Try to imagine the future a year from now. Barring some world-shattering Apocalypse of two (thank you, we’ve had enough!), it’s not all that hard to do. Now think of what life will be like in 5 years. Then 10. And finally, 50. Half a century from now, the world, society, norms, and technology may have changed very drastically. So much so that we’ll be nostalgic for a lot of things that we take for granted right now.
It’s tough to know what exactly you might miss in the future, but it’s great for feeling grateful for what we have now. Prompted by redditor u/klausbrusselssprouts, the folks over at r/AskReddit shared some great insights and opinions about the things that people might be nostalgic for, 50 years from now. Spoiler warning: people’s outlooks about the future are pretty grim. If nothing else, it’s a reminder of just how great life is right now, despite its challenges and imperfections.
Read on for a perspective on the present through the lens of the future, and don’t forget to upvote the posts you agree with, Pandas. We’d also love to hear your own thoughts about what you think many of us will feel a deep sense of longing for in the decades to come, so be sure to drop by the comments to share your thoughts.
Bored Panda reached out to the friendly author of the viral thread, u/klausbrusselssprouts, and he was kind enough to answer our questions in detail. Klaus shared that he has a background in history and social science, and has been a high school teacher in Denmark for the past 10 years. He said that the inspiration for the r/AskReddit post actually came from an exercise he often does in his own history classes. Read on for our full interview with Klaus.
#1
Owning something you don’t pay a subscription for
Image source: JohnnyNumbskull, charlesdeluvio
#2
The number of wild animals that exist and can be seen. They are already on the decline.
Image source: SpikedBubbles, Thomas B.
#3
Being confident that the person they see on screen is a real person and not AI.
Image source: XComThrowawayAcct
#4
“You know son, when I was your age we didn’t have a subscription model to make toasts every morning. We’d just put bread in and toast would pop out”
“You had to put bread _manually_, Grandpa?!?”
“Oh yes, but we didn’t have to listen to 3 mandatory advertisements. Oh and one more thing: We could use _any_ bread we want”
“Holy s**t!? Any bread?? And it would still toast them?”
“Yep”
Image source: vpsj
#5
Privacy. Even babies are overexposed today.
Image source: birdiewings, Jeremy Bezanger
#6
Well I’ll be 110 so I’m going to say breathing.
Image source: horrified_intrigued
#7
Wilderness spaces with little or no human settlement
Image source: torgis30, Juli Kosolapova
#8
Whatever stupid s**t is popular 30 years from now.
I’m nostalgic for a world without the entire internet being walled gardens. I miss independent blogs. I miss there being hundreds of discussion boards on the internet not all subject to lunatic Reddit admins with political agendas. I miss a world without social media.
Image source: sudden_aggression
#9
Clean air and water depending how things turn out for the planet.
If things get better, the Simpsons.
Image source: Wage_slave, ActionVance
#10
Handwritten notes/letters.
Image source: Tyrion_Canister
#11
Bearable temperatures, forests, bees, biodiversity…
Image source: GamrG33k
#12
Social media. Not because it’s good, but because whatever comes next will probably suck more.
Image source: RockoTDF, Pixabay
#13
Being able to be anonymous online.
Image source: Smegma_On-Demand, Porapak Apichodilok
#14
Nature
Image source: nootka_
#15
Being able to do basic maintenance on your car without needing a shop manual and a years salary worth of special tools
Image source: kilroy-was-here-2543, Tim Mossholder
#16
Early 2000s internet where you could search something on Google and your biometric data and search records weren’t sent to 50+ government agencies and data mining firms
Image source: hammockonthebeach
#17
Coral reefs :(
Image source: SmellLikeDogBuns
#18
Democracy. Non-lab created meat. Cars you drive yourself. 2.5 million species of life. Weather like you remember as a kid. Carefree use of fresh water. A time when youth respected their elders /s. Physical media of any sort. Having a keyboard and mouse for your computer. Todays slang like “yeet”.
Image source: stevehuy
#19
Grandparents will say to their grandkids “When I was your age, I had to get off the screen and actually GO to school”.
Image source: Truck_Stop_Sushi, Juan Pablo Serrano Arenas
#20
Story. Narrative.
There is no build-up anymore. Nobody has patience to see a good plot being constructed. Everyone wants payoff in 10 seconds.
Image source: sherrymirza
#21
Freedom of speech……but they won’t say that out loud.
Image source: rsint
#22
Human made art and music without the use of AI.
Or even just knowing it was made without the use of AI tools like DALL-E 2 or similar.
Kind of like how before autotune you knew for certain a singer could sing that way.
Image source: ConfidentlyNeurotic
#23
Graphic artists.
Taxis, trucks, and ride shares with human drivers.
Movies that don’t feature heavy computer effects.
The rich actually dying occasionally instead of being effectively immortal.
The United States before fascism really took over.
Image source: RudeMorgue
#24
That one month when everyone was playing Pokemon Go
Image source: Tomatillo212Bailey, Anton
#25
Water probably
Image source: marvelloumac, Matt Hardy
#26
Adblock/skippable ads. In the future decade I can see repeatable unblockable ads becoming mainstream in places like YouTube, Netflix, etc…
Image source: Semour9
#27
The abundance and availability of power, water, and food.
Image source: wrath__
#28
Paper money.
Image source: modernDayKing
#29
Movies made 30 years from now. Nostalgia always runs in 20 year cycles.
Image source: Rekthor
#30
Rights
Image source: YDoiReadTheComments
#31
I have a can of Frozen themed chicken noodle soup that I plan to sell when I’m 70 so hopefully that cause I don’t have a lot of money in my retirement fund
Image source: Significant_747Bell
#32
Net neutrality
Image source: Ochovarium
#33
I’d say people will miss being uncontactable. Like back in the day, you could just go to your bedroom, and block the rest of the world away for a couple of hours. Now we’ve got video calls, phone calls, texts, emails. Urgh.
Image source: mr_wernderful, Sara Kurfeß
#34
Privacy
Image source: hamberglur
#35
Stable weather
Image source: BlueBoxxx
#36
The price of energy, groceries and we will think fondly of the time we still had bees and other pollinators.
Image source: Miserable-Many-6507
#37
US democracy. It’ll be dismantled by then.
Image source: andy-crapp
#38
Everything about today’s art, style, decor, culture, movies, shows, music and news events.
It will seem old fashioned and from a simpler time, in 50 years.
Image source: Bern_who_Learns, Daian Gan
#39
Driving. Imagine a world where all vehicles are automated. It would be so “retro” to manually drive a car down to the shops.
Image source: Vilcunis
#40
Retail shopping. There will be these cutesy, extremely expensive retro shops selling things you’d find at the convenience store.
Image source: shay1990plus
#41
Keys. Even more specific vehicle keys.
Image source: UpMain, Go to Roland Denes’s profile Roland Denes
#42
The phones, appliances that we are using.
Just like cd, dvd, nokia series, windows xp, retro kitchen appliances and such is very nostalgic to many people out there.
Image source: Fulcinnamonroll
#43
Owning their own stuff
Image source: justforonredit
#44
Probably movie theaters.
Image source: rsvredditacct
#45
Physically hanging out with a group of friends
Image source: asmytha
#46
Owning a housing unit
Image source: buzz86us
#47
Snow
Image source: The_Sad_In_Sysadmin
#48
Textbooks
Image source: Darckryer
#49
Wired earbuds with an actual headphone jack. Not USB version 93 delta.
Image source: Rodeo6a
#50
The Netherlands
Image source: platzandersonne
Follow Us
