Post: #1

http://www.pbs.org/newshour/rundown/2014...-2050.html


BY: ASSOCIATED PRESS

What will life in America be like in 2050? Turns out 54 percent of participants in a recent survey expect it to go downhill, while only 23 percent think it will improve. Photo illustration by Sonja Dahlgren/Getty Images

WASHINGTON -- Ask people to imagine American life in 2050, and you'll get some dreary visions.

Whether they foresee runaway technology or runaway government, rampant poverty or vanishing morality, a majority of Americans predict a future worse than today.

Whites are particularly gloomy: Only 1 in 6 expects better times over the next four decades. Also notably pessimistic are middle-age and older people, those who earn midlevel incomes and Protestants, a new national poll finds.

"I really worry about my grandchildren, I do," says 74-year-old Penny Trusty of Rockville, Md., a retired software designer and grandmother of five. "I worry about the lowering of morals and the corruption and the confusion that's just raining down on them."

Even groups with comparatively sunny outlooks -- racial and ethnic minorities, the young and the nonreligious -- are much more likely to say things will be the same or get worse than to predict a brighter future.

"Changes will come, and some of them are scary," says Kelly Miller, 22, a freshly minted University of Minnesota sports management grad.

She looks forward to some wonderful things, like 3D printers creating organs for transplant patients. But Miller envisions Americans in 2050 blindly relying on robots and technology for everything from cooking dinner to managing their money.

"It's taking away our free choice and human thought," she says. "And there's potential for government to control and regulate what this artificial intelligence thinks."

Overall, 54 percent of those surveyed expect American life to go downhill, while 23 percent think it will improve, according to a December survey from the AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Only 21 percent predict life will stay about the same. That minority may be onto something, however.

While no one can say what catastrophes or human triumphs are to come, contentment at a personal level has proven remarkably stable over the past four decades.

Interviews by the federally funded General Social Survey, one of the nation's longest-running surveys of social trends, show Americans' overall happiness as well as satisfaction with their jobs and marriages barely fluctuating since 1972. Those decades spanned the sexual revolution and the women's rights movement, race riots and civil rights advances, the resignation of one president and impeachment of another, wars from Vietnam through Afghanistan, the birth of the home computer and the smartphone, boom times and hard times.

Despite the recent shift toward negativity about the state of the nation, the portion of U.S. residents rating themselves very or pretty happy stayed around 9 out of 10.

"Most people evaluate their lives very stably from year to year," said Tom W. Smith, who has been director since 1980 of the GSS, conducted by NORC at the University of Chicago. "You don't want massive surges and falls in personal happiness, and the fact that we don't see that is reassuring."

The GSS, conducted once every two years, will send interviewers back into the field in 2014. The AP-NORC Center survey asked people to rate the change in American life during the period tracked by the GSS, from 1972 to 2012.

A majority -- 54 percent -- say life in America is worse today than four decades ago. Those old enough to remember the early `70s are especially nostalgic, as are tea party supporters and people who live in the countryside. Those who say U.S. life has declined are more apt to name politics, the economy, moral values or changes in families as the biggest difference.

The 3 in 10 who think life is better are more likely to point to computers and technology as the big change. Racial and ethnic minorities are apt to cite domestic issues, including civil rights.

The GSS offers a look at the real-time changes in American opinion, along with things that have stayed the same, and hints for the future:

Equality

Some of the opinions voiced in the 1972 survey are rarely uttered today. Back then, nearly 4 in 10 nonblacks agreed with the idea that whites had the right to keep blacks "out of their neighborhoods." A quarter of nonblacks said they wouldn't vote for a black man for president, and 26 percent of all adults wouldn't back a well-qualified woman.

Now the president of the United States is black and a woman is the most-discussed prospect for 2016. The GSS dropped those three questions in the 1990s as results began to show they were no longer contentious.

La'Shon Callaway, a 19-year-old political science student at Stockton College in New Jersey, is optimistic that his generation will make the future brighter and that he'll see discrimination fade over his lifetime.

"People are getting tired of it, and fed up," said Callaway, who is black. "They're realizing even if you're not the same color as me, you're still a person and I'm still a person." As 2050 approaches, one central component of U.S. race relations will change: Non-Hispanic whites will no longer make up the majority of the population, according to Census Bureau projections.

Love and Family

In 1972, the sexual revolution was ablaze. That year the Supreme Court ruled that unmarried couples had a right to birth control. "The Joy of Sex" manual was published. And then there's "Maude," the sitcom character who shocked Americans by getting an abortion.

Still, a third of Americans back then disapproved of a woman working if she had a husband to support her. The GSS no longer bothers asking that one.

Americans today are more worried about divorce and the increasing number of never-married moms. Nearly 4 out of 10 women who gave birth in 2011 were unmarried, according to the census.

"It's very sad to me," says Christine Hicks, 57, of Nashville, Tenn., who divorced when her two children were teens. "It's really hard to be a parent when you're alone."

Despite the social turmoil, 98 percent of married people today say their union is happy, including two-thirds who are "very happy." And marital fidelity remains an ideal endorsed by nearly all Americans.

The political debate over abortion shows no signs of being resolved, more than 40 years after Roe vs. Wade. Young people today are somewhat more conservative on the issue than middle-aged Americans.

Gay marriage, on the other hand, appears headed toward future acceptance. Young people are solidly in favor, while opposition is strongest among the oldest Americans.

God

Through those decades of moral tumult, the vast majority of Americans held onto belief in God or some higher power. Fewer than 1 in 10 say there's no God or no way to know. Yet ties to organized religion are slipping.

Since 1972, the number of Americans who name no faith preference has quadrupled to 20 percent.

"Maybe it just means people are thinking for themselves and not following blindly," says Hicks, a Tennessee state worker and Methodist churchgoer. "But I do think the church gives families a foundation."

Money

Recession, a stock market crash, runaway inflation and an oil crisis marred the U.S. economy in the early 1970s. Forty years later, those look like the good times to many.

Before the Great Recession hit in 2007, most people consistently said their family finances were getting better instead of worse. That's not the case anymore. Americans are more likely to consider themselves "lower class" than ever in GSS history -- 8 percent say that.

"You read every day about 'no more middle class'," says Bill Hardy, 67, a Westerville, Ohio, investment adviser. "It's the poor versus the rich almost."

Whites are especially pessimistic about their prospects. Black and Hispanic optimism surged after Barack Obama became the first black president in 2008.

Overall, about half of Americans still believe their children will have a better standard of living than they do.

"I just think they're going to have to deal with a lot," Hardy, who is white, said of his grown children and three grandkids. "They'll deal with it. Kids today are very smart."

Associated Press reporter Connie Cass wrote this report. AP Director of Polling Jennifer Agiesta and AP News Survey Specialist Dennis Junius contributed. Follow Cass on Twitter @Conniecass.

Read more: AP-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research.

Post: #2

2050 is so far off that I don't take any predictions of it seriously. Could anyone in 1970 actually predict what life would be like today? They would have been wrong. There is so much that could happen that is unexpected that I don't worry about 2050.

Post: #3

Yeah, but in general I agree with the article.

As a gay, trannie, woman, you can do well in the US and expect a bright future.

If not, prepare to suffer and lose ground.

Post: #4

In 2050:




America's West Coast:




[attachment=16316]






America's East Coast:




[attachment=16318]





America's Midwest:




[attachment=16317]






White Christian American males:






[attachment=16319]

Post: #5

Damn straight aliblahblo

Theres something to be said about moving abroad to avoid that fate

Post: #6

Long term predictions about technology are usually flawed. Otherwise, we'd have seen the internet as we know it show up in sci-fi from 1950s.

Post: #7

(01-05-2014 12:09 PM)soup Wrote:  Long term predictions about technology are usually flawed. Otherwise, we'd have seen the internet as we know it show up in sci-fi from 1950s.

In the 50's and 60's, people probably thought 2014 would resemble something out of the Jetsons

Post: #8

Yup, people used to think technology was great. Now look at it: abortions and facebook have turned girls into wholesale whores.

Most men have been replaced out of their blue collar jobs by robots and automation.

Nowadays, you can't even tell you're dating a real woman with all the trans-whores out there.
I like Transformer robots in action movies, but I don't wann date a transformer, if ya know what I mean.

Post: #9

Here are some photos of what America will look like in 2050:

Post: #10

(01-05-2014 12:26 PM)GreenTobacco Wrote:  Nowadays, you can't even tell you're dating a real woman with all the trans-whores out there.
I like Transformer robots in action movies, but I don't wann date a transformer, if ya know what I mean.

Post: #11

Will never understand these doom pieces. Make the best of your situation and if it gets too bad you can always buy a plane ticket and bizounce!

I don't know any alpha male sitting at home waiting for the world to end. Go out there and give it your best and if shit really does hit the fan take your gun out and head to the nearest international border/airport.

Until then lets get back to work!

Post: #12

Typical Joe: Anti multiculturalism, pro military, small gubbmint, anti welfare, always hyping America's doom.

Then Typical Joe moves to...

SEA (where it's multicultural)
EE (where big gubbmint exists)
Western Europe (where "socialism", multiculturalism, and big gubbmint exist)
Latin America (plenty of welfare to go around)

Not to mention most developing countries have a heavy security apparatus.

Post: #13

(01-05-2014 11:51 AM)GreenTobacco Wrote:  Damn straight aliblahblo

Post: #14

(01-05-2014 12:43 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Make the best of your situation and buy a plane ticket and bizounce!

I don't know any alpha male sitting at home waiting for the world to end. lets get back to work!

Aye aye captain!
I'm a big fan of RooshV's work, and I'm already well on my way to following his lead.
I'll be out there in no time flat.


I'm working 6 days a week 12 hour shifts and saving every motherfucking penny.
6 more months and I'll reach my cash minimum to expat.

Once you make a decision, you go 100% at it.

Post: #15

I'm not gloomy... If I'm still living in the US 5 years from now, I'll deep fry my own dick and eat it with a sauerkraut topping.

Post: #16

Listening to the supply siders really paid off eh?

Post: #17

(01-05-2014 11:51 AM)GreenTobacco Wrote:  Damn straight aliblahblo

Theres something to be said about moving abroad to avoid that fate

All of those pictures were taken abroad.

Post: #18

Clearly, I am missing the point if all I want to do is figure out if the chick in the 4th pic in Texas prophets post is bangable. Lol just had to add the word bangable to my kindle's dictionary.

Post: #19

(01-05-2014 12:43 PM)WestCoast Wrote:  Will never understand these doom pieces.

Yeah. Remember Y2K? Every generation, going back thousands of years, talks about a looming apocalypse.

The forum didn't used to be dominated by political threads back when I first joined. It was mostly about game and travel then. When politics came up, people's views were pretty mild in comparison.

Look at this thread for instance. Pretty subdued for the most part and no presence of "red pill" or "alpha/beta" ideology. You could even say the forum was left of center at the time.

I think things started to change once Roosh started getting notoriety for his bang guides, particularly in the form of backlash from feminists and media outlets. This reached an apex when the SPLC put Roosh on its hate groups list. White knights began infiltrating the forum and I took a hiatus after a thread I created that involved a chick found its way to her via the white knight infiltrators. The forum then "took up arms" to help Roosh in his cause to retaliate against these forces, which led to an increase in the discussion of politics - and later culture wars - which helped the forum grow in popularity beyond its original niche of game and lifestyle guys. So we have a lot of new guys who have changed the tone of the forum because they joined it from the angle of politics first and foremost.

There used to be distinct fault lines between the Roosh and Heartiste communities, but those lines are becoming increasingly blurred IMO.

Post: #20

(01-05-2014 11:39 AM)Aliblahba Wrote:  In 2050"

Ok, let me test out my world knowledge.

First pic (west coast) is Doha, Qatar?

Second pic is somewhere in India?

Third pic is Mexico City?

Fourth pic is clearly one from the Holocaust.

Post: #21

^ haha

Hey I wonder how many bang guides Roosh would sell if all he did was talk about the culture and didn't tell you how to adjust your game? 0? Net loss? Lol

I just gave him a nice donation because the game style was pretty damn accurate. If all it did was explain how cold the country was I am pretty sure I would be pissed.

Everyone else can say things are going down the shitter.
I'll focus on getting richer.
Better than being bitter.

Don't get me wrong the USA has some shitty problems. Legal system, fat bitches, flip flops, more fatties, false rape Etc.

But what can I control? What can I do? How can I help?

The rest is just noise. I am not gonna stay at home scared to leave the house.

Post: #22

(01-05-2014 01:43 PM)samsamsam Wrote:  Clearly, I am missing the point if all I want to do is figure out if the chick in the 4th pic in Texas prophets post is bangable. Lol just had to add the word bangable to my kindle's dictionary.

No man, you're not missing the point -- you're the one who is on point here.

Good eye seeing that doorway bitch.

Her legs are a little bony but somehow the idea of getting sucked off by her in that bombed out house is fucking hot.

Post: #23

How can you guys be part of the demographic that owns most everything and that controls
just about everything and still feel like you're being persecuted?

Post: #24

Yeah samsamsam -- I'd take that slut back into the house and put her on her knees right there.

Post: #25