The Archaic Present: How Future Generations Will Marvel at Today’s Practices and Beliefs

In the unfolding tapestry of human civilization, each era eventually looks back at its predecessors with a mixture of fascination, disbelief, and occasional bewilderment. As we stand at the threshold of unprecedented technological and social transformation, it becomes increasingly clear that many of our current practices—medical treatments, energy sources, transportation systems, educational methods, and more—will soon be viewed as primitive relics of a less enlightened age. This comprehensive examination explores how future humans, armed with vastly superior technologies and more evolved social structures, will likely look back at our current era with the same incredulity with which we now regard bloodletting or human sacrifice. Drawing upon cutting-edge research and emerging technological trends, this report reveals how rapidly accelerating innovation across multiple domains will render much of today’s “normal” as tomorrow’s unthinkable anachronism.

Healthcare and Medicine: From Crude Interventions to Precision Healing

The medical practices we currently celebrate as advanced will likely appear barbaric to future generations who will benefit from targeted genetic therapies, regenerative medicine, and predictive healthcare systems. Our descendants may struggle to comprehend how we accepted such primitive approaches to healing the human body.

The End of Blunt-Force Treatments

Chemotherapy, our current frontline defense against cancer, will almost certainly be regarded by future medical historians as a crude and desperate measure from medicine’s dark ages. The practice of systematically poisoning the entire body—destroying healthy cells alongside cancerous ones—will seem unconscionably primitive to societies equipped with precision treatments. Recent advances in CRISPR-Cas9 gene editing technologies are already pointing toward more elegant solutions. Jennifer Doudna, whose work on CRISPR-Cas9 earned her the 2020 Nobel Prize in chemistry, has emphasized the immense promise of gene editing in addressing serious human ailments, including hard-to-treat conditions like sickle cell disease1. As these technologies become more sophisticated and accessible, future medical practitioners will likely use highly targeted genetic modifications to neutralize cancer cells while leaving healthy tissue completely unharmed, making the concept of whole-body poisoning seem as archaic as trepanation appears to us today.

The current practice of organ transplantation—with its long waiting lists, rejection risks, and lifetime immunosuppression—will similarly bewilder future medical professionals. The notion that we once needed to harvest organs from one human to save another will seem unnecessarily complicated and risky in an era of bioprinted replacements. Already, researchers are making significant progress in organ bioprinting, using 3D-printing technologies to assemble multiple cell types, growth factors, and biomaterials in a layer-by-layer fashion to produce bioartificial organs3. This technology, driven by “real human need” according to Harvard University’s Jennifer Lewis, offers a solution to the severe organ shortage problem, potentially eliminating waiting lists and rejection issues entirely. Future generations may find it difficult to believe that in 2025, over 100,000 Americans languished on organ transplant waiting lists when the technology to create customized replacement organs was already on the horizon.

The Rise of Predictive and Microbiome-Based Medicine

Perhaps most significantly, our reactive approach to healthcare—treating diseases only after symptoms manifest—will be viewed as an inexplicable failure of foresight. Future medicine will operate on a fundamentally different paradigm based on prediction and prevention rather than reaction and treatment. Recent research suggests that the human microbiome may play a decisive role in this transformation. Studies comparing the predictive capabilities of microbiome analysis versus genetic markers across 13 common diseases found that microbiomic indicators significantly outperformed genetic markers, with an overall Microbiome-Association-Study area under the curve of 0.79, compared to a Genome-Wide-Association-Study AUC of 0.674. This indicates that microbiome analysis could provide superior predictive accuracy for disease development, allowing for interventions long before symptoms appear. Future healthcare systems will likely integrate continuous microbiome monitoring alongside genetic analysis, environmental exposure tracking, and behavioral patterns to create comprehensive predictive models that identify potential health issues months or years before they manifest, making our current wait-until-symptoms-appear approach seem dangerously neglectful.

Energy and Environment: From Extraction to Regeneration

The way we currently power our civilization and interact with our environment will likely be viewed by future generations as both shortsighted and destructive. Our descendants may struggle to understand how we justified environmental degradation in pursuit of temporary economic gain.

Beyond Fossil Fuel Dependence

Future historians will likely point to humanity’s stubborn reliance on fossil fuels during the early 21st century as one of history’s most perplexing examples of institutional inertia in the face of existential risk. Despite overwhelming scientific consensus on climate change and the rapid advancement of renewable energy technologies, we continued to extract and burn coal, oil, and natural gas at unprecedented rates, knowing full well the catastrophic climate implications. According to The International Energy Agency, renewable energy capacity was set to expand by 50% between 2019 and 2024, making renewable technologies increasingly viable alternatives to fossil fuels14. The continued expansion of fossil fuel infrastructure during this period will seem particularly incomprehensible to societies who will live with the consequences of decisions made during our era. Future energy systems will likely be built around a diverse mix of renewable sources—solar, wind, geothermal, and advanced nuclear technologies including fusion—interconnected through sophisticated grid systems capable of balancing supply and demand across continental distances, making our current reliance on burning hydrocarbons seem as primitive as using whale oil for lighting appears to us today.

The production and casual disposal of single-use plastics will likely rank among the most bewildering practices of our age when viewed by future generations. The notion that we manufactured materials designed to last centuries for products used for mere minutes, then discarded them into the environment where they would persist for hundreds of years, will seem almost deliberately malicious. Future materials scientists will have developed fully biodegradable alternatives for all applications where disposability is required, and durable, infinitely recyclable materials for all long-term applications. These advanced materials will be designed from the molecular level to serve their intended purpose without persisting in the environment, making our current plastic-wrapped society seem needlessly polluting and short-sighted in its disregard for ecological consequences.

Transportation: From Manual Control to Autonomous Movement

Our current transportation systems, characterized by individually-operated vehicles and chronic congestion, will likely appear dangerously inefficient and unnecessarily fatal to future societies who will benefit from fully autonomous, optimized mobility networks.

The Dangerous Era of Human Drivers

Future transportation historians will likely regard the era of human-controlled automobiles with the same horrified fascination with which we view the absence of surgical sterilization in the 19th century—as a period of unnecessary suffering resulting from technological limitations and cultural resistance to change. Autonomous vehicles, which rely on advanced technologies such as artificial intelligence and sensors to navigate roads and highways without human input, are already emerging as a transformative force in transportation15. These self-driving systems offer the promise of dramatically reducing the approximately 1.35 million annual global traffic fatalities—a death toll that future generations will find shocking in its preventability. The integration of AI technology in autonomous driving is advancing through various stages, from Level 0 (no automation) to Level 5 (full automation under all conditions), gradually removing human error from the transportation equation15. Our descendants will likely struggle to comprehend how societies tolerated such massive, preventable carnage on their roadways when the technology to eliminate it was already under development.

The daily phenomenon of traffic congestion—millions of people sitting idle in vehicles, wasting countless hours of human potential and vast quantities of energy—will similarly perplex future transportation planners. The notion that we designed our cities and mobility systems around individual vehicles that remained parked and unused for 95% of their existence, only to create massive gridlock when they were simultaneously deployed, will seem like a case study in inefficient system design. Future transportation networks will likely operate as integrated mobility ecosystems, with autonomous vehicles of various sizes coordinated by artificial intelligence to maximize throughput and minimize energy consumption. These systems will supplement or replace older transportation models with advanced alternatives such as aerial mobility, hyperloop systems, or technologies not yet conceived, making our current acceptance of daily gridlock seem like an inexplicable waste of human time and potential.

Food and Agriculture: From Exploitation to Cultivation

The way we currently produce and distribute food will likely be viewed as unnecessarily cruel, environmentally damaging, and inefficient by future generations who will employ advanced cultivation methods that maximize nutrition while minimizing resource use and suffering.

Beyond Animal Agriculture

Industrial animal agriculture—raising billions of sentient beings in confined, often distressing conditions for food production—may well be regarded by future ethical philosophers as one of the defining moral blind spots of our era. The environmental consequences alone are staggering: animal agriculture produces approximately 14.5% of global greenhouse gas emissions, uses 70% of agricultural land, and is a leading cause of deforestation, biodiversity loss, and water pollution. Future food systems will likely have evolved beyond this model entirely, with precision fermentation and cellular agriculture providing animal proteins without animal suffering, vertical farming producing plant foods with minimal environmental impact, and advanced nutrition science ensuring optimal human health with a fraction of the resources currently consumed. Vertical agriculture, which uses 95% less water and 98% less land than conventional agriculture while eliminating the need for pesticides and herbicides, is already positioned to become a vital agricultural method for feeding growing urban populations16. Future generations may wonder how we justified the environmental and ethical costs of industrial animal farming when more efficient and humane alternatives were beginning to emerge.

The massive inefficiency of our current food distribution system—in which approximately one-third of all food produced is wasted while hundreds of millions go hungry—will likely be viewed as a tragic failure of logistics and social organization. Future food systems will likely employ advanced sensing technologies, predictive analytics, and just-in-time distribution networks to ensure that food production precisely matches consumption needs across global populations. These systems will be designed to eliminate waste throughout the supply chain, from farm to table, ensuring that valuable calories and nutrients are not lost to spoilage or excessive production. Indoor vertical farms built close to distribution centers will dramatically reduce food miles and emissions while providing year-round harvests16. When viewed against this backdrop of efficiency and sustainability, our current acceptance of massive systemic food waste alongside widespread hunger will appear as an inexplicable paradox of abundance and scarcity existing simultaneously due to flawed distribution systems.

Communication and Information: From Interface to Integration

Our current methods of accessing and exchanging information will likely seem painfully slow and cumbersome to future generations who will benefit from seamless brain-computer interfaces and universal access to the sum of human knowledge.

Beyond Physical Interfaces

The physical interfaces we currently use to interact with our digital tools—keyboards, touchscreens, and voice commands—will likely be viewed as primitive intermediaries that unnecessarily slowed the transmission of thoughts to machines. Future communication technologies will have evolved beyond these manual input methods to direct neural interfaces that translate intentions directly into digital actions without the need for physical movement. These brain-computer interfaces will enable thought-based communication and information retrieval at the speed of thinking itself, making our current practice of laboriously tapping glass screens or speaking commands aloud seem as outdated as Morse code appears to us today. As artificial intelligence continues to revolutionize communication and education, these neural interfaces will become increasingly sophisticated and natural to use, blurring the line between human cognition and digital capabilities5. The transformation from physical to neural interfaces will represent not merely a change in communication methods but a fundamental shift in how humans relate to information and each other.

The notion that high-quality information and educational resources were not universally available to all humans regardless of geography or socioeconomic status will likely bewilder future historians of knowledge. In an age of artificial intelligence and global connectivity, they will struggle to understand how we justified information inequalities that limited human potential based on accidents of birth. Future knowledge systems will likely operate on principles of universal access and personalized delivery, with artificial intelligence tutors adapting content to individual learning styles, paces, and interests6. These AI-driven educational tools will democratize access to high-quality education, ensuring that every person can develop their capabilities to the fullest extent regardless of geographical or economic circumstances. The idea that quality education was once a scarce resource available primarily to the privileged will seem as anachronistic as restricting literacy to the aristocracy appears to us today.

Education and Learning: From Standardization to Personalization

Our current educational systems, characterized by standardized curricula, age-based cohorts, and classroom-centric instruction, will likely be viewed as unnecessarily rigid and ineffective by future learning scientists who will employ adaptive, personalized approaches that maximize individual potential.

The End of One-Size-Fits-All Education

Future educational historians will likely regard our current practice of forcing diverse minds through standardized educational pathways as a peculiar relic of the industrial age—a system designed to produce interchangeable workers rather than fulfilled humans. AI-driven educational systems are already beginning to transform this paradigm by tailoring educational content to individual student needs, learning styles, and paces5. These technologies analyze a learner’s strengths and limitations in real-time, modifying instructional content accordingly to ensure effective learning for each individual6. As these systems mature, they will enable truly personalized educational experiences that adapt continuously to each learner’s evolving interests, capabilities, and goals. The notion that we once expected children with vastly different cognitive styles, interests, and developmental trajectories to progress through identical material at identical rates will seem as misguided as treating all medical patients with identical prescriptions regardless of their condition.

The physical and temporal constraints of traditional education—fixed classroom locations, rigid schedules, and arbitrary academic calendars—will similarly perplex future learning designers. The idea that effective learning could only occur in designated buildings during designated hours under the supervision of a single adult responsible for dozens of children will appear unnecessarily limiting in an era of ubiquitous digital learning environments. Future education will likely operate on principles of “anytime, anywhere” learning, with artificial intelligence tutors available 24/7 to support learners wherever they are7. These AI tutors will connect students with human experts when needed, facilitate collaborative projects across continents, and blend virtual and physical learning experiences into seamless educational journeys tailored to individual needs. When viewed against this backdrop of flexibility and personalization, our current insistence on synchronous, location-based learning will appear as an arbitrary constraint that limited educational opportunities based on accidents of geography and scheduling.

Social and Cultural Practices: From Division to Integration

Many of our current social structures and cultural norms will likely be viewed as unnecessarily divisive and limiting by future societies who will embrace more inclusive and scientifically-informed approaches to human organization.

Beyond Identity-Based Discrimination

Future social historians will likely regard many current discriminatory practices based on race, gender, sexual orientation, or national origin as perplexing examples of tribalism persisting well into the scientific age. The notion that we assigned significant social meaning to arbitrary physical characteristics or geographic origins—often resulting in systematic advantages for some groups and disadvantages for others—will seem increasingly difficult to justify as humanity’s understanding of genetics, neuroscience, and social psychology continues to advance. Future societies will likely operate on principles of deep diversity and inclusion, recognizing that human variation represents a collective strength rather than a basis for hierarchy or division. The transition toward more equitable social structures is already visible in emerging conversations about universal basic income (UBI), which proposes that every citizen receives a guaranteed sum of money from the government regardless of employment status or income level9. Such policies acknowledge human dignity as inherent rather than earned through economic productivity, representing a significant shift away from current systems that often link basic survival to economic output.

Our current criminal justice systems, characterized by punitive incarceration and high recidivism rates, will likely appear counterproductive and scientifically unsound to future behavioral scientists. The practice of responding to social harm by isolating offenders in environments that often amplify antisocial tendencies, then expecting improved behavior upon release, will seem as misguided as treating infections by spreading bacteria. Future justice systems will likely operate on principles of restoration and rehabilitation grounded in advanced understanding of neuroscience, trauma, and behavioral psychology. These systems will focus on repairing harm, addressing root causes, and reintegrating individuals into community structures rather than imposing suffering as a deterrent. As artificial intelligence continues to advance our understanding of human behavior and psychological development, our current emphasis on punishment over rehabilitation will appear increasingly at odds with scientific evidence about how to effectively reduce harmful behavior and heal communities5.

Work and Economics: From Scarcity to Abundance

Our current economic structures, characterized by mandatory employment, extreme inequality, and resource competition, will likely be viewed as unnecessarily limiting and divisive by future societies who will benefit from automation, resource abundance, and more equitable distribution systems.

Beyond the 40-Hour Workweek

Future labor historians will likely regard our current practice of structuring adult life around 40+ hours of weekly employment—often involving repetitive tasks better suited to machines—as a peculiar vestige of the industrial revolution that persisted well into the automation age. The notion that human worth and access to resources should be primarily determined by labor market participation will seem increasingly difficult to justify as artificial intelligence and robotics become capable of performing most routine physical and cognitive tasks. This technological shift is already raising questions about how to structure economies when traditional employment is no longer a viable organizing principle for most people’s lives. As Andrew Yang, who advocated for Universal Basic Income, predicted, automation could displace millions of jobs, necessitating new economic models that decouple survival from traditional employment9. The World Economic Forum’s projection that over 85 million jobs will be displaced by automation by 2025 further underscores the urgency of this transition9. Future work patterns will likely emphasize uniquely human capacities for creativity, care, community-building, and meaning-making, with mandatory routine labor increasingly viewed as an unnecessary constraint on human potential.

The extreme economic inequality that characterizes current societies—where the wealthiest individuals control more resources than billions of their fellow humans combined—will likely appear as a preventable source of suffering and waste to future economic designers. The idea that we tolerated vast disparities in access to resources, opportunities, and security despite having the technological capacity to meet everyone’s basic needs will seem increasingly difficult to justify on both ethical and practical grounds. Future economic systems will likely operate on principles of abundance rather than scarcity, with advanced automation ensuring that basic necessities are available to all as a fundamental right rather than a market commodity. The concept of Universal Basic Income is already gaining traction as a possible solution to address economic inequality and provide a buffer for those whose livelihoods are at risk due to technological changes9. When viewed against this backdrop of technological abundance and ethical evolution, our current acceptance of preventable poverty alongside extreme wealth will appear as a curious moral blind spot characteristic of transitional economies struggling to adapt to post-scarcity conditions.

Technology and Privacy: From Exploitation to Protection

Our current approach to personal data—characterized by extensive collection, minimal transparency, and frequent exploitation—will likely be viewed as recklessly invasive by future societies who will employ more ethical frameworks for managing sensitive information.

The End of Surveillance Capitalism

Future digital ethicists will likely regard our current practice of exchanging personal data for digital services—often with little understanding of how that data would be used or monetized—as a peculiar moment of vulnerability in humanity’s technological adolescence. The notion that we willingly allowed companies to track our movements, monitor our communications, analyze our behaviors, and predict our desires in exchange for conveniences like social media or search engines will seem increasingly naive as the full implications of this bargain become clear. As artificial intelligence continues to advance, the ability to use personal data to influence behavior has grown more sophisticated, raising fundamental questions about autonomy and manipulation11. Future privacy frameworks will likely operate on principles of individual ownership and control, with personal data treated as an extension of the self rather than a resource to be harvested by corporations. These frameworks will ensure transparency about data collection and use, enabling informed consent and meaningful choices about privacy in digital environments.

The development of digital privacy technologies is already reshaping how we think about data protection. AI and machine learning are revolutionizing privacy protection by quickly analyzing vast amounts of data to identify threats and unusual activity20. End-to-end encryption and the trend toward decentralized data storage using blockchain technology are reducing the risks of large-scale breaches by eliminating single points of failure20. As these technologies mature, they will enable more secure and private digital experiences, making our current acceptance of pervasive surveillance seem increasingly shortsighted. Future privacy frameworks will likely employ privacy-first technologies that allow users to control their personal information while still benefiting from digital services, striking a balance between connectivity and protection that our current systems have struggled to achieve.

Space and Cosmological Understanding: From Terrestrial to Multiplanetary

Our current focus on Earth-bound civilization, despite growing awareness of cosmic threats and opportunities, will likely appear surprisingly provincial to future generations who will inhabit a solar system-spanning human presence.

Beyond Earth-Centric Existence

Future space historians will likely regard humanity’s long hesitation to expand beyond Earth as a curious period of unnecessary vulnerability—a time when we kept all our civilizational eggs in one fragile planetary basket despite growing awareness of existential risks ranging from asteroid impacts to nuclear war. The notion that we confined ourselves to Earth’s surface long after developing the technological capacity for space settlement will seem increasingly difficult to justify as multiplanetary expansion becomes a defining feature of human civilization. The emergence of a multiplanetary constitution that defines shared values and rights across inhabited worlds is already being contemplated as we stand at the beginning of a new chapter in human history: the expansion of humanity beyond the boundaries of our home planet13. Such frameworks will be essential for creating a stable foundation for peace, cooperation, and innovation as humanity spreads throughout the solar system and eventually beyond.

The ethical and governance questions raised by space expansion—from resource utilization to contact with potential extraterrestrial life—will necessitate new approaches to human organization that transcend Earth-bound precedents. Articles within theoretical multiplanetary constitutions already propose principles such as “resources belong to all worlds” and “knowledge is an interplanetary good,” suggesting that space expansion may catalyze more collaborative approaches to resource management and knowledge sharing13. The protection of indigenous species’ rights and the preservation of cultural heritage found on other worlds further demonstrate how space expansion will compel humanity to develop more inclusive ethical frameworks that extend beyond terrestrial concerns13. When viewed against this backdrop of cosmic potential and risk, our current reluctance to meaningfully expand beyond Earth will appear as a strange moment of hesitation before humanity embraced its multiplanetary destiny.

Conclusion: Accelerating Into the Future

As we stand at this unique moment in human history, positioned between a receding past of limitation and an emerging future of possibility, we have the rare opportunity to witness the transformation of our most fundamental systems and beliefs. The practices and assumptions that currently structure our daily lives—from medical treatments to energy systems, from educational methods to economic models—will likely appear as curious historical artifacts to future generations equipped with vastly superior technologies and more evolved social structures. This transformation is not merely technological but deeply ethical, representing humanity’s halting progress toward arrangements that better align with our growing understanding of human flourishing and planetary sustainability.

The acceleration of change across all domains discussed in this report—healthcare, energy, transportation, food, communication, education, social structures, economics, privacy, and space expansion—suggests that the gap between present and future practices may widen more rapidly than in previous eras of human development. Technologies like artificial intelligence, gene editing, brain-computer interfaces, and autonomous systems are developing at exponential rather than linear rates, potentially compressing centuries of previous progress into decades. This acceleration means that people alive today may personally witness transformations that in previous eras would have unfolded across many generations, creating the unprecedented experience of living in what might be perceived as multiple distinct historical epochs within a single human lifespan.

Rather than regarding future perceptions of our current practices as criticism, we might better understand them as evidence of success—signs that humanity continued to learn, grow, and develop more effective ways of organizing ourselves and relating to our environment. Just as we now look back at medieval medical practices or pre-scientific cosmologies with understanding rather than judgment, recognizing them as steps in an ongoing process of discovery, future generations will likely view our current moment as a necessary transition between what was and what could be. In this sense, the incredulity with which they may regard our practices represents not failure but the fulfilled promise of human ingenuity and ethical evolution continuously working to create better ways of being human.