in your opinion, what are the top 3 issues facing today's society?

Question

and why

Answer 1

While it might be easy to say Global warming or the Iraq war, those problems are at once, much larger and much more immediate than what you asked.

Easy,

1. Education - Ensuring that people in western society are properly educated, VERY bad things have happened because (particularly Americans) have been full on asleep at the wheel while corporations and politicians do whatever they please. This is where you get things like people having to seriously discuss things like "Intelligent Design" or whatnot when after doing even a little research makes it obvious that it's really just "Snake Oil 2.0."

Ensuring good solid education means that we as a nation can adapt more easily to other national challenges like outsourcing or downsizing or other problems which are inheirent in western economies.

As a result of bad education we have two other problems.

2. The national debt, even mentioning the word is enough to give people a headache, but it's a SERIOUS problem , which people have to deal with. The concern is that it's a collective problem rather than an individual one and stems again from politicians doing what feels good in the way of tax breaks etc rather than what is right, paying the debt, being responsible stewards of the public trust. China and other countries can and have bought up parts of our debt and then "dump" it to hurt our country when they want to, this is therefore VERY BAD policy to have as much debt as we do.

3. Resource depletion - The energy crisis is looming larger and larger on future generations. Many say "oh we're running out of oil", NO we're not running out, of oil, we're running out of EASY oil. It's that oil is getting harder and harder to find, and eventually, naturally it will be very expensive to get that oil to market. A giant oil rig that can safely survive the weather in some far-off ocean field is much more expensive than the oil rig on the side of the road in Texas - it's a no brainer. We have similar problems with all other natural resources but oil or water will be the first one that will hurt.

Here again, smarts can save us, a Manhattan program to put together a working fusion reactor would prevent some sort of catastrophic economic problem, but overall we need to move away from oil in a BIG way, we aren't doing that. Most Americans have an nearly alcoholic approach to gasoline use.

If we treated that as a serious aspect of our national interest, and actually bothered to encourage our citizenry to actually be responsible , things could change overnight.

I suspect, that at least two of these are self correcting.

Eventually gasoline will become so expensive people HAVE to do without, but it shouldn't have to come to that.

Eventually we will either have so much debt that we have to default on it, turning the next couple of generations of US citizens into 3rd world citizens overnight.

Taken pro actively , both these last two problems are serious but completely manageable on par with wars of the past or crises we have successfully handled. Taken collectively or in some nasty combination, it could be a nation breaker for the US and then western society since our economy still helps underwrite much of the rest of the world's economic activity.

As far as global warming is concerned , while it's a huge problem, creating the social preconditions and addressing the industrial and commercial roots of the problem are really only about preventing the problem from getting much WORSE, it's more than likely that it's already too late to stop many of the more tragic effects of this problem.

Furthermore, there is an aspect of the problem we cannot address and that is how could we correct the problems created, and there it's unclear that we can.

Answer 2

1) Public health

Health care, mental health care, obesity, heart disease, diabetes, overprescription of medications to cover up our symptoms, and sedentary lifestyles due to video games, TV and computers

2) Job obsolescence

Technology didn't just take our jobs when machines took over the production lines. They continue to disappear or be shipped overseas. The result is fewer jobs, a pinched middle class, and an economy desperate to keep growing, but that simply cannot anymore, because we can't afford a high-consumption lifestyle the way our parents and grandparents could.

3) Education

Public education is a mess. Our academic performance as a nation is a joke. We think our kids all have ADHD, but they don't. Kids aren't supposed to be able to sit in chairs for all but 20 minutes of recess each day (which is all a lot of them get nowadays). They just don't have enough activity in their lives, which would give them the type of experience from which they could learn. And given problems #1, and #2 above, there isn't much hope for significant improvement anytime soon.

Answer 3

The answer is NO. There are emotionally driven types who of course are LIBERAL and their liberalism comes before the Bible. Mike Spencer, who wrote that article is just flat out wrong. If the prosperity megachurches found that most of the people quit attending their nonesense, then that would be a good thing. However, since GOD is the one who saves, and there is no such thing as modern day prophets, then Mike was just guessing, and he is wrong. The whole reason the column is being talked about so much, is that it is a Liberal fantasy. Christians vote against abortion, big government, high taxes, a weak military, and in short, everything the Bible says is bad. Liberals who read the Bible ignore all the verses about economics, justice, and many other topics, so they end up being out of step with most Christians.

Answer 4

Top 3 issues facing today's American society


1. The rise of militant Islam.

2. Invasion of our southern border.

3. (Last but not least) The useless political leaders in power, both Democrats and Republicans.


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Answer 5

1. Saving the Middle Class in the USA(self explanatory)

2. Israel/Zionism. Because Israel is a nationalist country in a time of global cooperation, and the USA is lobbied hard by the likes of AIPAC to put Israel's interests before the American people's interests.

3. Conspicuous Consumption. Because enticing people into ridiculous consumerism, is a direct threat to the environment. If that is what it takes for capitalism to work, then we are scr**ed.

Answer 6

1) The rise of radical Islamic movements in the Middle East and elsewhere.

2) The growth of the welfare state. Tragically the Republicans under W. bush have overseen the fastest growth in federal entitlements since Liddy "give it to me for free" Johnson.

3) the ever expanding reach of government regulation and intervention into the economic activity of the country--which inevitably leads to larger dislocations and inefficiencies..

Answer 7

1) Rudeness in children. I have had bad experiences in dealing with children, and what some children say is unbelievable. Parents aren't always teaching there children what not to say.

2) Violent tv shows on the air, and kids seeing the violence. Kids are reapeating the violence they have seen on tv show, and acting out the violence in schools. The media and cable networks don't ealize what bad tv shows do.

3) A lack of support groups. There isn't enough help and assistance for people with minor medica complication.

Answer 8

1) lack of oil, or the resources to get it- we use so much of it that we are almost like controlled by it. If we don't have it our country will go into full shock and we might end up at war trying to get it.
2) Illegal immigration- We are becoming over populated and then we have at least 12million illegal immigrants coming in every year(AT LEAST)and then having babies, so in result we are rewarding there criminal behavior by giving them citizenship. We are also providing them with welfare,food stamps, wic and medical care. They commit crimes and it's adding to the over population in jails. It relocated over populated jails it cost million dollars of tax payers money,just another to add to the tax payers bill for the off the book no tax paying illegals.
3)Health care- So many people don't have it, then ones that do either don't cover everything or co-payments are so high.

Answer 9

It's not bad enough that the cost of owning a house has gone beyond the point of no return, but the land beneath our feet is being sold right out from under us, not to mention the drug effects .Sorry. you did not say which society.

Answer 10

1 clean air 2 energy 3 bush as in president