The results of this poll will speak more to the average age of planeteers than anything else.

Do they have to?

If we hit the point where robots can do the manufacturing, there won't be manufacturing jobs anywhere. But goods will be so cheap that we'll replace those jobs with poetry jobs and skateboarding jobs.

This ties in to my radical theory that I proposed a while back. We dream of a Jetsons world where machines do all the work and people live lives of leisure. There's going to be an order in which society moves down that path, and perhaps the order is not what we think.

An easy initial assumption is that the upper classes would enter the life of leisure first. They have more income or wealth to do so.

The truly rich have always lived lives of leisure, but perhaps the second group to enter that world is the unskilled. The skilled are needed to design the robots and machines (including the robots and machines that make robots and machines). The unskilled don't have a role. So they enter a life of leisure made possible by high incomes of the skilled and the cheap goods made by the robots. Their life of leisure may be at a lower standard than the skilled, but it's still a high standard of living by objective standards. They have big-screen TVs and smart phones and stuff.

Over time, as the required skill level increases and the need for even skilled labor decreases, the remaining workers make more and more money, and more people enter the leisure class. Those who don't work have a reasonable standard of living that improves over time as technology continues to develop, and they essentially become the new middle class. Those who still work have a very high standard of living.

In the end game, the technology becomes completely self-sufficient and no one works. They all just watch robo-TV and eat at robo-Chilis and play in bands on the weekends.

This is most certainly true.

I'd guess our peak was somewhere in the 60's as far as "empires" go...

That means we will all get fat like in that movie Wall-E. Omaha is going to hate that.

Historically, the US ranked in the top 15 of all nations in math and science scores of its youth. The year before NCLB the US ranked 18.

Today, 31st...and dropping.

Don't talk to me about my age if you cannot add.

Yeah, we're descending.

The math of the young folk these days is just fine.

They know exactly what the cost of a dime bag is.

:spock:

Do you enjoy paying your income taxes and health insurance premiums?

Something I say when I'm feeling like complaining about my lot in life:

"Well, I don't have it that bad. I shit in clean water."

Enjoyment isn't a way I would describe it.

I sure don't when I know that a chunk of each of them are going to fund the people who don't want to make any effort in life. If that means I'm selfish so be it then, I won't apologize for it.

I guess I am an optimist. I think we are improving every single decade, every single year, every single day.

I cannot think of a time in history where we have been in a better overall position than we are right now.- for the largest amount of people.

I think a lot of people do not have a concept of how much disparity there was in our past. Sure we had rich people and middle class, but we had vast swaths of abject poverty too.

We have brought the low end of our spectrum up, an I think that is an achievement that benefits us all. More and more segments of our society are now able to join the middle class and that benefits us all.

And I'm an old fat rich white guy.

That's hot.

And we are living in the golden age of craft beer availability.

Some people say they want to "take America back" Back to where and when?

I am not giving up my Espresso Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout!!!!

Be honest. It was the "rich" part, wasn't it?

Rich (like beauty) isn't nearly as attractive as charm.

Did I sound sincere? I typed that a few times in the mirror.

If true of all women, this is bad news. I at least have a fighting shot at being labeled rich.

You're probably rich - most of us are richer than we think. Our perception is a bit warped by the media.

I found this little Rich-o-meter on a Wall Street Journal blog: http://graphicsweb.wsj.com/documents/RICHMETER1107/
you can plug in either a salary or a net worth, and it will rank against the US data. ( I think the data is a few years old)

when I first saw this, I thought it couldn't be accurate- I mean - look at all the doctors everywhere and they should all be richer than I am. I googled it and doctors only make up 0.3% of the population. The 14 Walmart heirs have as much money as the bottom 40 million americans. That really warps the numbers.

and Katipan....I appreciate the flirt.:Pimp:

Hmm, so to be a 1%er, I need either a net worth of $8.4 million or an income of $507,000. Let me go count.

Don't forget to check under the couch cushions.

I'd wager that the results of this poll would have looked the same 100 years ago and would still look the same 100 years from now.

I would not bet against you. (and good to 'see' you. I am wiping out my yearly allotment of 25 posts in this thread tonight)

We haven't fully technologized (a word I just invented) our society yet.

We're getting there. I'd say we're 60-65 percent there. A lot of the old infrastructure needs to be replaced.

When we get to 100 percent, we'll experience a period of great success. Our society will be almost Utopian.

Then the decline will begin. Almost imperceptibly. Gradually. At some point it will all come crashing down. Perhaps because of war. Civil war, even.

It'll be cool.

I'm just glad your stick man can do jumping jacks.

Disagree. But that was the beginning of our ascent.

I'm guessing the next 50 years are going to be badass. About 2050 everything is going to be super ****ing awesome.

From 2050-2125 or so we will have reached the height of our success as a nation.

Then something really bad will happen. Probably some asshole with a super weapon or something, plunging us back into a dark age (relatively speaking).

I plan to die about 2075 so all good with me.

That's assuming we can't transfer human brains into robot bodies by then. If that happens I'm sticking around as a cyborg.

Don't forget lazy and fat. Too lazy to turn on car blinkers or they're selfishly holding their cell phone.
Fat because they're too lazy to cook a healthy meal so they eat the cheap, horribly unhealthy fast food.

Lazy, fat and selfish will get you zero military defense. It'll be easy overtaking those attractive bunch of individuals. Just show them a McDonald's menu.

"Mission: Readiness' report, "Too Fat to Fight," said that 75 percent of young Americans between the ages of 17 to 24 do not qualify for the military because of failure to graduate [from high school], criminal records or physical problems. The study cited Department of Defense and health data."

http://www.cnn.com/2010/HEALTH/04/20...ary.fat.fight/ sorry if Q

Eventually technology and the health care industry will invent a simple, cheap way for everyone to be really fit all the time.

Depending on how the political landscape changes, liberals may legislate fast food out of existence.

LMAO

That doesn't mean shit. Survival of the fittest.

Frankly, the herd needs culling.

Soylent Green then eh? :)

I'm guessing eventually we'll have things like 10-calorie slices of chocolate cake.

Going to be an awesome time to be alive.

You forgot magically delicious.

Or a negative-calorie cake. That way you can eat a burger and fries and then neutralize it with cake. We need to work on that.

So far society has aped Star Trek technology decades before it was actually supposed to be realized.

I'm pretty confident before I die a computer will be materializing 10-calorie slices of chocolate cake before me.

Of course, because people won't eat every meal from the replicators. Restaurants offering "traditional" food will be incredibly popularized during this golden age. They'll be very trendy, with hipsters claiming "it just tastes better," or "I have replicator food allergies," or "**** THE FAKE FOOD INDUSTRY."

A burger and fries "like your mom made" in 2099 will cost $500.

All we need is a president to declare it a national priority and it'll be like Truman and all those extra planes we weren't supposed to be able to build.

But probably not this president.

Beam me up Baggins!

I bet Chris Christie could win the election with this as his platform. He's exactly the man who could lead this from dream to reality.

Can we work on zero calorie alcohol first?

Politically, I think it would be easier to build a movement around ending childhood obesity with the cake thing.

Cue Rob Ford's platform.

Replicator food will, of course, be linked to cancer.

LMAOLMAOLMAO

Lets see,

Rise of corporations controlling interests of the country. Effecting politicians to increase profit stream. Too big to fail bailout companies. Erosion of constitutional rights.

American businesses selling out to overseas companies for quick profits. Technology boom, which while nice, each tech generation will lessen people powered workforce. In turn fewer jobs with increasing population.

Building a dependent lower class on the government that is now generations deep and proud of it.

For profit colleges.

Now, the Y generation did not build it. But I do not see them as the group to stop it.

Riding horses might be kinda dope, actually.

Pretty soon only the wealthy will be able to afford water.

Hopefully by then cancer will be reduced down to a seasonal sickness that can be treated and cured in no time... one can only dream.

I'm solidly in the top half or the optimism spectrum on this poll, but...

* Our Seniors in Civil Engineering are working on a capstone project that would bring reliable safe drinking water to a community, but they would still have to drive to the treatment plant to truck water to their homes. In other words, even after a major upgrade to their water system, they still would not have clean running water in their homes.

* The bottom 15% of Americans only have health care in the life and death situations or when they can get access to free/subsidized health care. 45 million Americans.

* We are importing our scientific and engineering brain power. Native-born Americans make up an increasingly smaller share of the students in graduate programs in science and engineering. Our K-12 educational system has been lagging behind for decades. That just isn't going to lead to a world leading economy in the long term.

* There will never again be opportunity for the average unskilled, an uneducated American to support above the poverty line. We have a metric shit ton of these people. The poverty line for a family of 4 is around $23K, while the median individual income is around $27K. When grouped into households, 15% are below the poverty line for this $23K benchmark.

This is ChiefsPlanet. Of course, the sky is falling.

Look at the last two items on cdcox's list. This isn't a stereotypical CP worry here...

My post was in jest of the OP and nothing more.