religion, mysticism, paranormal beliefs
  • An inversion of religious moralism, I think things that are thought of as evil will have to become the norm, genetic modification, cloning, etc.
  • Eating food in general

In 100 years?

Eating meat
Natural gas stoves
Oil/Natural gas furnaces

This sounds like a solid +6°C plan if it takes 100 years

It's all a devious plan by the canadians so they can have warmer beaches

No way you're getting rid of any kind of mysticism, ever. You have people shooting at random towers blaming 5g and not vaccinating because of the dumbest reasons.

Humankind as a whole isn't intelligent enough to get rid of irrational stupidity and as long as you have that you'll have people believing in all those things you mentioned.

Why does religion get another 1000 years, but meat is gone in 100? 😩

Also: what's that about magnets? Why would we outlaw/regulate high powered magnets?

Sorry man I tell the future, can't control it 🤷‍♂️

Don't believe this propaganda, brother. This comment was clearly written by Big Jesus.

I'm not sure if OC would count this as meat or not, but lab grown meat is currently possible possible but not economically viable yet. Once that changes and cheap, ethical, eco friendly meat that's indistinguishable from conventional products is common, it will be much harder to justify conventional meat farming.

Baring that, plant based meat substitutes may gain a foothold, but we'll see.

As far as religion goes, that's actually a big unknown from my point of view. The "nones" have risen super fast, but a lot of churches have done a lot of aggressive things to try to slow that trend. I'm not sure if they'll eventually find something that works or if their efforts will further increase the secularization of the US. As far as the rest of the world, Europe in general makes me hopeful.

Magnets are very weird. Up until now, we don't really know what causes magnetism or how it works. We just know some rocks have it and others don't. Also, magents aren't super massively available in nature.

I'd hazzard a guess that guy refers to magnets the same way we SHOULD treat helium. It's a precious rare non renewable resource and we squander it like it's nothing.

......we can literally just manufacturer super powerful magnets. What the hell are you talking about?

Also magnets don't fly out to space by themselves (at least not yet) 😁

No you can't. At least not what they are talking about. Rare Earth Megnets have Rare in the name for a reason.

Mate, you're talking out your ass. Neodynium is a rare metal, yes. But we're not going through neodymium deposits fishing out magnets like they're some sort of gemstone.

That shit gets mined, melted, alloyed with other minerals, smelted into shape then run through magnetic field generators to induce a magnetic charge in them, as just a very rough overall view of the process.

The biggest issue is that making them is INCREDIBLY material inefficient. Making one really good quality magnet requires an absolute fucking shit ton of processing, all of which reduces yield and increases waste product generation every step of the way.

I'm super interested in your magnet theory. Why?

May not be widely accepted, but it is accepted in a good chunk of the world.

  • Being a Bigot
  • Being Racist
  • Being Sexist

Bigotry is still active, just different groups. Racism is definitely still active, just different groups (look up stats on violence against Asians or their chances of getting into the Ivy Leagues). Human nature is so strong, I admire and doubt your optimism.

Sexism being actively obsolete in 20 years is possible and would be a good start.

Yes, I know they are still active, that's kind of the point I was making. I'm saying if things go as they look to be, then hopefully they won't be in 20 or so years. If they are just as active as they are now, or even more so, then hopefully asteroid 2044 takes care of the planet once and for all.

Yeah, I don't see any of those things changing. I've read too many history books and they're traits of our species, not minor blips.

Well, if they don't then the world can burn, and I hope it does if not.

They won't.

The traits you describe are as old as the human race itself, and even with the vast knowledge we now possess, they're still endemic to the human experience. They're built into our DNA.

Then the world deserves to burn.

That's probably true.

The upside is that it's going to, and most if not all of the human race will die out, but whatever comes next might be better than we were.

I was just thinking about it actually - I feel like it's going to be the sheer amount of caffeine we ingest, or caffeine at all.

which reminds me, I need a coffee!

Killing for pleasure.

You say that's already not acceptable? But I was talking about non-human animals and taste pleasure.

That's gonna take a lot more than 20 years

Nah. Don't think we have that long to change.

Is there a single country on this planet that has even brought it up? Hunting and fishing aren't going away in the lifetime of someone born today m8 I'm sorry.

Killing

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_vegetarianism

edit: Also hunting (specifically of deer and similar) is not a problem, as their populations will grow out of control without hunting. People advocating widescale vegetarianism in fact are not generally against hunting deer. But how much of the meat that is consumed in the developed world is hunted? Factory farming is by several orders of magnitude the greater ethical and climatic concern.

The commenter said "killing for pleasure" and that is what I was responding to. There are hunting and fishing competitions, there are hunting trips rich people take in Africa, let's not forget people who hunt in areas with no regulation because of how secluded it is and how hard it would be to catch them, and as an added bonus even if we are limited time to only hunting, worldwide, for population control some people will still find pleasure in it. It's not going away in 20 years.

Factory farming IS killing for pleasure.

Livestock animals are killed for their meat. Something close to 80 billion mostly chickens, pigs, and cows, all of whom have been shown in lab experiments to be surprisingly aware, intelligent, and social. The vast majority of these animals also spend most of their lives in a living hell.

Why are they killed? It is not because it is nutritionally necessary to do so. It would be vastly more efficient to use land and resources to grow crops for human consumption than for livestock and their feed. Doing so would vastly increase the amount of available food supply, drastically reduce emissions, and reduce the suffering of hundreds of billions of living, feeling creatures (trillions over just the next 15-20 years).

They are killed because humans have a gustatory and cultural preference to eat meat. Although meat is often healthy, western diets especially often over-include it, and meat is not nutritionally essential for health.

I am not advocating for literally all human beings to become vegetarian or vegan with no exceptions ever. In fact, the use of some amount of livestock is necessary for maximally sustainable food systems. However, we could drastically (something around 95% globally, maybe more) reduce the amount of meat we consume and ensure that livestock are treated humanely, and it would be objectively better in the long run for humanity and for the planet.

You're still having a completely different conversation. You did nothing to erase killing animals for pleasure within the next 20 years you just reduced the amount of animals killed.

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Gender assumptions

You think human nature is going to change in 20 years?

Gender Identity is not human nature, but rather the product of culture and language association. There have been plenty of cultures in recorded history with multiple - what we would call today - Gender Identities.

Language and its impact on perception of reality is a very interesting topic of study.

That's not what I meant. Our brains are programmed to make as complete an image of a person as possible when first meeting them, including all attributes that can be inferred from their exterior.

Oh, easily fixed: If you aren't able to tell if someone identifies as Masculine or Feminine; there's a solid chance that they're Non-Binary. If you aren't sure though, its always safe to refer to and think of someone as "They/Them" and Non-conforming to traditional gender roles.

I can't do that, actually, since there are no gender-neutral pronouns in German. Btw, traditional gender roles are nonsense, anyways.

Oh interesting! I was unaware that German didn't contain gender neutral pronouns. Is German a gender heavy language similar to Spanish?

Couldn't say since I don't speak Spanish, but in German, every article is gendered. Though unlike English we have a third gender, neutrum.

Very interesting! Im going to research this more later! Thanks for the information!

Bold of you to assume civilization is still standing in 20 years.

Driving ICE cars.

Driving ICE cars.

Nope.

It's insane to me how the fuckcars movement went from "we should have walkable cities and more public transport" to "ban all cars".

The stupidity of not realizing that farmers, plumbers, electricians, etc. need cars to keep modern society working is baffling to me. Not to mention that they fully expect people to go grocery shopping every single day, or it never crosses their mind because they have no idea what it takes to feed a large family.

It’s insane to me how the fuckcars movement went from “we should have walkable cities and more public transport” to “ban all cars”.

have you read the sidebar of the fuckcars communities?

From Wiki (emphasis mine):

The car-free movement is a broad, informal, emergent network of individuals and organizations, including social activists, urban planners, transportation engineers, environmentalists and others, brought together by a shared belief that large and/or high-speed motorized vehicles (cars, trucks, tractor units, motorcycles, etc.)[1] are too dominant in most modern cities. The goal of the movement is to create places where motorized vehicle use is greatly reduced or eliminated, by converting road and parking space to other public uses and rebuilding compact urban environments where most destinations are within easy reach by other means, including walking, cycling, public transport, personal transporters, and mobility as a service.

From Reddit (emphasis mine):

Discussion about the harmful effects of car dominance on communities, environment, safety, and public health. Aspiration towards more sustainable and effective alternatives like mass transit and improved pedestrian and cycling infrastructure.

From lemmy (emphasis mine):

An place to discuss problems of car centric infrastructure or how it hurts us all. Let’s explore the bad world of Cars!

Equating the fuckcars movement to "ban all cars" is like equating climate change to "ban all oil".

Not to mention that they fully expect people to go grocery shopping every single day, or it never crosses their mind because they have no idea what it takes to feed a large family.

My aunt feeds a family of five. She does not own a car, nor does she do grocery shopping every day. You know what's the answer? You had it right - “we should have walkable cities and more public transport”.

have you read the sidebar of the fuckcars communities?

Yes, and I've also seen the posts and comments. Which is more representative of the actual community.

I see posts and comments talking about how rail isn't better, bike lanes aren't more widespread, how too many parking lots is an issue... I don't see anyone saying cars should be banned outright.

Should have added a winky face. We can't ban cars, but definitely need to use cars less. Mostly a joke about how the current state of EVs is just green washing.

That's fair.

I was mostly venting my frustration over those silly posts anway. Since as long as humans have physical bodies, we will at times need individual transportation. And they sometimes act like literally everything in life can be done through public transport and excpeting people to bring home a couch on the bus.

Not to mention that they fully expect people to go grocery shopping every single day, or it never crosses their mind because they have no idea what it takes to feed a large family.

I had to do the grocery shopping for a household of 7 (3 of them teenagers) and the only reason I used a large vehicle to get those groceries is because there was no infrastructure for bicycles in that town. I didn't haul anything that couldn't also be hauled by a decent cargo bike.

These people live in a tiny little bubble, but the glass is dirty and they can't see outside. They probably have zero idea where their food comes from and how far it had to travel to make it to their wholefoods, or how different the lives of the people that grow it are to their own.

Yes, I agree on this with you, like cars are extremely inefficient way of transportation, especially considering how overcrowded our cities are and the general trend of making bigger and bigger cars that take even more space on the streets, on the parkings, etc.

How does one get across vast empty spaces in the US?

Hopefully, marriage.

Do you have blue hair by any chance?

Marriage is a stupid idea. Men and women have virtually nothing in common and make terrible partners. Men's lack of emotional sensitivity makes them incapable of providing a fulfilling relationship. Women don't have anything like the sex drive of men. At some point women turn off the sex tap, as is their perogative but society simultaneously frowns upon extra martial affairs. Cue brooding resentment. Scientists should hurry up and invent babies in a can or sex robots and solve the pressing problems of male-female relationships. Judeo-Christian values can eat my refuse.

This post was brought to you by: Lots o' Issues.

I would gladly answer your question, and I know Im going to get downvoted because I won't exactly answer it. So understandable if you downvote me for not providing an answer, all I want is to apologize coz I like actually providing productive answers.

I just want to apologize that Im not willing to invest time into re-iterating my thinking into "why I think signal is not 'fun' to use". I dont wanna invest my time into re-installing Signal, writing a list and an essay about it etc and then going back and forth with you.

It would require much effort from my time to do that and in detail and we would go back and forth, so I'm just here to apologize for not responding to your question because it's a great question. I always like to give detailed answers but just not willing to invest my time into this discussion for which Im sorry. I hope you get an answer from somebody else if someone else shares the same opinion.

For context, and why I'm judging Signal harshly, I'm a software engineer at Powerfactors, and used to be a Frontend developer, now I'm professionally a Backend engineer. And I've started as a Fullstack and Freelancer. So I kind of understand both sides and trying to understand the user as well. Like I try to understand users like my Grandmother, my mother, to a programmer or a graphic designer. I try to understand who the software is for, and how to make it appealing to them and useful.

I make my own Project which I re-iterated many times throughout the years to make user friendly and "fun" or easy to use or actually useful for clients to use. So when I use a piece of software I think in detail what could be done better and what could have gone bad from both frontend, backend, and UX/UI and I like the OSX/Apple philosophy on this one. That's as much as you're gonna get from me, Im NOT going to re-install Signal again and write a piece of list and essay coz I know this is gonna take much of my time, it's who I am, I like writing detailed essays and answers + (i accidentally deleted my last answer instead of clicking edit i clicked delete).

edit: Again, I wanna emphasize, your question is awesome, if somebody here is UX/UI specialist, or knows about user-experience in general for some reason, and has the time to invest, you have my blessing. I'm making the comparison between Telegram, WhatsApp etc. vs Signal for context and why my opinion is that Signal falls besides them. + As you can see I'm not "arguing in bad faith". Im here to discuss.:)

What in the flying fuck are you prattling on about?

3 drinks in last night it seemed like a good opportunity for a new copy/Pasta from another thread.

Swing and a miss