America 2050- We talk about future elections...but what will the stances be?
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  America 2050- We talk about future elections...but what will the stances be?
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Author Topic: America 2050- We talk about future elections...but what will the stances be?  (Read 13872 times)
Person Man
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« on: February 17, 2009, 01:03:28 AM »

Will we have the same party names in 2050? Will there be issues traded around? Will new issues arise or be recycled? What do you see?
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Lief 🗽
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« Reply #1 on: February 17, 2009, 01:16:44 AM »

Well, there will be two parties: the Democrats and the Robots. Humans will belong to the Democratic Party, self-replicating robot hordes will belong to the Robot Party.

The Robots will win every election.
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Josh/Devilman88
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« Reply #2 on: February 17, 2009, 11:50:02 AM »

I honestly don't think America will exist by than.

Thats funny. But anyways to answer the question at hand. Yes we will.
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Person Man
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« Reply #3 on: February 17, 2009, 12:13:49 PM »

Can someone actually discuss this thread...and Stark definately needs to stop being a dick. Tongue
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Daniel Z
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« Reply #4 on: February 17, 2009, 07:49:54 PM »

Democrats and Republicans are still the two main parties. Religious Social issues are no longer a major factor in campaigns, instead economic and foreign relation topics dominate political dialog. One of the parties is isolationist/protectionist (I'm guessing the Republicans) and the other supports free trade and greater involvement in world politics.
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Kevin
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« Reply #5 on: February 17, 2009, 08:04:53 PM »

Democrats and Republicans are still the two main parties. Religious Social issues are no longer a major factor in campaigns, instead economic and foreign relation topics dominate political dialog. One of the parties is isolationist/protectionist (I'm guessing the Republicans) and the other supports free trade and greater involvement in world politics.

With the ways trends are going I'd say it would be the other way around. I'll say it again the Republicans will be a much more liberterian although socially conversative party and the Democrats will be a much more Social Democratic then liberal party overall.
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Daniel Z
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« Reply #6 on: February 17, 2009, 08:14:12 PM »

Democrats and Republicans are still the two main parties. Religious Social issues are no longer a major factor in campaigns, instead economic and foreign relation topics dominate political dialog. One of the parties is isolationist/protectionist (I'm guessing the Republicans) and the other supports free trade and greater involvement in world politics.

With the ways trends are going I'd say it would be the other way around. I'll say it again the Republicans will be a much more liberterian although socially conversative party and the Democrats will be a much more Social Democratic then liberal party overall.

Could be. I personally think most of the important social issues of today are not going to play much of a role 40 years from now.
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Person Man
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« Reply #7 on: February 17, 2009, 11:08:46 PM »

I mean, there has to be new social and economic issues that emerge. Perhaps old ones will be recycled if our nation moves to the right.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #8 on: February 18, 2009, 04:13:30 PM »

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Yes, I agree.

I think that USA will evoluate to the left after Obama's presidency. Obama is a great politician, as great as Reagan. Reagan managed to destroy New Deal's Social-Democrat/Liberal coalition and build an ideological system based on the hate of federal government and a return to traditional values. Today, these ideology is strongly discredited by Irak war and economic crisis. Obama's words and acts are particularly audacious, and they could deeply change Americans mentalities.
In 2050, social issues will be totally inexistent, because they are old-fashionned. Abortion, homosexual civil unions... are necessary progresses. Economic issues will probably be preminent in the political debate. I think that Democrats are going to seem more to european social-democrat parties, promoting welfare state and reduction of inequalities, whereas Republicans will continue to advocate economical conservativism.
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Marokai Backbeat
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« Reply #9 on: February 18, 2009, 04:23:30 PM »

As much as I would love to imagine social issues not playing a significant role in 40 years, I'm far less optimistic. I think every generation likes to think we can move beyond backwards thought, but we never seem to.
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Antonio the Sixth
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« Reply #10 on: February 18, 2009, 05:04:05 PM »

Today, I can't be pessimistic : Nothing is impossible. Great progresses have been made between 1945 and 1980 : USA legalized abortion, death penality has even been briefly abolished... today civil unions are likely to be legalized in several states.
Reagan managed to stop the movement for 30 years, but this time is finished. I don't want to be arrogant, but I think that in this case USA should took European coutries as an example. Ultraconservatives have less influence here, and more social progresses have been made. Europe have for example abolished death penality ( France has not to be proud about that, we have been the last to do so ).
To conclude, I want to say : "Yes, we can !"
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Person Man
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« Reply #11 on: February 19, 2009, 12:12:34 PM »

Well, I am sure that there will be other, more assinine issues that the reactionaries will bring up after civil rights and biological rights become assured. Perhaps they will bring up letting free markets, rather than civil rights law, deal with those that have the mutation for genetic diseases. Perhaps Gattica will become the model of social conservatism by 2050.
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« Reply #12 on: February 19, 2009, 03:02:54 PM »

Iḿ going to have to say that the debt and the defecit will be fairly massive issues.
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Person Man
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« Reply #13 on: February 19, 2009, 05:12:15 PM »

Iḿ going to have to say that the debt and the defecit will be fairly massive issues.

Those are ALWAYS issues...and they will continue to be....people will say that they will work on them, but something comes along and makes working on the deficit quite impossible.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #14 on: February 20, 2009, 09:42:52 PM »

If the Republican Party goes into a death spiral by betting on an Obama failure and Obama succeeds spectacularly, then Obama might have built the ultimate Big Tent coalition that includes everyone for lack of alternatives. Such has happened twice in American history with the demise of the Federalists and the demise of the Whigs. In both cases the older Democratic Party became the only game in town, and because the political victories were won in primaries and state conventions, the Democratic Party became unwieldy. In both cases the Democratic Party split.

Regional differences in America remain strong -- about as clear as they are in, for example, Italy... or Britain (American political culture is very much a British import, and regional differences in America themselves reflect the cultural divides in Great Britain before 1776. Even where the population is very different from the original British (or in the case of greater New York, Dutch) settlers, later immigrants adapted early-American institutions to their own ends. Irish political machines operate much like the Puritan machines of New England; New York City has been a multi-ethnic community since it was the hick town of New Amsterdam.

The Republican Party has a non-negligible chance of dying. Its regional appeal seems to be shrinking. http://i.usatoday.net/news/TheOval/National-Journal-1-16-2009.pdf Not only must it live down culpability in the worst economic hardships since the Great Depression, but it also is associated with the corruption of the last GOP President.  Herbert Hoover had a moral compass and ran a squeaky-clean administration, which one cannot say of Dubya.

I predict that the Democratic Party will have split long before 2050 (perhaps around 2020), most likely along a line that exists in much of western Europe: a conservative party and a social-democratic party.
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Psychic Octopus
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« Reply #15 on: February 20, 2009, 09:48:35 PM »

Human Cloning may be an issue.... Completely unethical today, but who knows in the future.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #16 on: February 20, 2009, 10:15:50 PM »

Human Cloning may be an issue.... Completely unethical today, but who knows in the future.

I don't know how much of The Boys From Brazil (a brilliant but evil mad scientist modeled after Joseph Mengele clones duplicates of Adolf Hitler, arranges to have them be adopted by politically-conservative and authoritarian 53-year-old men who have 'accidents' at age 66 that leave their adopted sons without a father -- as was the case for Hitler) can ring true... but that's not how it would work. I think that the system would clone obedient, undemanding workhorses of people who would be perfect slaves at work and pliable supporters of a dictatorial order.

Human individuality is a virtue, and if there is to be any genetic engineering, then at least let it be to reduce the occurrence of such genetically-connected horrors as Tay-Sachs disease, MS, congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, diabetes mellitus, and certain forms of inheritable feeble-mindedness. If there is any connection of genetics to the sociopathic personality, then let genetic engineering work to eliminate that built-in moral hazard of tigers in human bodies.   
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Person Man
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« Reply #17 on: February 23, 2009, 12:19:14 PM »

Human Cloning may be an issue.... Completely unethical today, but who knows in the future.

I don't know how much of The Boys From Brazil (a brilliant but evil mad scientist modeled after Joseph Mengele clones duplicates of Adolf Hitler, arranges to have them be adopted by politically-conservative and authoritarian 53-year-old men who have 'accidents' at age 66 that leave their adopted sons without a father -- as was the case for Hitler) can ring true... but that's not how it would work. I think that the system would clone obedient, undemanding workhorses of people who would be perfect slaves at work and pliable supporters of a dictatorial order.

Human individuality is a virtue, and if there is to be any genetic engineering, then at least let it be to reduce the occurrence of such genetically-connected horrors as Tay-Sachs disease, MS, congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, diabetes mellitus, and certain forms of inheritable feeble-mindedness. If there is any connection of genetics to the sociopathic personality, then let genetic engineering work to eliminate that built-in moral hazard of tigers in human bodies.   

Yes. That's basically what should happen. There needs to be good regulation...really good regulation, where Human Rights are perserved and are not arbitrarily set to benefit a private and partial interest like what has happened with Human Rights in the past (i.e. the Anti-Abortion movement, the Pro-Abortion Rights movement...both sides of the slavery and labor rights movement). See the thread where Don trolled me and you will see that I have some idea of what could work and what wouldn't. The entire idea of "designer babies" isn't inherently a bad idea, so long as it is not made to discriminate against certain discrete and insular minorities and is not used to cause intentional disabilities in children and is publically funded, so as to perserve and develop more social mobility.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #18 on: February 23, 2009, 06:17:53 PM »

Human Cloning may be an issue.... Completely unethical today, but who knows in the future.

I don't know how much of The Boys From Brazil (a brilliant but evil mad scientist modeled after Joseph Mengele clones duplicates of Adolf Hitler, arranges to have them be adopted by politically-conservative and authoritarian 53-year-old men who have 'accidents' at age 66 that leave their adopted sons without a father -- as was the case for Hitler) can ring true... but that's not how it would work. I think that the system would clone obedient, undemanding workhorses of people who would be perfect slaves at work and pliable supporters of a dictatorial order.

Human individuality is a virtue, and if there is to be any genetic engineering, then at least let it be to reduce the occurrence of such genetically-connected horrors as Tay-Sachs disease, MS, congenital heart disease, cystic fibrosis, diabetes mellitus, and certain forms of inheritable feeble-mindedness. If there is any connection of genetics to the sociopathic personality, then let genetic engineering work to eliminate that built-in moral hazard of tigers in human bodies.   

Yes. That's basically what should happen. There needs to be good regulation...really good regulation, where Human Rights are perserved and are not arbitrarily set to benefit a private and partial interest like what has happened with Human Rights in the past (i.e. the Anti-Abortion movement, the Pro-Abortion Rights movement...both sides of the slavery and labor rights movement). See the thread where Don trolled me and you will see that I have some idea of what could work and what wouldn't. The entire idea of "designer babies" isn't inherently a bad idea, so long as it is not made to discriminate against certain discrete and insular minorities and is not used to cause intentional disabilities in children and is publically funded, so as to perserve and develop more social mobility.

Genetic engineering is an inevitability. Ideally it protects human individuality, and that is hardly inconsistent with the elimination of genetically-linked diseases. Such a disease as Tay-Sachs, Huntington's chorea, or cystic fibrosis erodes one's potential for self-expression. But if it is intended to offer a white child to black parents so that the child will never face the burdens of discrimination, then such reflects a fault in society best dealt with as such (discriminatory tendencies) instead of through genetic denial.


One danger is the potential for exploitation for either social engineering (the moral hazard of engineering people to fit into the ideals that some hierarchy sets, as in Huxley's Brave New World) or for commercial exploitation, as with some family trying to have a clone of Peyton Manning or Alex Rodriguez to ensure itself of a stream of fortune. That might be trickier if one wants a clone of Jimmy Stewart or Audrey Hepburn, as acting is a culturally-loaded activity. 
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Person Man
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« Reply #19 on: February 24, 2009, 12:13:01 PM »

That's a good start, but I do not want to preclude the abilities for parents to make sure that children get the optimal genes that their parents can naturally offer....this is the true way for individualism and social mobility. Allow children to carry all their family's best traits into the future...and be a good representative of that family- but it will be entirely from that family.
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pbrower2a
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« Reply #20 on: March 31, 2009, 06:14:14 PM »

On cloning for economic advantages:

What's wrong in allowing us to have people whose only chance at a living is to do menial work? We will still need people to do the store-clerking, the janitorial work, and the busing of tables.  We would do far better to improve the rewards for doing low-skilled but still-necessary work. We don't need to create a surfeit of surgeons, attorneys, software engineers, or particle physicists -- people who might be pushed into jobs at which they chafe because they have the "wrong" family connections.  Anyone who wants to avoid violent revolution needs remember what happens when talented people meet a political order such as Imperial Russia that has little use for them.

We don't need to breed the likes of Roger Clemens or Barry Bonds. One of either is enough... and I don't think either one of them particularly desirable people except for their talents at throwing or hitting baseballs.  To recreate either is to cheapen the original or make a mockery of an entertainment. (Tellingly, horse racing prohibits cloned horses, so there won't be an exact clone of Barbaro competing at a track near you).

Individuality is precious, and it allows expressions that might offer innovations. If I were to clone anyone for personal gain it would be Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But that would cheapen Mozart, wouldn't it? (The costly music lessons would pay for themselves very well, thank you!)
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Person Man
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« Reply #21 on: March 31, 2009, 10:34:05 PM »

Then again, this would only seem to be a problem now....but by 2050, many lower skill jobs will probably be automated. We already have supercomputers that already operate at the calculating power of 10 human brains. By 2050, we will have long since automated customer service, maintainece and already...the check out line at the Safeway is now run by computers.. Tongue
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Hillary 2016
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« Reply #22 on: August 02, 2009, 10:26:42 PM »

This is an interesting discussion.  To look at where we will be, let's look at where we were.  After all, history repeats itself over and over again.

Let's see, 2050 is 41 years away.  41 years ago, the year was tumultuous 1968.  The issues in 1968 were the war (Vietnam), the draft, law and order, and civil rights/busing.  None of those issues are really issues today.

In 2050, yes, the two parties will still be around, they are an entrenched part of our establishment.  I think that what will change is the diversity of our electorate.  I believe that health care will continue to always be an issue, as will taxes, the national debt, and trade.  If I had to guess, the issues of 2050 would be a lot more like the issues of 2009 than we'd all imagine them to be.
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Person Man
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« Reply #23 on: August 02, 2009, 11:10:08 PM »

...and yet probably unimaginably different. Truly, the more things change, the more they stay the same.

I will probably be wrong, but here we go-

Social Issues-
I think we will slowly find a common ground on abortion and gays that about 60% of Americans can agree on. We will probably privatize "marriage" by 2025ish and would have found some sort of administrative mechanism to deal with abortion at the same time. It will probably be pretty similiar to what happens in Israel and the UK today. I think the stem cell thing will continue to peter down and eventually evolve into what treatments should be allowed or funded by Medicaid.

1Designer Babies/ some form of Gattica or Gattica-lite
2Genetic Discrimination Protection
3Artificial Intelligence (Already there are social conservatives getting ready for this fight to ban it on the grounds that it either debases the traditional community or that it is sort of tantamount to an abortion in the same way that cloning is)
4Life Extension- views will range from adding any form of this to "forbidden knowledge" to wanting to fund technology that will allow any one person to live as long as they would like. Most Americans will probably take something in between- probably only allowing insurance companies to fund a procedure so many times and not allowing government funding of such research after a certain point)
5 Immigration- surprise?
6 Gun Control

Very unlikely-
Bioethics for ETs (out of the 20 scenarios for the future I run in my head, maybe 1 or 2 involve us being contact with aliens, though another "half dozen" (a conservative estimate), has us knowing whether or not there is some form of Life on Mars or Life on a thousand other planets.

Foreign Policy-
We may or may not be going through a cold war with either China, Brazil, some form of European Federal Government or perhaps even Russia, Iran or India. In fact...this "Cold War" could simply be in a multi-polar war between several continent-states by mid-century. Some differences between the 20th and 21st century could simply be that proxy-wars will happen a lot closer to home and that the threat of a global nuclear war will be placed with continental nuclear wars. Basically, 21st Century American Foreign policy could be a mix of 19th century and 20th century foreign policy.




Economic Issues-
1The Deficit- more likely than not
2Taxes
3Minimal Equity Laws (as the majority of jobs become automated, there will be fewer and fewer people "working" for a living and relying on the equity in their investments instead)- the debate will be whether or not all citizens should have...perhaps $150,000 ($18,000 in 2000 dolars) in equity at all times that they are entitled to and cannot be taken away unless they incurred heinous debt.
4 Industrial Subsidies to "Green" Industries
5 Industrial Subsidies to space colonization and exploration
6 Land Use/Global Warming (see above, actually)
7 Issues arising out of the selling of the Social Security System, such as regulation and mandatory account liability.
8 Issues arising out of the publicizing of the Health Care System.

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Vepres
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« Reply #24 on: August 02, 2009, 11:17:28 PM »

Cloning could be a big issue. I believe this will be one of the few issues where the conservatives will win in the long term (full human cloning is totally illegal).

Major issues include:
- The deficit and national debt.

- Funding for the now established Mars and Moon bases (though they're very small, five or six astronauts at a time).

- Renewable energy as oil is starting to become less common.

- National parks will be a big deal as the left advocates for the protection of natural areas while the right says it hinders development.

- Overpopulation is an issue, though not too urgent in the US. People are encouraged to have no more than two children, though there are no laws specifically dealing with it.

- Debate occurs over whether the house should be larger due to the higher population.

- China the equivalent of Japan nowadays, perhaps a bit more powerful economically, high tech and modern, though pollution is still an issue.

- Outsourcing of grunt IT jobs to Africa is a big issue. Africa is equivalent to India today.

- Should college be nearly free for all citizens who want a bachelors degree? This is a big question as a college education is all but required for one to get most decent middle-class jobs.

- The globe does warm somewhat, but not enough to have any major environmental effects. Both sides claim they are right.

- Privacy is a big issue as newer technology gives government and businesses the ability to know much about your life. Both parties favor strict privacy regulations, and most businesses respect it as does the government.

- Healthcare has advanced so much that many deadly diseases nowadays are now curable. Cancer is rarely lethal, with only the rarest forms such as pancreatic cancer being threatening.



Issues that will have disappeared or already been dealt with:

- The middle-east is now fairly stable, radical Islamic extremists are basically non-existent. Iraq is a stable nation, and very economically successful, and not just because of oil. Saudi Arabia is experiencing a deep recession as oil is used less and less around the world. Iran is a full fledged democracy, but growth is slow, as is Afghanistan.

- Israel has become a state where both the Israelis and the Palestinians have political power.

- Social security is non-existent at this point save a small department that provides help to the poorest of seniors.

- Al Queda slowly fades as the less extreme generation comes of age. It eventually disappears.

- Racism, sexism, and other forms of discrimination are all but non-existent. However, we have yet to have a female President despite a few candidates coming close.

- Newspapers are long gone. Issues from city hall to the capitol are now on the internet.

- Manufacturing jobs no longer exist due to advances in robotics.


Few other predictions:

- Computers have advanced significantly, though they still cannot compete with humans in a number of areas including inductive reasoning, creativity, and self communication. A computer simply cannot emulate anything close to human intelligence due to their inherent design.

- Space tourism is growing, though still mostly a rich persons industry. Space craft remain in space for a few hours then fly back to the ground.

- Economic powers include: USA, China, Japan, EU (though not as much as the others), and the urban parts of India.

- Potential rising economic powers are: Iraq, the Philippines, and a handful of African countries.

- Russia is in bad shape economically.
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