A quick poll about the future of American Civilization.
 

The Gen Y thread got me wondering.

Where do you think America is in its life cycle? Are we ascending? Are we on the downside? What is our long-term trajectory as a civilization?

Poll to follow unless the Visigoths storm the walls before I can post it.

in b 4 visigoths

Your view of ascending may differ from others.

Dammit. Horse was late.

http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-iBn1wjjdAM...Small%2529.JPG

What's your definition?


I'm an optimist. I think American civilization is still on an upward path at a steady state. Our science is gamebreaking on a technology and science front, and our culture and language are winning on an international front. It probably wouldn't hurt to solve our fiscal, energy, and obesity problems, but those solutions will come.

I think we're babies with a long way to go. I don't think you can get there without loads of experience and lots of mistakes. I think there will be a generation that looks back on these years with a lot of head shaking and patient smiles.

I'm not sure why the second poll option ends in a question mark. It's either a subconscious revelation on my part or a typo. I think it's a typo.

Visigoths?

Stable, but on the cusp of trending downward.


Not enough people believe in the principles the nation was founded on, and a good many others attack these principles on a normal basis.

We're too far west for Ostrogoths.

America is probably declining in terms of geopolitical influence, but I'm not sure if that's really the best way to judge a civilization. If we're all riding horses again in 50 years, I'll say we declined.

Depends on who you ask. Old bitter white guys will certainly tell you that this country is in steep decline. Everyone else will probably say it's ascending.

(Que Prison Bitch with his comments on gays and dems)

LMAO

US govt is in cahoots with the aliens, we will never be defeated

aka, the Gaz option

I think of it as using technology, yes. But also getting back to our roots. Getting more in tune with each other and everything around us. We completely lost touch, and I think it's slowly creeping back.

You know, all that new age bullshit.

Fat

Frazod

I think America's prominence in the world is on the decline, and I expect that trend to continue as other world economies (primarily China) continue to grow.

However, I think the quality of life in this country continues to improve and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. And really, that's the important part.

Balancing those two, I went with "We're in a stable state and likely won't decline."

Too much dead weight to be sustainable.

I see the US as declining. Back post WW-II single wage earners raised a family on one paycheck and family values/ right/wrong were taught in the home. As the economy has over the past 50 years gotten to where it takes 2 paychecks to be even close to the same standard of living, kids are now learning morals, respect, behavior, etc. that should be taught in a stable home everywhere but at home. I feel sorry for today's kids who are going to be saddled the entitlement debt that today's politicians are giving out to buy election/re-election and the inter-generational grief coming when the young folks quit paying the IOU's to old folks.

I'll give my opinion about America, when I get back from vacationing in Detroit

I have to be completely honest here. I'm an old guy and seems like everyday I'm reminded that this is NOT the country I grew up in. Things change and I understand that. However, and it's only my opinion, but as Richard Pryor once said, "Shit rolling downhill fast now!"

And this.

The bread is running out... and the circuses bore me.

Definitely nearing the end.

this

We are #70 in healthcare in the world. We are way past descending.

http://talkingpointsmemo.com/livewir...nger-democracy

Princeton Study: U.S. No Longer An Actual Democracy, but an Oligarchy.

Yeah, Descending. WAYYYY Descending.

Doesn't matter. God will end us with a meteor soon

/Pat Robertson
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My grandparents raised a middle class family on a single blue collar income, including OWNING a house and land, and retirement, plus some.


Cant be done now.

Peak-aboo

Our science is no doubt two generations ahead of the competition at this point, from jet fighters to space craft to telephones yes, we still rule.

Our IDEALS, where we intend to go, what we intend to uphold, WHO we intend to be in the modern world... that's a whole nother ballgame, America is losing the moral high ground with each passing day, IMO.

Gay bashers and religion haters aside... ascending to what?

Sounds like a teenager to me.

Sounds like the chewy taste of truth to me.

America is starting to believe its own hype, like Pete Carroll writ way large IMO, its time to recognize that while our national charter is and always will be the world ideal... we don't always hold to our own "deeply held" values.

I still choose America over the others, but we need to be held to our own standards these days, IMO.

The issue with these types of statements is that they ignore that our perceptions about what a quality life is have changed dramatically compared to the "good old days". Cut the average house size in half, fix your own car, stop eating out, grow food in a garden, get rid of cable, internet, etc., and it wouldn't be as hard as you'd think. Sure, you'd be bored out of your mind, but people used to be perfectly content with sitting around and telling stories and reading books for entertainment.

It also ignores the fact that (I'm assuming) you're talking about a middle-class white family. I think you'd be hard pressed to find many minority families who would agree that life was better back then than it is now.

I think we're descending slightly but will get our heads out of our asses in 20 years or so and start turning it around.

So, just be cool with an upcoming austerity program for the most industrious nation on earth, DaFace?

Not trying to be a smart alice, just wondering why one of the worlds true superpowers, and one of its honest to God most hardworking as far as hours per week and standards that are expected to be met, why are we expected to just "deal with it".

This nations tax dollars, compiled by the worlds most exacting tax system that ensures everyone pays their share (LOL), this nation that gives more to every disaster around the world by a factor of 10... why should we just suffer through the loss of jobs that helped make us strong in the first place?

We give and give and give... yet when this nation needs help its just "welp, time to tighten your belts John Boy", make due with beans and pigs feet 7 days a week like my grandparents did in the depression?

Its globalism and I'm tired of it, a lot of other people are as well... America seems to have become a big fat titty to suck on.

YOU SHUT THE HELL UP AND GET OFF MY DAMN LAWN

I think we are stable, but a great symbol of the current state of the health of the economy of the US can be seen in the rebuilding of ground zero in NYC. It's been 13 years since 9/11 and they still haven't got any of the large towers open yet, and two of the towers proposed have been pushed back/postponed in construction due to the lack of anchor tenants. I think it says everything about what is going on in the US right now.

Broke and divided about the right path forward, yeah that sound right, GG.

Jet fighters don't mean much in the world of ballistic missiles and nukes. Our space program has ground to a complete halt, to where we are 'farming out' the launching of our astronauts to other national space programs. Most android phones are from foreign manufacturers, and the iPhone is only designed in the US, but build across the Pacific. How is this ruling?

Its a fringe subject and I wont bother this thread with it GG, but I'm not convinced we don't have manned/unmanned, advanced propulsion craft already ruling the hell out of nearby space.

America has nukes and two oceans for defense so I wouldn't worry about being invaded.

We are on a slow decline that could be reversed if we have the government step back and start undoing the chains it has been put on the productive impulses of the citizenry.

We aren't going to go out with a bang like the European powers with two World Wars but probably slide into the position that the UK, France, and Germany are in now. Still a power but not a superpower.

Well said.

I dnt know where were headed, But if in 2016 the American people are stuck with voting for another Bush or Clinton. I say **** it & declare the winner king or queen & be done with it.

JFC

We are constantly making medical and technological breakthroughs. We can travel anywhere on the Earth within a short amount of time, and communicate through many different means with nearly anyone on the world. We are living longer and under better conditions than any previous generations.




Declining? GMAFB

Read Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire. Many of the same things that befell the Romans have happened to the United States. The United States will continue to exist, but much like the British Empire in the 20th century, it's preeminence on the world stage will not

Currently 2 people have voted for "I don't really following the grand sweep of history"
Since it's out of 94 votes, I guess the future of American Civilization is not that bad off?

(the question mark is a typo)

we have to end apartheid, for one,

slow down the nuclear arms race, stop terrorism and world hunger.

We have to provide food and shelter for the homeless...

and oppose racial discrimination and promote civil rights,

while also promoting equal rights for women.

We have to encourage a return...

to traditional moral values.

Most importantly,

we have to promote general social concern...

and less materialism in young people.

This is something that has always baffled me. I believe that moral values have remained constant throughout history.


It seems worse now because nothing is private anymore. Info travels quickly.

My Grandpa never used to hear about High School shootings back in the 30's 'cause they didn't have facebook.

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I don't know about that. I hear a lot about us running out of resources and how our middle class and poor are living worse than ever before from people that aren't old and white.

I think a general answer is if your guy is President we're ascending.
If the other party's guy is President we're on the brink of disaster.

Which is evidence why we're trending downward.

Neither party will cooperate with the other because cable TV and internet discussion boards have equated compromise with the domestic equivalent of Quisling-esque appeasement.

No, the average Republican doesn't want women foot-bound and pregnant in the kitchen whilst advocating the euthanization of every children thought not to like the opposite gender or bearing dark skin.

No, the average Democrat isn't going to take your guns, car and home to give to drug addicts for the sake of fairness and isn't ready to take a coat hanger to any woman who expresses the smallest doubt about being a mother.

Yet that's how each side views its opposite in the political arena -Americans equate everything that doesn't jive perfectly with how the country should be run as an active attempt to destroy the system. Philosophically everyone wants the same goal: a better lives for themselves and their neighbors, but, by the same token, everyone has a different idea about how to go achieving that goal.

Yaa,when they work together, we get screwed even harder. I love gridlock

What about the massacres in Sri Lanka? Doesn't that affect us too? Do you know anything about Sri Lanka?

I'm glad I'm not the only one who sits around and thinks about this stuff.

I think there are a lot of facets to this debate, technologically we have an upward trajectory that is ridiculously awesome, but I have a hard time equating that with success as a civilization so much as our point in the timeline which inevitably moves upward as time moves along. I think success as a civilization has more to do with quality of life than being THE superpower, so even though the US has declined in it's global power to a certain degree it hasn't changed enough to really impact QOL quotient too much. Obviously if the US changes into 3rd world status etc etc this will no longer hold true.

Whether we are trending up or down is beyond my scope of understanding, but I do know what really makes me sad about our society.

What the hell happened to food being central to our community and our family structure?? Breaking bread, raising crops, community food gatherings, all these things have been central parts of human culture since the dawn of civilization. Now it seems it has become something that nobody has time for, and the food comes through the car window while we run along to "more important" things. I think the lack of spending time as families together at the dinner table is probably the biggest cause of our cultural degradation by a long shot. If it were to make a comeback we would see lot less domestic dispute, crime, and drug abuse.

Just my two cents.
Part of the reason why I love this board so much is to see everyone talk about what they made for dinner last night, or how awesome KC BBQ is, or of course entire threads dedicated to tacos!

History repeats itself every couple generations. The country was headed towards the shitter in the 30's. Bread lines, unemployment, suicides etc. Then Pearl Harbor came on along and we pulled our heads out if our asses.

Let's see what happens here in the next few years. What's our natl. debt now? I'm sure the White House is checking the caller ID whenever the phone rings around dinner time.

Well I'm certainly praying for an upward swing!

It's kinda funny to me, to see what the US has created and how people perceive it. We've created a nation with one of the highest standards of living in the world. Where the overwhelming majority never actually experiences true poverty or hunger. A nation where those in "Poverty" still own such pleasures as cars, TVs with hundreds of channels, Xbox/PS3, smartphones, etc. A nation where everyone has health care no matter what. We have systems to care for others who cannot care for themselves.

There's very little actual poverty in America. Not true poverty. Those in poverty in America live like royalty compared to some other parts of the world. Yet all we ever hear is people bitching about other Americans getting things they don't think those other people deserve. You hear more bitching of that type these days, than you hear about what we don't have. Yet we don't stop and think about what a good thing it is that Americans don't have to bitch about having unclean drinking water, or moldy and rotten food, or lack of electricity, or no health care at all, or actual real government oppression.

Nope, we sit here on our thrones, and type into our smartphones that have internet access nearly everywhere we go, while enjoying a diversity of cheap food, clean water, organized infrastructure, etc. While bitching about poor people getting a couple hundred dollars worth of free food.

America has become a nation of selfish unappreciative assholes who bitch all day while never realizing how easy of a life they live compared with much of the rest of the world.

Solid post. Would read again.

:thumbsup:

Oh well.

I voter "We peaked in the last two or three generations, and we're descending.". I think it could start ascending soon, but if the stupid government doubles the H1Bs that will all but destroy what is left of the middle class and it will descend further.

I think we peaked a few generations ago.

I'm part of this new generation mind you, in my mid-twenties, but I'm constantly blown away by how entitled they are. They want and want, but don't want to work to get where they're going.


That piss-poor work ethic, combined with this cynical attitude towards everything makes me think that it's just a matter of time before we're England.

But then again, we didn't start the fire, so who knows.

I am optimistic. I think we are ascending. For how long? Who knows?
Eventually ,Entropy, the universal tendency toward disorder, disorganization, disintegration and chaos will occur.
All organized systems tend to disorganize and all great civilizations eventually fall apart.
We will not be immune from this.

I agree with a lot of that. I realize this is bringing DC over here, but if you're in DC and read posters like loneiguana you'd think we're a 3rd world nation.

A friend got back from a 2 year stay in Kenya a few months ago, and hearing the stories is not only proof of all of this, it's like time travel... corporal punishment, the lack of respect for women, makeshift schools with lazy and often absent teachers, 20 mile trips that can take 2+ hours one way, needing to be extra productive before the electricity goes out, washing clothes in buckets.


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How is it selfish to be upset that people are being handed the same things that the rest of us work for?

Pretty much this.

Killed it. I'd rep you, but **** you, you have enough of it already.

How does that not fit the definition?

selfish

1.(of a person, action, or motive) lacking consideration for others; concerned chiefly with one's own personal profit or pleasure.

I think the discussion about standard of living is quite interesting, because I agree that we take our rather phenomenal standard of living for granted. As a nation, we've pretty much nailed the part about what we need to live, and now our focus is on living well.

Standard of living is just one measure of ascendancy or decline, though it's an important one. I've read some stuff in the past about whether each generation is doing better than their parents, and some of the recent stuff puts the modern generation behind their parents in measures like home ownership and debt. I'll acknowledge that, but it also seems like homes are larger and toys are better and all sorts of other things are better. It would be hard to convince me that we're not still ascending as a society in that respect, with no particular crest in sight.

A key will be to not screw it up. How much of our ascendancy is the result of big deficit spending that's going to blow up at some point? How much of it is a fluke of the World War II destruction of other industrialized nations? How much of it is ingrained in the American system of government and economy?

I'm now wondering how you measure the ascendancy/decline of a civilization. I would offer a few measures off the top of my head. Anyone else got any suggestions?

1. Standard of living of the middle class in absolute terms (not relative to other classes or nations).
2. Standard of living of the poorest 5% in absolute terms (not relative to other classes or nations).
3. Maybe it's part of 1 and 2, but the cost and reliability of infrastructure - transportation, communication, sanitation, energy, etc.
4. Discovery - Is the civilization finding new resources to exploit, whether it's technology or land or something else?
5. Art and creativity - is there a sustained tolerance and appreciation of creativity?
6. Morale - are people optimistic about the future and wanting to contribute to it?
7. Life span - Maybe it's part of 1 and 2, but are people living long and healthy lives?

What else?

I will be pleased to see the current version of the U.S. fail spectacularly. Greatest blueprint ever, but we let the contractors become corrupt.

Quality of the prOn

Socially: We are nearing our peak. I think as we keep angling toward more inclusion in most discussions, many of the issues of bigotry and rancor for the sake of rancor will diminish. It will never completely disappear, and there will be high and low tides, but I think we are inching toward a plateau.

Technologically/ intelligence: We are nowhere near our peak, and we aren't even really at a place where we can imagine what that peak is going to look like. Education is ever-changing, and many of the changes are just running in place, but there have been, even over the past 10 years, some monumental advances in how we educate, and I think we will continue to do better, which means better products to make the tomorrows more advanced.

Governmentally: There is no such thing as a perfect economic/governing system. There will always be flaws. I don't know if we are ascending our descending, but we will keep experimenting and trying and wiping the slate clean and starting over, IMO, for the rest of human existence.

What about the decline of manufacturing jobs..... Will they ever come back to the United States?