In the past, we’ve had issues with women suffrage, slavery, and sanitation, among many other things.
Today we have gun control, AI, intended/unintended false information, vaccines, etc. as consistently hot topics.
In a few decades’ time, what views do you have now that may spark major social debate in the future? What conservative and/or progressive stances do you take today that might be too far on either extreme in the far future?
I had a long talk about this with my dad recently. He’s a conservative Catholic, and also a professor of philosophy and ethics. He just could not wrap his head around the idea that someone could commit a crime and not be locked up for it. He believes that justice cannot be served without the perpetrator suffering, or at least being denied their freedom for a period of time. I told him that empirically speaking, that’s not how criminals are reformed, but he was stuck on it.
Punishment is rewarding to the punisher. This distorts almost all human thinking on the subject.