America in 50 years

[tallguy23]

It's impossible to predict the future......but let's try. How do you think will America look in 50 years (demographics, culture, economics, politics, technology, lifestyle)?

My predictions:

1. Diversity is just a common thing. America will look more like California but nobody will care too much. It'll just be our reality.

2. Abortion and gay rights are pretty much dead as issues. The country is far more socially liberal and these issues died out along with the Baby Boomers.

3. Religious attendance dips dramatically. The US is still more religious than other industrialized countries, but is on the level of modern day Britain or Germany.

4. Economically, we're in a better place than we are in 2014. Unemployment is low and the workforce is more educated and advanced. Due to immigration and higher birth rates, we have a better economy than other industrialized countries.

5. We are still a superpower. China is the largest economy but is not a match for the US when it comes to defense or soft power. Russia is a disaster and India is a growing soft superpower.

[Joshgreen]

We're ed.

[True Federalist (진정한 연방 주의자)]

I can agree with all those except #3.  While it is likely that barring an unforeseen change in trends the US will be less religious, I don't think it will fall as low as you think.  If for no other reason than a continuing link between a belief in American exceptionalism and the belief that it is due to a providential God, I don't think the dip will be dramatic.  While the Pacific Coast, New York, and New England are likely to decline to levels of religiosity similar to those now present in the UK by then, "Real America" is going to stay far more religious than that.  Indeed, there may even be some states where weekly church attendance rates remain above 50% and I would be surprised if there were none where it remained above 40%.

[Indy Texas]

1. Agree. Non-Hispanic Whites will be a plurality.

2. Gay rights will be a non-issue. However, abortion will continue to be, as Millennials are not significantly more pro-choice than their parents and, by some surveys, are actually less supportive of abortion rights. Technology and scientific advances will probably influence this debate more in the coming years. As there are more avenues of treatment for babies born with birth defects, more ways to treat or eliminate birth defects in utero, and to avoid fetal or maternal death during delivery, the compelling arguments against endangering the mother's life or bringing a severely deformed child into the world become shakier.

I'd imagine the inevitable decline in our rate of population growth will add fuel to the fire. Americans already reproduce at below replacement rate; immigration is the only thing keeping our population growing. If fewer people want to come to the US, either because we have become a less desirable place to live or because the developing world has become a much nicer place to live, we're going to have a problem.

3. The number of "spiritual but not religious" people will be much higher. Mainline Protestantism will be more or less extinct, though perhaps some of those pretty Episcopal churches will be kept around for aesthetic purposes. As far as Christianity goes, the Roman Catholic Church and Evangelical Protestantism will be the only games in town.

4. I think the labor force participation rate will remain chronically low. The next several decades may be highly disruptive in the way that the 19th century was to agrarian workers who were put out of work by mechanized farming. There are a lot more tasks that can be performed by computer software. Hell, I read an article recently about a computer program that identified abnormalities in MRI scans with greater accuracy than human radiologists did. On one hand, that's wonderful - fewer people will die from undetected illnesses. On the other hand - where does that leave the radiologists?

You could either have a Marxist utopia realized by capitalist means - where man has been freed once and for all from sweat and toil and can pursue the higher pleasures of art, philosophy and self-actualization. Or you could have a hellish world where the unemployed masses are semi-placated by welfare and entertained by reality TV, pornography and legalized drugs, while a super-rich, transnational cosmopolitan elite with little to no allegiance to any nation-state live the high life in a handful of cities like Singapore, London and Dubai on the income they earn from the stock market and natural resources.

5. I think this century may mark the decline of the super-state. If, for example, the independence referendums in Scotland and Catalonia succeed, that could create a domino effect by giving larger credence to other separatist movements in Europe and around the world. Spain could more or less break up completely (if, say, Galicia and the Basque Republic become independent). China could find itself in a nasty civil war if its western provinces (particularly the Muslim areas) get tired of being exploited for natural resources by Shanghai and Guangzhou and try to break away. Saudia Arabia could break up into smaller states if the Saud family loses control.

[angus]

The huge gulf between the reasonably well off and the poor will widen.  The top 20%, or so, of the population will be informed and economically mobile, and the rest of the great unwashed masses will continue to see its collective lot worsen.  A small but significant portion of the population (~20%) will be well traveled and well educated.  The public school system will be in very sad shape, but fortunately those will not be attended by the 20% or so of the country that actually votes or concerns itself about such things as education.  There will be increased privatization of most services.  There will be stricter security and an even greater tendency toward resolving disputes through litigation than exists today.  Continued control of all facets of government by two corporate-backed political parties.  Continued world hegemony.  Most of the world will be watching American movies and eating American fast food and all developing nations will come to look more and more like the United States in their culture. Developed nations, erstwhile empires now defunct, will tighten their own borders and have stricter security as well, and will largely continue to support the expanding sphere of US influence, not out of any great respect for American culture, but out of fear that all alternatives are even worse.  Religion in America will still be exploited for political gain, but not to any greater or lesser extent than it is today.  

[King]

Disagree on abortion.  Pro-Life still has strong support among youth.  Abstinence-only education will go away, though.

[DemPGH]

Given current trends, the only one I might disagree with is #4, unless we alter our education system or unless we have a new labor movement. We are abnormally and unfortunately anti-labor, which has been a trend for some time (30 or so years), and we have a lot of educated people who settle for jobs beneath their levels of education. I don't see that that will change unless something more fundamental changes. I also see birth rates declining, kind of like what you see in Europe now. I think fewer people will have fewer children.

I see religion as all but a personal expression or a vague social function in fifty years and irrelevant in most quarters. Organized religion has always been about controlling the masses because the masses couldn't read or didn't know how things worked.

[Simfan34]

Probably more unpleasant in most ways but better in a select few.

[AggregateDemand]

We've reached the tipping point. We will make reforms, and life will get much better, or we will continue on the same path, which will require big sacrifices from everyone. I'm cautiously optimistic.

1. Diversity will increase because Democrats rely on people identifying themselves as minorities. In actual fact, mixed race will become much more common; therefore, Americans will be moving towards homogeneity.

2. If we still have a divisive bipartisan system, gay-rights, abortion, women's rights, racism, etc will be omnipresent. Democrats can't let it die. They have nothing without social conspiracy.

3. Religion will go down in flames, along with other secular arts like philosophy. Pseudo-science will wield even more power than it does today.

4. The economy could go either way. Ultimately, I think DC will stop representing the economic will of the electorate, and the bureaucracies will put us on a better path. But not until much international pressure and cajoling. The passing of the Baby Boomers will make things easier. If China has a hard landing, the US economy could take off.

5. US and China are on roughly equal footing. No one is particularly militarized, but everyone is under surveillance.

[Snowstalker Mk. II]

Hopefully we will have thrown off the chains of oppression by then.

[Person Man]

I think at current trends, the more pessimistic trends are correct. That is, that in the future there is no more middle class (or a much smaller one), where the same issues are argued today are argued tomorrow and where religious opinion is radicalized. However, I think that between then and now there will be a correction away from it. This trend has been happening since the Fall of Saigon or at least the Fall of Tehran, I just don't see a political trend continuing for 100 years. Though the era between the Civil War and Great Depression was very similar in some respects.