Your thoughts on the future of America
For me personally I think that America is going to fall apart within 100 years because of one main reason (or two). One is that when we run out of oil America is going to be very very unprepared and it is going to send America down the crapper. People keep on thinking that oh sure, that's so far in the future things will change by then! but nothing will change until people start to confront this problem, which won't happen.
The government is just to clogged up to really be efficient is another reason. Anything done through the government will proabaly take at least 15 years for action to be taken, and since no one has even bothered to start trying to tackle the oil crisis problem it is probaly going to take alot longer until reaches such monumental proportions that it will be impossible to stop or avoid, the cost of everything will go up, The american dollars worth will drop quite a bit, We will be tossed into a huge depression, the government will start to lose it's power so there will not be any main driving force behind a recovery, and we will be stuck like this for some time, who know how long...
But this is just a worst case scenario, but the best case is that people start to tackle this problem now, the government realizes how closely the cut it to avoiding the downfall of america, and america stays strong with some new knowledge. But I doubt that the best case scenario will happen, so as soon as I see the first signs of the downfall, I am out of this country.
Will the downfall happen lightning fast or will it happen slowly as the government tries to prevent what is inevitable due to how much momentum it has? What are your thoughts on the future of America? or if you don't have any on America, Humanity?
Edit: The unlost art!
The government is just to clogged up to really be efficient is another reason. Anything done through the government will proabaly take at least 15 years for action to be taken, and since no one has even bothered to start trying to tackle the oil crisis problem it is probaly going to take alot longer until reaches such monumental proportions that it will be impossible to stop or avoid, the cost of everything will go up, The american dollars worth will drop quite a bit, We will be tossed into a huge depression, the government will start to lose it's power so there will not be any main driving force behind a recovery, and we will be stuck like this for some time, who know how long...
But this is just a worst case scenario, but the best case is that people start to tackle this problem now, the government realizes how closely the cut it to avoiding the downfall of america, and america stays strong with some new knowledge. But I doubt that the best case scenario will happen, so as soon as I see the first signs of the downfall, I am out of this country.
Will the downfall happen lightning fast or will it happen slowly as the government tries to prevent what is inevitable due to how much momentum it has? What are your thoughts on the future of America? or if you don't have any on America, Humanity?
Edit: The unlost art!
Comments
Anarchy...the last solution?
(under the sun!)
Originally posted by little mouse
For me personally I think that America is going to fall apart within 100 years because of one main reason (or two). One is that when we run out of oil America is going to be very very unprepared and it is going to send America down the crapper. People keep on thinking that oh sure, that's so far in the future things will change by then! but nothing will change until people start to confront this problem, which won't happen.
Price pressure on oil will rise way before oil supplies are exhausted. In the time after the price rise, technology will be developed to use something other than oil (fuel cells et al) or to "manufacture" oil such as thermal depolymerization.
The government is just to clogged up to really be efficient is another reason.
This is not a failure of our gov't, but a feature.
What are your thoughts on the future of America? or if you don't have any on America, Humanity?
Just imagine everything today, but bigger, better, more frightening, more tragic, more fantastic, etc. Biotech will allow a bunch of different marvels to occur: doubling of age, pill-popping performance enhancers (thinking, memory, physical) become normal, body and limb regeneration. Robots, robots, robots! The disparity between rich and poor will be even bigger with trillianares and the vast majority (99.9%) drudging away at $10/hr. Several super-diseases will come about.
All the wild mega-fauna will be gone, except for in big corporate animal farms plus a few in small family farms. Shoreline fish populations depleted or non-existant. The Amazon forest will be gone. New York City, New Jersey, Philadelphia, and Washington DC will be 1 gigantic city-plex. Same thing with Milwaukee and Chicago, Los Angelos and San Diego, etc.
Lots and lots and lots of desalinization plants to get water from the oceans because most of the aquifers will be depleted. The Rio Grande River will be nothing be a small stream in west Texas. The Colorado River will not enter the ocean another, though this probably already has happened?, and water won't run through the Rio Grande anymore.
As for government efficiency, the U.S.A. does relatively well all things considered. One might would be advised to live for a while in some really screwed-up country (and I mean outside the luxury resorts, diplomatic or other expatriate compounds), in a place with little government (like most third-world joints) or no government at all (like say, Somalia), to tell the difference in government efficiency and lack thereof.
Off course, as conditions change it might require Americans alter and improve the way their country funtions, which might include a change in their way of life, but then adapting is the earthlings' way. They'll just have to deal with it, as many others did before them.
It's part of growing up, rather than just growing big.
Given the long-term ongoing trend of global integration, I believe the U.S.A. will be the last major world power, and will gradually merge with like-minded entities at some future time.
This said, my presonal impression is that the next two hundred years look fine for the Estadunidenses.
If they really wish for a ?crepuscule of the gods? downfall they'll have to make great efforts to make such prophecy a self-fulfilling one.
I advise against it.
From my vantage point, the U.S.A. has been advancing quite hopefully these last decades, and has lately suprised me positively more than once.
So optimism, while not all that fashionable, might not be all that unrealistic after all.
Example:
A group of widows from the 9/11 attacks decided it was their calling to go around and speak out about how the government did a poor job recognizing the threat of terrorism. their main argument is that 9/11 ripped apart their family and now they will continue to suffer forever. well, in the meantime, they left their children behind for several months because they were traveling around. sounds to me like those stupid widows need to prioritize. the only thing ripping apart their family is themselves.
The U.S. will be fine. Which in turn means, the world will be fine... even if you believe the world hates the U.S. Remember... the only reason we're here in the first place is because... THE WORLD HATED US!!! Sent us packing to the New World. Hoo-Waa!
Oil is the least of our worries.
Live long and prosper... "Ya filthy animals!"
Peace.
Originally posted by little mouse
The future is so dark that I knocked out the lenses of my glasses and put flashlights in.
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
aw go ban yourself
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
aw go ban yourself
You gonna cry? Come on man, it's a joke. "Eb and flow, ya dig?"
Additionally, I am particularly loath to people who use stock images from collection sites like that, in addition to making themselves look boring and unoriginal, they also end up being tools for that site's promotion.
Originally posted by Wrong Robot
That's Ebb not eb
Additionally, I am particularly loath to people who use stock images from collection sites like that, in addition to making themselves look boring and unoriginal, they also end up being tools for that site's promotion.
Yeah, you are right. I should stop. ::Looks at the web page and sees ads everywhere::
Originally posted by Messiahtosh
Yeah, you are right. I should stop. ::Looks at the web page and sees ads everywhere::
are you serious? you don't see the difference?
Originally posted by egnaro
The world has been ending for the last millennium...
...Oil is the least of our worries.
Talk about sticking your head in the sand.
First of all, get the exaggeration out of the way: Running out of oil wouldn't mean "the end of the world". But without alternatives to oil at the ready, a sharp drop in oil production could likely mean massive death and massive hardship for those who survive these events. Blind faith that "we'll find a way" won't do us any good if we've waiting too long to plan for other energy sources.
One also has to look at the substance of other predictions of doom. A careful study of energy sources, uses and distribution patterns has a lot more credibility than fevered interpretations of planetary alignments and religious texts.
There are both quantitative and qualitative differences between the human situation at this moment in time and any time in the past that make comparisons to the past -- especially anything involving population, energy consumption, interdependence vs. self-sufficiency, etc. -- dangerous. Looking for comfort from the past for no other reason than that we've survived up until now is hardly much assurance.
The mere fact that people have been wrong about a catastrophic predictions in the past hardly constitutes a guarantee we're safe for ever. If that's how life really works, we should all start making as many gloomy predictions as possible -- because the magic of them all turning out to be wrong will further insure our future well being, right?
Now I guess they should have banned me rather than just shut off posting priviledges, because kickaha and Amorph definitely aren't going to like being called to task when they thought they had it all ignored *cough* *cough* I mean under control. Just a couple o' tools.
Don't worry, as soon as my work resetting my posts is done I'll disappear forever.
I heard about this prophesy about three years ago although it's been familiar to the church in the state of Minnesota for over twenty years now. But I think we'll see the start of this prophesy's fulfillment within the next several years and can say that because He's given me a plan to write about it as the third book in a series of four.
It will have Norman Rockwell's FREEDOM FROM WANT on the cover (that's the one where grandma's brining out the turkey platter to the table full of family on Thanksgiving Day). I've got most of the text outlined in my head and can't wait to get started on it. But I've got the second one, FREEDOM OF SPEECH, to write in the meantime, which comes after FREEDOM OF WORSHIP is done.
I also say this because I had the pleasure of fifteen minutes on the phone with a pastor from Northern Minnesota who, being led, left his pastorate to spend a year on his face before the Lord; he then met several other brothers from the area all individually called to do the same thing as he: they took a boat and their bicycles down the Mississippi River and "prayer-bicycled" every street of every town and city along the banks of the Mighty Mississippi. It took them two years to do it, but they did it just as instructed; landed in New Orleans during Mardi Gras several years ago.
Keep in mind that the Mississippi watershed covers 32 states! I'm telling you, it's going to be awesome; and nothing as trivial as gas prices could keep it from happening.
The future of America couldn't be any brighter, the way I see it.
Take care,
Exsulent