Whats left?Follow

Pretending that your OP is really true, I think a future controversial "human rights" issue will be criminals and prisons. It will be argued more and more that the majority of criminals were "made" that way because of early abused childhoods in combination with faulty genes, and that these particular criminals should be in psychiatric treatment and rehab type situations rather than the "pure" jails we have now.

Also legalisation and medicalisation of most recreational drugs. I think they'd need to be heavily regulated, and available on prescription, and you ought to have a "drugs" license the way you have a car liscence, that you gain after sitting an educational test, and that could be taken away from you for infractions, blah de blah.

Certainly not New Labour.



It was during the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. To quote Gabe, "sh*t be cyclical, dog".

Edited, May 10th 2009 2:14pm by Kavekk

Close. There will continue to be passionate disagreement about opportunity and poverty. Crime and punishment is part of that discussion, as in a large part is the legal use of those recreational drugs deemed acceptable by the power class.

And you don't believe that all of that is a subset of socioeconomic disparity?

Here's a hint: the criminals who can be helped by financial education and aid are not white collar criminals.

http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5hAdgqpq5hAAk_MEHbzm3CVXdnBZgD980TPGO0

Aripyanfar was right! O.O

(The article is about a lawsuit from prison inmates and guards about the prison conditions in an Alabama prison).

Robotics. Robot's roles in human society. That's next.

By taking away their ability to survive in the current condition!

It isn't so much to ambition, desire but the availability of resources.

As a comparison, the State of California has a free technical education program called R.O.P., unlike Job Corp there are no age limits. Any one, at any point in their life, can get trained to repair cars, cut hair even become an LVN. (etc) It's a wonderful resource if you live nearby one of the school sites or near public transportation to get you there.

"Why don't they just move?" - because they can't afford to and perhaps live in a region that does not have enough of a Social Services network to empower them to do more.

I think the difficulty in understanding the situation, for us, is that most of us (with a few exceptions) live in more suburban areas that have many resources, public transportation and we have a decent enough support network that if our life goes to **** we can fall back on something/someone.

To achieve new status you need available resources. Working at Mcdonalds for 6-8 per hour, nomatter where you live, is not enough for a family to survive. Tuition reimbursement programs are wonderful if you have the money to invest upfront.

As another example, people who have chronic help problems, generally don't lack in drive or ambition but available resources. My cousins husband is deaf and has a bachelor degree yet places like Chickfilet will turn him down for work....

Hasn't anyone mentioned de-nationalisation of the world yet?

I want Euromerica already.

I think the premise of the OP is only remotely applicable in the Western world. And even there, I'm not sure I agree with it. All to varying degrees: I agree the LGBT issues could conceivably be over within a few generations, for the most part. I very doubt sexism is anywhere near over, and if you lived in a Mediteranean country for a little while, I think you'd doubt it too. Racism is nowhere near finished, unfortunately. And if religion can survive the theory of evolution, I think it'll survive pretty much anything.

I think the next big debates will how the fuck we deal with China. With Water. And definitely some stuff to do with genetics, like modifying genetic information to make your incoming kid smarter/healthier/etc...

Depends on the Degree and field. My sister who has develop an disabling chronic disease after she got her current job, is still ale to work, because she has a Masters and experience that have kept her in a job with good health insurance.

I had to leave the last job I held, at an call center since I didn't have the work history or degree for a better job that had health insurance. I would jump at the chance to go back to work, but the cost of my medical bills and medications, which now are cover by Medicaid keeps me on the disability rolls.

Once one becomes disable, a lot of companies won't hire you even with current laws (ADA) that make it illegal, because they fear that hiring an disable person will increase their Health Insurance costs.

For people who want to work, but need health insurance, getting Universal Health Care in the US is a major issue. One that we feel isn't getting enough attention from the Democrats in Congress and the White House. Sorry folks, but until we give every American, access to the medical care they need to hold a job, some of us will stay on SSDI and SSI.

Edited, May 10th 2009 3:40pm by ElneClare

Well, rightfully so (even if sadly so). Even if a place like Chic-fil-a is a fast food restaurant, and not "skilled labor" communication is important. A deaf employee just doesn't work well.

Being deaf is not a small thing to work around. I'm sure your cousin's husband knows that.

Gwyn, you should not think what's happening in England is applicable to the whole world. Take the former GDR. Churches are actually doing a lot in some areas to get young people in. I attended a Lutheran church service in one of the less educated areas in East Berlin once and it was a multimedia spetacle, with a pretty good rockband, a theatre performance and other cool stuff. They actually called it "Jesus Party", a sort of cool, English way to put it. Lots of young people were there and many of them were former members of polotical extremist groups. Now, that parish is easily one of the most successful in Germany, but religion is in no way dead yet.

Related to Red's mention of the water issue, I think awareness of climate change is rising and more people are putting some thoughts into how to slow it down.
Water demand/supply has a lot to do with energy and the environment. Take Israel. Their desalination plants use up a LOT of energy and their habit of dumping the salt back into the Mediterranean Sea endangers some species living there.


Also, I'd like to add that unemployment and motivation is a huge problem. Clearly, leaving people to starve upon losing a job is ********* but in a lot of cases (especially in countries with larger amounts of government welfare such as France and Germany), being unemployed isn't that bad, but some people tend to forget about the value of having full-time employment to keep one occupied and regulate one's circadian rhythm. My government has many projects in place to get motivation up again, which I regard as a good thing in itself. The fact that people get sent to work for €1.50 per hour needs to change, though.

Edited, May 10th 2009 10:52pm by Kalivha