25 Things People Predict Future Generations Will Be Shocked By

Many ideas and social norms have changed over the last fifty years, therefore it may be pretty safe to assume more changes will occur over the next 50 years too. It’s hard to imagine how those changes may look but a recent discussion on Reddit inspired folks to think long and hard about the possibilities when someone asked, “What’s something that’s normal to us now, that in 50 years people will look back on us as barbaric?” Scroll below to read through some of the best suggestions, which we’ve shared in the gallery below.

#1 Forcing terminally ill people in constant pain and discomfort to stay alive without the option to be helped to end their lives peacefully and with dignity.

#2 Holding entertainers as more important than educators.

#3 Letting people die from lack of medical care because they’re poor.

#4 Women getting procedures on reproductive organs without pain medication.

#5 Keeping aquatic mammals in captivity for entertainment.

#6 Hopefully child beauty pageants but especially child marriage.

#7 My votes are: Countries that lack universal healthcare. Environmental neglect.

#8 For-profit prisons and for-profit health insurance hopefully.

#9 The cruelty with which we treat animals.

#10 I think the way we treat the environment will be something future generations look back on and see as barbaric. We’ve been very careless with pollution, waste, and climate change, and in 50 years, they might wonder how we didn’t do more to protect the planet when we knew the damage we were causing.

#11 Might be too soon, but the goddamn school shootings. There’s got to be a way out of this.

#12 Mammography machines. Maybe they’ll finally invent an anatomically appropriate machine instead of the torture device?

#13 Forcing people whose disabilities prevent them from working to live in poverty–the average amount of a monthly Social Security Disability Insurance benefit check is $1400.

#14 Letting women die from septic and ectopic pregnancies.

#15 The pet industry. Especially the inbreeding.

#16 Lack of effective American gun laws, I hope.

#17 Hopefully, underpaying workers. No one who works full time should only be able to afford a studio apartment and top ramen.

#18 I wish I had the optimism necessary to believe we’ll still have a functioning society in 50 years.

#19 The way companies are using the internet and what its doing to our brains. I mean the constant garbage we consume on the internet and its long term effects on our mental health.

#20 Factory farming, fur farms, animal experimentation, animal cruelty–all the horrific things we’re doing to nonhuman animals that would get you in jail for life if it were done to a human.

#21 Horse and dog racing.

#22 40 hr work week.

#23 Removing iud without anesthetic. Most uterine medical ‘care’.

#24 Single use plastic.

#25 Over 90% of NFL players getting chronic traumatic encephalopathy (CTE). The NFL will be viewed like we view gladiatorial battles now.

Shanilou Perera

Shanilou has always loved reading and learning about the world we live in. While she enjoys fictional books and stories just as much, since childhood she was especially fascinated by encyclopaedias and strangely enough, self-help books. As a kid, she spent most of her time consuming as much knowledge as she could get her hands on and could always be found at the library. Now, she still enjoys finding out about all the amazing things that surround us in our day-to-day lives and is blessed to be able to write about them to share with the whole world as a profession.