As new technologies and vices emerge, societal concerns such as food safety (like the conditions revealed in Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle), environmental protections (from chemicals like PFAS), and even morality (such as during the U.S.’s prohibition era) can encourage the development of new regulations and laws. Often, at the time, these things seem like a completely normal part of life until people begin to realize just how detrimental they can be.
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(Of course, as in the case of prohibition, these laws are also sometimes repealed!)
Recently, user tiredassbaker posed the question over on Reddit, “What will someday be illegal after we finally understand how bad for us it is?” Here are 27 of the most interesting things that are currently part of our everyday lives that folks believe will one day be outlawed:
1. “Kids using social media.”
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“Social media would be fine for kids if it weren’t for the algorithms that dictate what they see. For example, Facebook from 15 years ago, when you were mostly shown posts from people you had as friends in chronological order, was a great way to keep in contact with everyone. Facebook now, where you are lucky to see a single post from people on your friends list, and instead have tons of AI slop, paid content, and propaganda shoveled in front of you, is unhealthy for you at best.”
2. “A lot of AI will eventually be made illegal or highly regulated, but probably not in our lifetimes. We will suffer the consequences of unregulated AI with deep fakes and fake videos for a long time before there is a political movement to put it down.”
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3. “Corporate campaign contributions.”
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“The crazy part is that corporations are, generally, owned by individuals, who already can contribute to their interests. A corporation then contributing more is literally double-counting.”
“Corporate campaign contributions are just ‘corruption’ with extra paperwork!”
4. “Unpaid internships disguised as ‘opportunities.’”
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5. “Why is it legal for investment firms to buy up single-family homes? All that does is push up the price for one of the most basic necessities: housing.”
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“There should be a big fat tax on all property that isn’t being used as a standard residence by the owner, with some (limited number and scope) businesses excluded.”
6. “Tanning beds. It’s basically a cancer administering device that also cooks the outside layer of your skin.”
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“Tanning beds have been illegal in Australia since 2015.”
7. “Ads for medicine on TV. People will be like, ‘Yeah, that kinda sounds like me.’ Then they want to go get on a medication they don’t actually need.”
“We already knew that a long time ago, but corporate lobbying got the laws changed back in the 1980s.”
8. “Stock trading politicians.”
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“I remember looking at my partner one day being like, ‘Wait, if you’re involved in any kind of lawmaking that can impact stocks, how can you be allowed to trade stocks?’ Their response was ‘yep.’”
9. “Tying health insurance to employment, where medical debt is the biggest source of bankruptcy in the US.”
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“Medical debt also shouldn’t be a thing.”
10. “Kids’ beauty pageants.”
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“I work at a theater, and have run spotlight for more than a few pageants. The amount (particularly, the lack of) clothing these 5-10 year old girls have on on stage, dancing to oftentimes questionable music... the pressure of these competitions alone is dangerous, but the borderline sexualization of them is depraved. I don’t understand how parents stomach it, much less encourage it.”
“I did them as a child, and I hated them. I was so happy when I had to give my title to the next girl. It was so much work and none of it was fun.”
11. “The supplement industry being unregulated.”
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12. “Non-anesthetized gynecological procedures. If they were cutting tissue out of a man’s penis, I guarantee they at least get a local.”
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“This! I just had a polyp removed from inside my cervix three weeks ago for a biopsy. They twisted it off and yanked it to remove it. No anesthesia of any kind. I almost fainted from the pain.”
13. “Predatory student loan interest.”
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14. “A five-day work week, I hope. A four-day work week has already been proven to be beneficial to employees’ health and the employer/company, since productivity and morale go up.”
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15. “Factory farming.”
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“It is the single biggest polluter on Earth if you count in the whole line of production involved (which many statistics unfortunately don’t).”
16. “7-OH kratom extract. It’s nicknamed ‘gas station heroin.’”
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“I work as a forensic toxicologist, and we just recently added mitragynine (the active compound in kratom) to our urine assays because our clients are starting to request it more and more. It’s becoming more popular recently, and at high dosages, it can cause respiratory failure. It’s a very don’t-fucking-do-this kind of drug and is especially dangerous the more you concentrate it. Eventually, the purity/volume you can buy at any damn gas station WILL literally kill you just like heroin. We will definitely see its legality come into the spotlight in our lifetimes.”
17. “Gerrymandering.”
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18. “Sports gambling!”
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“I’d settle for making it illegal to advertise it.”
19. “Allowing private equity firms to buy hospitals/healthcare systems and sell them off for parts. Hopefully.”
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20. “Having dental insurance and eye insurance separate from medical insurance. We already know that all three have major interactions with each other.”
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21. “Climbing Mt. Everest.”
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22. “Parents posting children under 14 on the internet with the intent of making them online celebrities. ‘Kidfluencing’ is child abuse.”
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23. “Burning coal to produce electricity.”
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24. “Disposable ‘fast fashion.’”
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25. “Probably all the wild data-harvesting apps do to us. It feels normal now, but one day, people are going to be like ‘Wait, why did we let companies track every move we made?’ I definitely think that’ll end up illegal once everyone realizes how bad it is.”
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26. “Lifetime career in politics or the judiciary.”
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27. And finally, “The production of plastics that don’t biodegrade. We have the audacity to snicker at our ancestors for eating off of lead plates when we all literally have our brains full of forever chemicals and shards of garbage.”
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Now I gotta know — what do you think will be illegal in the future? Let us know in the comments. And if you’d like to remain anonymous, you can use the form below.
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