Fossil Fuel Usage

Driving gas-guzzlers to the edge of reason in the 1970's, then using SUVs to bring the kids out to the spot where mom and dad burned up the other half of the ozone when all they had was a skylark. With all the fear-mongering on the grounds of national security, I'm surprised someone didn't take up Bill Maher's suggestion more seriously and produce those WWII-noir posters saying "every time you drive a Lincoln Navigator, you ride with Bin Laden." Beyond the environmental costs, it's our first Achilles' Heel in national strategy discussions, allowing corporations to pull far too many strings and enemies to accumulate far too much revenue-- and on our charge card, no less.

Nuclear Power

Probably an addendum to the fossil fuels thing. We let 3-Mile Island become a boogeyman keeping us from stepping into the 21st Century.

Space Program

We cut that sucker every chance we get, recession or no. Our failure to realize the necessity for and value in putting people on Mars is a disgrace to the people (also of the Greatest Generation) who accomplished the moon landing, and a monument to our current lack of vision.

Abortion, Evolution and Religion in School, and Illegal Immigration

They get lumped together because, after decades of argument, our descendants won't fault us for whatever resolutions are devised, but rather for wasting so much time, effort and money on the debates to begin with.

1. 1/2 of our current weapons acquisitions programs. If it’s only 1/3, I’ll be impressed. I picture some Command and Staff/ School of Advanced Warfighting guy 30 years from now shaking his head at some of the things we are buying today. Like the F-14. A great plane for a war we didn’t fight. We built and fielded a carrier based fighter that does Mach 2 and a tank that goes 50 mph in the late 1980s, but we didn’t get around to designing and fielding body armor that will stop a Vietnam era AK-47 until just before 9/11. And as Chivers pointed out in his new book, the rifle is still the deadliest weapon the enemy has used against us. The crystal ball will never be perfect, but I have a feeling we won’t be doing many amphibious landings with the new Marine Corps Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle, either.

2. Our military personnel system. Randomly shuffling our people every other year or so. Having families uproot every few years isn’t a good thing. Taking single folks, just back from deployments, and moving them to new bases away from their unit and whatever social network they were apart of on their old bases isn’t healthy either.

3. The deficit and entitlement reform. I don’t have a foolproof plan to fix it, but I’m pretty sure that the longer we avoid the problem, the more painful the solution will be.

4. I agree with Gorley about better living through nuclear power. NIMBY at its worst.

Gourley and IronCapt have good lists. Taking a cue from some of their points, here are mine:

1. Gays. This one will be looked at the same way we look at racism now (except in the South).

2. Nuclear Power. It produces exponentially less waste than coal or oil, and can be ramped up and down to meet demand. If we wanted to, we could easily supply a minimum baseline of power with renewables and use nuclear to shift up or down with demand.

3. Space Travel. This is a big one for me, as an Astrophysicist/Aerospace Engineer, people really have no realization that the gigantic boom in technological development in the second half of this century came primarily from the space program. If we really want to spur new development, what better way than to try to send someone somewhere no one has ever been before?

4. Social Issues. It doesn't matter what solutions we come up with, people of the future will look back and say "well why couldn't they just have done that in the first place?"

5. Entitlement Reform. Same comment as Social Issues.

6. Demonization of the word "elite". Would we really want regular army grunts doing what Delta Force is supposed to do? Then why do we criticize the scientific and other elites for doing what they have been trained to do. Some elites may not necessarily deserve the title, but the title exists for a reason.

Our descendants will, as we do, spend less time contemplating the things we do they think were stupid than they do the things they think were wrong.

Heedless, soulless materialism, the craving for physical sensation, and disregard of the need for moral purpose in life -- all indulged in by nearly the entire population, are the obvious leading candidates. How they are described will depend on what the reaction to them inspires, and that reaction is hidden from us.

However, we Americans today look back on a country ascendant for nearly its entire history. Even its greatest disaster, the Civil War, is inseparably linked with triumph and glory -- the abolition of slavery, obviously, but also the emergence from the war of a stronger Union and the foundation of a modern industrial economy. The next generation of Americans may have to look back on something else, and the difference in perspective will probably shape its perceptions in ways we cannot guess, and may not want to.

Self-admiration and self-congratulation are America's great national vices. Americans -- even and sometimes especially those highly critical of their government or their fellow citizens -- tend to be certain of the praiseworthiness of their own values. We think of moral degeneracy as something that happens to other people, and sometimes as something that happened to other people until we came along. Our national vices may have become more virulent in recent years, as signs of developing weakness in the American society, economy and government have appeared. This will be duly noted by future generations.

I don't blame Tom Ricks for much, so I hate to cite him as an example. He kind of is one, though. Note that the three vices (or, as he would say, stupid things) he lists includes only one that has anything to do with him, and that one is eating beef. I tend to think he included that for comic effect. The other two things are stupid things "we" do, by which he clearly means stupid things "they" do -- other Americans, Americans who have not reached his level of moral enlightenment. This wouldn't be noteworthy if it were not such common, indeed practically universal thing in America today.

I suppose in 1947 we would have polled servicemembers with concern that some white soldiers might feel uncomfortable serving with Negros. So now Sen McCain is questioning the polling methods. (not enough responses)He has changed his stance so many times, from... I will go with what the military leaders say (Sec Def and CJCS say it is ok with them) to no, I don't like that answer so take a survey (oh no...I don't like that response). Can't we just get on with it and get to the larger task of reconsituting our military who have been worn down with a decade of fighting.

and President Palin.

One more thing. Many people may disagree with me about this, but:

7. The death penalty. It's on its way out, the only question is how long it takes and what finally does it in. There exists no evidence to suggest that it reduces crime, in fact most studies have shown that it has no effect other than vengeance. In the relatively near future, our descendants will probably look upon the death penalty the way we look at slavery today.

The Post had a piece on exactly this question earlier this fall by Kwame Appiah, a philosopher on the faculty at Princeton.

His candidates were:
- the state of our prison system
- the way we treat animals in food production
- the isolation of the elderly
- our treatment of the environment

I like this list, but others nominated here are also good entries.

So I wonder. The McCain's come from the South. Right after World War 2 President Truman signs the executive order integrating the military. what did Commander John Sidney McCain think of integrating the Navy? We all know that Senator McCain voted against making Martin Luther King's birthday a federal holiday. It just stands to reason that Admiral McCain Jr. thought that the status quo of the military being racially segregated worked just as well as Senator John McCain's thinking that DADT works well. Usually the fruit don't fall far from the tree.

rewarding CEO's with lavish compensation who fail

choosing creationism over evolution, boy talk about insulting the beauty and mystery of God's work

being treated as a political hero for claiming that President Obama was not born in Hawaii and then calling him a socialist Marxist not to mention a Muslim (you can't be all 3 or even 2 of them at the same time). They all mutually oppose each other.

And for honorable mention Wikileaks. Did we really learn anything that we did not already know? I think in the long-term the only thing that will be remembered is that the people in the Foreign Service do their jobs well and that WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange is an asshole.

- Working toward "Nuclear Zero"

- Looking/wishing for "Moderate Islam"

There won't be too many people around to make the list.

Good suggestions overall, but I'm surprised no one has mentioned the drug war, which has been such a colossal failure that there's hardly anyone left today to defend it on its merits. I predict that in 20 years, marijuana (at least) will be as legal around the world as alcohol is today.