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The Future of the USA
Richy
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
With all the doom and gloom predictions about 2012 going on in the Debt Ceiling thread, I thought it could be fun to open the floor to more long-term forecasting. Where do you think the USA will be 10, 20, 50 years from now?
Will the Democrat/Republican two-party system be replaced by Republican/Tea Party?
Will there be a new secession? Will it be along north/south lines, or urban/rural lines, or ethnic lines? Will it lead to a new American Civil War?
Will companies become so powerful they become sovereign entities like in Shadowrun and are granted extraterritoriality and immunity from US laws?
Will the austerity measures be taken to such a degree that the middle-class disappears and American society becomes a third-world-like super-rich and super-poor?
Will China just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Or
Will the Republican and Tea Party split, leading to the isolation of the insane fringe and the return of the Pubs to sanity?
Will the polarization of American society along party lines come to be seen as the silliness it really is?
Will the Murdoch empire collapse, and the rest of the US media look into their pants and rediscover their fucking testicles?
Will the US recover economically, fix up its education, healthcare and welfare systems, and return to being an enviable world leader?
Will Canada just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Or
Will the wars in the Middle East spread while Western involvement increases, leading to World War III?
Will terrorists gets nukes and kill everyone?
Mars or bust?
Will we suffer a global economic collapse and return to industrial-revolution society?
Will robots just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Will the Democrat/Republican two-party system be replaced by Republican/Tea Party?
Will there be a new secession? Will it be along north/south lines, or urban/rural lines, or ethnic lines? Will it lead to a new American Civil War?
Will companies become so powerful they become sovereign entities like in Shadowrun and are granted extraterritoriality and immunity from US laws?
Will the austerity measures be taken to such a degree that the middle-class disappears and American society becomes a third-world-like super-rich and super-poor?
Will China just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Or
Will the Republican and Tea Party split, leading to the isolation of the insane fringe and the return of the Pubs to sanity?
Will the polarization of American society along party lines come to be seen as the silliness it really is?
Will the Murdoch empire collapse, and the rest of the US media look into their pants and rediscover their fucking testicles?
Will the US recover economically, fix up its education, healthcare and welfare systems, and return to being an enviable world leader?
Will Canada just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Or
Will the wars in the Middle East spread while Western involvement increases, leading to World War III?
Will terrorists gets nukes and kill everyone?
Mars or bust?
Will we suffer a global economic collapse and return to industrial-revolution society?
Will robots just move in and buy everything and everyone?
Richy on
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Aren't most of them old people though? The only teapers I've seen always seem to be old people.
-Much heavier urbanization in general, less focus on suburbs
-China has become the dominant world economy
-Heavily socialist sentiments after 8 years of GOP rule, combined with a new reactionary far-right (sound familiar?)
-Current huge class divide calcifies into very distinguishable voting blocs, mobility is almost nonexistent
-Resources growing thin, China begins skirmishes/occupations in unstable Middle Eastern countries. They won't say it's for freedom.
and the gengars who are guiding me" -- W.S. Merwin
Most seem to be in the mid 30's to early 50's. Old people are too concerned with their SS and Medicare to be good Teapers.
The demographics suggest that the Tea Party is basically a mob of radicalized suburbanites, which also explains the relatively higher educations and incomes. They're the people who give homeowners associations a bad name jumped to the national level.
If I've learned anything from the news.
Its that God fearing white christians cant be terrorists.
If there is one thing I have learned as a God fearing white Christian, is that there are lots of loonies out there that think they are "doing God's work" when they kill people.
I am probably more afraid of other "Christians" than I am of Atheists or any other religion.
This isn't going to stop the divide between rich and poor from worsening.
$50 dollars says that fox news will try and spin it into "liberals are bad". Assuming of course that they're able to whether the shitstorm that news corp is currently sailing through.
"Liberals steal bullets from the gun of a second-amendment-loving Real American! More at 11!"
No one should really pay attention to that thread. It's decidedly alarmist.
The reality is the deal is very close to being done and there has always been absolutely no possibility of a default happening.
The U.S. has to, at some point, come to grips with its structural economic problems. We're a post-industrial economy that's entirely consumption-driven and heavily reliant upon credit (and debt) on the institutional, municipal and individual levels. We need to gradually shift our workforce into the occupations of the New Global Economy -- technical, information-driven jobs that require a decent education (albeit not necessarily a BA/BS). How is a third world economy churning out all (well not ALL, obviously) the engineers, scientists and doctors? Through a rigid, dogmatic focus on education as the key to socioeconomic empowerment. We still have the world's foremost higher education system, but China and India have lofty ambitions in those spheres too.
Speaking of which, we need radical reform in education system. How do the worst-performing schools get the least federal/state funding, and the highest-performing ones the most? I'd go so far as to call that de facto class (and let's face it, racial) discrimination.
Bleak...depending on some variables. I can see America splitting into intelligent liberalism vs religious idealogical jingoism. Though I can't see the Tea Party gaining enough foothold to field a President, I can certainly see them rupturing Congress and the Senate in the near future. My major worry is that they gain full control of the US Government (including President), in which case I would not be surprised to see a major war occur, either on a global scale or a domestic scale. Put simply, if the Tea Party wins, it's either World War III or Civil War II. This is a nightmare scenario though and in the end I think the Tea Party demographic will either split away from the Republicans - becoming nothing more than a right win idealogue - or it will collapse in its own bile and hatred, possible resulting in splinter terrorist organisations arising from it. Think NSF from Deus Ex.
Long term I think the US might suffer from psychological and political impotence at the knowledge of China becoming the worlds next superpower. Republican Presidents will grind their teeth and attempt to rally the US in the name of homegrown developments and market, while Democratic Presidents will chew the fat and perform negotiation and economic stabilisation with the new superpower. Other problems that will arise is dwindling resources within the fossil fuel market, and I believe the US will be sluggish to respond to the winds of change. A mini fight might occur behind the scenes over the control of the last remaining resources (ie, the Arctic/Russia).
In the end though I really think a civil war might be on the cards. Though it's not as simple as North and South this time, the US is really suffering from an idealogical battle that is splitting the country in two. One side is looking toward the future with youthful spirit, wanting to employ more effort into science, research, technology and information. It's looking to define the US as something new and indeed bring back the principles that established the US as a protector of freedom and opportunity. The other side is clinging on to religion and ignorance, hateful of the man that is trying to change their ways, thinking that the man is forcing them. If the two sides can't come to a compromise then the United States may will split into something entirely different.
WHERE THE FUCK IS MY HOVERBOARD?!!!!
While I don't think the U.S. is going to become a 3rd world country, a full return to glory seems unlikely. Despite the demographic changes occurring, republicans will probably be fine. They may have to adjust aspects of their message, but it seems unlikely democrats will be allowed to monopolize these voters unopposed like some people seem to expect.
last I saw it was in 1885
If we can outlast it, the core stupidity of the republican party should die out within the next 10-20 years due to age and what not. Hopefully
Well catch the next train and go there to get it!
This is appreciably true for any period in the West in the last two centuries, at least. Didn't make it any better to live through the world wars, revolutions and other bad shit. The March of Progress does not protect you from a civil war.
There are plenty of people who are only Democrats because the Republicans actively want to harm them. At some point the Republicans will pick a strong minority group that they have spent decades hating on and will suddenly embrace them for the sake of votes, while continuing to hate on the rest.
(This is the part where it gets biased.)
And I doubt anyone will think very highly of the Tea Party when/if they actually get control of more than one-half of one branch of federal government. Given how warmly most of the country reacted to Paul Ryan's earnest attempt at entitlement reform (its merits or demerits notwithstanding), I doubt this fervor they've built up among their base can last.
This basically assumes that Latinos (it'll obviously be Latinos) are stupid and have no memory.
They're humans.
Look at politics today and tell me that people are wise and have good memories.
2016: With unemployment still high, the voters turn against Obama and elect a republican president and republican supermajority in congress. They blame all of our economic troubles on illegal immigrants and predatory imports from other countries, and began a huge increase in military spending. By recruiting millions of unemployed people into the army, the unemployment rate finally drops in a big way, and the president's popularity shoots through the roof.
2020: The republican president wins reelection easily, but now has to deal with soaring oil prices and other resource shortages. After stoking hatred against immigrants for 4 years, the people demand action. The military invades Mexico and annexes Canada, seizing control of their oil resources. Gas prices drop, and the people love the president so much that they re-elect him for a 3rd term even though it's unconstitutional.
Eventually we end up fighting a world war against China, India, and Iran for the remaining oil resources around the world, while Europe collapses. I haven't quite worked out the details of that yet.
I see the country moving farther and farther to the right. People are being spun to believe that the causes for problems are the solutions. "Tax cuts means increased tax revenues" is one example (which is only true when taxes are actually really high, not low).There is also a strong move towards egocentrism, again something that will push people to the right. Watch kids today, a complete lack of empathy. Anyone really think that is going to change as they grow up?
The US will lose the world-leadership position it holds. It will be passed economically (since there are no political moves towards changing that trend). It has already been passed socially (yes, the US is seen as socially backwards by the rest of the western world. Ban on gay marriage? still?). The problem here is that the right really think that the rest of the world admires the US for the politics the right is pushing (despite the fact that no other western country makes similar moves). They think that the way to be the world leader is to be more to the right.
The only thing that I see changing this trend is a series of real catastrophes hitting the US, forcing people to rely on each other for a while. Similar to how Europeans started to move left after two world wars demolished the continent twice, and the following famines even in untouched countries (even Sweden had a deep famine after WW2). And while I think the US needs to move left and grow its humanitarian cred to remain a leader, I don't wish catastrophy on the country
I wouldn't be so certain of that. Conservatives (especially in the midwest) seem to be almost as good about passing on their politics as they are about passing on their religion. Plus, there do seem to be a lot of College Republicans / libertarian types.
Sounds like a great book.
You should write it.
Teapers are going to come out as the winners of this if we pass a "spending cut only" solution to the debt ceiling problem
White people have fewer kids and don't immigrate as much.
Right, but there are just plain a lot of white people. They're not growing as fast as the minorities, obviously, but this is still basically a country of white people. Even given the growth rates of the minority groups, urbanization, etc. I feel like 'the GOP dies within 10-20 years' is very optimistic.
that sounds an awful lot like the back story of the Fallout universe
I never said the GOP dies, I said crazy dies out as the current, old republicans die or have to leave office due to health. Leaving room for more Progressive, younger generations to come up. Hopefully, at least.
I did not mean to double post, but since i cant find a way to delete this post I'm just leaving it alone
Check Texas' demographics, at least in terms of Presidential politics. They don't have a viable map without it, and the Hispanic population is going to make it blue in another decade or so.
The Fallout series would appreciate it if you made references to Jimmy hats or Pip-boys when you copy it's story.