So if we look back in history, we see our ansestors as savage idiot barbarians. If something is described as "Mediaeval", it's mostly viewed as savage and/or idiotic. Mediaeval medicine, for example, is nothing to marvel at, and Mediaeval punishments, they were barbaric and horrid. And if you go back even further, things only got worse. Slavery was seen as perfectly acceptable till not too long ago
However, in this period, we went through significant change. If we consider the current era to be from the beginning of WWI onwards, we have seen significant change. The last of the jurisdictions with legal slavery were starting to abolish the practice, we had two world wars, horses started falling out of favour for the car, the invention and widespread adoption of air travel, space travel, the digital age, the decline of usage of a millenia old system- cash, a global cold war, nuclear weapons, two massive global pandemics and several smaller ones, mass adoption of atheism, multiple genocides (Armenian/Greek/Assyrian, Holocaust, China's oppression of Uyghurs), mainstream women's rights, vicious war lords in an unprecedented period of peace, global warming, an idiot in charge of the most powerful country on Earth (Donald Trump), the end of feudalism, widespread adoption of modern medicine, universal education, global terrorism, globalisation, the internet, mainstream veganism, the decline of eugenics, and many many other such things. This all begs the question- what do you think the future generations will think of us? Will they think as stupid barbarians the way that we think of Mideveal people? Will they think of us as a great civilisation, the way that we see the Romans and Greeks? How will they see us?
Many people think that we will be seen as barbarians because we eat animals, but I don't think so. I think that as long as people continue to eat solid food, then we'll continue to eat animals. And if technology evolves beyond eating solid food (say for example, we get our nutrition from a pill or IV drip or something) then meat eating will be seen as something that had to happen before moving past food (the way we view riding horses today), the way that all carnivores and omnivores have to eat meat. And even the most ardent meat eaters (such as myself) are against cruelty and factory farming, and more into free range farming. (I personally have signed many a petition to have caged eggs banned in Australia, which is really the only widespread form of factory farming that exists here)
Some individuals may be seen as evil, but overall, I think we'll be painted in an okay light. I think we'll be viewed more as pioneers. Pioneers in technology, pioneers in medicine, and pioneers in mental health, pioneers in environmentalism, and pioneers in ethics, transitioning from unethical to ethical, and from more nationalist to globalist. But then again, who's to say that people won't become more Mideveal and more aggressive, maybe would be seen as too nice, or perhaps even evil against victims of crime for failing to prosecute criminals. After all, if moralism is really subjective, who's to say that Mideveal people were any less moral than we are today?
Or maybe will look back at this period in envy, as we were amongst the last generations before some major global apocalypse (e.g. a war or disease or something) that wiped out all technology, leaving us to start over again in a post-apocalyptic hellscape, or having to start over again as agrarian farmers on new planets (as we couldn't bring our technology with us), living just above the standards of the standards of prehistoric agrarian society.
What do you guys think? How do you think we'll be viewed in future generations?
