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| Thread: 3 Main Challenges in 2050 |  This thread is pages long: 1 2 · NEXT» |
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bLiZzArdbOY
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posted December 21, 2010 06:18 PM |
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3 Main Challenges in 2050
What do you think will be the biggest 3 challenges in the world in 2050? In what ways do you think they can be somewhat avoided or overcome?
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Binabik
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posted December 21, 2010 08:53 PM |
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Off the top of my head:
1) Overpopulation (with resulting environmental concerns and depletion of resources/land/water)
2) Out of control oppressive governments
3) Control and ethics surrounding technology
1) I think the first one is BY FAR the biggest problem facing us today and into the future. In my life I've watched the population more than double, and in another 8-10 years it will be triple. We are raping this earth and it's getting worse at an alarming rate. I've not only seen how it's progressed on television, but I've traveled fairly extensively in North America and seen it first hand over several decades. If it's not brought under control, and done soon, I picture a future earth that looks more like a barren moonscape than a green planet. I don't see it being to that point by 2050, but it damn well better be brought under control before then.
2) Won't give much detail here. I'll just say that I believe very strongly that we need to get away from centralized governments and go back to localized governments. As above, much of this view is due to watching how things progress over time. This is also related to #1, or maybe I should say a partial result of #1.
3) The growth of technology has been so fast in recent decades that we have not taken the time to absorb it into society and discern the effects it's having. I find the idea that "we'll deal with it when the time comes" to be extremely dangerous and irresponsible. One example is that nobody has seriously considered the ethics surrounding the ability to keep people alive almost indefinitely (and I can EASILY see getting to that point before 2050). At the same time we have the ability to keep people alive, I see the role of technology also having serious negative health consequences, especially due to lack of exercise and poor diet (which I expect to get worse due to #1) I could go into lots of detail on #3, but won't.
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baklava
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posted December 22, 2010 02:47 AM |
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Well, I suppose all the Christians in Scandistan and the rest of the EU might still be a pressing issue.
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xerox
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posted December 22, 2010 03:17 AM |
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In no particular order.
1) Overpopulation
- Agree with this. It leads to a lot of problems with enviroment, economy and rescourses et cetera.
2) Enviroment
- Enviroment is already down down down. Like now it seems like oil from BP has disturbed the Gulf stream meaning that in Sweden atleast, we have the coldest winter in over 100 years...
3) Nukes & new technology
- There is no limit to what we can discover and invent. Our curiousity could be the death of us (note: Stole this quote from WoW xD). Obviously there will eventually come a weapon far more destructive than a nuke and that could make the world go boom.
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blizzardboy
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posted December 22, 2010 03:24 AM |
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I agree with Xerox on all three.
I hate my life.
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Elodin
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posted December 22, 2010 03:29 AM |
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1) "Radical" Islam
2) Rogue nuclear powers
3) Liberalism
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Trogdor
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posted December 22, 2010 08:19 AM |
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1) China
I'm still unsure whether or not they will still be an economic superpower or what government they will have. Hopefully they can have more social and political freedoms than they have now.
2) The environment
2050 will be the most defining year in regards to our global climate. Will we have done enough to prevent global warming, or will the problem just get worse?
3) Nuclear warfare
Iran has nukes and so does North Korea, the two nations being our biggest concern when it comes to nukes.
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wog_edn
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posted December 22, 2010 01:16 PM |
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1. Religion
2. Overpopulation
3. Superweapons in terrorist hands
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Darkshadow
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posted December 22, 2010 01:19 PM |
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1)
How do we get rid of all the fallout from global nuclear warfare.
2)
How do we bring ANY sort of life back to earth
3)
How do we stop the event repeating itself
That is all.
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del_diablo
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posted December 22, 2010 02:00 PM |
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1) Political hedonism and decay, it coming people, and it will either be solved or be hell in 2050 for most of the world.
2) United nations inability to do anything, international organizations with inability to act and when they do they usually attempt to strangle some industry with their small underdeveloped hands.
3) Capitalistic economic bubble......... There exists no reason for any country to make a system that will collapse on itself given enough time, especially if a country of a bunch of countries is large enough in global trade to be able to hurt the global economy if parts of their economy collapses for a short while. I doubt we will change our economic system for something more reasonable within just a few short 40 years, but it will need to be done.
The option is to do a trying and failing of regulations that may or may not hurt the marked when being tested.....
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Raelag84
Famous Hero
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posted December 22, 2010 11:42 PM |
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I don't know what the biggest challenges of the future are, but may I propose solutions to the problems other people bring up? Would anyone mind?
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del_diablo
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posted December 23, 2010 01:00 AM |
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^: Feel free to propose solutions, this is a civil debate forum after all 
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wog_edn
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posted December 23, 2010 01:02 AM |
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Oh DS, you're such a positive person 
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Raelag84
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posted December 24, 2010 12:31 AM |
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Edited by Raelag84 at 00:32, 24 Dec 2010.
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First lets address population growth. It is by no means assured that population growth is going to contiue to blast out of control by 2050. Just look at these projections http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
It may very well be that the population problem will solve its self as people just up and decide on their own without prompting to have less kids. Even so 7 billion people is a lot to feed so we still have some reason to worry. Lukly for us there are solutions.
Sometimes people have kids so someone will take care of them when they are older, so if you have programs to help the elderly then they will not need to have as many kids.
Sometimes farmers will have lots of kids to help tend to the farm. So if you can increase per person agricultral production you can make it so there is less farmers haveing lots of kids.
The best way to limit population growth however is to encorage women's liberation. If women are oppressed then mother's will have to keep having kids until they get at least one boy to help take care of the family. Furthermore if women are opprssed there is only one occupation they can hope to gain; homemaker. If on the other hand a woman can get a job outside the home she will choose to have less children or even no children so she can gain employment.
I have other solutions to other problems but for now lets mull over this one. Some of my other solutions are quite radical and belong more in my "crazy ideas" thread more than anywhere else.
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baklava
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posted December 24, 2010 12:34 AM |
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Give us the crazies.
They'll probably make more sense.
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"Let me tell you what the blues
is. When you ain't got no
money,
you got the blues."
Howlin Wolf
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Doomforge
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posted December 24, 2010 11:03 AM |
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And what can we do with overpopulation? Obviously we can't "control" the pop with guns or other eradication methods. We can't sterilize people at birth (even though I'd call it tempting, lol) because people consider right to have kids a "sacred" right that can't be messed with. The medicine is strong enough to prevent illness (the natural overpopulation control of nature) from doing the job. What's left? waiting until Earth is overpopulated so much it's destroyed entirely and the remaining hordes kill each other with bare hands or eat each other to survive and get a piece of land and food?
Honestly, I have no idea. Just don't start with "space exploration", right now it seems impossible. And impossible ideas don't count.
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del_diablo
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posted December 24, 2010 01:57 PM |
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Quote:
First lets address population growth. It is by no means assured that population growth is going to contiue to blast out of control by 2050. Just look at these projections http://www.un.org/esa/population/publications/longrange2/WorldPop2300final.pdf
There is 1 stark problem with that, I skimmed the 50 first pages, it still does not mention why would India and parts of Africa stop in their population growth.
In these 2 areas there are STARK economical difference, and the arvage condition is quite grim for the slum. From a something of a [url=http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1805596.ece]quick google
, there are currently 70 million people in India in the slums, but I think the rate is actually higher.
http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/0/03/India_population_density_map_en.svg Still could support my claim.
Population of the "civilized" world where infrastructure and proper healthcare is at ready service, has for the most already stagnated, but I don't see WHY is india and parts of south africa going to stop?!
If the population growth stops because people are dieing of starvation, then we ironically HAVE reached the point where we are over the growth cap, it is just that it won't actually affect us normal people in the mostly western world.
Doomforge: China avoided creation of massive slums by banning immigration towards cities during Maos reign. Sure it caused problems and random people was thrown out of their homes once in a while, but at a larger scale it solved their slum problem, it was never created like it happened else in the world. Poverty is still rampant in China, but the avoided a base problem.
Enforcing birth control in countries like India would result in a STOP in the massive population growth, regardless of unhappy the people may or may not be with it.
On the other hand, it will cause some misery, but since nobody proposed a better solution we should not care about that. Some problems needs to be solved.
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Raelag84
Famous Hero
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posted December 25, 2010 12:01 AM |
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Quote:
Give us the crazies.
They'll probably make more sense.
Lol! In due time my friend.
Though overpopulation is a problem I know for a fact it is not insurmoutable because people in Japan, American, and much of Europe have exprienced slowed population growth overtime; no China one child policy needed.
As for India I can tell you why it would experince slowler population growth. India has been exprience increased industralzation leading to fewer farmers. More importantly women have been playing an increased role in the work force giving them options besides punching out children for a living.
As specific policy solutions; the best thing we can do to decrease population growth, especialy in India is to teach women to read.
Behold' this study says many thing about the plight of illitrate women in India, one of them being that they have increased fertilty rates. http://www.census.gov/ipc/prod/wid-9801.pdf
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del_diablo
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posted December 25, 2010 12:50 AM |
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 You got me!
Then I will join the good cause <3
Xerox: If humanity nuke itself, we would still survive. To wipe ourself out, we would need a planetcracking weapon: capable of wiping out even the deepest buried bunkers. Loss of techology and civilisation along with history? Sure, but it won't be a issue since we could always rebuild. We would likely reach the space age before we get access to weapons capable of destroying planets, unless there is a sad breakthrough. So I doubt that will be a problem.
I agree on Elodin on "fanatical" Islam, I assume he means so. They will be a problem until they are left alone long enough for they to collapse, but since some of them are sitting near Nuclear powers and there is the eternal diplomatic war.... I wonder how long it will take.
Pakistan 1950 was going straight towards secularization until the Cold war came, and then we got a regime. A regime will stay atop until the get either lax, or the people realize how bad things is, and enough people get aware to spread the word. The word turns into a revolution, a really bloody mess, that can not be avoided if it first comes.
Iran is doing good, they will secularize in step with time, so long nothing bad happens.
Beyond that I have no frank idea on most of Arabia, except things are good in Turkey?
DarkShadow: Interisting angle, sort of depressing. Fallout requires something to move it with, since it falls to the ground sooner or later, a new breed of genetical engineered plants could do the trick. Or we could collect it and use it for something, I mean you can use thorium to recycle it, in theory.
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Salamandre
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posted December 25, 2010 06:16 AM |
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Major geopolitical changes will occur way before 2050, which make any actual prediction worthless. When oil resources will be gone (how long, 20 years?) the whole Arabic regions will instantly turn into the 4th world, causing immigration at a rate we never saw and raise of fanatical religion, the dangerous ally of the poverty and ignorance. China and India already changed the economical world chart the last 10 years, hard to predict also how major will be their role and what impact will have at long term. Ten years ago they were only a name on a world map, tomorrow probably it is us who will become a name packed between them.
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