We're all human here, and we're out here, doing our best.
But there are things that we're currently doing that may feel okay right now but which will look strange, if not barbaric, to people in the future.
Reflecting on the possibilities, Redditor Helpful_Finger_4854 asked:
"What's something normal to use in 2025, that by 2075 will be seen as barbaric?"
"Like, 'Wow, people really used to do that 50 years ago?'"
Medical Dramas
"I've heard people say that current medical dramas will qualify as horror shows when compared to medicine of the future."
"I tried to think of what a medical drama in 1925 would look like and yeah, that tracks."
- jimes00
Mommy Influencers and Mommy Bloggers
"Hopefully: Using your children to create content on social media so it can be monetized."
- TheWorstWitch
"We can exploit our AI-generated offspring projected children instead. Now how can I make my theoretical child most optimal for the algorithm…"
- Check_M88
Future Healing Opportunities
"As an orthopedic surgeon, I always think people will cringe in the future at what is routine now. 'You used to drill rods and screws into broken bones? What the heck were you all thinking?'"
"I pray for either injectable bone healing bots or some Star Trek device that helps regenerate new tissue."
- Orthocorey
"I'd like a lab-grown pancreas, please! With my own cells and whatnot so my body thinks it's mine and accepts it readily."
- DiscoKittie
Normalize Pain Management
"Not giving anesthesia with placing IUDs."
- tt_DVM2011
"When I was a college student, they gave me a low dose of Advil/Tylenol and nothing else (and I didn’t know at the time to ask for anything else because I was young and the pain was downplayed). Worst pain of my life and the pain continued like that for about a week before it started easing."
"I couldn’t sit upright for at least 48 hours and OTC (over-the-counter) meds did nothing to help. I was unexpectedly out of work and classes for the days following. I 100% should have been given both local anesthesia AND real pain meds to deal with the post-procedure pain."
"In general, medicine (and gynecology specifically) often does not appropriately care for the pain levels of women. There have been countless studies on the fact that doctors (of both sexes) are more responsive to male complaints of pain than female complaints. Pain for women is normalized in medicine, gynecological settings, and the female reproductive system when it shouldn’t always be."
- ThatRoryNearThePark
So Much Plastic
"Use plastic round food all the time (food in plastic packaging), cutting food on plastic cutting boards, drinking from plastic straws, from plastic bottles, plastic everywhere all the time!"
- letthisbeanewstart
"Something like 40 percent of all microplastic contamination originates as polyester or other synthetic fibers, and the other majority share comes from tires and road dust."
- MarkNutt25
Reaching The Cancer Horizon
"Dying from cancer, hopefully."
- Helpful_Finger_4854
"Even just the way we treat cancer. Let's stop the whole 'poison you and hope the cancer dies before you' thing."
- htown_swang
"There are many many cancers that have Gene Targeted Therapy now, where the medicine (most often a pill) targets the specific gene causing cancer and thus no chemo needed."
"Granted this pill only works until the cancer mutates and works around it, but cancer treatment has come a long way, and tons of very promising research and treatments on the horizon."
"Source: My wife has Stage IV, and thanks to this new therapy chemo not needed, life expectancy went from two years max to eight-point-six years average, with the average increasing each year, and quality of life largely unchanged. She is essentially cancer-free."
- TonyEast45
Screentime
"Spending multiple hours, every day, scrolling mindlessly on social media."
- cornylilbugger
"The habit ain't gonna change, only the medium. Each generation has always derided what the young do. There were penny dreadfuls, radio, comics, TV, then Nintendo, and now it's Social Media. And each time society has survived that particular fascination."
- ByzantineBasileus
Navigating Invisible Illnesses
"Treating people suffering from chronic pain as drug-seeking junkies. It would be amazing if there were to be advances in medicine that completely allow for effective treatment of it without hurting the patient."
"I'd like to think that chronic pain can be cured, but that is probably not realistic unless humanity's ability to control the central nervous system makes some very major advances."
- nerdydolphins
"I hope one day in the future we have a little method, maybe something as simple as wearing a headband, that can register and display your pain to the doctors and nurses. Like, you put on this headband and the screen starts looking like an old Windows music visualizer, and they're like, 'Oh s**t, I guess you aren't lying alright. Here's something for that.'"
- LodBigSlime
Emergency Bankrupt
"Medical bankruptcies, for-profit healthcare leaving people to die if uninsured."
- SarlacFace
"I mean no offense to America, but I already see that as kinda 'barbaric.' Though it is my understanding doctors are required by law to treat potentially deadly injuries/afflictions?"
- Forgotmynameagain5
20/20 Vision
"Having to wear glasses to see."
- Crochet_Kitty
"That’s already been cured. LASIK exists, it’s just not popular because the inconvenience of wearing glasses is less than the risk of LASIK for most people."
- CaptainCetacean
"It's an amazing tech, but LASIK can't fix all vision issues to replace glasses. It's also not a permanent fix, and as others have noted, comes with side effects."
"It was amazing for me for four years, but now I need glasses again, and can't wear contacts because the procedure flattened my corneas. Still worth it for the reset back to baseline 20/20 vision."
"It also can't fix or prevent presbyopia, which is the need for reading glasses as one ages."
- Hot_Cauliflower_3358
Animal Cruelty
"Animal captivity for entertainment (drugged dolphins in resorts, whales at SeaWorld) and the scale at which we farm animals in factories and decimate ocean life (it’s in the 100,000,000,000s)."
"It’s repulsive, the way we treat animals."
- w0ke_brrr_4444
"There are many things in the post that we'll look back on in disgust or surprise, but factory farms are the one truly barbaric thing that is completely normalized in current times."
- StrongMedicine
"Factory farms are the worst hell on earth that humans have ever created. We breed literally billions of animals into existence, give them short, horrible lives, and then brutally slaughter them."
- Alastair4444
Pain For Entertainment
"I admit that I really enjoy watching Boxing but I suspect that a sport where people try and give each other concussion is not going to age well."
- therealhairykrishna
"Then you’ll need to include American football as well."
- Fragrant_Example_918
"Yes, both need to become illegal. A lot of cheerleading routines in schools too. They do not use appropriate safety gear nor qualified trainers compared to e.g. gymnasts."
- bsubtills
Work-Life Balance
"Working a 9:00 AM to 5:00 PM job has got to go."
- DeathofSmallTalk1
"I came here to say this. The 40-hour work week."
- 8-Seconds-Joe
Safer EKG Options
"I hope by 2075 there is an EKG vest that replaces the need to stick censors on flesh... over chest and belly hair. I know not all bodies are the same, but this magic vest would accommodate."
- OfAnthony
The Need For Driving
"Probably driving ourselves. At least by the turn of the new century. The only people who drive themselves will be enthusiasts with a niche hobby until it's outlawed completely as humans are simply far more prone to error than computers are."
- CranberryCheese1997
Improved medical care and medical accessibility were at the forefront here as medical treatments are advancing all the time, but it's interesting to think about how we perceive people's work lives and other products they frequently used 50 years ago and how ours will be perceived in the future.
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