Do you think that future generations will learn the same things that we learn?

When I was your age, we had NINE planets!

@rangerr ; :o really? that’s crazy talk. wait, but I remember having nine…

future kids will learn that the earth is 6000 years old and that jesus, who was born in texas, rode on dinosaurs.

@ragingloli ; yikes! I hope that never happens.

@troubleinharlem Pretend I’m an old person from the future, then read it.

Rats. Spelling mistake in my question. D: where’s the edit button?

They might learn some of the same things, but there will (hopefully) be advances in literature, math, science, and other fields, and kids will learn about that stuff. And they might chance the teaching methods. In the past, a lot of learning was done by memorization and recitation, and we’ve mostly gotten away from that.

It is interesting to speculate how much of our early history will be studied if civilization is able to last for a real long time. 100,000 years from now, would people still be studying about ancient Egypt or Medieval times? I suspect not, especially if the continents drift to the extent that it is hard to figure out where these places can even be located.

We do not learn the same things that they learned in Ancient Rome, because (1) things have advanced, rendering certain data irrelevant, and (2) we have new things to learn, such as computer science, how to drive a car, and how our government works (if they’re even teaching any of that anymore). Some things, like the Iliad and Odyssey, are still taught, but they aren’t given the same emphasis. Certain other things, such as farming, spinning wool and linen, and fighting with a gladius are now considered specialized knowledge, not taught regularly, but you can still learn them if you know where to look.

That said, the trajectory of modern technology rests uneasily on the back of cheap fossil fuels which won’t always be there. It also assumes that we are too prosperous to have everybody needing to farm, spin, and fight, which (if the climate shifts unreasonably and we can no longer pour petrochemical fertilizers) won’t always be true, either. We’ve moved up on Maslow’s Hierarchy and don’t learn pure survival skills anymore, but it would be very easy to imagine a future where this is no longer true.

I believe that how we currently live is a historical anomaly of sorts – a harnessing of temporary power that allowed us to get all uppity for a while. In other words, we might not teach future generations what we currently do – but that the skills taught in the ancient (and early modern) world will be more relevant.

They will learn parts of timeless important things, but also plenty of new stuff, like the confirmed theories of abiogenesis and quantum gravity and dark energy decay.

They will also learn that there was a popular though somewhat peculiar cult in a country then called the United States whose members believed that the earth was 6000 years old and that Jesus born in a town called Dubya, TX and that he rode on dinosaurs. But then around 2020 when the Institute for Creation Research had to close down, because the 13 members who were left couldn’t pay the electricity bills anymore. The Creation Museum in Kentucky still exists but had been renamed into Anti-science Movement Memorial Site to warn future kids not to fall into the traps of dark ages belief systems.

And of course future kids will learn about the historic Fluther press release:

Olympus Mons, Mars, October 23, 2019 – Fluther Inc. (NASDAQ: FLTH) announced today that it has agreed to acquire Facebook – the global social drama website that allows users to add friends and send them irrelevant applications – for $3.75 billion in a stock-for-stock transaction. Following the acquisition, Facebook will operate independently to preserve its successful brand and unpassionate community.

The acquisition combines two of the largest and fastest lurving networking sites and makes Fluther the largest online community which also helps Facebook with Fluther’s expertise in lurve and organizing questions, creating new models for enlightenment on the Internet. The combined companies will focus on providing a better, more incomprehensive experience for intelligent users interested in creative nonanswers and it will offer new opportunities for professional lurvers to distribute their questions to reach a vast new audience.

I am currenty a sudent at Prattville Hig School and my parents and my freinds parents are amazed at how much school has changed since they were there but we are learning a lot more than the older generations are we are expeted to do alot more that our predicsors