I expect some attitudes and behaviors that we currently consider normal and acceptable will be considered wrong or unethical a hundred years from now. I'm not talking about racism or anything we currently recognize as being an issue. There are undoubtedly things we take for granted that we don't even consider to be issues that will be seen in a different light in the future, and we can't know what those may be.
Someone up thread mentioned science in the writing of Jules Verne. This got me thinking about the many advances in science and medicine over the centuries. If we read a book wherein a doctor treats patients by using leeches, do we condemn the author and/or the character for being ignorant? Or do we recognize that scientific knowledge had not yet advanced beyond that point? I'm sure that in the future some of our current medical procedures will be seen as harmful, but at present we cannot know what technologies and methods may be available decades in the future.
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