Item — HN Reader

This is such a fascinating insight. I didn't know this part of his story.

Turing was a complex character as most brilliant people are.

It saddens me what happened to him, but we must recognise that our children's children will be appalled at things we (collectively) stand by and approve of.

1 comments

Why is that so? What are some examples that our grandchildren will be appalled at?

Perhaps the type of energy we consume (crude oil) or the type of food we eat (fast food) or the lack of sleep we get?

I'd love to know your thoughts.

Depends how far ahead you want to look. National borders, the use of lethal weapons for self-defense or law-enforcement, the entire education system. It may not always be fair since the problems these things are meant to address may be mostly gone.

A very interesting perspective to me is how many things start out as improvements in society or quality-of-life, but end up viewed as the opposite after history progresses enough to take their benefits for granted and pick out flaws in them.

> Why is that so?

This has always been so. Every generation has done something another generation later finds to be deplorable or barbaric. I would assume that we would not be exempt from this.

Oil, fast food and sleep however seem more benign, sort of like we look at the past and think, wow we have a much better way of doing this now.

Factory farming

For my part, I’d think of things like:

+The internal combustion engine

+Chemotherapy (which will hopefully seem shamefully primitive compared to future cancer treatments)

+American football, which is already starting to seem barbaric IMO

I don't see why chemotherapy is something future generations would be appalled by us approving off. It works and it saves lives and is the best we can manage. Most people don't see the saving of lives given the best means possible as something to be appalled about people doing. They may be appalled at the the fact the was no other option but not at the people who actually did it. It's like condemning a doctor in rural Africa for not using cutting edge medicine but only what they can scrounge up, no sane person would do so but would rather view them more favorably for persevering despite such limitations.

Yeah I don't think we look all that disfavorably on things like amputations to save someone's life if it's the only lifesaving option available on the spot (in the past or present).

Plastics pollution and fishing.