what will our grand kids be shocked to read about us and our acceptable 'cigarettes'?

plastic everywhere

social media as news

teflon

fossil fuel cars

sugar/ultra-processed food

Not only teflon, but pfas. Overuse of pesticides. The second coming of authoritarianism 80 years after the last time. Not doing enough about climate change. Anthropocene extinction.

> plastic everywhere.

plastic will still be everywhere. The major catastrophe that could happen is for evolution of plastic eating bacteria like the creation of (dead) wood eating bacteria. Look at all the plastic containers etc you have in your kitchen and imagine it's just gone.

> social media as news

Mainstream news isn't going to get any better.

> teflon

teflon has gotten a lot better since it was introduced. It will stick around.

> fossil fuel cars

will be seen like rotary phones: they will not understand why they are so cumbersome or why so many people had resistance against electric cars. It's like electric lights versus living with only oil/candle lights.

I think a near term would be: "you had to go to a cinema to watch a movie?"

Ha ha, the replies to your comment have become a laundry list of people's grievances and/or agendas.

Meat not as a treat, but as a staple

> fossil fuel cars

All or almost all of fire is my guess. My guess is that celebratory fire is last to go, bonfires, fireworks, in 2070 probably roasting marshmallows is at the edge of reasonable behaviour, but the idea that we deliberately burned things as part of normal life will seem very odd.

In 1870 fire is the usual (and incredibly wasteful) way humans make light and heat everywhere. In 1970 there's more abstraction, the light is electrical but from thermal generation, so there is still fire but it's somewhere else, and your heat is more likely from fire inside a metal box in a distant room, a gas, oil or in some cases coal boiler to heat air or water.

My guess is that even in pessimistic models in 2070 that's all electrical and the electricity is generated from sources which do not involve fire. PV, wind, hydro, even the geothermal and nuclear plants don't actually make fire to heat steam, they're just hot.

Perhaps overuse of medication. No real proof it works, severe side effects, "misterious" rise in cancer and other dissieases, state sanctioned censorship, billion dolar corruption scandals...

Medication for normal emotions

No, it's going to be about either the roll back of nuclear reactors or various social movements.

Covid vaccines to young and healthy individuals