Gaming Outpost Discussions

1. 

   Tadeusz
   Member

   I read this on Bighollywood.com, and PT Bull a commenter called it a Multicultural Utopia. Its written by a definite liberal named MovieBob, and he's writing about his grandchildren, not his children because he says the transition is going to be rough as America becomes an hourglass economically intead of a peach.

   I doubt he's right. I certainly hope he's not. But its an interesting prediction...

   ----"I hope you are wrong in your negative prediction, but financially, I am betting on america going down the tubes. Hope I am wrong too."

   Depends on what you mean when you say "America" when it comes to tubes.

   If you mean "America" the nation - no, that's going to be just fine. We're not going to get blown off the map by some enemy nation, we're not going to be invaded and conquered, we're not going to lose the flag, the bill of rights, the monuments, the what-have-you.
   Now, if we're talking about "America as we know it" i.e. the abstract "feel" of what America is or "means?" Up-by-your-bootstraps, cabin-in-the-woods, frontiersman, family-centric, rural-blue-collar-working-class-as-heroic-ideal, nominally-Christian, predominantly-white, reflexively-patriarchal, that whole thing? Yeah... that's toast. Has been for awhile now. It happens. Cultures change - "evolve," if you like.

   My grandchildren will probably speak two or three languages just as a matter of "how it works now," and one of them will probably be Mandarin - especially if their successful in business. They will probably not work in a factory or on a farm, not because those things aren't nice but because those things aren't "here" anymore. They'll probably live and work on either or both coasts, not in the middle, and for purposes of business they will probably have secondary citizenship in at least one other nation. They will probably not "marry" but rather have multiple "official" long-term-but-finite relationships throughout their lives, and will likely have children much later than I did. Vestiges of Christianity (and Islam, while we're at it) will be around, but will have about as much effect on their day-to-day lives as the lingering notions of Athena or Thor have upon mine (Judaism, however, will be alive and kicking - that much you can always bet on.)

   Strange future? To me, maybe. But then imagine what a man of 1899 would think of OURS. America will be just fine, in other words ;) ----

   Thu Oct 14 2010 3:32 pm #
2. 

   M. J. Young
   Moderator

   It is interesting to think that we will have neither factories nor farms, but I think it is slightly overstated. I do agree that very few people will work in factories or on farms, as these will be more automated and less labor-intensive; but we're still going to be pulling some of our resources out of the ground (oil, coal at least, maybe minerals), and that means processing and refining, which is always done less expensively close to the site; and if we think being largely dependent on foreign oil makes us vulnerable, that's nothing compared to what it would be to be largely dependent on foreign food.

   I think it likely that multilingualism will rise. I know that there are quite a few places even in our area where you've got a much better chance of being employed if you speak Spanish, and a few restaurants where a lot of the help speak only Spanish and Mandarin. I'd like to see official language laws passed, and immigrant language classes curtailed in favor of mainlining students into English-speaking classes, but I think those who want that are an elderly minority, and thus likely to become a smaller minority before anything can be done about it.

   People have thought that Christianity was going to vanish for a lot of centuries, and it hasn't done so. I don't think it's going to do so now. I also think it is almost wishful thinking to think that Islam as going to be reduced to vestiges. Now, there are already a lot of people for whom religion has no effect on their lives, and probably his grandchildren will be among them. I don't think my grandchildren will be, though, because I think their fathers have been sufficiently influenced in Christian thought that they are going to pass that influence to their children.

   And as long as Judaism is around, there's going to be a conflict in the Middle East that is going to make Islam dangerous worldwide. A good part of the reason Islamic terrorists are attacking the United States is because we are perceived as one of Israel's allies, and it is the Islamic hope that attacks against us will cause us to pressure Israel into compromising itself out of existence.

   (I find it funny that in the beginning of the twentieth century the British took over a bit piece called Palestine, establishing it as a homeland for the Jews, and when the Palestinians protested, they broke the land in half, making half of it a free Palestinian state (I think called Lebanon). Now the Palestinians are trying to make it happen again, to get the land broken in two pieces to create a homeland for the Palestinians--because they know that we have short memories, and don't recall that we already did that. But that's off topic. The real point is, Islam is going to remain strong as long as it has Judaism to oppose.)

   --M. J. Young

   Thu Oct 14 2010 10:24 pm #

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