What will the future think of our present days?

[Shaka_Khan]

I looked at a book on certain subjects that happened in the 80s and 90s. I was surprised that there were many things that I didn't know about those years. It made me wonder what I wouldn't be knowing now.

[Sasaki Kojiro]

I don't think we can know what the future will think, because we can't tell what's going on now. Only with time do the significant things stand out.

[Skullheadhq]

I don't think must people in the future will care about our present day, just like most modern people don't care about history now.

[rvg]

Our era would be referred to as a calm before the storm, i.e. a long stretch of peace before WW2 and WW3.

[Fragony]

As a great period, it is. It has never been better. If I would be a pessimist I would only wonder wether or not it gets any better then this. Shut up, enjoy, have to make due with it anyway.

[Skullheadhq]

^
That's what people of all ages probably said.

[Louis VI the Fat]

We will be the ones who didn't save the Polar bear cubs!! :sunny:



Picture of poor little polar bear that was kinda banking on here being ice:


https://img20.imageshack.us/img20/7788/polarbearscubsknut1.jpg

[drone]

We will be the ones who didn't save the Polar bear cubs!! :sunny:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/comment/columnists/christopherbooker/5664069/Polar-bear-expert-barred-by-global-warmists.html

:beam:

[al Roumi]

As a great period, it is. It has never been better. If I would be a pessimist I would only wonder wether or not it gets any better then this. Shut up, enjoy, have to make due with it anyway.

In the same vein, I will certainly annoy annyone younger than me with tales of how much better things were in my day.

[Lemur]

Most of the things we're paying attention to will be forgotten. However, historians will spend a great deal of time examining the circumstances of my son, Maxwell, and how his education and upbringing led him to conquer the Earth. Tyrant? Madman? Visionary? Genius? Genocidal maniac? All of the above?

The reign of Emperor Maxwell I has not yet begun, but when the bloodied mass of humanity gos on bended knee before his iron rule, well, there will be a lot of revisionist history going on.

(P.S.: If you swear allegiance to Maxwell the First now, I can offer you 85% odds that you won't wind up in the labor camps. More if you pledge your male offspring to his Praetorian Guard.)

[InsaneApache]

Is a labor camp a bit like a labour camp? :inquisitive: :laugh4:

I'm still getting over the 70s. Man, what a decade. :2thumbsup:

[Prince Cobra]

This was the Age of the Org.

More seriously, perhaps with the technological advance, the instability of the Near East, political integration and... hey, I am not a fortune-teller!

[Rhyfelwyr]

These times will be remembered as the days when decadence led to the fall of the dominance of the west, just like decadence was the sole cause in the fall of the Roman Empire.

:clown:

[Seamus Fermanagh]

They will look back and think on us as "quaint, in a clueless sort of way."

[Brenus]

It will be their Golden Age. When people were polite to each others, and the youths were respecting their parents, and where exams had value, etc…:laugh4:

[Subotan]

"Why did people put cellophane inside their chests?"

[Wishazu]

Most of the things we're paying attention to will be forgotten. However, historians will spend a great deal of time examining the circumstances of my son, Maxwell, and how his education and upbringing led him to conquer the Earth. Tyrant? Madman? Visionary? Genius? Genocidal maniac? All of the above?

The reign of Emperor Maxwell I has not yet begun, but when the bloodied mass of humanity gos on bended knee before his iron rule, well, there will be a lot of revisionist history going on.

(P.S.: If you swear allegiance to Maxwell the First now, I can offer you 85% odds that you won't wind up in the labor camps. More if you pledge your male offspring to his Praetorian Guard.)

I guess that means there will be war then, between your son and mine. Rowan, at the age of 5 has already declared himself Undisputed Lord and Master of the Earth. He scares me...

However, on the other hand, I have made myself usefull to him. I have been able to convince him that I am a Ninja, a Ninja who is having time off of work to raise a family. He thinks that is really cool.

[aimlesswanderer]

I'd guess that they will see that US power and influence has hit a peak (thanks to Bush's wars and fiscal irresponsibility) and has started its decline. The fact that their politicians seem completely unable to agree on anything at all sounds like "fiddling while Rome burned". And they'll see that China under the benevolent proletarian leadership of the Chinese Communist (Capitalist) Party began its rapid rise to the top. Things were good in China as long as the economy grew fast (though there was increasing censorship, repression and corruption), but eventually growth tanked and things got ugly, fast. The calm before the storm perhaps?

[Megas Methuselah]

The calm before the storm perhaps?

Thank you for the nightmares, buddy. The NiQuil ain't helpin' either.

[Kadagar_AV]

The era where world wide coorporations started to do what nations had done before...

[A Terribly Harmful Name]

Probably as the most degenerate and effeminate age there ever was, if they miraculously don't surpass us.

[Subotan]

The era where world wide coorporations started to do what nations had done before...

Erm, been there done that. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/East_India_Company)

[Skullheadhq]

The era where world wide coorporations started to do what nations had done before...

Seen it before (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dutch_East_India_Company)

[Fragony]

Best age ever, we should be grateful for living today. It has never been better, count your blessings.

[Samurai Waki]

I know when I'm old man, I'll fondly look back on these days and remember the grotesque over indulgence, when men were actually still men...sort of, when Texas was still a state, and not a state of mind, when Polar Bears roamed...swam the Arctic Sea, and I'll fondly recall a thing called an iPod, instead of the iChip, where you can actually listen to music in your brain, when it isn't spamming your thoughts with Penis Enlargement advertisements and Young Russian Wives.

[Hax]

Best age ever, we should be grateful for living today. It has never been better, count your blessings.

That is relative.

[CountArach]

They will look back on us and pick out the bits that suit their particular political message or social setting, just as we look back at periods of history and only look at particular groups and topics. For example, think about the Enlightenment obsession with histories of warfare and politics, and compare it to our modern social histories or feminist histories. This will continue on into future socieities and as such there is no way for us to predict what future societies will think, because there is no way for us to know their particular setting.

I... think that made sense?

[Fragony]

That is relative.

What isn't, but we are still well fed, live in peace, never been happier. We get a nice warm meal every day, live in good houses, can we really call what we do 'working', we sleep in a warm bed, and we don't even think about it, all that was unthinkable for my grandma.

[CountArach]

What isn't, but we are still well fed, live in peace, never been happier. We get a nice warm meal every day, live in good houses, can we really call what we do 'working', we sleep in a warm bed, and we don't even think about it, all that was unthinkable for my grandma.
Yep, even the greatest pessimist would have to admit that, despite all the evils perpetrated day-to-day across the globe, the West has the best living standards it has ever seen. At the same time, the future may see the fact that the Third World doesn't have these as well as an evil. It is impossible to know how they will view it (Perhaps in the future the world has become comfortable with massive inequalities of wealth?).

[Fragony]

At the same time, the future may see the fact that the Third World doesn't have these as well as an evil. It is impossible to know how they will view it (Perhaps in the future the world has become comfortable with massive inequalities of wealth?).

You can get worked up over these inequalities but it isn't like nobody gives a crap, how did we feel about people from the third world 100 years ago, no more then monkeys. Economy is distribution and it needs the proper infrastructure or nothing goes nowhere, we should stop imposing our ways on them it has done damage enough as it is, that also means letting go of our best intentions no matter how genuine they are for some.

check out this gal http://www.dambisamoyo.com/

And what she wrote, 'Dead Aid' is quite a good argument for Africa to go cold-turkey. See this isn't an age of egoism, hardly, but you know what they say about good intentions.

[CountArach]

I'm not saying that we don't care, on the contrary I think most of the world's people care about it quite a lot. I'm saying that I can imagine a potential future in which inequalities of wealth are not considered an issue. Just using an example.

[Fragony]

I'm not saying that we don't care, on the contrary I think most of the world's people care about it quite a lot. I'm saying that I can imagine a potential future in which inequalities of wealth are not considered an issue. Just using an example.

I wouldn't be too worried about that, people are 'good' by default we are social creatures. We also happen to be in the information age, it never travelled that fast, and we never got to see so much that isn't in the direct proximity of our house. So far just in the Netherlands 40 million euro was collected for Haiti in a few days, and I will be honest, I can't point it out on the map.

[Subotan]

Hundreds of Millions of Chinese, Taiwanese, South Koreans, Indians, Brazilians, Indonesians etc. have been lifted out of poverty. Ofc, there are still millions in poverty, but to quote Harold MacMillan, "We've never had it so good".