We are becoming a society with no vision, no culture, no identity, no memory – we are actually disintegrating into a plasma of individual human nodes, connected by technology. If you don’t tweet or instagram, you don’t count.
“Lifelong learning” – meaningless phrase that hides the fact that to really learn, know and master something valuable it takes years. We are not talking here about continuously building upon your existing knowledge – no, we need to forget all we know and learn stuff anew every few years. If you can thus “reinvent” yourself quickly and often, then what you know is not worth much, as it can be replicated by many other people who will then compete with you for fewer and fewer remaining jobs, after the inevitable spread of AI and robots.
Yes, new technology is fascinating and full of exciting possibilities. But, technology is not the answer to our true human and societal needs. Has life become better in the proportion of the increase in the speed and volume of information exchange, or maybe the decline in digital screens’ prices? Or has it perchance become less agreeable with basic human needs – need for security, for acknowledgment, for meaningful, creative work?
Suicide, a clear symptom of societal illness, is ever-growing. So is drug use. Family size is declining, as is the average length of a marriage. Life expectancy is declining. How will robots help us with that? Wipe our tears when we finally realize the depth of our deprivation? I doubt it.
32
I have great respect for the intellect and wide range of knowledge of Thomas Friedman, but technology is not his strength. Friedman posits that 5G technology will become very important somwhere around 2020. For heaven's sake, AT&T, Verizon, Sprint and T-Mobile tout the wonders of merely 4G, claiming 97 percent or more coverage of the country. These claims of coverage are almost fraudulent, especially away from large metro areas. Get out in the exurbs, into farm country or Appalachia and watch 4G coverage range from spotty to non-existent. And 5G is going to make this all better? Maybe 5G will work wonders in urban areas, same as 4G has done. But please do not say that 5G is the telecommunications-broadband panacea for the whole country! It is not going to happen. And certainly not by 2020.
12
Do we ever get to vote as to whether we want to be hit by a self-driving car or shot by a robotic security guard? Or do we just have to accept it because the "Next America" comes whether current Americans like it or not?
I can't be the only person who reads this article and thinks, "Wow--that sounds incredibly dystopic."
10
Climate change receives just a passing mention? This issue will - unfortunately - soon eclipse all others.
16
Just as Republicans ran the economy into the ground and then blamed Obama (even as he saved it) for being "sluggish," so Trump is setting us up for a disaster with his huge tax cuts for the rich. Dejavu: the necessary cuts to social security to pay for Trump will be blamed on whatever Democrat follows.
16
Technology is turning families into weird groups of cohabitators and jobs into perilous mazes of uncertainty. When/if Gen Xers like me get to retire it will be in Cat Food City in a world blasted by climate change. How many times am I gonna have to re-train myself to get to that “paradise”?
8
Tom Friedman, the year 2020 reminds me of 20-20 vision.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Trump is promoting a state of blindness and deafness, now.
But the resistance to Trumpism is building up and by 2020, we may be able to see the "light" and get a "new birth of freedom".
The fog of confusing, with fake news, fake leadership and fake democracy may, indeed, start to lift, if we the American people decide to keep fighting, day by day for 20-20 vision!
6
Start with the basics and demand 21st Century citizenship, leadership and governance that recognizes our stated national purpose to "form a more perfect Union...establish justice...insure domestic Tranquility...provide for the common defense...promote the general Welfare and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity".
4
I realize this is a brutal comment, but strangely, perhaps, it comes from a person who only recently acquired the status of a septuagenarian. What's required for this country to face the future with optimism, reason and courage is for a whole swath of the population in my age bracket to, well, just plain die.
7
Future Americans will have a corporate computer chip inserted in their necks that will make them watch three commercials before they're allowed to wake up in the morning. . . . .
Mechanical stock brokers, buying & selling at inhuman rates, already control the financial markets which in turn control our entire economy. The robot Singularity we so dread arriving in the future has already taken place. . . .
Socialist and Sanders in 2020 would amount to an emergency manual override of a system headed over the cliff . . . .
4
Friedman's take on lifelong career change is laughable. I hear it daily. Who is he talking about ? Will he need to retrain from a journalist and become a barista? I hear it often when we talk about others and not consider ourselves. What will he do when Artificial Intelligence (AI) writes the opinion pieces for the Times ? We need to decide what world we want to live in and appreciate the value humans bring.
8
Should Trump get re-elected, the next America will look a lot like the previous Germany.
10
Deplorables have already destroyed our nation.
5
Some stupid tech thing happened today, and I nearly lost it. That it was such a small, and entirely, absurdly unimportant thing that took AN HOUR on the phone -- to the Philippines, of course -- ... it absolutely wore me out.
Told my husband, "I was not born for this era."
So to read of the 'future,' at such dizzying speed and complexity ... realize it will not be for me.
4
Please to those who know enough to Care and care enough to
Know.....give a Leader who is Not a bonafide Sociopathic
Personality Disorder!
4
Social media seems to be changing the character of Americans. Twitter induced argumentation, people are becoming stressed, angry and addicted especially the younger who can't put their phones down. This is amplifying the vitriolic hatred for our Prehsident. We are as a nation having increasing difficulty finding a uniting cause. This is what I'm concerned about for America.
Now let's take a look at the hatred.
Yesterday, two of the Times most seasoned, smart and articulate Op Ed writers Stephens and Collins, with the "Christmas spirit," tried begrudgingly to name some positive Trump actions The two came up with: "not screwing up the G-20, a NFL diversion and him not coming to the city on weekends and causing traffic snarls." Can you believe it? If you were the President how would you react? I know I would be bleeping red hot mad.
Another first page lying embarrassment! "Fake News! "
Look let's be clear. Trump is gruff, with moral failings and a lousy demeanor and yes, a propensity for exaggeration even at times lying, much of which I condemn the rest I would like to change.
However, objectively and fairly he has America working again. I further suggest to Stephens, Collins and you that you look beyond the failings, for a moment, give a honest assessment of some. poitives.
I sbubmit: 3% GDP growth (Obama - 1.5% in last 6 quarters,) USMCA, VA firing authority, crime reform, NASA/mars, military ready and 2,000 felons deporated...and more
I just ask for balanced fairness
When talking about technology for the future I don’t want to hear about 5G which frankly I found strange mentioned here as revolutionary. Will it change some things? Sure. But it won’t alter lives.
But what I want to hear about is technology to combat climate change not 5G. The time to act was yesterday not 2020. So we should at the very least be looking into it now...
7
A "New Age" for America will not begin until:
1. The Electoral College is abolished, and
2. Party biased gerrymandering is unlawful, and
3, The SCOTUS has checks and balances applied to it including an orderly process of appointing/retiring justices that have term limits, and super-majority needed for the court to reverse its precedents, and
4. The 2 senators-per-state model is replaced by one that either apportions the number of senators or weights a senator's vote - according to a state's population, and
5. All Americans can easily vote, without facing any obstacles erected by their own government.
... That's a lot of work must be done. Getting there hopefully won't take as long as it's taken this nation to go from the Pony Express to 5G.
13
The 2016 election revealed America had reached its bridge too far. Unexpectedly the Sun had come up, a reawakening of our communication is in progress, the next America will be operating more transparently in what is the light of a new day.
The future in one sentence: Everyone will pay more, and have less.
6
THE NEXT AMERICA I'm not sure how it will emerge. Alan Dershowitz, renowned attorney, says that when Trump's involvement with the Russians is disclosed, the results will be devastating to him personally. But he doubts that there will be a legal case made by the evidence. Upon his purloining the presidency, Trump had been involved with 3,500 and counting lawsuits. I imagine that he's racked up at least that many in just over two years. He's not going anywhere because his primary modus operandi is to gum up the works, with the effect that all of the engines of industry our democracy are gummed up beyond repair. And I intend that the image be thought of in literal terms. To me it seems like I can't envision the changes that will occur during the next Congress. The Democrats already made it clear that they have their action plan all ready to be put into gear upon their being sworn in. I think that we're at a place we've not been since the Watergate hearings. Not knowing which way the country is headed because the leadership is riddled with corruption, thievery and skulduggery. In fact, I'd change Shakespeare's famous line, There's something rotten in the State of Denmark. The revision would read something like, Can anybody find me something that's NOT rotten in the US?
4
I live in hillsboro il==a small rural town 60 miles from st louis and 50 miles from springfield il. I am 73, and my mother lived to 103 but i will lay odds I will die before i see 5G service. I will also bet that 5G will be so expensive that I will not be able to afford it--
2
Free community college would help a little, but not that much: The good jobs are going to Ph.D.s in artificial intelligence. A "service economy," the other growing category of jobs, is unsustainable. Service jobs use up wealth (which is measured in actual tangible /stuff/, not services) instead of creating it. (This is not an insult to service job /workers/, nor even to their employers. It's not anyone's fault, exactly, that the US no longer has a manufacturing economy.)
What the "Next America" needs is a guaranteed basic income, enough to meet housing, food, and clothing needs, for every person, working or not. This has to be funded through automated manufacturing, like those plant-cities in China but without the suicidal employees. And then we can work on redefining human worth not to depend on one's source of income.
8
Just some thoughts not meant to be easy fixes to a complext future. We should undo the tax scam legislation passed in Dec. 2017 and fix the Tax Code loopholes that benefit the wealthy and corporations. We should reduce the budget of the military industrial complex and not get engaged in unnecessary wars. For Social Security, we can uncap the payroll funding as is done with Medicare. We should expand Medicare or implement a single payer system nationwide with opt-out for private coverage. For those left behind in the Rust Belt and other regions of the country, we should offer training programs and provide incentives to "Next America" companies to setup satellite locations e.g., solar panel manufacturer in West Virginia. For climate change, we need a Manhattan Project or 10-year moonshot vision. Let's do it!
7
Interesting article, but overlooks the same thing our politicians and corporations overlook. Each of us is more than a consumer or a voter to be manipulated. We are human beings and there are limits to the amount of change we can handle. Going back to school periodically to learn new skills does not work for most of us. We need some kind of stability and a pattern for the future. There is a reason why our society measures intelligence by pattern recognition. Do not expect us to be robots.
5
To get to the next America, we need well-informed voters choosing well-informed and qualified elected officcials
How is the press going to cover the 2020 election?
Will it be a steady string of polls, "gaffes" and personalities, or will there be reporters out on the campaign trail who are working not to impress other reporters with their snappy tweets, but rather working to inform the consent of the voters by focusing on the policy questions voters ask and the depth (or lack thereof) of proposed solutions to those challenges?
6
You wrote, "But it will require all kinds of new regulations to govern applications from self-driving cars to drone delivery systems to robots that will work as security guards and home health aides." This is true. But not as true as the fact that tens of millions of drivers, guards, home health care workers, restaurant employees, instructors, agricultural workers, and construction workers will find themselves unemployed and hopping mad about it. France has had its gilets jaunes in recent weeks. That's going to be nothing compared to what the next president, Congress, and governors will have to deal with. We'd better start planning now.
4
"... changes in technology, demographics, the environment and globalization... "
15 years ago my college professors assigned Friedman's books but I didn't want to study that boring stuff. Suffice it to say that in 2016 I experienced a very rude awakening.
"Trim" Social Security or Medicare? So says you who unlike most of us doesn't need them to survive. Easy words for you.
6
Trim the corporate and high-income TAX CUTS instead!
3
I wish the tech industry would ask the public if we want all of their inventions. I for one would love to go back to a time before social media, before drones, before Alexa and Siri. I don't care if my doorknob or fridge talks back to me. I just want peace and quiet.
10
Hopefully, by 2020 we will be rid of Mitch McConnell one way or another. That would provide us the opportunity to make a giant step into the 21st Century.
12
Friedman’s futurology has always been characterized by a belief that average people should settle for less.
4
The Trump administration is reactionary, and has brought us closer to the middle ages than the new future.
2
Dude, starting with 5G? We have a 4.1 Trillion Dollar infrastructure deficit due to failure to maintain and update roads, bridges, rail lines, schools, levees and dams, airports, pipelines, electric grids, water and sewer lines, and waste treatment facilities. Maybe we should start there.
13
Is that it? 5G, free post-secondary education, a lower proportion of white people, more things no one needs like driverless cars, and (hopefully) being rid of the orange menace? How boring would that be. I'm hoping 2020 will bring with it a spirit and a leader that will be far more ambitious. How about repairing our image around the world, once again being the beacon of hope? How about major advances in science beyond the pedestrian items mentioned? How about space exploration? How about regaining our rightful position as world leader, mainly through re-establishment of our soft power and aliances, re-energizing the State Department, the Peace Corps, showcasing our world beating universities, etc.? Driverless cars? Come on, man....
3
Here's an idea for solving the 'fake news' taunts by Trump towards the media, and the media's pursuit of Trump like a pack of rabid dogs. Media to Trump: 'We promise to start being nicer when you promise to start being smarter'.
Problem solved!
2
“The craziness around Trump has delayed much of this discussion. But 2020 won’t let us do that again. The Next America won’t wait.” You are wrong Tom, for the simple reason that tens of millions of American will not read this essay and if they did, they would not understand it. As you know, there is a major political party that TOTALLY reflects its leader - a leader who is overtly racist, Nativist, and misogynist, a leader who is virtually illiterate, cannot use a computer, shows utter contempt for educated professionals as well as the free press, and is probably the most anti-science president in the nation’s history. This cretin retains the support of between 35-40% of the electorate, none of whom are going away. As long as Trump is alive and his slavish, reactionary enablers remain in Congress, there will be no discussions of ANY of the issues you raise. My prediction is that the next two years will pretty much be like the last two except the Democrats in the House might, I say MIGHT, just be able to finally reveal to the world what a despicable, dishonest, fraudulent criminal Trump truly is and perhaps impeach him or force him to resign. Only then will we be able to have your conversation.
4
I'm not interested in more technology, unless that technology is removing carbon from the atmosphere, or engineering "cultured meat" and hardy food crops.
(By the way, the climate scientist at Bernie's climate town hall yesterday said that the best technology for removing carbon from the atmosphere is trees!)
Secondly, if society "requires" workers that are trained, then that training needs to be free, and with a training wage (aka student allowance).
OR companies need to step up and train unskilled people on an apprentice salary.
We're all in this together, we sink or swim together.
3
We have an archaic (electoral college, 2 year presidentail campaigns where very few have any real input, increasing nonrepesentative Senate) system that will never be changed given that approval for changes requires the approval of entities that will lose power with change.
The United States Congress used to be a place where compromises essential to effectively govern the nation were
made.
Along came the Republicans with 'no new taxes...read my lips, government is the problem not the solution', and the Hastert rule combined with dark money to remove offenders who don't go along with the program. Throw in Mitch McConnell, then combine all this with Republican zeal for never ending unnecessary wars and we are in deep trouble.
The world is changing ever more rapidly each year. To me it appears that economic catastrophe will precede any substantial change in our political system.
In sum, the Next America requires addressing each of those issues, and many more — from climate change to zoning rules — and how they interact. So the next election must too. The craziness around Trump has delayed much of this discussion. But 2020 won’t let us do that again. The Next America won’t wait.
The media, including the New York Times, needs to cover these things in depth between now and November 2020. I would love it if one newspaper would have a small box where Trump's tweets or lies delivered in other forms are reported if deemed worth reporting. For each tweet or lie, one could click on the link devoted to it to read more. That would save so much bandwidth for these and other important issues.
Where are all those people who were concerned about the federal deficit while Obama was president?
"The federal deficit was not supposed to hit $1 trillion until 2020, but the White House now says it will hit that number in 2019. "
1
I think this is an excellent list of traits any presidential candidate should have at least some knowledge about if not some deep experience with some of the areas. We are looking for a wonk that has a vision and leadership skills who is not a crook.
Why not throw your hat into the rink, Mr. Friedman?
Sounds rather dystopian....do you really want the government to be able to monitor you from your shirt? I don't beleive you have thought through the consequences of giving someone that much power....it will be used for controlling you.....
Also, will 5G complete the destruction of the insect population by electromagnetism? Has anyone thought about this?
Self driving cars...?...I for one don't even like for the other people in the car to drive. I want to be the one driving. And I would like to think that I could drive to no place in particular without it being broadcast. Oh right, that will soon be outlawed.
I sincerely don't think we have put enough forethought into what we are creating.....
1984 anyone?
4
@Lucifer It will be much more like "Brave New World," than "1984;" indeed, it already is.
Getting an education is not going to be enough. You'll have to be smart too.
@Barbyr
An education, as in one, will not be enough. People already have to prepare for 4-5 different careers. In the "next America" people will be looking at 5-10 different careers. Post High School education will be life long and prices will need to reflect that. The world is eating our lunch by offering affordable to free education to any citizen that wants it. We cannot continue to saddle people with tens of thousands of dollars in debt to learn the skills needed for "today's" jobs because this education will be outdated in less than 10 years.
A more important need for Next America is that the country must discard its vitriolic hatred that blinds and robs one to honesty, balance and the ability to fairly accept the right and left's views.
Hatred blinds and robs one of the ability to have a calm, constructive discourse on problems that all are needed to solve.
This today is the most critical problem facing the Next America. Without it we will never find a common purpose that is important for success and required for our unity.
Let's get back to positively finding that common purpose. I have written a book about Keys To Future Success that describes 6 required competencies. Here are some suggestions:
* Humor and Humility are essential.
* We have 2 ears and 1 month for a reason.
* Admit you need help. No one has all the answers.
* EMPATHETIC communications is vital.
Let's try to bring some sanity and decorum back into our discourse. Try it the other side might recipricate. Then it could escalate. I'll give you an example. Say something positive about
one thing good that Trump did. Just one CNN or MSNBC. Trump would probably react positively to fairness.
Yesterday NYT Op Ed by Bret Stephens listed "not fouling up G-20, NFL and not coming to NY city on weekends which causes traffic jams. Those were the three positives due to Christmas season? Can you believe it? How would you react? Not even 3% GDP or non-partisan criminal reform?
For success is an imperative. Our country needs it!
No politician in the US has a solution for the fact that qualified labor which costs a lot less is available outside the US. Trump supporters may hate globalization but businesses big and small are intertwined with companies in China and Mexico and many other non-US companies for supplies, raw materials, assembly and engineering. This means that many people will have a hard time making a living wage from just one job.
1
@Nb
The US will not survive unless people make things here in this country. Thomas Jefferson and a handful of others thought that America should be a pristine agricultural paradise devoid of dirty manufacturing. What that does is holds us at the mercy of the manufactures and their governments.
The solution is to do exactly what other countries are doing, protecting their workers and demand FAIR trade, not free trade. We also must understand that migration is NOT a human right because most governments have strict limits on who can migrate to their country. Again, the US must match other countries 1 for 1. We also, along with the rest of the world, MUST LOWER our population otherwise war and disease will do it for us.
Highly technical corporations have always known the importance of continuous life long learning. I am retired from the aerospace industry. My company spent millions on keeping employees up to speed on the latest technical knowledge, legal certification requirements, project management and everything else required to remain competitive in a constant changing environment and market. California industries teamed up with state universities to provide the necessary job skills to all who took the effort to pursue them. This is not new thinking to successful progressive communities.
1
this is not really how things now work, alas.
what so often is called education is actually job skills training, a kind of technical trade school. is is not about learning to discover, learn, create, and think critically for yourself, things that last a lifetime; it is about things more transitory and all about making money for somebody else.
why waste time and resources retraining older, experienced workers who are more expensive, when it is quicker and cheaper to just put them on an icefloe and let them drift out to sea while briging in crop after crop of with-it younger workers who can similarly be jettisoned when their sell-by date rolls around?
what's outdated is thinking in terms of lifetimes, or even decades, when the business world is already commited to a world no more than next quarter's results away.
3
I used to enjoy Mr. Friedman books and essays, but lately he just recycles the same material over and over. If the 60% to 80% of the people in the center of the Bell curve are not prospering America will be an ugly place no matter how well the 10% to 15% on the far right are doing. Adding different cultures, religions, and ethnicities at a pace which guarantees non assimilation won't help either. If the economic pie is shrinking for the middle class it only won't be the elites getting the blame it will be the perceived newcomers.
3
The GOP has taken over the government by insisting that governing is impossible. Go figure. They can be said to have fulfilled their own prophecy.
4
In this column, Friedman attempts, with some success, to project that upcoming new technology and large deficits will require new thinking and perhaps some new ways of living. True. While he does manage to trash Trump twice in a short piece and adds the seemingly unrelated expected change in our ethnic makeup, he offers only one possible solution – “We will have to make postsecondary education free..” I guess “We” is you and me. Too bad Friedman didn’t connect the big dots in his own column that the internet revolution – here today and more powerful tomorrow – is really the best way to offer expanded education opportunities for everyone and potentially very lost cost to the students, young and old.
3
Constitution never defining "citizen".
1
Mr. Friedman, have to add my voice, related to your column today, to many that thought Amazon's decision to (split) relocate to the east coast may not have been the most enlightened or practical (in the long run) or moral (in the short run).
Had the decision been to re-invest in the middle of the country, areas needy and depressed, or areas into which many people could practically relocate and re-train for abundant and varied jobs (albeit low-mid range ones, but accessible, with benefits), our country might be better off for this inevitable transition.
1
problem: statistically, the people Amazon wants to employ don't want to be in the middle of the country, in secodary and tertiary locations.. they want, and perhaps need, to be where the action is - and where they can believe it possible to find a new job once they're tossed on the scrapheap of history.
sticking them out in a cultural wasteland instead of a rich environment means a return to serfdom. we don't need to get there any faster than we're already going.
As with the current America the free market, the rule of law and the constitution will be able to adapt to whatever changes happen. There is no need for more government, probably better with less in many areas.
for example, why can't low population rural states make do with just one Senator? think of the savings! and, each citizen would still enjoy many times the representation of his brethren in more urbanized, thickly settled places.
I can think of a good list of low population states' Senators we'd be better off without. topping the list, as usual: Mitch McConnell. now, there's an example of government waste and overreach!
1
This week, PBS has been running a series on “the future of work”. One program was devoteed to soutnern Califoria’s “middle kingdom”. The program’ central poimt was that region’s majority population is poorly educs
The only thing that matters is what personally benefits Donald J. Trump.
Trump running on Make America Greater Again in 2020 may be a bust as the Mueller report and the democratic controlled House pull the curtain back on the Wiz showing all his many warts. Trump yearning to go back to 1950 and beautiful coal as the fuel of the future as he appointed agency heads determined to destroy the agencies they would lead. In Bannon's dream world the white Christians of the world will unite behind a Putin/ Trump alliance of kleptocrats ruling with iron fists crushing journalists and dissidents. Ivanka will indeed sit in Putin's chair and Jared will partner with MSB to create a Trump/Kushner real estate empire worth trillions . Trump has the rights to a hotel in Jeddah the liberal city in Saudi that MSB wants to make into their version of Dubai. This can only happen if Trump decides not to run to spend more time with his family. Trump and the Kushners are not about public service they are about money and power in that order. Why run for president when odds are you would lose ,take your marbles and go home a winner.
1
Typical Tom Friedman column. Technology will change everything and everyone must adapt. Also mixed there is a bit of utter fascination for technology. Throw in a few comments by "future work strategists" - whatever that is - and 1, 2, 3, we have the same column he has written for years. Is this supposed to be novel or a story about how history repeats itself without the author having any real insight into the workings of the present or the past.
5
If 5G makes telecommuting a feasible reality for the vast majority of office jobs, it might become as revolutionary as the internet. If all that matters is that we can get super-ultra-high-def-awesome movies at lightning speed...
Tom: Thanks for the insight -- a column like this is why you're among the best and indispensable NYT readers.
1
Why is it that the fringes of the political spectrum are so easily duped into believing in a dystopian future? Now, with a larger percentage of the population at those edges, it seems that far too many are conspiracy theorists. It’s as if their dystopian fantasy is becoming self fulfilling prophecy. All of this while they sip a bourbon neat at a local hipster bar, eating an outrageously priced vegan dish, and complaining about money and the corporation they work for.
2
"In sum, the Next America requires addressing each of those issues, and many more — from climate change to zoning rules — and how they interact."
I agree with Mr. Friedman. I also tend to agree with Winston Churchill, who famously said “You can always count on the Americans to do the right thing after they have tried everything else.” The interim's not gonna be pretty, folks.
1
Jon Stewart once remarked that life is like a board game, and lawyers are the only people who’ve read the rules on the inside of the box. The same could be said of modern elites—they’re the ones who’ve read the rules, and they’re the ones who’ve figured out how to skirt them from time to time. The working class can’t understand why they continue to lose. They say, “I worked hard! I played by the rules! I don’t understand what happened!” But they didn’t play by the rules. They never really learned them. They just jumped into the game with a bunch of outdated assumptions that haven’t served them well.
Now they’ve had enough, and they’re demanding that the rules be changed. It’s not an unreasonable demand when the people who run the table won’t even let you read the rules. Or when the rules are written in such a way that you can’t even understand them. The bigger question is whether there’s room for everyone at the table. The optimist in me says yes, we can change the rules so that everyone can play. But the pessimist in me fears that it’s far too late, that the working class doesn’t want to play anymore. They just want to kick over the table so that we all have to lose.
Better than your enemy winning, I guess.
3
I've never thought of my self as a consumer. Some times a customer but always a citizen of world. Even Freidman falls into the consumerism trap.
We are not here to shop, or to earn a paycheck. We are here to have a happy life.
6
We'e seeing the convergence of climate change and income inequality.Two of your favorite themes.What is happening in France,with the Yellow Vests,is the clearest example.The government there has no answer and ,for that matter,no democratic government has.The 2020 election in this country is that last,best hope we have but we may have gone too far into the abyss.The monopolies who control the narrative(Facebook etc.), may actually be our next government.....or they well fall, a-la Louis the XV1.In any event,it won't be pretty.
1
You probably should mention climate change and the hundreds of millions of refugees on the move. America may not have the leisure to concentrate on educating and entertaining its citizenry. It may well be defending her borders.
3
We are going to need some other way for people to achieve economic security other than a "job" because it won't be long before we won't need any workers at all, doctors and lawyers included.
1
with autonomous cars and trucks, businesses can easily get rid of those costly drivers!
and the drivers then can retrain for new jobs, as organ donors.
The government should not be the business of intervening to ameliorate 'futureshock' fears. Mr. Friedman talks of a few toys and bells and whistles (i.e., Facebook is a relatively insignificant sideshow) but ignores the basics of economics...housing, clothing, and feeding the population. The hard toil that makes this possible will continue. Meanwhile the government needs to tend to its basic role of ensuring the freedoms necessary to enable the meeting and exceeding the basic economic needs.
1
@johnlo
Facebook is no insignificant sideshow (it should be, though)
1
The more things change the more they stay the same. Let's try an experiment. Let's see if a candidate can run on a platform of trimming social security and medicare. Which party will grab the mantle first of saving the programs? I get spam email from Trump supporters telling me that the Democrats want to trim their social security payments. Obviously, they think it is a non-starter.
1
I hate to shock you Thomas, but the "Next America" isn't going to wait until 2020 to be ushered in, it's here, and has been here for years, and has displaced and impacted most Americans, while the privileged have taken advantage and our "leaders" ignored it. See what's happening in France these days? That's the upheaval caused by the "Next France", and will be coming here soon if things don't change.
Corporate America and the wealthy oligarchs depend upon social stability, which America has provided, but one need only look to the Robber Baron Era to see what unchecked greed and power produce. It can either be dealt with peacefully, or violently, but it WILL be dealt with. And the Republicans who have undermined truth and justice to serve their grip on power, will rue their hand in that tearing of the social contact when the people rise up and take justice into their own hands, as the Yellow Vests are now doing in France.
No matter how "efficient" industries become, they can't eliminate their consumers, but consumers are also workers, and if they don't have good jobs or money to spend, profits and stocks plunge, and efficiency becomes meaningless.
The question is: What comes after the Next America?
2
invest in Pinkerton.
Interesting. But we have a problem in the USA - we are failing to ensure much of what is discussed here is available to all Americans. For example, 4G service is quite limited; now we are moving to 5G - even more limited I guess. Internet is not available to everyone, especially broadband. And, lest we forget, we are allowing our infrastructure to fall apart with little improvement on the horizon. Education is not well supported fiscally, especially in elementary and high school levels; thus leaving people behind. As we fall apart and deteriorate, only a chosen few will benefit from the wonders discussed in the Op Ed. We are failing our country.
@Dan G Why do people say we don’t invest in education when we spend more per student than almost any other nation in the world?
1
@Dan G: we already spend $21,000 per child in the US -- combined state, local, Federal monies -- which is the highest in the world and the same as in very costly Switzerland.
If that is NOT ENOUGH….please, Dan G….tell us what WOULD BE ENOUGH.
$30K? $40K? $50K PER CHILD?
Because otherwise it is just vague finger wagging with no sense of the reality on the ground, which is that people are not piggy banks and you can't mind them endlessly for "more taxes" without them exploding like the yellow jackets.
3
Two suggestions on where (& how) to start. First make higher education vastly more affordable & widely available. This must include states that are not part of the "coastal elite". The result will be workforces that have good qualifications everywhere in the U.S. Second, elect leaders that have a stake in the future. A 72 year old Trump (in 2020), & a 78 year old Mitch McConnell have no "skin in this game".
1
The next America cannot succeed without citizens who can think critically, remain even keel internally, and not be vulnerable paranoid ravings and distractions in lieu of reality. We have to agree on one set of facts, then parse solutions from there.
Thus, the most important thing, re 2020's crop of new babies, is to articulate and support the kinds of parenting practices that will lead to emotionally healthy humans, and reverse the trend of the last 30-40 years of declining mental health, increased addiction, spiking anxiety and depression, and a widespread inability to fathom and respect "the other." All of these things have VERY early origins.
Attachment relationships in early childhood (0-3) are the source of emotional self regulation and stability-- or not. Without getting early childhood right, we cannot expect a functioning society later. This is also the very time span in which interventions, like the Nurse Family Partnership, actually pay off and yield a return (see James Heckman).
The last 30-40 years has shown us that neglect, abuse, and trauma at this time devastate psychological health. We need high functioning people who can think, love, attach, and adjust. Without them, the best laid plans will fail.
4
Absent from TF's breathless description of the Future is any appreciation for human needs. According to Friedman we used to be cogs in a machine, now we must become bits in a computer. Just because Silicon Valley is coming out with a next generation of electronics does not mean I must transform my life. Please remember that all of these systems are man made. They are supposed to serve us, not enslave us. Meanwhile, the natural world (e.g. the Earth and her systems) is the ultimate determinant of our fate. All seven billion of us humans depend on the interlocking networks of a living planet made up of air, water and soil. These are the rhythms we must respond to.
3
Friedman's quick turn into the familiar economic realm dodges the deeper divisions we face in 2020. The defining issue is whether we continue as two-party democracy or descend into authoritarian madness headed by either Democrats or Republicans. As painful as economic hardship is for most Americans, the starkly opposing visions of America's political parties must be settled first. 2020 is when our differences will be confronted for what they really are. I'm scared, and the other side is, too.
1
@Tiger shark The sad part is that most don’t fall neatly within those sides but they have no other choice but to be dragged in.
@John yes you are right. And the forcing of otherwise moderate people to take sides is the final act before armed conflict.
It is entirely possible that $1 trillion deficits are irrelevant. If the government spends $1,000 more than it taxes, then it must be true that the private sector earned $1,000 more than it was taxed.* We print our own money, and our debt is denominated in dollars.
If the concern is inflation, massive debt increases under Obama and Reagan generated average or below-average inflation.
A more important focus is on inequality. If those deficits are generated because we undertax the rich and overspend on defense, then we have a problem.
We should run whatever deficit is required to put all our kids through college and pay for everyone's health care. If inflation starts to jump, then we raise taxes on the rich and cut spending on defense until it is back under control.
*Paraphrased from Joohn T. Harvey, economics professor at Texas Christian University. See Forbes: "Four Reasons You Should Consider Washington's Deficit As Your Surplus."
1
" So the Next America may very likely have to raise taxes or trim military spending, or Social Security or Medicare..."
Because for most Americans things were so good prior to it?
Sounds like the Next America will be less prosperous , protective and promising than what it has been for most people these last 10-20 years...
That's not saying, promising or giving much hope to almost anybody is it?
1
The problem with many, if not most, of Thomas Friedman's op-ed pieces (aside from often being unrealistic) is that he consistently has this theory that everyone in the population is equally talented. To support a lot of this arguments, he often seems to assume that all people are equally intelligent, well educated, hard-working entrepreneurs who can do anything, with a marketable skill set, drive and ambition to achieve success. Personally, I think that represents probably only a small percentage of the general population who are at the top of the socio economic pyramid. Not everyone wants to climb up the corporate ladder to become a CEO, and even when someone does have that goal, he or she may not have the ability to do so, lacking the education, experience and skills etc. Only in some perfect Utopia fantasy world, that Friedman describes in his articles, can we all thrive as entrepreneurs, who will unleash our tremendous untapped talents and achieve huge success: "in the Next America, argues McGowan, the right model will be “continuous lifelong learning’’ - because when the pace of change is accelerating, “the fastest-growing companies and most resilient workers will be those who learn faster than their competition.” ". Here's a newsflash for Friedman, not everyone is smart, rich, Ivy League educated and capable of being the next Bill Gates. What is to become of the 90% of us who are just "average" people?
8
@Seymore Clearly: You hit the nail on the head but I always figured it was the 80%.
1
Welcome to the New America! Are you part of the lucky 5%? Good for you! Enjoy your watching the latest from Hollywood with no lag time while you relax in Starbucks! Read that text from your doc congratulating you on your well-regulated blood pressure, all thanks to the information hoovered up and dispatched by your smart shirt!
Are you one of the 95%? Oh well -- spend your life indentured to corporations that change the rules before you learn them! Devote your free time to retraining -- and don't waste any reading a book, going for a hike in a fall-colored forest, making love with your sweetheart, or playing catch with your kids: you'll fall behind and never catch up! And for goodness's sake, forget trying to figure out anything about, or having any influence on, politics, because ---
The 0.1%'s got you covered! They know what's up and they have your best interests at heart -- need proof? Just look at all the money they make! If they weren't smarter than you they wouldn't be so rich!
Meanwhile, what's the slogan for the next stage after the New America? It's "The Drowned World" -- after the old J. G. Ballard novel -- as climate change, which as we know is a hoax, brings us all on to 6G!
What's that you say? This mostly doesn't sound exactly like a happy life well-lived in a civic society that cares about everyone? You thought the future would be cooler? Dude, the future is warmer and you'll love working for a robot! You're welcoming!
13
The revolutionaries in "next America" will tweet and take to the streets before the insulated fossils in DC are aware there's any dissent. Get ready for mob rule.
1
@DMS In other words, get ready to be the next Cuba or Venezuela. Hopefully that is not our future.
1
Put Tom in a room full of mirrors. He can happily talk to himself. This op-ed is the same old tired retread rubbish he’s been peddling for the last ten years at least. And his indirect name check of Gibson missed the point.
3
I haven't read a Thomas Friedman column in years but I thought I'd check this one out and I was on-board right up to the point where he suggests we will need to make cuts to Social Security and Medicare!
The NY Times just won't learn and won't understand that unlike its owners and wealthy columnists like Mr. Friedman (his wife is very wealthy) most Americans depend on Social Security and Medicare and the only changes we are willing to hear about are those that make the benefits greater than they currently are. It makes me laugh, and then cry to read a column like this one. Did I accidentally wander onto the website of Fox News?
2
@lzolatrov and here's the rub. Those recent tax cuts were precisely engineered so the ruling class would have an excuse to cut social security and medicare. That's the reason McConnell and Ryan don't give a rip about deficits. Sad that Thomas Friedman is advancing their bad ideas.
Thank heavens the election is past and Thomas Friedman has found his voice again. He is almost always worth reading.
Smells late Republic around here. I for one would like to preemptively welcome our future A.I. Emperor. Please archive this so the thought police leave future me to be.
1
This is entirely up to the Democratic Party.
If they offer a good answer to our future course, they'll find Trump easily beatable.
If they offer again the rejected status quo, a return to what Trump was rebellion against, then they'll likely lose again. Deservedly so.
Trump was the disruptor to force change, when our politics otherwise refused to change. Ours establishments wanted to offer Bush III vs Clinton II. Enough voters found that nauseating, first in the Republican primary, then in the general election too.
So now the question: Is the disruption of the old status quo accepted and complete, or still in progress?
Will the Dems try to return to the good old days like the Republican-Lite they were in 2016, or will they offer something new and better?
That is not a foregone conclusion either way. Even in this forum, there is furious resistance to change, furious defense of the status quo.
2
Like a lot of people, Friedman doesn't seem to know one simple fact:
***
The finances of the federal gov are nothing like his personal finances. The federal gov, thru the FED, can create as much money as it needs out of thin air. It will run out of dollars the day after the NFL runs out of points!
***
"INFLATION!", you say. Well, there's this little equation:
P = (MV)/S
where P is prices , M is the amount of money in the economy, V measures the frequency that money changes hands usefully, and S is the dollar amount of the amount of stuff, goods and services, we can produce in some time period.
A word on V. If the government gives Scrooge McDuck a Billion for advice on the comic book market, M increases by a Billion, but if Scrooge puts the bucks in his basement, and forgets about it, that doesn't affect P at all. That Billion has a V of 0.
History shows that the cause of most, if not all excessive inflations since WWI have not been M getting too big, but S getting too small. The anchovy harvest failed in 1972. There was a shortage of livestock feed. Then came the oil embargo. Prices rose.
The reason is that when the gov spends the money at all reasonably, it tends to increase production, S. Only when the economy cannot grow, does S fail to increase.
Max from Boston said it best:
"So much of our economic issues could be solved if people understood that the US cannot run out of money, and how hard it is to cause hyper-inflation from government spending alone."
The United States of America needs another Marshall Plan — for itself.
1
We're not just citizens, we're humans, and require human contact to thrive. Period. Technology that fails to incorporate that need may destroy us.
What about all the people in this country who are not interested in "continuous, lifelong learning"?
1
When voting, remember it's like driving a car - R for going backwards, and D for forward.
Not one comment on a national health care system or health care in general. Instead, a mention of possibly cutting Medicare. Nor one word on of the huge disparity in wealth in this country.
And about your final statement that "The Next America won't wait."
The reason it won't wait is that reality has been announced by the incredible progressive writers of our time who are NOT in the mainstream media (the Times, CNN, MSNBC, etc). And that list includes you. These real speakers of truth include Richard Wolff, Chris Hedges, Noam Chomsky, and even the little known voices in the middle of the night like Jimmy Dore.
History will show that the mainstream media, as always, and seen daily, simple spews propaganda for the powerful and for the corporations -- and hence they "manufacture consent," as Chomsky puts it.
You can read about this propaganda model for the manufacture of public consent anywhere and it describes five editorially distorting filters, which are applied to the reporting of news in mass communications media.
This propaganda has brought us to this current place in history, having distorted reality for decade after decade. Throw in the corruption of the campaign finance system and one can easily understand how we got here.
You are naive if you think we can change fast enough such that the Next America will be recognized as needed by 2020. I'll bet things will be worse.
1
This is a description of what will motivate the reactionary 40% to fight even harder to go back to the 1950s. Twenty years ago, I under appreciated the intensity of the reactionary backlash against change. Hopefully this will subside when all of us baby boomers (who grew up in the’50s) die off.
2
Call me crazy but doesn't climate change deserve more than passing mention? We are already decades removed from the first authoritative alerts that climate change was real and perilous to life as we know it. Here we are talking about 2020 and putting important items on the agenda ahead of climate change, all the while having a President and federal government generally who still--still!!--"don't believe" in climate change. At what point does our government get serious about this?
3
5g employs millimeter waves of different frequencies. We will be swimming in them. Has anyone in America considered whether this is risky for us human beings? It's being studied in Europe, and regulations are being worked out. Why o, why o, why, is it always Europeans who consider people before global corporate interests.
It's self-driving cars that really need 5g on every 10th utility pole and thousands of satellites in the sky. Shouldn't we think this through with human's and the planet's health in mind?
Or (shudder) is this a more intrusive form of surveillance and population control? Monetizing our data for selling us stuff was bad enough.
Prove to us that the "next America" is good for us ordinary citizens before you start cutting social security and medicare to fund it.
8
What I hope for in the; Next America
Universal Healthcare for all citizens -
Take back the 1% "Give America to the Rich !
The Best Education available on this planet -
Stop the Brain-Drain and bring back intelligence to America
World Leadership in "The Environment" -
Like we did in the 60's in the Space Race -
We can lead the globe in Alternative Energy.
American Infrastructure !
Our Country is literally falling apart -
Failing Power Distribution
Failing Clean Water Supply
Failing Highway System
Failing Rail System
Again - Here we can return to being a global leader . . .
Right now we are way down the list.
Financial Oversight - Yes - Regulations !
The American Citizenship needs to re-learn:
The Government Protects with regulations -
The GOP encourages stealing America's
wealth and giving it to the 1%
We need to return to an actual Democracy
Time to end the Electoral College - Let Americans Decide
Time to end Gerrymandering
Time to LIMIT Campaign Spending -
Clearly - our Elections are "Bought"
Finally - "We must work together and Stop the Hate !
8
This administration operates on instant gratification; they are sacrificing our future for the “deal” of the day. Every day. Behind every appointment, every alliance, every decision — it is obvious that they aren’t making decisions for the greater good. Only for the greater deal.
Why would they plant trees under whose shade they’ll never sit? When they can raze all those planted before them and make $100?
4
It's pretty easy.
First you acknowledge the serious overreach that Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid did in 2009 by forcing the early retirement of 70 of their most moderate members so they could shove through ACA against the public's wishes.
Then you accept that this happens throughout history when one party overreaches and the other party then benefits, albeit not usually this extreme of a chasm remains between the two parties.
Then you accept the fact that this nation is a patient nation and that the recalibration and redistribution of political ideologies across the political spectrum may take a generation to work itself out, but it will work itself out.
That's the power of Nature and of physics. The powerful, dynamic and constant struggle between organized structure and chaos is what forms Nature itself,whether it be the hair follicles in ears or the makeup of the US Congress.
Short term you might have some abnormalities (Cortez); long term they either get with the program or they get thrown off the bus.
It's like flipping a coin. I might flip a coin and 10 times in a row I get heads..but if I flip that coin 1000 times..chances are that it'll be 500 heads and 500 tails.
The long game is what America plays, in spite of Mr. Friedman's desire for us to be like Communist China where dictators will tear down a residential neighborhood to build a new train line.
Thank God for small miracles that Mr. Friedman isn't a government employee or office holder.
There is a God
1
"The fact that he [Mark Zuckerberg] has shown himself to be much more interested in scaling his platforms than combating those who abused them for political and economic gain — and that his lieutenants were ready to go after their high-profile critics, like George Soros..."
A thought provoking column - but how interesting that Friedman picks a left wing example in light of recent revelations about Google employees mulling over how to censor conservative sites.
"So the Next America may very likely have to raise taxes or trim military spending..."
As if military spending is a purely discretionary decision in the face of long term threats around the world. A President who credibly threatens to defend our interests abroad would be seriously undercut by treating military spending like any other spending. Reagan's military buildup certainly played a role in the demise of the Soviet Union, and Trump's military budgets surely factor into Russian and Chinese thinking.
The New America certainly can wait if we continue to have Don the Con. I see no discussions in gov't about the future. We are going Back to the Future if these folks have their way.
1
One thing is certain, a president who doesn't know how to use a computer and who believes that the American economy should go backward to the age of coal and heavy manufacturing is not going to lead the the country into the future...
236
@A. Gallaher Not everyone can live in a 1000 square foot house in San Diego and pay $2,000,000 for it. This is a nation that consists of much more than DelMar and the millionaires who occupy those homes. When the AltLeft becomes very agitated, they will begin to force those people out of their homes and use the proceeds for the proletariat.
For it's not the poor they love so much as they hate the rich.
You can try to tithe your way out of it and virtue signal that you're 'woke' but the movement of Populism exists on both the right and the left...and right now they are both rather p'o'ed at the establishment of both parties.
If Macron is so deaf as to not hear the voice of his people, he will regret the day he thought he could thread the needle.
Trump is an oaf and a bafoon, but he is also street smart and street wise and he gets that the people are angry and they want a set of rules that the rich people have to play by as well as Joe the Plumber.
How many people from the .con or the S&L crisis or the 2008 collapse are in jail?
I rest my case.
If an institution wants moral authority and respect, they have to throw their undesirables under the bus.
The fact Republicans do this with pretty much everyone who has an ethics violation while Democrats seem to embrace their bad boys (other than Franken), means that their is some cognitive dissonance going on with the left.
Perhaps it's that warm sea breeze blowing 80 degree warmth in your face?
3
@A excellent points
@A. Gallaher Since he knows how to Tweet he knows something about tech. And manufacturing is essential to our future, too much service economy is very bad.
There will be more wealth and it maybe even less fairly distributed. The Government will need to be the distributer of this. It will need to assure that the billions made are used to allow general education, health care. retirement and other necessary human needs. This will take a big change in the perception of what government is supposed to do. At this time the government has been bought by the money from the powerful to assure their ongoing well being. One of the main steps will be to take back the democracy-easier voting, one person one vote, less money in politics.
2
Trump is an analog President living in a digital world, nothing is moving forward !
1
“How do we govern in the age that will begin with the 2020 election?”
Learn to speak only of the Truth. No lies.
2
To me the next America will most likely renew the definition of Government by the people. Much of what we spend money on today simply protects the government infrastructure that becomes less relevant every day to it citizens needs. As resources tighten and anxiety grows it will cause us to rethink how we see value in our Government, Corporations, and Other entities. The era of big data and processing can and should result in new and better ways to define ideal roles for these entities and measure the value they produce. Government is bad at innovation while corporations excel, but Corporations can be deaf to social needs where government excels. The future can and should result in to public standards and reporting for both, justifying their use of stakeholder and public investment.
Tech is nothing really. It is social improvement not faster phone speed that matters.
AI is also nothing much because regular human intelligence matters far more. All the AI will not save us from Trump world. He is proof that civilization probably is over and done.
I like Thomas Friedman very much and enjoy reading his writing. But here he has gone off into the advertisements.
1
What 5G means to me is more intrusion into my personal life amid prompts to sign in with my Google or Facebook account (so that these behemoths know even more about me and my habits). That, to me, is not a good thing. 5G is about enriching tech companies and limiting people's options by making them think their options are limitless. Thanks, but no thanks.
2
Unless This America wakes up now to seriously confront global warming, the Next America might very well be the Last America.
124
@Joel Solonche: Ask Macron how he is doing.
2
@Joel Solonche
True, but by the time global warming becomes critical, Trump will be dead so it is not his problem.
Kind of like how he treats debt.
4
For a number of years I have listened and watched Conservatives/Republications talk about Social Security, and Medicare all the while acting as if they have something bad tasting in their mouths, as if these programs are give-aways or grudgingly given handouts to people who really do not deserve them. Yes, SS & Medicare are entitlements because I and many, many others are ENTITLED to draw upon a fund which my taxes have paid for. Through the years, countless paychecks have been taxed to fund the safety nets whether or not the recipients of those paychecks approved of of that taxation. You, the taxpayer, are ENTITLED to benefit.
6
How do we govern the “Next America’’?
The question implies, on several levels, its own impossibility of answer. First, you can't "govern" in any uniform sense, a country of the size and diversity of America. Charles DeGaulle asked, "How can you govern a country that has two hundred and forty-six varieties of cheese?" And the US has five times the population of France. What's tearing the country apart right now is the misguided effort to impose one-size-fits-all on a continent-spanning country of a large number of mutually incompatible sub-cultures where one size can't possibly fit all.
"This Next America will raise a whole web of new intertwined policy, legal, moral, ethical and privacy issues because of changes in technology, demographics, the environment and globalization that are reaching critical mass."
And no one set of reactions to those issues will be acceptable to the entire country. Nevertheless, Mr Friedman goes on to:
"That means that in addition to our traditional big safety nets — Social Security and Medicare — we will need new national trampolines. We will need to make some level of postsecondary education free to every American..."
I.e., the usual response of the Left: more big, expensive, government programmes that assume that there's only one possible solution and that only the federal government is wise enough and competent enough to cram it down everyone's throat.
We as a nation can't be "governed," we can only be guided, and then not simply.
1
The next America might just require downsizing the behemoth that currently exists.
There are pockets of this Nation that just don't care about greeting the future with open arms. They would rather wallow around in the muck of their own making.
We will need regulations that limit where we can build our homes; away from flood plains and forests where we see people's homes burned down or washed away only to get government assistance to rebuild in the same spots.
The power we need to run a vast complex society like ours will need to be decentralized; both the political power and the electric/energy power.
There are many things that need to be done and we have shown a remarkable inability to even discuss those things.
t rump has done the Nation a great service in ripping off the mask of our elite governing class exposing so much corruption that the mind reels.
Will We the People take this time seriously? Or do we at best lose our Country and our democracy or, at worst, cause the mass extinction of humanity itself?
1
Mr. Friedman,
It's far too soon for this kind of optimism. Not only does the Trump Toity need cleaning, but the senate replaced.
Technology is a distraction.
1
“Continuous Lifelong Learning”has always been the code for many of us. The trick is to buy in and get started! There are millions of jobs in tech, small manufacturing and healthcare waiting for applicants. Why doesn’t anyone talk about this?
3
I keep reading articles that say we will all re-train and then work into our 70's. Here's the truth, not because we are living longer, but because we will be too broke to retire and the safety nets will have been taken away by the GOP. Let's get real - there aren't too many really healthy people between 60 and 75 - sure they are well enough to do retiree things, but the all of these pundits should look around a bit more - there is a small minority who are really taking care of themselves and when healthcare gets even more expensive even they will start to go down in numbers. Sounds like a return to the time when you worked, then you died. WHY is anyone aspiring that? And which jobs are these 60-70 year olds doing? Working at Walmart? Not too many of them know how to code, and by the way, most of us have the start of some memory loss - hard to code when you can't remember,
5
I prefer Yogi Berra's bent: "The future ain't what it used to be." But because his other one misses re: "We're lost but we're making good time," we WILL need to invoke 5G -- i.e., the Fifth Grade -- where we learned, back when GREAT could ONLY become GREATER, never a trump for false returns, that Lee SURRENDERED to Grant. Not vice versa.
1
Remember being shocked at surveillance of ordinary citizens by Communist authorities in East Germany and in Russia? Who imagined that constant, invisible access to personal choices, loves, movements, money, photos and politics would be perfected in the world's most famous and self-promoting democracy? that it would be powered and virtually mandated by capitalism, the economic system imagined to be the least subject to government control? Next America needs to redefine privacy fairly and candidly, and reconstruct a world where personal boundaries can be established and protected
6
"Continuous lifelong learning" is not a new idea. That's what a high school education was supposed to be preparation for. Clearly at this point, we ought to add 13th and 14th grade. (I'll be sure to send a memo to Betsy DeVos.) An investment in a college education should prepare one for a more challenging and better paying career, but we live in a country where 60% of the jobs are minimum wage, and half of those are held by people with college degrees. Technology has made it easier for me to work in the field I studied in college, but it has also made it easier for everyone else to do the same work. I'm working harder, against more competition, and making less money, than I did 10 years ago. So before getting all excited about how fast movies will download, think about how 5G will affect the workplace, particularly the millions of college graduates competing for minimum wage jobs. High-tech, high-speed internet is lucrative for some, but for every Jeff Bezos, there are ten million people like me, people for whom modern technology has been a double-edged sword, a little sharper on the wrong side.
6
So we in our 60s and 70s will have to suffer with cuts or elimination of Social Security and Medicare just so the rich could get their tax cuts they never really needed for the last 40 years? The Next America then will be tens of millions begging in the streets and dying in the gutters. You forgot that part.
15
@M.S. Shackley, Curl up in a sleeping bag under a highway bridge with the others already there.
1
Mr. Friedman argues that by 2020 we will be voting in the “New America”. Sadly, if he is right, there may be more angry and unemployed Americans than there was in 2016. Economic conditions may deteriorate. Social Security and Medicare may be under attack. Will there be more “angry citizens” voting for Trump. In an op ed in the Times by Jochen Bittner (Oct.25,2016), entitled “What do Donald Trump and Marx Have In Common?” In his column, Bittner notes that in German angry citizens are “Wutburgers”. Karl Marx was and Trump is a Wutberger. God help us all if 2020 brings an uprising of an ever increasing number of “Wutburgers”.
In today's NYT Editorial Board's "Paris Burning ", French Prime Minister Philippe is quoted as saying "It is the anger of the French who work and work hard but still have difficulty making ends meet, who find their backs against the wall". Well, I fear that the "Next America, the "Next Europe", the "Next World" will be full of people who will find themselves with their backs against the wall while working hard, because I do not see the end of inequalities on the horizon, but their growth. Best regards from Padua (still EU)
4
How do you govern? Smaller government. The answer in 2020 is a federal government that does what it is constitutionally responsible for. All the rest of the nonsense should be decided at the state and local level.
3
@Carlos Gonzalez we tried that. It didn't work. If you want to go back to the Articles of Confederation, well, you are welcome to your opinion--but we went to a stronger federal government because too much sovereignty for the states was a recipe for disaster for the Union.
1
All food for thought and all has some truth provided we have a sustainable planet we call home. Without the later the vision the author has for our future is meaningless.
1
Of course this 'Next America' can and will wait until the 'right' people can either profit or control it. That assumes that this article has even a point to it, it wanders over so much ground that it is not clear where its going or where its has been.
This idea can stand in the corner with other brilliant ideas the author has had, such as: 'the world is flat', 'Saudi Arabia's Arab Spring', and capitalism turning China into a democracy. I could find others but it's so easy it's boring and I really don't want to subject Google to such a regurgitation of poor predictions.
The author asserts that”the United States Census Bureau has predicted that by 2020, for the first time, “more than half of the nation’s children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group.” That will begin a process by which by 2044 ‘no one racial or ethnic group will dominate the U.S. in terms of size,’ NPR reported.
But the U.S. Census Bureau projections the linked NPR article presents shows projections for the year 2060, not 2044, and they forecasts that whites will make up 93.9 percent of the population in 2060. The reason is that most immigrants are white. A race that makes up 93.9 percent of the population will be the “dominant” race.
The NPR’s assertion that more than half of the nation’s children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group” is also a distortion. All U.S. children are members of ethnic groups. Hispanic Americans, can be of any race or combination of races. We give them false minority status but lumping all other white Americans into the catchall “Non-Hispanic White” category, as if they have no ancestry. Mexican Americans are already America’s second largest ethnic group, just behind German Americans, who they will soon surpass. They already outnumber Irish Americans, Italian Americans, English American, Scottish Americans, French Americans, Swedish American, Dutch Americans, Chinese Americans, Japanese Americans, etc.
1
@William Case The further problem with the statistic is that it’s irrelevant. A race or culture’s percentage of the population doesn’t inherently change power or wealth. Hispanic Americans have the lowest college graduation rates in the nation at less than 10%. That would need to change for Hispanics on average, to move up in the hierarchy of society. The coming crisis is when people realize that changing demographics will not in and of itself, change wealth and power. That change requires that a higher percentage of those currently in the disadvantaged minority communities to graduate college at higher rate and even go further and get advanced degrees at a higher rate.
@John
I lived most of my life in El Paso, which is about 85 percent Hispanic. I loved El Paso, but it functions like all large cities. El Paso has rich neighborhoods and poor neighborhoods like all U.S. cities, but in El Paso all neighborhoods are predominantly Hispanic.
@William Case Yes. That is why I said on average. There are wealthy, poor, and middle class within every group, race, and culture. I was referring to average wealth and power on a national level. My point was that simple changes in demographics is unlikely to change the overall landscape as much as some want.
At the turn of the last century, Argentina was the richest country in the world. As the recent G20 conference proved, it can still host a good party, but its fortunes are not what they once were. We Americans have got to understand that our place among the elite nations rests not on some god given right, but upon hard work and good governance. We are currently fiscally bankrupt, we don't do a good job of educating our children, we have allowed corporations to take the power from the people, we have given up our moral compass in exchange for unlimited porn and 600 channels of TV, and we have allowed our government to be run by a man-child. 20 or 40 years from now, we will either be in decay or we will look back at a new generation of leaders who had righted the course and salvaged our nation from the dustbin of history. Its not going to be easy...and it should not be...but if we work hard we can take back our destiny and return this country to its place as the beacon on the hill.
2
If we are to survive, we must rethink our economic and political direction. Our government is rife with corruption and the infrastructure crumbles while we still embrace 17th century's coal-burning philosophy. What remains of our atmosphere is a toxic chemical soup creating all new health problems that support a burgeoning mega-pharmaceutical industry and a healthcare system that can’t diagnose a blister without an MRI.
We are a narcissistic country bent on exporting our particular style of self-centeredness to the world. If self-destruction is the goal, America is well on our way to achieving that goal.
It’s time to stop this self-perpetuating insanity in our country. We need real leadership from DC and protection from the bombastic morons burning through the oxygen in the halls of mismanagement and backrooms of poor government.
Our existing two-party systems serves themselves, not us. How much longer will we as a collapsing society endure this?
2
The next America: 1% ultra rich, 10% doing just fine, 70% on subsistence incomes working either 0 or 3 jobs. And that will be the end of America's career at the top. Soon China will be the world's biggest economy, and one or two decades later the biggest by quite a bit. And the leader in technology.
Interesting to see how USA will adapt to its new role as World No. 2.
1
@r a Goven that China is largely becoming wealthy by following the American model, how long do you think that their success will last?
@r a
Considering that Canada is mostly a branch plant of US manufacturing and a supplier of natural resources to the world, where does your prediction leave your nation?
@EGD
Well, I predict that in 2050 Canada will be mostly a branch plant of US manufacturing and a supplier of natural resources to the world.
Way to bury the lead Thomas...
We will also need to redefine our definition of trustworthy leadership. Witness Mark Zuckerberg and of course the likes of Trump and his cabinet. I probably shouldn't include Trump:
he's an aberration but Zuch has his tentacles in too many people's lives and the more we examine him, the more suspect his leadership becomes.
The "In sum" last paragraph makes clear that our future will be filled with challenges that, as you state them, are almost beyond daunting. Under the current Republican leadership, America is backing in to this next stage of moving forward, and frankly, it is scary as hell. It is like starting the second half down by fifty points.
1
Heady, cool article.
What Tom is likely under-estimating is how this kind of change (meta-change?) in tech will threaten people, and disenfranchise an even bigger segment of Americans. It will likely trigger MAGA on steroids.
If the segment of Americans who cannot function in 5 or 6G, don't learn programming languages, fail to understand the complex socio-cultural reality, possess no marketable skills except extraction from deep mines (never mind addicted and socially isolated), I expect them to lash out with greater fervor than the MAGA set is currently doing.
The next avatar of Trump will ban reading just to help out the guy who did not learn programming - but votes.
If this is the next America, it sounds hopeless and dead. 5G? Sure. Self-driving cars? For some of us, yes? Clothing tethered to the internet? For the very wealthy and those who have completely given up on actually living? And hardly a mention on climate change, the necessity of mass migration on this continent alone, economic and social inequity, and the loss of purpose as more jobs are lost to automation while our policy makers maintain a steadfast refusal to invest in education, job retraining and placement (including those areas associated with the arts and cultural enrichment). I don't see a lot of value in Friedman's vision of the future, with or without Trump as POTUS. Just glad I didn't have children.
2
The idea that more and faster internet connections will lead us into a brave new future seems a little dubious given the very mixed results we've gotten from the internet and it's attendant social media. We are, as a society, lonelier, more fractured, sitting around staring at porn and electronic distractions, etc... How 5G will help with that is not clear to me.
171
@Mike
Agree. As studies seems to show the "Utopia" fallacy of social media and internet immersion, I am skeptical about this brave new future.
14
@Mike
At some point individuals must take responsibility for how they utilize their time. It is not the responsibility of technology.
3
@W. Fulp
Agree as well. That point logically follows into other avenues of life. You could easily replace the word technology with government in many instances. People are still responsible for their choices in life yet we seem to forget this.
1
One thing that's not evenly distributed is primary and
secondary education. The Next America could address that by making
it a national project to bring public schools everywhere up to the
level of the best in the country. Pick up a six-year old from
Greenwich, Connecticut and deposit him in rural Mississippi,
and he shouldn't suffer any loss in the quality of schooling he'll
receive. The public school grid should be just as reliable as the
electric power grid.
4
I question Friedman's, lifelong learning ideology.
As many readers here surely recall, numerous displaced, laid off workers during the 80s and 90s were encouraged to learn new skills such computer networking, coding etc. It worked out for some but for many not so well. And why is that? Look at a typical example, a married man his late 40s is laid off from the local plant, they live in a rural or small town in the midwest with two kids in high school. They have a mortgage, a car payment, bills to pay. You enroll in a community college with low tuition to learn some new skills. You finish, apply for jobs but they don't exist where you live. The choice is to move to a city where the jobs are, but the equity in your house won't come close to providing you the 20% down payment to buy something in a city where the jobs are, plus you don't have a job "history," so you wouldn't get a mortgage anyway. Should you sell your house and rent an apartment in a city away from your relatives, friends, kids school? So what do you do, move away by yourself, room with strangers in an apartment far from your family and see them occasionally. Even if you do try this tactic, you are going up against young people with four year degrees. This is the dillema that faces many people. Not to say they should just give up and do nothing. Be a life long learner is a great sounding slogan but a far different reality for a lot of people.
195
Is not that exactly what our ancestors in this country (and in my case from other countries) did over and over again? Maybe the view that somehow we deserve to stay in place and force the world to come to us is the problem. Everyone of our ancestors had the similar reasons to the ones you cite to just muddle through. What would our history be if everyone stayed in place?
58
@A P, As if every person living in a rust belt town or area can just pack up and move to SF, Seattle or NY is a complete fallacy. It puts the blame entirely upon those who are left out of the modern economic structure.
I've actually heard this from many very well off, highly educated people to my shock and dismay, "Oh why don't they just get up and move?'' Right. As if there's an oversupply of affordable housing and abundant opportunities for a laid off factory worker or other.
132
@Michael Blazin -- Using our immigrant ancestors as models for the future is a bit disingenuous, don't you think? Yes, they came here, struggled and either succeeded or failed, but, at any given time and in any given place, they did it in relatively small numbers. This new model says: everyone needs to do it all the time. Is that even feasible? I doubt it.
13
He pretends to look ahead? -- and not until the final paragraph, as an also, he mentions the climate change that will devastate our human civilization's future?
His lens is fogged.
1
I find it incredible that only 300 people comment on the usual prescient comments by Tom F. Is anyone out there? Anyway, there are two issues in addition which are about to be changed dramatically by technology, which Tom did not comment on: war and health care. In Joe Ellis's new book, American Dialog, he notes that we have been at war for the last 40 years or so, and more and more of out national debt is spent trying to kill people and break things. Sooner or later, nothing will be left to defend. Health care is now so wrapped up in new technologies from pharmaceuticals to surgical procedures to genetic manipulation that soon the costs will be completely unaffordable without a national health plan. Lets hope our elected "officials" read, listen and act on the consequences of denying what Tom says is absolutely obvious.
2
Better processes, less egos.
A big tension in America is that technology moves forward and Trump, his policies and his core supporters move backward. Markets do not favor Luddites. Something's got to give.
84
@Frank exactly, Trump is an analog Presidente living in a digital world !
5
@Marcus Boeira, that's about the kindest thing one can say about him and I recognize you were not attempting to be complimentary
2
@Marcus Boeira
No, he's a paper and pen guy. He doesn't use pencils because they are weak. You also don't have to be right all the time with a pencil since it has an eraser. But, the current guy doesn't need an eraser since he is always correct.
2
A good article with a massive hole. No mention of the effects of Climate Change in an article about important future issues? Climate Change will have a strong influence on economics, agriculture, living space, travel and disease. In short, it will disrupt every aspect of our society. Unfortunately it seems to be inevitable that Climate Change is destined to become Climate Calamity.
5
Maybe everything Mr. Friedman says is right on track, who knows. So many issues, so few solutions. Maybe we will have real leaders rise to the tasks ahead but, the one point he makes about "fiscal tools" is closer to the immediate truth we are facing and that is poverty in our country. As more Americans fall through the cracks economically (and we are) we have no governmental policy that addresses this issue in a competent, humane manner. There is going to be a reckoning and it is coming sooner rather than later.
2
If indeed, 2020 will be such a significant start of a new chapter in the history of this country, we have to give up the usage of the name of the continent as if it is the country. It may have worked well at the turn of the 20th century when leaders at the time had plans to expand the power of the country outside of it’s borders. But calling the country, United States, (one of many countries in the continent), by the name America is only a reminder of an arrogance that has to be shed from the vocabulary in the year 2018, so that it is compatible with the values we wish for going forward. Please, Mr Friedman!
2
Yes. Exactly. In Canada we have always referred to it as either “the States” or the U.S.
@Silvina I agree wholeheartedly!
@Marcine Linder
"United States" doesn't work either.
Mexico is officially the United Mexican States.
1
Liberty is imperiled in this nation so any candidate that effector addresses the totalitarian nature of today’s leftists will have my vote.
1
This is why Tom Friedman is so confounding as a journalist. Nowhere is climate change, mass species extinction, mass pollution, sea level rise, increase of nuclear armament, increase of right wing populism, decrease in middle class and increase of lower class and increase of wealth confiscation to the elite (You get the picture yet??).
I imagine Mr. Friedman sipping on a latte at Starbucks on his way to the office and zinging this one through...
This is poor journalism, and sounds almost like an infomerical for 5g.
6
@Bradford Hastreiter I too was scratching my head over the 5G stuff. There are protests going on over the globe concerning climate breakdown and violent protests in France over wealth and income inequality and he is talking about 5G? The wealth an income issues like climate breakdown is pretty much a global issues as well.
1
@Bradford Hastreiter "Nowhere is climate change, mass species extinction, mass pollution, sea level rise, increase of nuclear armament, increase of right wing populism, decrease in middle class and increase of lower class and increase of wealth confiscation to the elite....
While your point is well taken, as long as monopolistic control of technology is centered in the hands of a very few who also have unfettered access to policy makers none of those areas will receive the priorities they need. Money and power remain the goal, running hand in hand.
Tom,
Always love your columns and your insights.
But all the shiny new stuff is, to me, a distraction from the seemingly insurmountable problems of climate change and the ever-increasing disparity in wealth distribution worldwide.
We waste way too much money on "game-changing" stuff when the world crumbles beneath us.
3/4/5G...ask any refugee from Syria, Central America, etc., if he cares how fast he can download the latest rom-com....
Billions spent on getting to Mars...why? What's wrong with fixing where we are now?
6
The Next America will likely include a substantial number of people who take advantage of technology to decline to participate in the, "Next America".
People are leaving social media droves. People are moving to the suburbs and rural areas as housing, traffic, crime, taxes drive them from the cities.
To be sure, the young, single people will stay in the city, drinking their lattes at he corner cafe and endless blogging about how special that is. But anyone who has a serious life, meaning a family to provide for, will leave the dystopian cities for life in places that don't look to control your every action and monitor your 24/7.
The "Next America" will reinvigorate of the "Old America".
1
@Larry Have you been to a city lately? There's plenty of us here skipping the corner cafes to hit the coffee pot in the office, and raising families, and not getting robbed, etc. Yes, my taxes are higher, but it's worth it to surround myself in a culture that's not built around hating what's new and different.
2
The Next America probably is already happened in China. Several small cities of China started 5G experiment in 2017. The plan is to expand to mega cities like Beijing and Shanghai eventually. Mass student graduation in colleges with science & engineering degree every year pouring into job market. Constant challenges and competition for a good paying job force them to change and adapt. While we are short of capable workers here, but there are plenty of them waiting for opportunities. Innovation and tech startup are booming. That is why NY Times published a paper that a 19-year old had a better chance in China than here several weeks ago.
But Tom when does all this technology reduce the cost of medical care? Why is it so hard to imagine that technology will eventually break the backs of healthcare costs, taking care of the elderly, education and housing? Think of it, technology has slashed the costs of all things electronic, food, all things shopping, travel, etc. Technology is on the very cusp of changing our entire energy matrix and costs will plummet.
The next decade will see unimaginable improvement in new drug therapies especially biologics that will dramatically reduce chronic illness care costs. Yes, the drugs will be expensive, but will save the healthcare system far more than the drug costs, and people will live far more productive lives with less morbidity, less care need and more independence. Think new Alzheimer’s drugs that may not cure Alzheimer’s but push it out 5 to 10 years in patients - just imagine how much this will save in elder care costs. Same for Parkinson’s. New diabetes therapies that turn on the insulin production of a dormant pancreas. New arthritic therapies. New cardiovascular therapies.
We need to wrap our arms around 5G and all other things technology, because this is really our only pathway to solve daunting problems like healthcare costs, educations costs, cleaning up our atmosphere. We cannot cut, save or conserve our way to a better outcome. We need technological solutions.
2
Hasn't the "next" America already come and left many in the country w/o anything? Rust belt and other places where one generation worked and lived fell as though as though those huge enterprises and years of production were nothing. Robots take jobs now, and we see jobs that kept people alive with some modicum of respect alive. Classes for college going online. What's the point of having a democracy if all this beyond those of us who are neither wealthy nor powerful? Most disheartening, depressing. We're applauded for certain feats: along with the Russians, going to the moon. Meanwhile, here along with the fear of climate change, is great human upheaval.
3
The idea of "continuous training" sounds nice but it conflicts with human nature. Average people don't want to spend their non working hours getting educated over and over again. They want to go drinking, watch TV, have fun, go on dates, etc. And as far as free junior college tuition: there are very few jobs you can get with an associates degree that you can't already get with just a high school diploma. As Tom Freedman has said before: Average just isn't good enough anymore. This means half the human race is doomed. And this is true without even bringing up global warming.
3
How can we govern the Next America when we cannot govern the current one? Peter Drucker observed that a functioning society requires responsible leaders who pay attention to what they do to society and for society. I’d add that it also requires responsible citizens who demand accountability from their leaders — and themselves.
New technology will bring unimaginable leadership challenges, but it will deliver few solutions unless we acknowledge our collective interdependence and responsibility for choosing how we want to live. We cannot be bystanders who succumb to the false promises of consumerism, entertainment culture and quick fixes. It’s the SOCIETY, stupid....
2
we hav a path before us: The Green New Deal...this is the path forward from the sewer we are currently in.
This reminds me so much of how you used to admonish Iraqis to get with the New Middle East. Good times.
5G? There are lots of places on Long Island (<100 miles from Manhattan, 6000 people per square mile, 18th most populated in the world) that don't even get 4G. As usual Friedman writes in a bubble of privilege.
There is one consideration that no one seems to recognize and that is the human species has not evolved enough to handle all these rapid changes. Look at most religions whose belief systems haven't evolved much since the Middle Ages. There is a huge disconnect and I think it will be the meritocratic elites who will benefit. Another reality that gets pushed under the rug is the variances in IQ and talents. We are not all naturally equipped to function in this brave new world and these.I believe, facts can not be ignored. I am not writing as some sort of elite genius 'cause I am not. I could probably function better if I went off grid, but I like civilization even though I am not at all looking forward to the next America. I don't even like the one we have now.
1
I appreciate your constant effort to look at deep trends: Climate, technology and demographics among them. The world under us is changing, rapidly, the result of our choices and actions. Angry populism accelerates just the negative impact of change. Please give us more columns on people with a new vision.
We need an Avenatti, someone with a Trump personality that has a Roosevelt heart.
First we must order our chartreuse vests to make sure they get here in time for 2020.
Let’s not kid ourselves, the incipient “Next America” sits on a razor’s edge today. Its augury was revealed yesterday in Wisconsin where the Republican legislature is trying to thwart the will of the electorate that voted for a Democratic governor. It was revealed in Sacramento where California law enforcement pursued criminal charges against eight anti-fascist activists who were stabbed or beaten at a neo-Nazi rally while failing to prosecute anyone for the knife attacks against them. It was revealed in Washington DC, where the federal judiciary is being stockpiled with blatantly partisan and reactionary life-time appointments, and where an NFL team selected a man who beats women over a man who peacefully kneeled during the National Anthem. It was revealed in Georgia, North Carolina and Florida, where elections were rigged and the minority vote suppressed. It was revealed in Mr. Friedman’s column today, where he once again advocates for a fluid, gig work-force that he imagines can survive in a global economy without adequate healthcare, affordable housing and Social Security.
8
AI? How about some actual human intelligence, more evenly distributed? That, and decency, and acceptance that we all occupy the same country! We've just come through an election in which a candidate for US Senate was the sitting governor of Florida who refused to recuse himself from his oversight of elections. The GOP candidate for governor of Georgia was sec'y of state for years leading up to the election, and had his way with the electoral rolls. Now, the election in a NC district has not been certified because of credible accusations of corruption in the process. And in Minnesota and Michigan, lame duck GOP assemblies are trying to block the authority of incoming Democrats. Republicans are sadly deficient in true patriotism. Meanwhile, Pompeo and Bolton, Thugs R Us, assist Trump in shredding our influence and undoing decades of cooperative agreements. And Pompeo says that Trump is building a new liberal world order!!?! God help us!
3
Dr. Tom, if you want to see what the "Next America" after 2020 will be like, take a look at the 1939 World's Fair in Flushing Meadows, NY, when the "next America" was on the unforeseen cusp of World War II, when the German third reich's might was clutching Europe in its fascist fist, when Japan's Jingos were rampaging in Asia. When America was "America First". (MAGA redux today). The 1939 World's Fair, which ran from April 1939 - October 1940, was called "The World of Tomorrow". It's as fruitless now to predict the future -- the "Next America" -- as it was then..
Tom,
I enjoy reading your perspectives from time to time.... and this column you wrote is excellent.... In the future your comments on the President were not called for .... enough is enough from all of you media people.... let me close with this comment.... I am not a Trump fan however I respect the Office of the Presidency and will voice my opinion in the proper forum...
1
This futuristic article about The "Next America" floats away in mid air towards some imagined future, while ignoring massive problems on the ground:
Our metastasizing, engineered capitalism which turns big bankers into monarchs above the law, who invest mostly in their own stock buybacks and not in the economy at large.
The growing private industry of jails-for-profit now manifest in the incarceration of millions of mostly black and brown people. Our justice system makes them felons for life unable to vote, get a job, get food stamps, or live in public housing.
The increasing rape and pillaging of the environment for the private profit of giant companies and banks who buy legislators.
The ever-growing trillion-and-a-half dollar student debt that remains devoid of all the consumer protections accorded to every other form of debt.
An American Empire bleeding trillions of public dollars in permanent wars around the world that generate huge private profits for the happy few while devastating public health care, public education, and public housing.
A minimum wage whose purchasing power has remained flat since 1970.
Without first fixing these foundational flaws on the ground, we will not move into any viable future regardless of how impressive artificial intelligence technology may become.
We can't build a good house, a good country, or a good future in mid air and starting on the second floor, no matter how impressive the technology.
oz.
7
In traditional societies the elders were respected because they were the custodians of culture, where "culture" and all its trappings was literally all about survival. These societies were conservative, because once a technique was found to be "good enough", tinkering with it could prove fatal. In modern society, the elderly are considered worthless, chiefly because their technological knowledge is obsolete and the remaining culture, constantly mutated by the insatiable marketplace, has passed them by. Very soon however, you won't need wrinkles to be kicked to the curb. As anyone who has followed software over the last couple of decades knows, there is no longer such a thing as mastery in which you may take pride. You have no sooner become adept with a product before it has been replaced by something "better', requiring another daunting learning curve ahead. Acquiring these skills before they become instant relics might initially seem exciting, but ultimately is a Sisyphean nightmare. There will always be a new wave of workers just a few years young than you, unencumbered by all your anachronistic knowledge, ready to be your replacement, until they themselves suffer the same fate. This is the wonderful world Mr. Friedman has become the cheerleader for.
3
@stan continople Basically, what a person needs to do once he has figured this out is find a way to get off the technological treadmill. It takes some thought and planning, but it can be done. It does help if you have had the privilege (as I have) of having lived in a traditional society, so that one knows first hand a way to live that is not insane.
1
Uh-oh, Friedman has read another futuristic novel (or maybe just interviewed the author) so he's ready to write another column about how whiz-bang amazing the Brave New World of Tom-morrow will be!
It'll be like the Jetson's - just zipping around using our body mass transporters, communicating in nano-seconds with our doctors in India, and re-tooling ourselves nightly.
Except none of the trendlines we are on lead anywhere close to these fantasies. How about environmental disasters world-wide, leading to massive global migration, war, disease, and famine? Authoritarianism as far as the eye can see, where all these sparkling new technological tools are used to enslave us rather than liberate us? Financial and political collapse leading to civil war or suspension of elections?
Color me pessimistic, but how we "govern" ourselves has already been demonstrated: poorly, sloppily, and lazily - the way we always have, using an 18th century model rife with corruption, tampering, and apathy. Don't see that changing by 2020.
7
Wow. Someone has really fallen for the wireless industry's hype. I'm pretty sure the last two times we moved up a "G", they told us it was dramatically going to change the world. I'm still waiting. I suspect it's much like the longer-running trend of increasing PC speed and memory, which has mostly led to more bloated apps.
That being said, I agree that it's important "to make some level of postsecondary education free to every American who meets a minimum grade and attendance requirement." They key question is what kind. Also in today's Times is a story about the increasing number of underemployed college grads who can't afford to move out of their parents' home. Not everyone needs a liberal arts degree, and not every college prepared their students for the realities of the job market.
2
I appreciate your column, Mr. Friedman, but unfortunately the people who need to read it won't do so, because they can't bother to read.
Unfortunately, the last place the 'Next America' will get distributed to, is Washington D.C.
Very impressive columnist Mr. Friedman:
you can not avoid leaving an absolute open mouth face after getting all impossible news that americans and all will be meeting tonavigate.
However allow me to spoil this dynamic situation, I offer my apologies. I will explainplain.
By november 14th- this month, I had a son that without any doubt would be meeting all new requirements specified by your column.Fifty years old, fully charismatic, inshort an excellent person his funeral was attended by many excllent new age executives, all offering outstanding coments on his behavior. Insum,
this is just to make a recordatory that is not necessary all that to project life in US for 2020. so sorry. tom.
The ‘Next America’ will be a third world country...unless we can put a stop to the exploitation of our resources, our public services, and our taxpayer dollars by the millions of illegal foreign nationals brazenly stampeding across our sovereign borders every year. An amendment to end birthright citizenship would go a long way towards reversing that downward trajectory.
1
GOP pattern - mass tax and spending cuts; escalate deficit. Voters toss out GOP; Dems must raise taxes to repair damage; Dems lose popularity; GOP get re-elceted. Repeat.
Not a coincidence.
I cut this from Friedman's column as the basis for identifying a subject that is never discussed in the Times except by commenter Blackmamba, me, and a a very small number of others.
Friedman: "The United States Census Bureau has predicted that by 2020, for the first time, “more than half of the nation’s children are expected to be part of a minority race or ethnic group.” That will begin a process by which by 2044 “no one racial or ethnic group will dominate the U.S. in terms of size,” NPR reported."
Former USCB Director Kenneth Prewitt explains in his 2013 book, "What Is Your Race? The Census and Our Flawed Efforts to Classify Americans" why the USCB system should be ended and replaced by a system where we are seen in terms of real SES data.
The so-called races and ethncities are all the political constructions of racists, employed to create a racial order in which a subset of people assigned to the USCB white race were placed at the top.
Ending use of these categories will not end racism, since racism in its many forms, not just American white against black, is forever. But this would be a step to Professor Dorothy Roberts' and my goal - give all citizens as nearly universal health care and education as possible.
Only-NeverInSweden.blogspot.com
Citizen US SE
3
Great, so according to Friedman, the next election should be run on who can better adjust to 5G, not who can save us from the cultural Armageddon brought on by the Republicans. Elizabeth Warren will say she's ready to make regulatory changes to adjust to 5G. Then the New York Times will report that Warren says she "invented the Internet," and do a 5-part front-page expose on how she's not really Native American. Trump will say, "5Gs? That's what I pay for my haircuts." All his followers will rhapsodize about what a "regular guy" he is, and how he "gets people like them." The "more-trustworthy" Trump will get reelected. Rinse, repeat.
Good luck to the American politician who cuts Social Security and Medicare for the boomers. That would make crossing the NRA or AIPAC look like nothing on the political suicide meter. They'll have to just raise taxes enough to deal with Trump's insane deficits AND preserve Social Security and Medicare benefits.
3
As higher ed becomes ever less affordable for the masses, online education will take off, out of necessity. Why should a bright young person have to pay $40K in college debt for a traditional education when they can study on their laptop at a coffee shop and pass a rigorous competency test? For a taste of what automation will mandate, going forward, read Martin Ford's great book, "Rise of the Robots". (link)
https://www.amazon.com/Rise-Robots-Technology-Threat-Jobless/dp/0465097537/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1544009091&sr=8-1&keywords=rise+of+the+robots+martin+ford
1
There is a big third rail that seemingly nobody in journalism or politics wants to touch: population control. That and atheism are death for any politician, so it's up to the journalists.
5
For someone whom I usually consider to be spot-on you have this one upside down Mr. Friedman. Turn it over and put climate change on top, as politically incorrect as it today may be.
That room is all elephant and neoliberal capitalism is willfully blind.
6
The next America won't happen in America. I live in a community (Mill Valley, CA) that just banned 5G because our city council is worried about electromagnetic radiation. No word on whether they're going to ban the thousands of electromagentic radiation emitting devices in every home: light bulbs! (After all, light is electromagnetic radiation too, so presumably light should be banned).
Just one example of how even in America's richest and most privileged communities, stupidity and arrogance are the dominant themes of the American character. The notion that Americans will get their acts together to embrace the future is laughable. We're hopelessly backward
2
Mention of climate change should not be an afterthought!
6
Totally exhausting!
Makes me think of the old film "The Red Shoes". Poor Moira Shearer dances herself to death trying to keep up with the latest tech. Her magic ballet shoes.
Please just leave me alone!
3
It must be nice to have the time, and be paid, to be forward thinking like Thomas Friedman. When, at least, half of the country is backward thinking. About another third of the country doesn't really think at all. Most of the rest are thinking about tomorrow, not 2020 or beyond. Perhaps its helpful to have these seers among us, but tell me, how am I going to pay for long term care?
1
Scary: a political populace dominated by people with “tech certificates” pretentiously proclaiming they’re educated without a clue to the intracacies of interplay between human goodness, truth and beauty played out over two millennium of eastern and western civilization in the development of science, politics, religion and art! Good luck, America.
3
"...we've never run one so huge (a $1 trillion deficit) during a boom." Who cares? We have to stop thinking that we're still on the gold standard. Inflation for the year ending in October 2018 was 2.5%. Fantastic! But we still have millions of people unemployed above the official government rate. This is immoral and stupid. The 2.5% inflation rate implies that our deficits are not big enough!
The $21 trillion national debt is really just a bookkeeping entry that keeps track of all the US currency ever issued that hasn't been retrieved back in taxes. If inflation, which is really a theft of savings, gets above an acceptable level, then the government will have to take steps to bring it back down. And yes, this will be momentarily painful. But it's clear we're nowhere near that point yet. Put our people to work!
1
As a former antitrust lawyer, head of the DOJ Antitrust Division and a professor of antitrust law, I am absolutely positive that Section 2 of the Sherman Act does not include the language you quote in your article regarding "corruption of the political process."
Sadly, anti-business progressives led by Elizabeth Warren fantasize about making the antitrust laws a catch-all instrument for micro-managing businesses and forcing private companies to act as public utilities. Such fantasies might have become reality if our federal laws remained in the hands of activist judges. Fortunately, a changing federal judiciary and our new Supreme Court will require that our laws be interpreted according to what they actually say.
3
Mr. Friedman talks about the 'Next America' as if the old America with its current problems will no longer apply to us. Things like climate change, caring for the elderly, disabled and disadvantaged will not go away. So while our problems become more complex they only accentuate the things we confront right now.
He seems to imply that we all must suddenly turn into technological geeks and never again be able to perfect our competence in such things as the arts or anything else that makes concerted effort and dedication necessary over the long run. So in this 'new' economy many will be left behind no matter what we do.
To me it looks like a sad world where the needs of every day people are ignored in the face of 'technological progress'. One thing that even now has been lost in our current society is respect for the individual and this trend it seems will continue and only get worse as we are meshed into a world where we are more and more made only numbers in a huge computerized machine.
So in Mr. Friedman's vision will be left behind no matter what
2
When I was a safety director of an underground coal mine in the 70’s, we had wonderful technologies that helped to keep us safe. The Canary was set free! That was 50 years ago. The greatest reward for being 80 years old is that I still remember The Ice Box, Radio (no TV yet), Milk delivered by The Milk Man with a horse and carriage, Morse code (our closest thing to technology) and family time without streaming TV, smart devices or pads.
Like Tom mentioned, you retired with a gold watch, a rocking chair and usually died a few years later.
The complexities of 2020 will leave that vast majority of our civilization deaf, dumb and blind unless we act right now. Good luck with that! We as a civilization can’t even react to climate change, even when we were alerted to it years ago.
The solution? There isn’t any one solution, but there are steps we can take today. Tom mentioned Community Colleges. That’s a great step that we could do right now. Lots of night classes. Put our tax dollars in education for all. The cost of One fighter jet could educate an entire community.
The most important solution right now? Change the political system! Get rid of term limits. House members CAN’T live in Washington! Period. They have to spend all their working hours in the community that they represent!
Senators HAVE to spend at least 50% of their time in Washington working across the Aisle.
President Trump and all of his obsequious sycophants have to be sentenced to 4 years in the military.
2
The next United States will be like the present United States: run by big Corporate and back room money for a corporate elite to dictate how disaster capitalism will eat you up. Or a war to fulfill those ‘meritocratic’ myths of the honourable patrician.
Though it would be marvellous if ‘America’ would regulate their out of control corporate sectors that is pie in the sky.
1
As AT&T notes in one of its 5G ads, “Think of this as the next frontier in untethering, giving you the ability to take the ultrafast experience you have in your home or business with you virtually anywhere.’’
Does anyone else recall the AT&T ads from the '90s showing a man on a deserted beach, using his laptop connected to the Internet? That was over 20 years ago. Is the promise finally going to be fulfilled? We'll see.
I would not put a lot of money on Trump in 2020---he hates to lose, and putting aside his legal problems---another two years of his gross incompetence---should whittle his base down to under 30%--meaning---he is headed for a Goldwater outcome---better to call it quits--go on lucrative speaking/yelling engagements, play "more" golf, finally get that hotel built in Russia. Having said that, what concerns me most, is the level of civic engagement in this country. The future trends discussed in this article will demand radical changes in our institutions--e.g. schools---the workplace---it that concept even continues to exist---and moral/legal structures. These dramatic changes are tugging at us lightly right now--and so far---our political class and citizenry are either not paying attention---consumed with bread and circuses---or actively rebelling against these trends. What we will need is a political class willing to speak unpopular truths and a public willing to support policies addressing these unpopular truths---
1
All that 5G, AI and retrain without out pain pazzazz ended with a thud. He listed several items in the close that won't be fixed by AI/5G or a free tech training program in TN. (of all places) Time to get a move on. 2020 will be here before you know it.
1
I've listened to interviews with Heather McGowan and essentially the plight of the American worker is secure employment, spending their lifetime trying to predict the next skill set, independently paying for it while trying to survive in the present raising a family with very little time to get off the wheel in a mouse cage. She neglects to mention any corporate responsibility to their workforce and condones the notion people have to face the fact they are disposable. She is a mouthpiece for a nation of corporations creating serfs and people like her will always have job security because she is such a convincing propaganda machine for them. She found a great niche for herself.
2
Putting aside his lack of ethics and the Mueller investigation, there are two reasons Trump should not be re-elected.
First, he lives in the past. His focus on old, disappearing technologies like coal and oil, his complete lack of understanding of technology and its impact on all aspects of the world in which we live, his denial of the impacts of climate change and his overall efforts to bury and ignore science that doesn’t meet his world view make him a failed and dangerous leader for our changing country and a changing world.
Second, his adversarial approach to every issue—I must win, you must lose—and his demonizing of anyone who disagrees with him makes him unable or unwilling to collaborate to find solutions to the big problems we face. The challenge is almost unimportant to him, so long as he is feted as a “winner” and slavishly loyal sycophants tell him how great he is.
Neither Trump nor anyone else can be a successful leader with these two failings.
2
Finally, someone with a very high profile is pointing out that we need to rethink our indifference to bigness. Although you’d think someone who went to Brandeis would have put anti-trust on the agenda sooner! BTW, Tom, since you’re focusing on technology here you might want to toss in quantum computing and its implication for security and liberty - principle functions of government in the west at least.
Shocking that Thomas Friedman gives such short shrift to the looming climate disaster. Almost an afterthought, in fact. Our existence may rely on a far more realistic and honest embrace of the undeniable reality of climate change. It is an issue that we can't hide from.
2
“So, the Next America may very likely have to raise taxes or trim military spending, or Social Security or Medicare — just when all the baby boomers are retiring.”
If the USA Nomenclature are still talking in these outdated terms by 2020 the USA will have become irrelevant.
The single major issue dominating the world today, apart from Climate Change, is the mal-distribution of Income.
Enlightened countries are starting conversations right now on a Guaranteed Basic Income for all Citizens. That will happen or there will be a revolution.
In truth though the Nomenclature are determined to launch a World War to protect their wealth. If so, the next world war shall be nuclear, will last 60 minutes and the world as we know it will be “gone in sixty minutes”.
1
Tiresome trifling Thomas "Chicken Little" Freidman returns to playing fortune teller oracle. There is always tomorrow. And it is always unknown. There will always be a "next America" until there is not. Nations rise and fall.
Ever since some of our ancestors left Africa then discovered fire, made a spear, found language and art we have been on the way to Hades. There are costs and benefits to every scientific and technological advance. And the synergies among the various advancements may be negative, neutral or postive. But they are far more difficult to discern and predict.
The truth is that 70% of physical reality is a unknown force called dark energy. And 25% of reality is a mysterious mass known as dark matter. While the 5% of space time matter and forces that we "know" is divided by two irreconcilable theories of quantum mechanics and relativity hidden behind an uncertainty principle.
1
I am always an advocate of continuous learning throughout a lifetime and as far as the workplace the onus should be on the huge billion and trillion dollar corporations making the investment of keeping their employees up to date and offering on the job training to the new. They should be out there defining degrees and certificates as well.
I am also hoping for a climate change before 2020 as we rid ourselves of a toxic fossil who is a hater and divider and worst president in American history. How could it go right, this presidency, when he was chosen by Putin! Think about it.
Mr. Friedman, the republicans know very well what their long term plan is. They want to reduce if not eliminate medicare and social security. Because of their policies the deficit has increased but they will blame it on democrats and get their base to support reducing or eliminating social security and medicare. They have the most important element on their side; information. They have convinced their supporters that only Fox News will tell them the truth and Fox News only tells them what the republican party wants them to hear.
Uninformed voters will empower republicans to do what is in their worst interest.
Tom Friedman is a midwest guy who brings those solid midwest values to his words of hope. Yes, his are the desiderata we seek for 2020 to help put our Ship of State back on course.
The worry for all of us is, barring their inability of pulling a sword from the stone, who can patch the previous holes left by other would-be leaders.
It's not about the sword, folks. It's about the mighty pen in the hand of a leader who cares all those he or she serves. Think Bush 41 for a worthy example.
We need those same selfless qualities in our legislators to bring forth legislation that passes the muster of both parties. Once done, a great leader then wields not a mighty sword, but a much mightier pen, filled with the ink of accord to enact accord.
The problem we must first face is: Anyone? Anyone?
1
I think that you're right here, but there is a real problem that you don't articulate. Forty percent of Americans are Trump supporters--many of them radical in their ideology and under-informed and under-educated. Many are also rabid evangelical Christians. Many do not now have the academic, intellectual, or work skills to survive in 2018. Many are bigots and racists, unwilling to associate with anyone who is not like themselves--white and Christian. Many are educated with professional or vocational skills, but they again only want to work and associate with others like themselves--white and Christian. These folks will not do well in the world you describe in this article. Before we can take on the new technology and pace of life, almost half of us will have to change our ideology and upgrade our people skills. Given what I have experienced the last couple of years, I don't know if such change is possible in less than a few decades at best. Opening our minds and hearts not only to change, but to the diversity of the world is tough stuff. Where and how to begin is the question.
Interesting thoughts on our technological future but first we must solve the problem of AI, intelligence that is pretty much artificial among Trump's MAGA-hatted supporters. If so many in our populace prefer to be governed by a reality show buffoon enabled by a tame Duma of Republican toadies, we will remain a science-denying nation walled off from the rest of the modern world with crumbling infrastructure, coal-fired power plants and a hollowed-out "democracy" in which the minority dictates to the majority.
2
Let's hope that Robert Mueller will put the last nails to the fossilized GOP's coffin so we can start having the important conversations about our future. Or we can have one for that matter.
1
@sapere aude
A curiosity. Did you choose your nickname "Sapere Aude" for your interest in Horace and Latin or in Kant and the Enlightenment? Best regards from Padua (still EU)
This is one of the most significant pieces I have read in years. Donald Trump pretty much ended what we know as the Last America. Every point Friedman makes screams for a new type of politician; a new type of political expertise and leadership; a new type of Federal and State lawmaking.
The thought is terrifying because there simply is no way to transform the current political machinery churning out the idiocy of 2017- in twenty-four months.
"We had to struggle with the old enemies of peace—business and financial monopoly, speculation, reckless banking, class antagonism, sectionalism, war profiteering. They [Corporate America] had begun to consider the Government of the United States as a mere appendage to their own affairs. And we know now that Government by organized money is just as dangerous as Government by organized mob." FDR, 1936
1
NYT readers know what needs to be done. Unfortunately all of these great ideas will never materialize until Citizens United is killed and the corrupting big money eliminated from Washington. Until then all Congress will do is spend half its time dialing for dollars and listening to big money lobbyists push their agendas while letting them put money in their pockets.
One good thing about our situation is that we really don't need to go and vote any longer since we are now a plutocracy that only caters to the 1%.
We have wasted so much time, money, energy, everything since November 2016. We're losing ground by the minute, so it's a real shame that we can't break out of the constant focus on the latest political outrage. How long are we going to let this corrupt administration and their right-wing enablers keep us distracted and derailed?
What Friedman breathlessly describes as "Next America" is a world in which the corporations are unrestrained and unaccountable and workers are on a continual treadmill to keep up. And no doubt many are falling off and being crushed. Brave New World at its worst.
All those servers are further heating up the planet. Much of it just to deliver "content" to amuse us.
There will be blowback.
My mind is going to Colin Kaepernick. Poster boy for standing up against the system and what it gets you.
2
We have let the clown government of Trump, squander preparation for the future. 2020 will be a time to man up and govern the United States of America as a tru visionary nation for democracy, immigration, climate change, environment, education, energy, and most important health care. 2020 is in the future, shut off the television, turn off the video games, turn off the reality show in the White House, and get to work. The next generation will be faced with the fact of our inaction, if we do not.
"The craziness around Trump has delayed much of this discussion."
Indeed.
Maybe it's time for the left wing media hacks to grow up.
Lack of balance is a decision, not a natural phenomenon.
That most of the front page has been devoted to Trump and his tweets for the past two years, instead of important stuff, is more a sign of lack of maturity within the media than it is a sign of his predictably unpleasant public persona.
3
As we've been saying since helix days, tek is unstoppable. Man is soaring to a concordium of syntels, clones, CRISPR, blockchain, virtuality, brain-chips, 3D-printed shelter & comestibles, hyperveillance, reanimation, geogineering. Homo et machina, unum et pluribus, terris et martis. Not a new species, but new genera--resistance is futile. No? Read the journals!
Politicians will do a miserable job dealing with these issues .As they have in the past
1
All things being equal....
But they never are. Futurism is great in the mind. When
applied, it runs into the unexpected.
This is the main factor in the future: CLIMATE CHANGE
Also, we had a POPULATION EXPLOSION at the end of the
20th C. around 1980.
The two factors spell increasing ENTROPY and the instability
of politico-economic systems.
The disparaged and unheralded prophets of the 20th C. were Margaret Sanger and Paul Ehrlich.
Women need to organize globally to make access to birth control universal. Slowing population growth will enhance other means of mitigating global warming. Water and food will be scarce if the current population explosion continues.
Competition for scarce resources may lead to wars.
The best mitigation of politico-economic instability will be a
government's ability to more equably distribute wealth, and
the challenge will be to devolve the power to do this as closely as possible to the local level.
You can't have cutting edge technology and its benefits without stability, equality, infrastructure repair, and the
ability to fight plague, drought, starvation, superstorms,
heat, and flight of populations. This will bankrupt most nations and destroy others.
So, we need to think about how to handle the new era.
1
To be aware is to see the world as spiraling toward something bad. It just can’t help itself. To be unaware is our default defense. Collectively, denial rules. Why else would the world stay on such a destructive course? Only a global catastrophic event will force our hand to choose a change in course.
While I am in the camp of doom and gloom, I wish otherwise. I want my fellow citizens to vote for officials who think longterm.
And, I want syfy movies to stop displaying our stupidity and to start offering hope through how wonderful our world can be. Make utopian fantasy a realistic model on planet earth. Yes, I need a fairytale, one that teaches and inspires.
For now, however, we are prisoners of greed theology. To have chosen a Trump was to idolize the golden calf. Until we choose to follow higher principles I am less sure of the impact of the best of new ideas.
I find it odd that Verizon and AT&T are mentioned
and not criticised for being the monopolies they are.
What I have to pay to barely use a cell phone is ridiculous.
[ By the way can we have a Federal Law that requires the Cell Phone companies to provide service in rural areas ? ]
By the way don't believe all the hype over 5G, your phone, your computer and the nearby towers all have to cooperate in the
most perfect way to get the performance the Cell Phone companies are promising.
As for "Whites" becoming a minority by 2044, that date is wrong and may never be reached. Calling someone a "Hispanic" when they don't speak Spanish, their parents's don't speak Spanish is to have an agenda where race and language use are held to be equal, or at least one's last name makes you a member of an ethnic group.
Meanwhile, people will vote their pocketbook. The rich will
take care themselves and their fellow plutocrats while the rest of us will have to make do.
55
@John Brown
Hi John:
You are totally correct about the hype over 5G. It's so hard to explain the limitations of mm waves to people. We don't need the 5G "maybe" when we have the reality of fiber. Fiber to every home and business, end of story. No radio frequency communication will ever beat optical fiber communications. Even Mexico has fiber everywhere with not only one provider. Fiber everywhere and current WiFi technologies are more than enough for the "fantastic" services mentioned by Mr. Friedman. All of which could had happened yesterday.
8
@John Brown I agree with your remark about whites and Hispanics. Non-Black Hispanics will follow the examples of the Irish, Germans, Italians, and other non-WASPs who immigrated to the US. After adopting English as their primary language, rising to the middle class, and intermarrying, they will be indistinguishable from the white majority by 2044.
@John Brown
You can always go to a prepaid plan like Straight Talk. If you 'barely use' a cell phone won't see any difference between Straight Talk and Verizon if you buy a phone meant to work on the Verizon network. $35.00 a month for 2Gb of network data and unlimited calls on the smart phone of your choice.
Where is the real political will to bring rational changes to our society? Does anyone think that the 1%, CEOs, extraction industries, drug companies, health insurance companies, hedge fund titans etc will give up there stranglehold on our politicians? That they will embrace higher taxes, more regulation to save the environment and public health and control of their business models for the common good?
Citizens United will be very hard to overcome.
I have hope but it will take ordinary people to be educated about what policies would benefit them and their children to force our political class to act in the common good.
7
Mr. Friedman is right in that the future is already here but unfortunately we have elected a backward facing party as the ones who will lead us into that new world.
It is amazing how many of our issues can be traced to the Vichy GOP, the collaborators of the Reality Show Con Artist. Everything they have done or proposed in the past nearly 40 years is to take away or to look back instead of forward.
Now, we are saddled with an aging infrastructure, and Internet that is being gamed for the largest, most monied companies and growing inequality due to Vichy GOP tax policies.
What is interesting is they like to talk about the immediate post WW2 period as being America at its peak but they do not talk about the nearly 90% tax rate on top earners that helped make it possible.
No one is proposing those type of tax rates as being wise anymore but it is obvious that what they miss about America in the 50's is just as much about the cultural environment (domination by white men) as about the prosperity.
Ultimately the blame can't be put at the feet of the Reality Show Con Artist or the Vichy GOP for they have been rewarded for their actions (as recently as last month with more seats in the Senate) by the public through their actions (voting) or inactions (not voting).
It is true that we get the government we deserve and any idea that we are a growing, vibrant dynamic country that is a beacon for huddled masses yearning to breath free ended in Nov. 2016.
5
Great article, but this bit -- "The craziness around Trump has delayed much of this discussion" -- is misleading and could set Dems up to shoot themselves in the foot again. Democrats, if they're mature enough to accept responsibility, need to realize they allowed 2016 to happen by "anointing" Hillary to be the Democratic front-runner. Now that the country is paying attention (thanks Donald), we need a real debate in 2020. Republicans will not lead with fresh ideas as the incumbent party (we can expect more tropes about less taxes and regulation).
Until Dems debate the merits of ideas again (rather than just being dragged to the left) in the primary process and public debates, the highly partisan environment will continue. It shouldn't be a race to the left to abolish ICE. Or give free college to everyone. Those giveaways will have obvious negative consequences. Let's stop acting like America is a Third World country and get back in the business of passing legislation that will help spread prosperity broadly over the long-term.
5
In a separate article in the paper about high speed internet NOT being available to everyone in this country is a contradiction to the futuristic view of this piece. I support the premise that cutting Social Security or Medicare as decried in both of the lead NYT comments thus far must not happen but removing citizens united, gerrymandering, election reforms and actual jail time for those who break elections laws are needed besides a heavier tax burden on the 1%,who did not need it and is going to cost the hopes of continuing education and learning if no one has the TIME to learn or better understand a new skill because you are working two different jobs just to survive.
It's a good idea and one we need to strive for to give us hope in the face of the horrific administration now so greedy in power. Maybe a Democratic come back can give us that hope but the current Senate and President do not.
4
Faced with such multiple, intertwined issues, taking policy decisions independently is an example of seeking to optimize the parts of a design at the expense of the whole—like developing the finest engine, the best transmission, the most comfortable seats, and so on, so incompatible that the monstrosity they form together won't run. Bela H. Banathy's concept of an evolutionary guidance system composed of multiple interdependent dimensions has better potential. It requires leaders and experts who can and choose to respectfully talk with one another.
Mr. Friedman is correct in that we are in a new age of education and innovation. Schools have been pushing the mantra of the “lifelong learner”for many years now, through no help from the current administration, and “no child let behind” which, although well intended, had too many flaws.
We will need a huge investment in education to right the sinking ship. The WSJ recently reported that only 50% of new tech start-ups are initiated in the U.S. That sounds great, except that 20 years ago it was 90%. The world is a competitive place and our current administration, with its head in the sand, anachronistic policies is the main obstacle.
Along side a huge emphaisis on science, we will need support of the Arts and Physical Educstion programs, which have been decimated in recent years. The Arts spawn imagination and creativity. Phys Ed is obvious for a healthy, vibrant society. None of this can be done on the cheap, as Republican led state governments would have you believe. Michigan is a prime example as we have plummeted from a leader in education innovation, to near the bottom in eight short years under Republican control. If you want low taxes and to vilify teachers, this is what you get. Thankfully the electorate here has finally come to its senses.
Bottom line, we need a huge progressive agenda to fix this mess. Will it happen? Trumps staying power gives one pause.
10
My dreams for the country beginning 2020:
Citizens who understand there are people who want to divide us. Stop listening to divisive people who make money stirring us against each other. Be aware of Russian interference. We are all on this ship together, sink or survive.
Leadership that understands their job is actually to govern, not to play politics. Work to reduce the impact of money in politics.
Focus on self-reliance, the end to imperialism and to policing the world.
So Tom, how do we get off this perpetual growth! compete! innovate! Learn new technology! merry-go round? While technology of course makes our lives better, it leads us further down the road to environmental collapse. Every innovation seems to have an unintended consequence on the environment. We don't even have the political will to eliminate plastic straws.
With civilization past its point of sustainability, every increase in GDP comes at the expensive of environmental destruction. And don't tell me 'green growth' will save us. Some studies even show that increases in renewable energy merely increases the energy available for economic growth.
We need to look at stabilizing population, leading simpler lives, and implementing de-growth if we want to be around in 30 years. Maybe we can do this, maybe it is just not in human nature to do so.
8
Unarguably the present conditions, and those forthcoming, that Tom and many readers have commented on, and to which most I agree with belie the very nature of humans and their capacity to reason sufficiently and enact a collective cure out of such self inflicted crises especially since all are born out of productions of greed and apathy. As history is our most useful guide, along with an honest assessment of our nature, pitchforks in the streets will be the outcome of this all. Except that hardly anyone owns pitchforks these days. I weep for us.
4
And here I am just hoping we make it through 2019 in any recognizable form! Seriously, though, while your thoughts on the future are, well, helpfully though provoking, the fact remains that people are not endowed with equal abilities, and not the same abilities. And the increasingly rapid pace of change exacerbates our differences. In my view, in addition to more available and affordable education, we will ultimately require some form of guaranteed minimum income, coupled with a stronger safety net, if we are to maintain a stable society. Another fact is that, especially now, no one can accurately foresee the future. Does anyone believe that Zuckerberg, to take but one example, truly understood how his platform might come to be used? I think not. The best we can do is try to elect those of benevolence and intelligence, and take better care of each other than we are now doing. Trite, yes. But it's our only hope for the future.
8
The complexity of these issues means that politics can't solve them. We need to start developing ways of governing that utilize big data, an efficient bureaucracy and electronic media to propose, develop, test and implement programs that address these issues without the emotions inherent in the political process. Models of this kind of system could be developed in an academic setting, working in tandem with interested politicians who understand the need for them. Eventually programs based on both human and AI interpretations of data could begin to be proposed, vetted on small scales in designated regions of the country and reported on by disinterested media outlets. The effectiveness of these programs would be open information, and an informed public could vote, based on outcomes, for specific proposals rather than "candidates", much like a referendum system.
1
@mijosc
Yes, we need to start iterating to re-architect society for the 21st century and harness the extraordinary power of emerging technologies to solve problems rather than cause them.
If we get it right we can restore democracy at the same time.
If we get it wrong, it will be cataclysmic.
@mijosc
I wrote a book on The Keys To Success. It details six competencies that will be needed for future asuccess. In researching for the book I found that in the Next America:
*We must not be preoccupied with personal needs and more involved with helping others.
*Leading a balanced and healthy lifestyle is essential
*The future will require technological competence.
*The pace of accelerating change will require mastering how to live with uncertainty.
*As Friedman says success will require lifelong learning
*America will be more diverse, therefore are just effectively develop cultural understanding.
*Happiness will involve helping others.
Personally, humor and humility will help, we have two ears and one month for a reason, ask for help, you don't have all the answers and lead a balanced and healthy life. Love those you care about.
On the world stage we will have to learn that war is last resbort, we must end the war in Afghanistan, solve the North Korean and Iranian threats, get our fiscal house in order and reduce the wealth disparity causing tensions, strife and fueling terrorism, crime and diverting us from our most important needs - individually and as a nation.
Finally, the Next America will require our government and we as citizens to be able to resolve our differences without rancor and hatred and regain an era of civility, calm discourse and being united with less partisanship and more commonality of purpose.
Challenges are many but our success is worth it!
Mr. Friedman, what a great article! I really enjoyed reading it. One major reason is to think of the future vs. thinking about every present-based tweet and huff from trump.
It is a sobering future, and will be difficult to navigate. But the sleeping congress will have to awake and work on things because the future will not wait. This four-year (I hope less) speed bump will be in the mirror.
The shift from the old economy, which has been dead for some time now, and the bit-based economy where humans have to learn as fast as robots demands real change in education and in our thinking. It demands that grievance-based politics be buried. It demands people do engage in life-long learning.
The desire to be relevant in one's older years will become a necessity.
4
Our massive military spending stems from a philosophy that we can make other countries do what we want because of our superior armed forces, which runs counter to making deals where everyone benefits. The real question is not how we will govern post 2020, but how we will govern in the age of reason. The world can't continue on its present path much longer; something has to change. There must be a paradigm shift in human thought, or we're going to blow ourselves up.
In the near future, we will program the human mind in the computer based on a "survival" algorithm, which will provide irrefutable proof as to how we trick the mind with our ridiculous beliefs about what is supposed to survive - producing minds programmed de facto for destruction. These minds would see the survival of a particular group of people or a belief as more important than the survival of all. When we understand all this, we will begin the long trek back to reason and sanity.
See RevolutionOfReason.com
3
The dumbing down of our country to Trump's level vastly complicates its ability to enter the "New America" - a truly progressive nation dependent more and more upon technology and human adaptation.
Take, for example, the coal miners in Trump country. Their jobs will be gone, period. They MUST retrain to survive. The same will apply to virtually every other American if we are to survive in a tech world. China will do just fine and be the dominant world power for many years to come. They have spent the last 20 years "adapting" and learning to do so - WE have not. We sit on our "laurels" and demand that others do what we should be doing for ourselves. Our successive entitled generations, with marked exceptions, have neither faced adversity nor had to recover from it. They will soon enough.
We must demand that our government, the "collective" of US, establish the means of obtaining this adaptation asap. Free, perhaps limited, higher ed, formal re-training, job development in underserved regions, etc. The REAL stuff - not the fictitious hyperbole that Trump blurts out in his fetid Tweets and pep rallies. We cannot depend upon "business" to do this independently; it is the responsibility of government, a commitment that WE must pay for. Buckle up, it's going to be a rough, but necessary, ride.
6
The number one problem, quickly approaching, will be homelessness.
Half of Americans could not come up with $400 in the case of emergency.
Most are saddled with insurmountable debt.
Yet, Americans are reaching retirement age in record numbers.
Cuts to Social Security?
What will all these people do to get by?
Why is no one talking about this?
24
These are the opportunity costs of the Trump Administration: the things not discussed, the future not planned for, while we are trying to protect and promote coal, ignoring climate change, and not dealing with the fact that we are approaching the 20% mark of the 21st Century and are not living in the 1960's anymore. Industries are changing, not just Blockbuster Video but everything from florist shops to Hallmark Card stores to the whole concept of network television. But we have to listen to Trump not only NOT address the future but lie about the present.
7
Given the social and political complexity, the increase of training will also be needed in how to function within democracy. We have neglected this kind of learning for years and look at the shambles of our democracy!
3
I can reassure you in one respect, Tom. With "a budget greater than the military spending of the next seven countries combined, including China and Russia", the US has quite a ways to go before its armed forces have to go 'round with a begging bowl.
I do follow you on the lifelong learning topic. There is but one hiccup. It is becoming increasingly difficult to predict what the training requirements are or will be. Furthermore, training implies a trainer or, at the very least, [computer based] training material that will be adaptable to the personality of the trainee... This is quite a challenge.
Finally, what about the millions of people who are overwhelmed by the intricacies of even simple technologies? Or the ones who cannot summon up the energy or the attention to acquire [the needed] knowledge? They will still be with us, make no mistake.
But there is one dim spark on the horizon. If Donald the Magnificent truly makes a dog's breakfast out of this remaining tenure, we might all find ourselves back in the Stone Age...
8
Very interesting article. But, there are few things bother me about this analysis. First, retraining for more technology will be needed by a relative few. Those workers without more than HS may not be able to train for higher tech and there will be less need for muscle and rote activities, meaning fewer overall jobs. So, likely you are talking about the few not the many. Second, we are losing time to solve problems with Trump. I have friends who say, "At least it isn't Hillary", but she was a technocrat and was likely the perfect person for the time. Now we have T who uses a 1950 brain to push 19th century tariffs, and deficits that are an anchor. Third, we are as a people divided so badly that we are weak and the rivals like China will eat our lunch, probably after we rid ourselves of T. We need new thinking and fast, you are right, how do we do it?
28
@William Trainor
I agree that even if every job that could possibly be filled by "training" were made available and taken, that would not even come close to keeping up with the job losses due to advancing technology. AI, computers, and machines will perform almost every "job" that we now have. An entirely new economic system will need to be created to avoid a collapse in consumer demand resulting in almost total economic collapse. I doubt a viable new system will evolve on its own either. It will need to be consciously planned for and built. Good luck on that one, especially for people who believe "invisible hands" will magically take care of everything.
9
@Sisyphus Happy
The question is who does the planning? Government (Conservatives would hate it), Industry (can industry look beyond short term profits?) Academia (elites, not trusted). A consortium would be the way but we need to find a way to get past the magical thinking.
3
@William Trainor
VERY good question.
As the adage goes, the more things change, the more they stay the same. Everything comes and goes in cycles. What we know is that everyone still has needs and the more someone is able to fulfill one of those needs for others, the more valuable they become. We have become such a successful society that our “needs” have become very diverse, leading to more opportunity, not less. Think of the many occupations that exist today that did not exist in the past. Yes, some have become obsolete and have gone away, only to be replaced by several new occupations. The key is to gain skills that are valuable. Americans need to become more entrepreneurial again. The value of large organizations will slowly dissipate, being replaced by working for one’s self as the barrier to entry moves lower. Just as technology has allowed artists to become more independent, workers in other fields can do the same. Everyone now has a global reach if they choose to take advantage of it. America will proper again once people realize the future isn’t in expecting more from companies but is intrinsically tied to expecting more from yourself.
1
Here's how you govern the next America: you impose taxes on the wealthy sufficient to ensure decent healthcare and education for all, you protect the environment through regulation, and you let the free market take care of the rest. It's not rocket science.
25
@Yo and how much taxes would that be? Would taxing the rich 100% provide enough money? Nope, but D fairy tales are so attractive...
@David Germany, Norway, Sweden, Israel, Japan, etc. don't tax their rich at 100% yet provide national healthcare and free education to all. Go figure.
....and hopefully the "next America" realizes that it's vital to redistribute wealth so that it is not vested in hands of the owners and controllers of these new technical advances. In our rush to and fawning over all this new technology we lose more jobs than even the astute Mr. Friedman realizes, and the danger of making more people obsolete. Don't we ever stop to think about whether all this technology is good for the culture? If Congress wants to reduce the tax burden of corporations it should be based on job creation...credits for expansions and investments that put people to work, not giveaways to be used for stock buybacks.
9
"But it will require all kinds of new regulations to govern applications from self-driving cars to drone delivery systems to robots that will work as security guards and home health aides."
You will never get those regulations if you re-elect Donald Trump, or some other "conservative" to be defined.
As for the mid-career "Trampoline," well that sounds good on paper, but how do you erase ageism when you can't do the same for sexism, racism, and anti-semitism?
The next America, thank God, will come to be for the next generations who are light years away from the thinking of the old guard, and baby boomers. The young, for the most part believe in strong gun control, strong environmental regulations, and greater recognition to keep government out of one's bedroom.
As a boomer myself, I have great hope that younger folks will have more heart than what we're living through now. (Of course, that makes me think of Zuckerberg and Sandberg, and I wince.
The next America will be a reckoning on whether there's finally consensus to protect and safeguard the rights of all Americans, not just those who believe certain things.
12
Wish us luck Mr. Friedman. We should be looking toward the future but 40% of the population believes in talking serpents, segregation, and bringing back coal. Not too optimistic at this point.
34
@In the north woods
I think/hope part of that 40% will see thru the "smoke and mirrors." Given the mid term results, we've made a step in the right direction. However, we've got a hell of lot of work ahead of us... plain and simple, it's make or break time!
The Next America will be the world's second largest economy, as China comes to dominate manufacturing, trade and some technological fields. Meanwhile, America will owe a lot of money to China, and will be hurting in other ways because we Trumped things up. China oppresses minorities, religions and individual freedom. Let's hope the high-tech gadgets Mr. Friedman is predicting don't also curb freedom in the U.S.
7
I don't think so. This is a good analysis from inside the box. It assumes the future will be like the past but maybe faster. Tech was a great revolution but this whole piece discusses how it will further commoditize and commodities don't lead the economy. We never had a corn or soy bean age. There was a steel age but steel is now a commodity and it was replaced by tech. So the big question is what replaces tech, not how does tech evolve to regain its high position. The answer is sustainability. Alternative, renewable energy to replace dwindling petroleum reserves and to save us from coal. It also means water grids to replenish aquifers and ensure we can still make food. And it means something to replace most, but not all, of jet travel in an age of $20/gallon jet fuel. We're not going after any of that very hard right now and without it the Next America will speak Mandarin.
11
Fascinating article. We often overlook the impact of warp speed technological changes over the past few decades. These advances often have negative impacts, one of which is to divide the nation. The gap between the young and old seems greater than ever. The population is flocking to cities, where residents are vastly different (particularly when it comes to politics) from rural residents in the same state. A comparison of state educational levels, cultures and wealth highlights the disparity resulting in large part from the willingness and ability of residents to accept and create new technologies. There is a chasm between a West Virginia coal miner and a NY City tech employee (even if the same age). Trump, pretending to champion those at the bottom end of the tech world (I love the poorly educated) has used this chasm to seize the Presidency. I do not believe that the 2020 election will be of greater consequence than future elections. The technological (and resulting educational, cultural and political) divide will remain regardless of the outcome. Eventually, as Friedman notes, everyone will be required to engage in "continuous lifelong learning" and stubborn, backward looking citizens and states in which they live will have to change.
5
Or cutting the defense budget which is draining the treasury and is like good will in accounting: you don’t actually know how much it is worth.
4
Thomas L. Friedman,
We have at least two things in common. One of them is an opinion.
However, mine is slightly different. It concerns the basis of 5G, but includes much of everything else in this economy.
The reason for the chaos in this government is a much more simplistic, basic phenomenon: information - the vaporous kind, as in "the cloud" - has dollar value. In fact, information has had this value since before "the cloud" came along, starting with the development of high-tech. Back then we called it "data".
Today's crop of politicians just don't get it. In fact, they wouldn't know it even if it was delivered via that other thing we have common.
Here, in no particular order, my take on the issue priority list:
1) Legislation, such as the new House Democrats are talking about, to vastly reduce the effect of big money in our political process. Public funding of elections. Corporate or company donations--out. A very low (three-figure) limit on private citizen donations. Re-establishment of the Fariness Doctrine, and actual legislation to counter the Citizens United decision.
2) Elimination of the income cap on Social Security taxation. All income should be subject to SS tax, not just that above $112.5K. And that includes unearned income. That'll get the system solvent pretty quickly.
3) Speaking of which, time to simplify and progressivize the tax system again. We may not have to go full Eisenhower, but incomes of seven figures and up should face steeply rising rates to above 50%. And this should apply to capital gains and huge inheritances, too.
4) A full public option for health care as a compromise towards single payer. Allow anyone to buy into Medicare, or even into the Federal Government's health plans. Bet over a decade a lot of people would to this and it would be the wedge that eventually splits health insurance from employment and allows entrepreneurial flowering.
5) Full Net Neutrality--and make big tech (like Facebook) subject to both antitrust and public utility law.
Space here is limited; feel free to add. But this would be a good start. (Haven't even mentioned climate.)
37
It is as if we hold a challenge coin in our hand representing the future. On one side, it is stamped "Utopia!"; on the other side, "Dystopia!". Which side we display is in our hands.
To get closer to utopia, we will need to address the boatload of inequalities we have stockpiled in our country. Inevitably, this will mean taking from the powerful for the benefit of the powerless. And this act--taking the iron rice bowl of the plutocrats--will unleash increasing conflicts we are only now beginning to understand.
Cries of "Build the Wall!" echo from many as a manifestation of a desire to stop what is viewed as a dilution of power and prestige even if it is not even distributed to the legions of those who scream to create a Fortress America.
Commenters to this article include many who decry immigration as an existential threat. But without them, we would not have USB drives, ATMs, denim jeans, YouTube, Google, contraceptive pills and telephones among many other contributions we do not think about.
Which side of our coin we shall see in 2020 and beyond will not depend on how high we push the top 1% of our country but how high we raise the other 99%. It will be in this crucible we smelt the Next America.
8
@Douglas McNeill Most illegal immigrants don’t create “USB drives, denim jeans, YouTube...” 63 percent of illegal immigrants (22-28 million people according to a recent Yale/MIT study) receive some form of government assistance, more than 4 million people. 50 percent of legal immigrants receive government assistance.
Illegal immigration and too much legal immigration is a threat to this country. Let’s take care of our own poor, homeless, vets, mentally ill, drug addicted first.
1
Healthy points for discussion by one of our great journalist observers. The education of our young people now and in the future calls for immediate action and from what I observe, our lawmaking institutions lack the will or perhaps the ability to do this. Our constitution, for all its magnificence, allows elections that thwart the will of the people and by delegating election districting to the states, has fueled destructive gerrymandering. Until these defects are removed (don't get your hopes up), a government headed by little Trumps will thrive and we will slide into more mediocrity.
7
"Since the 1980s, antitrust policy judged if a company was getting too big largely by one question: Was the loss of competition hurting consumers through higher prices or fewer services?" Not so...think of the airlines's consolidation which has been terrible for consumers.
6
The first thing we need to do is get Senators that know how to use technology and believe in the good of technology. Most Senators don't even write their own emails. Second, we need legislators that believe in climate change and are willing to invest in solving the problems that come with climate change. Third, we need legislators that understand how to deal with a world where the US is not a single pole. We need to get over the silliness that the US is the greatest nation in the world and work with other nations with humility.
32
Re Tennessee post-2dary education for all who qualify: NYC began it in the 19th century (see City University of New York in Wikipedia); and many European countries have been doing the same for ages. No different than farmers planting seeds for future harvest. With automation replacing lower skilled jobs (self-driving trucks, delivery drones, 3D printing, etc), the people replaced will need something to keep occupied besides streaming entertainment at 5G speeds.
16
As interesting as it may be to talk tech and its impact on the future Mr, Friedman ignores the elephant in the room, the cost of ever growing entitlements programs. The creation of the Welfare State in the US is starting to become a reality. We must heed the warning signs and address this backwoods slide. We need only look at the current yellow jacket protest in France to see our future should we continue down our current path. Socialist Democrats would have us believe that the Welfare State benefits all, yet their message is silent on the ultimate price tag. The Affordable Care Act is but a brief glimpse of how inept govt is in delivering a service and properly funding it.
The future will unfold perhaps at a heightened pace but there will be spurts and stops along the way. Behemoth companies come and go, just ask GM, IBM, Kodak, etc.... their relevance fades over time. The entitlement programs we create now will however limit the progress of future generations, saddled with the cost of funding them. One need only look at the state of New Jersey, for a snap shot of the future cost of unchecked entitlements. New Jersey's inability to address their crumbling infrastructure and dysfunctional mass transit systems is due primarily to the cost of funding their generous civil service pensions. You cannot have it both ways. You either hold the line on the growth in entitlements now, or pay the price later. There is no middle ground.
1
@George
So the answer was a huge corporate tax cut?
1
@George
If the government cannot protect its citizens will capitalism step in? A dollar has no conscience and companies delivering shareholder value have no concern for their own employees let alone society in general. Jobs are after all a cost, and costs are to be limited or eliminated.
It is a myth that everyone free to pursue their own ends results in everyone's ends being met. It really is like a game of Monopoly, someone ends up with all of the money.
We either learn how to regulate capitalism or tax it to make up for its damage.
Capitalism may well be the best method to deliver goods and services but it is based on greed and has to be regulated by societal norms and government regulations.
"I've got mine, screw you" is no way to maintain a society.
@Duke, lowest level of unemployed in 50 Years.
The essential flaw in the argument made in this article is the assumption that life will flow from private companies, that work will be our base and our home and will include us all.
Corporations don't care, and are gearing to a 2020 that considers all of us fungible, equal to a robot or worker from a country with anti-labor laws and very low standards of living.
No, either we all make it, and have good lives in the new America, or it will be sunk, not from some iceberg, but from those of us in steerage who have learned enough to drill a hole in the bottom.
I have absolutely no confidence in Wall Street to care for poor Americans, and I have absolutely no confidence in the elite power colleges like Stanford, Harvard, or Yale, to graduate leaders who can bring us forward.
America was brought to this world in armed struggle, and if the problem isn't solved, it will go out the same way.
Hugh
28
@Hugh Massengill
Amen.
We need another aspiration besides wealth accumulation. We rate everyone on how much wealth they have accrued, not on their character or good deeds.
We need heroes so badly we will settle for athletes and celebrities, and then we quantify them based on the size of their contracts.
Our myths of rugged individualism and self determination have led us to a country of competitors not fellow citizens.
As Pogo once said "We have met the enemy and them is us".
16
@mike
Hi Mike. He is us?
Imagine being on a huge spaceship, cruising through space to a distant solar system. Maybe 50,000 people live on board the craft. Would they be capitalist, socialist, or...
It would have to be contractual, that is, all adults are either in school or working, after bidding on a contract to work, and no one is left out. Like the military.
You can only have homelessness in a culture that has deprived the poor and the powerless of unity and power. But I was raised on Star Trek, so that is pretty much all I know.
Hugh
https://www.google.com/search?q=We+have+met+the+enemy+and+they+is+us%22.&safe=off&client=safari&sa=X&rls=en&tbm=isch&tbo=u&source=univ&ved=2ahUKEwizt_u214jfAhUjIDQIHWilCgEQsAR6BAgDEAE&biw=1924&bih=1329&dpr=2
3
@Hugh Massengill
Me too
As we contemplate our new 5G/AI world, we might do well to ponder how many people we're going to need to run it, and how many people we're going to have on hand to feed, house, etc. Manufacturing, including management, will likely be 95+% automated. The same for transportation. Much of the required life-long education will probably take place on-line, with AI avatar teachers, so brick and mortar schools may also be a thing of the past. One can see where this is going. As human labor; physical and intellectual, becomes obsolete, when will humans become obsolete?
And we get to the point that Friedman raises; who will own and benefit from the automated universe? If what we have today is any indication, 95% of the human race may well be unnecessary and unwanted.
All of this pre-supposes we still have a liveable planet, so the entire discussion could well be moot.
28
@Ralph Averill There are too many people on the planet. Climate change will ultimately cull the herd. Earth will go into re-boot. The change will be dramatic to say the least.
"All of this pre-supposes we still have a liveable planet, so the entire discussion could well be moot."
3
@Ralph Averill
Our America still has anti-abortionists and anti-birth-controllers. Look at the future population estimates. Guess massive slaughter is in our future, like they did in Germany in the 1940's? Just get rid of all those people in one sweep. Or maybe Nuclear war is in our future to destroy so many of the non-relevant people that have no jobs due to AI
We need solutions that ALL can firmly agree with, not pseudo-science and news. Will the future belong to the Koch Brothers and their ilk? or to US voters?
If everything is a revolution then nothing is.
Exaggeration does not make a point, it distorts it.
So I start my comments with bold statements to get attention. And any reader will likely say, "get off your soap box, and just say what you mean."
Sure, we are going through changes. But so did our predecessors in the mid-19th century, the turn of the 20th-century, the era of WWI and WWII, the 1960s, the financial collapse of 2008. And many of these can (and have in some good books) be described as more significant than the changes we are now going through.
Downloading a movie faster is nice -- not much more. Drones in the sky sounds like a dangerous and ugly thing -- not much more. Sure, some changes are more significant than these, but compared to what?
The point Friedman makes that's worth making is that we need better government -- better laws, better politicians, a better president, more common sense, better citizens. We need better distribution of wealth and education. None of this is qualitatively different than previous periods in our history. That does not diminish the necessity for some key improvements. But it makes it more likely that it will be gradual (maybe a bit faster than before) and require a lot of work by all of us -- to learn, to be informed of current events, to raise our voices, to vote, and to hold the bad apples accountable.
No pie in the sky big answer -- just some hard work evenly distributed to all of us.
23
I work for a technology company in the streaming video space. When we started, we provided a video player to address the fragmentation of devices, chipsets, Operating systems, DRM and streaming protocols. We could charge a decent amount of money for new features, updates, upgrades and support. Customers were satisfied about our taking care of many of their headaches. As Google and Apple entered the market beyond just providing the hardware and OS, this became more difficult as they gave away the same technology for "free". Not only did we have to innovate to stay a step ahead, but now we had to justify charging for our product. How do you compete against "free"? Well, as people discover, there is no such thing as "free". Apple and Google willingly gift technology so they can get subscriber data including usage habits. They do not care if they put other companies out of business. If the Service providers feel that trading the control of their technical platforms and subscriber data to Apple and Google for saving a bit of money by not paying companies like ours, then they cannot complain when Apple and Google take over their businesses as well.
7
Those who are elected to positions of leadership alsmost always do what is expedient, won't upset the donors who fund their campaigns and secure their own futures. The actual needs of the country is last on the list and we have moved from a republic with democratic aspirations to a plutocracy where the very wealthy control the government. This plutocracy controls costs and ignores the values of what it is that is actually delivered. We have monetized every interaction. Life has become ala carte with fees being added for what was previously assumed to be essential features of that which was necessary. We spend more than any other country on healthcare and are 27th in life expectancy. We also rate only 17th for quality of life despite our perceived economic power. As Billy Joel noted, "is that all you get for your money?" Our country flees from this empty feeling by attending to the immediate and surface features. We have no memory with which to anchor ourselves. Our Reality TV president is a manifestation of this. No evident core values beyond increasing his fame and money and filled with inconsistencies and lies. He likes conflict because it increases his ratings. Predicting the future, even one that is two years away, is highly speculative as our times have become increasingly volatile and with the chaos that the current administration is sowing, it is like predicting the conditions following the passage of a tornado.
18
Dear Tom,
Wonderful column. The Next America will also have evolve with the emergence of genetic engineering and its offshoot synthetic biology. The first babies to be born following embryonic gene engineering were announced in China. This technology will in short term be used to allow parents to have offspring without severe genetic diseases. Yeast and bacteria are already having their DNA altered to allow them to produce complex chemicals at low cost. This technology will disrupt many industries including the food supply where already synthetic hamburgers can replace their animal originals. Where is our administration on all of this? Digging coal.
11
So we will be capable of downloading the latest superhero movie in six or seven seconds to distract us from the heatwaves and drought cutting crop production across the Great Plains, requiring water rationing throughout the Southwest and West, and drowning many coastal areas with rising oceans and vicious hurricanes?
Wow! Exciting!
68
@kcbob I was thinking the same thing. Climate Change, if not addressed adequately and very soon, will crush all grand plans and rosy predictions.
7
If the future is already here, then welcome to Wisconsin. Just the latest version of what has been sown by McConnell, Ryan, Boehner and the rest who decided that Obama was not a legitimate President. Or even an American. Same movie; differenent location. I think we already know how the next age will be governed. This cat is out of the bag or horse has left the barn or train out of the station. And I would remind you that Trump's approval rating this week was 46 percent. Just think on that. 46 percent. 1 out of 2 for all practical purposes. This is who we are not what we risk becoming.
35
The next America will have to come to terms with itself and its relationship with the environment. How many more Panama Cities will the American people turn their backs on ignoring climate change. When will Americans realize AI doesn’t run on coal. America can’t survive party over country politicians. Did George H.W. Bush take the essence of America with him?
7
Retraining every 20 years is so 1990s. More like retraining every 5-10 years at present.
6
I stake my future - and the future of America and the world - on Donald Trump not running for office in 2020. Every day - today it's Flynn - we come closer to nailing the coffin shut on this (our) political, social, and economic abomination.
One positive thing has resulted from this phenomenon, this sideshow, this retrograde nightmare: it has revealed how vulnerable America is to demagoguery, charlatanism, and bald-faced stupid lies that a third-grader could see through. But in many cases we don't. We embrace them and make them our clarion call:
"Take America backwards to the future."
25
“... trim military spending, or Social Security or Medicare...” or save 130 billion a year by stopping illegal immigration. Build the wall (cost effective considering the cost of illegal immigration), stop chain migration and the visa lottery. No amnesty.
5
5G will be rolled out as a science project on all living organisms in its range. The FCC is controlled by telecom insiders via the revolving door between the government and our corporations. They don't care if the technology is disruptive and harmful to our biologies. 5G is 1/3 the strength of an X-Ray. We have a telephone pole about 30 feed away from our bedroom. Do you think we want a constant load beaming through our bodies - this strong - 24-7-365? Of course we don't. This is why 5G must be stopped. We have no clue what we are doing. None.
4
We're back to an economy where people are disposable parts serving the giant "platforms" until the next generation of cheaper disposable parts takes their place. Maybe we should call the Next American, the Shirtwaist Triangle 2.0.
8
Automation will eliminate jobs for low-skilled workers including legal and illegal immigrants, as well as American citizens. What kind of jobs will be available to immigrants who are uneducated (the Central Americans at our border right now have a fourth grade education, on average), unskilled, non-English speaking and are seeking our government benefits at tax payer expense. 63 percent of illegal immigrant households receive some form of government assistance, more than 4 and a half million people. This is in addition to the 50 percent of legals who receive government assistance.
Compared to 35 percent of native born Americans who receive govt assistance.
2
@Olivia
Undocumented immigrants also contribute to the U.S. economy by paying millions of dollars in taxes, for which many receive no benefits. Perhaps you don't know this. Read & learn:
https://money.cnn.com/2017/04/19/news/economy/undocumented-immigrant-taxes/index.html
https://www.aol.com/article/finance/2017/04/18/undocumented-immigrants-pay-billions-in-taxes/22044564/
Tom Friedman doesn't talk about the dangers associated with the changes that the "Next America" would bring about. Already, the screen or digital addiction has increased the suicide rate among the younger school-going kids. The first lady is waging a war against on-line bullying. The opioid overdose-related deaths among the youth have surpassed other causes.
A whole generation has been left behind just because it wouldn't "retrain" itself periodically. They would eventually fall back on gang activities, drug and gun dealings, human trafficking etc. South side Chicago must be an eye-opener. Joblessness, homelessness and crime are mostly found in the poor minority communities. They are mostly the victims of technology-driven changes or globalization. The dominance of Artificial Intelligence or robots over the masses will throw a large number of unemployed people on the street.
The population size of the babies from educated, healthy and productive age groups would shrink because of the cost of raising a child. The lower child birth rate would necessitate immigration from outside. That will certainly create stress in the society.
Technology was good until it was serving the people; in the "Next America," I'm afraid, it would enslave the mankind. That will benefit large companies and their political backers.
And, that's not good.
Setting aside the "Golly! Gee whiz" tone of this article, it's striking in what it overlooks. The pace of climate change, and the growth of social and economic inequality over the past 50 years are unsustainable trends in the next 50 years ahead. Unless we find a way to contravene these trends, the "Next America" is likely to be a short-lived America, and 5G isn't going to solve either one of these problems.
20
The Next America will be ruled by the people. No federal taxes for anyone earning under a million dollars, cutting military by half, taxing corporations to fill the gap and allowing free education to reign. 5G will provide preventative acute health events via remote body monitoring, solar and other clean renewables will replace oil and gas and finally, our government will be ruled by a democratic party and a new Republican party without corrupt politicians ruling their senseless policies. And the world will become a better place for all; China, Middle East, Russia will follow suit. We are the people...
1
Mr. Friedman is ever astute and may well be correct, but . . .
A future in which survival requires perpetual study of constantly changing technology? Yuk. Steve Jobs was quoted as saying that people don't know what they want, and have to be told what they want. He was wrong -- some of us do know what we want and what gives our lives meaning and value. Being tethered to machines and being made always to adjust to their needs certainly doesn't do it for me.
16
So far not a single potential Democratic presidential candidate has been willing to commit to even announcing that he/she is running for president. No one wants to be the front runner early on because, if history is any judge, front runners almost never get the nomination, Deval Patrick has already announced that he's not running for president. In addition it's also very difficult to defeat an incumbent president no matter how much he is despised. I personally predict a brokered Democratic convention because no one is going to have enough delegates to win the nomination outright. A bitterly divided Democratic party is not going to be able to agree on a compromise candidate to go head to head with Donald Trump.
Has it occurred to anyone that Donald Trump may win a second term in 2020?
3
@sharon5101 it may be difficult to beat an incumbent but not impossible, Ford, Carter, George H.W. Bush come to mind. If a president can lose because of “Read my lips, No new taxes.” Surely we can beat an incumbent with, no new lies.
1
I want to respond to the words "or trim military spending." The Current America, let alone the Next, cannot afford our military. As we move from fighting terrorists and focus on more powerful adversaries, costs will skyrocket, so we must change our foreign policy. Russia's economy is a third of the EU's, so the Europeans alone can deal with Russian aggression in that part of the world. ASEAN, Australia, Japan, and Korea must take the lead in addressing China's aggressive expansion in Asia. And the United States cannot continue leading the policing efforts in Africa (e.g., confronting criminals like Joseph Kony). This is not to advocate isolationism; the point is that we simply cannot afford a foreign policy that requires military spending of $800B per year. (Note also that not all military spending is captured in the budget of the Department of Defense; e.g., about a third of the budget of the Department of Energy is for military purposes.) We must prioritize our national security goals realistically and support (not lead!) the efforts of our allies. In summary, our future national defense strategies cannot reflect business as usual. We simply cannot afford it.
6
Perhaps an equally, if not more important, question than how do we govern the "Next America" should be how do we lead the "Next World" and it seems as if we've already begun to answer that question by electing our current president two years ago and already begun to relinquish that leadership position to those whose goals are world domination instead of world leadership.
Regardless, the current and foreseeable state of our nation appears to be much more divided than united with no end in sight
that will not require radical change. Are we ready to define that change as well as the compromises and sacrifices required to accept and accomplish it? Tough questions without easy answers.
3
Another thought, the next America will mean less meanial jobs and demand more education and more fluidity in educating the working class. Another article highlights how we either must learn to grow more food on less land or suffer enormous consequences of climate change. What’s the overall message connecting the two? Our planet no longer has the space nor the need for more people. Larger families who are unable to provide a high quality education for their children are dooming those children to an existance characterized by long term unemployment, homlessness, hunger and even incarceration. This conversation must be at the forefront of the next America.
3
A central challenge for the U.S. and the rest of the world is "the future of work" and "jobs vs. income." About 2 years ago, I wrote the following reflection: "Consider the world in 2100, or 2115: Let's think ahead to a time when almost all of us living now will be gone, and our great and great-great grandchildren alive. If the demographers are right, world population may level off at around 10B or 11B. Technology no doubt will have continued to drive "productivity." World GDP growth will significantly outpace population growth, and productivity defined broadly as value of products/services divided by the number of people will also rapidly rise in real terms, discounting for inflation. The number of actual "workers" as we now define work (paying jobs) will also decline sharply. So, how will the value of the products/services get to the population, if not via wages (and/or "non-earned" dividend income for those holding stock shares, bonds, etc.)? Who knows how it will occur, but there will obviously emerge new forms of "social compact" (or social contract) policy that will reasonably and effectively distribute the income. "Redistribution" is a term that won't be used, replaced by new terms that explicitly recognize the realities of the new world economy. The future situation is easy to lay out. How we get from here to there, in fits and starts, hopefully no terrible wars thrown in, will be the history of the rest of the 21st century."
1
@C.L.S.
And climate change will be of no significance?
How do we govern in America with the challenges in America and worldwide in the 21st century, the what and how of leadership, political and economic structure and education?
The biggest problem I see is current political and economic structure, the establishment, is justifiably seen as illegitimate by the citizenry for obvious reasons. In the modern age it appears education is dramatically played up, but the individual is being played down for collective thought and action, and education is to be spread as far and wide as possible, and the entirety of all this paradoxically is to leave individuals with job titles, whether of plumber or President, which do not appear particularly earned by the individual who holds the titles. After all, if so many people have advanced degrees in this and that, if so many are educated, why and how is it that this or that person should be President or hold this or that position, not to mention one of power, over other people who by current systems of evaluation appear equally capable? People in positions of power today risk being seen as fraudulent, imposters, and I have not even mentioned advantages today given to the merely wealthy or absurd attempts to elevate the merely underprivileged today. So what I suggest is that we need entirely new and profound and creative systems of testing human beings, especially for positions of power, which the public can respect or the legitimacy of power will continue to decline in face of changes in society.
1
2020 will once again see Blue Citadels versus Red America. The problem is their needs and aims are different. Red America has the population base to support their elders, the Blue Citadels need to rely on foreign migration. Red America supports military spending even if they're not keen on playing world policeman, whilst the Blue Citadels oppose military spending and like the idea of helping the UN play world policeman - not such a great alternative for any of America's allies, especially in the Pacific! The Blue Citadels seem to love ever higher taxes, despite the exacerbating rich-poor divide, whilst Red America hates taxation. Every other issue is the same. Red America doesn't think their environment has a problem, Blue America thinks Red Americans are destroying their environment and need to be stopped. Is compromise on any of these issues possible? Perhaps a few, but I fear very few. The two sides live in different regions with different cultures and with mutually exclusive goals.
I fear the next America will be one that sings a new version of the neoconservative trickle-down tune of the GOP, akin to the lullaby against welfare, its recipients and the notion that we are not all given the same cards - in lieu a new song may pit the cost of the Red State welfare taker burden carried by the progressive Blue State providers.
The divide is growing alongside the contentious politic, perhaps recognized somewhere within the conservative psyche is a fear of the democratic values that have allowed the status quo and the realization that Blue progress is its unravelling.
Yes the future is here now and how it will be deployed tomorrow will exacerbate the divide between these two worlds. 5G is a perfect example of how technological progress will continue to illuminate the divide, show me where in Red States you can download that movie in 5 or 6 minutes versus 5 or 6 hours, then overlay the 5G deployment cost (about 5 times 3/4G) - Appalachia in the 22nd century? Maybe.
I dare say Pompeo's allocution before European notables in Brussels, one seeking to dismantle the binders that ensure the well being of all, is a precursor of that trend.
4
I think Professor Friedman neglects another possibility, one which might be called the Professor Lawrence Lessig possibility, that as formal democratic governance gets increasingly out of touch with technological options on all fronts, whether telecommunications, or biology, or energy, or means of political organization, or fund-raising, the formal governance and the format commons, as well as political parties, become vastly less relevant. Decisions are made in sectors and in rooms in which the elected representatives have no standing. Those who belong do. This excludes the majority of the public.
The singular disconnect about Trump's America is that those counties and regions he and his ilk and his followers despise contribute vastly more of the U.S. GDP than those who do support him. If the U.S. were a corporation, voting in proportion to shares contributed to earnings over a year, Trump and company wouldn't stand a chance.
This is the temptation for those who really earn to go elsewhere than the common system to resolve their problems. There are downsides to populist revolutions, too, especially in a world where wealth is created by knowledge and innovation, and the rest of the public simply uses it, does not understand it, yet wants it.
Choices matter. And people can react to choices made.
1
Not a word about guaranteed income....guaranteed gainful employment...
One of the key questions we have to ask ourselves is this: "What is the purpose, and what is the value, of a human being?"
The asymptotic acceleration of knowledge (and with it, the separation between those capable of contributing, if not leading, innovation, and thriving in the new worlds that emerge) means an inevitable, multilayered stratification of our population. If we're concerned about the effects of under-employment, unemployment, and left-behind homelessness and incapacity now, we're REALLY going be faced with a searing problem of marginalized citizens as the blinding pace of change moves forward.
We have no vision, and no policy, for population management: either our own or that of the planet. We have no vision, and no policy, for distribution of resources among citizens whose ability to contribute is wildly variant, and quite likely only modestly adjustable. And we have no vision, and no policy development, among our elected officials--who gain office on the basis of factors that have only a vestigial relationship to the gripping problems that technology will present.
Universal education is one thing, and needs to be baked in very quickly. Other aspects of "what the future will bring" need to be envisioned quickly, too, and we need to develop the national will and ability to take them on and change the cultural anchors that are threatening to drag us not only down, but under.
15
Besides understanding the implications of technology, the requirements for life long education, the demographic change, and the implications on the social security system, the Next America needs to make meaningful progress on climate change. It won’t be enough to make cars and factories cleaner, our cows and wheat fields will have to become radically more efficient, too - not to say: Our eating habits will need to change dramatically to be able to feed 9.5 bn humans on planet earth. Valid candidates for the next presidential should have answers to all these pressing topics - from a national and, if required, on global level, too.
9
For starters, we could stop being a wholly owned subsidiary of marketing.
We don't need more spectacle, we need more common sense.
Too much waste, too much looting, too much bullying.
Meanwhile, the planet doesn't budge: it has the only seat at the table and it bats 1000. We'd better get real, or it will continue to ramp up its reminders that stewardship is better than dominion.
31
Friedman has devoted himself to preaching the gospel of novelties in our lifestyles consequent upon technology and capitalism as a twinned machine of innovation, improvement, "creative destruction". All we really need to do is, along with our governments and their more or less enlightened leaders, is to get with the program of technological advancement. It cannot fail to be the cure for all of society's ills.
Is that really true (it is not a new idea), or is something being left out of this picture? Today's neoliberal capitalism does offer advantages for most of us in our rule of consumers. But what about the roles of worker and debtor? These are, by all accounts, less happy today.
Inequality has grown, and the police state has brought new and improved forms of oppression. The wealthy are getting wealthier and expanding their power--that of a few hundred individuals, in fact--over the world. Authoritarian states have been empowered, not least in this country. Where, also, more of the non-rich live in squalor. Democracy, in any meaningful sense, is an idea whose time it has come to remember, as it is little more than that.
Friedman preaches a funny utopianism that is not about social life directly, but about technology and its power to remake society.
If there were a company selling the American dream as a kind of religion, in which all apparent social problems are really those of individual faith and will, I would nominate Friedman for its pulpit.
The trends in tech aren't what really matter.
The big question is whether we retool democratic institutions and values to fit this new era or whether we go the route of China, Russia and Hungary (among others) toward a more authoritarian model. There are disturbing signs that the Republican Party is increasingly comfortable with authoritarianism. In Michigan, Wisconsin and North Carolina, the response to election losses has been to strip power from newly-elected officials who are not Republicans. They are also comfortable taking steps that make voting more difficult for people who are not Republicans (or white).
This is the real issue here and what tech does is make authoritarianism easier to implement. Look at China's "social credit" plan, which is straight out of a "Black Mirror" episode. It isn't hard to envision this here in the US, where going to the "right" church or belonging to the correct political party earns points and being of the "wrong" religion, race or party subtracts them.
What we do know from 20+ years of living with tech is that the companies that produce it are pretty immoral. Growth and profit are their concern, not the welfare of the nation.
The prospect that the "Next America" might be a dystopia isn't hard to envision.
21
@Matt: not only is Matt perfectly correct in his arguments, he also exposes some of the weak / neglected points in tom friedman's article :1) correcting : ( ONCE AND FORALL !) gerrymandering, all forms of voting suppression anywhere , stealing elections in broad daylight ( a la Georgia), reversing what republicans have been doing shutting out newly victorious democrats from their won posts, ensuring Putin is not meddling yet again in our elections, etc, etc, etc. the list is very Long indeed. and it would be fitting to pay attention to a whole bunch of political / societal/ cultural distortions which were introduced by trump as " a matter of normal civic behavior" but are grossly unacceptable. unacceptable in fact, that a large swat of the " left" is willing and ready to rebel within the Democratic Party ( or as independents) to derail that " next america". tom freidman seems to ignore the reality of how business HAS NOT BEEN " business as usual" in the age of trump .those changes and many more will have to be implemented before we can move into that " next America" with the tech futuristic " progress".
8
Forget politics and politicians. Avoid them at all costs and they are costly, to purchase that is.
If America is going to survive in any real sense whatsoever, it will need to _mature_ and grow up and then come home to itself and then one another. Anything else is just more of what I have seen, witnessed and endured for my entire life.
I want people to think about this before they go to sleep at night this evening as there is no America for us in the 99% anymore. So unless we alter the nuts and bolts of our society very quickly, we might as well just sell what left of it to China and Russia and be done with it. We already seem to be headed in that direction at near warp speed at present without _any_ national discussion.
So go back to your TV dinners, reality TV programs, SUVs and vacuous intimate relationships in tract suburban housing.
5
@Ephemerol : I LOVE IT when someone ( like ephemeral ) so perfectly distills a scenario. just like a great tom Stoppard would do. you described so well and accurately the state of the union - no president would / could ever do better. actually, they'd avoid your scenario like the plague because, after all, they're politicians and those, we're painfully reminded every single day starting with our " tweeter- in- chief" shaking his "shining object" ( google up terminology in psychology re. malignant narcissism), followed by Mich Mconell's wise deed of the day, etc, etc.
I have always admired Thomas Friedman for his astute observations, many of which come through in his vision for the Next America.
The biggest threat facing the world, and yes the US as leader is Global Warming.
In 2017 weather related disasters, fires hurricanes, floods cost ALL Americans $310 Billion - about the same amount as Trump’s tax cut cost the treasury and society.
In 2018 - so far - the weather induced mega disasters have cost us over $110 Billion - so far.
CO2 levels are now at 408 ppm and climbing as we burn more Carbon.
Republicans passed clean air and water acts in the 1970’s - Now, the added health costs from continuing to poison our planet are estimated at $50 Billion a year, not counting lost productivity due to asthma, Hg and Pb poisoning.
Simplistically, going back to a past where winning was everything means that we are abandoning the future hopes.
A glimmer of hope - the non-partisan “Energy Innovation and Carbon Dividend Act” HR7173 will be quickly passed - and the fees on burning carbon will be returned to every American household. The power to save the planet will be in every American’s hands!
7
This is the kind of blindness that produced Trump and will produce more. Life is real as the riots in Paris against a global warming carbon tax showed. Lower and middle income need to live their lives with an increase in government health, with higher wages, with a sharp curtailment of immigration and outsourcing that lower wages, with an end to 17 years of war.
Trump produces so much hate among the rich NYT Times who would read Friedman's enjoyable fiction than face the hard decisions and restrictions on the stock market than hard choices would produce.
4
@Jerry Hough
"Lower and middle income need to live their lives with an increase in government health, with higher wages, with a sharp curtailment of immigration and outsourcing that lower wages."
Um, none of those things will matter when we're hit with more coastal flooding, hurricanes, wildfires, droughts, famines, etc.
The only "blindness" in play here is people who ignore the visible evidence of climate change.
6
@Jerry Hough Right, it looks like Friedman is sure Trump will loose. And even if Trump wins, US will act rationally he assumes. But I cant see why.
The way that wealth is gobbled up by a small percent is like a cancerous tumor that grows and undermines the system. Nothing is as important for a prosperous America as a more equitable distribution of profits through wages. The free market will not correct this. Basic standards in how industry pays workers has to come from government.
14
I think it is unlikely that we will exist in the form that this author thinks we will. The next economic downturn will last until the severe parts of global warming hit. There may be no recovery. It's not that this inequity hasn't existed in the past, but the tools of mass brainwash were never so strong. I don't think the people have the capability to select leaders who can do what is needed, because none of it fits into the fairy tale world that most people now inhabit. None of the technology that the author mentions are meaningful in solving any of our real problems. He makes the assumption that profit for wealthy people will be the key to success, which is hogwash.
Get ready to watch the decline, the madness, and if cuts are made to social security and medicare, the revolution. A revolution which will lead exactly to what the 1% often claims they protect us from, chaos. On a positive note, it will be the closest thing to a fair and equitable system we will ever get.
13
@Chris
That’s a depressingly compelling dirge. I was going to say “convincing,” but I cling to hope.
Tom - This is no cheery column. I am sure you are right about some things, but not all -- I don't plan on wearing sensors on my blouse that transmit my vitals to the doctor. I also seem to have heard about the need for "life-long learning" a long time ago. You don't mention, however, one of the additional cheerless aspects of the future. AI and robots will do most of the work. So, in planning for the "next America," where's your plan for all of the unemployed who will have been replaced by their non-human overlords? Sigh...
11
I hear that testing for 5G is killing off birds by the hundreds: if that's true we might better wish to preserve wildlife than be able to download a movie in 6 seconds. Waiting 7 minutes for a movie to download is no big deal, right? Back in the old day, people actually spent time going to a movie theatre. What if our next wave of technology is more harmful than helpful. Is anyone really keeping tabs? Is anyone trying to regulate??
18
@Jennifer Kilgore-Caradec I am rapidly becoming a Luddite. With this lightning speed development of technology and the short cuts it gives us, help us or kill us? In my view we need some low tech solutions, such as a sensible approach to slowing down population growth and public education about the necessity of walking rather than driving, living close to work, etc. to cut down on carbon emissions. Maybe the coming economic depression will be a good thing for humanity.
9
Tomas Friedman summarizes several issues that US society must address better without delay; there are many more including transition to a carbon emissions neutral economy & upgrading other areas of environmental protection, the opioid & related substance abuse crises, completing the building of a viable universal medical care system, rebuilding basic public infrastructure, upgrading public education & making it more relevant to the future of students, etc. There is an overarching issue, however.
Beginning to adequately address this wide array of urgent issues first requires serious reform within both major Parties at the Federal, State & Local Government levels. Simple opposition of one Party to all for which the other Party stands, warring factions within Parties, the dominance of big money & of obsession with media trends, & a willingness to gerrymander, suppress voters, pandering to the base & demonizing opponents, changing legislative voting rules & State Constitutions to negate the will of the public are in sum features that all too often dominate the political agenda in place of the creation within each Party of a consensus on coherent public policies to seriously address in an intelligent manner the many urgent issues the US faces at all governmental levels.
The Public must demand now for the Parties to address this democratic deficit.
7
Mr. Friedman leaves out the most pressing issue of the 2020 election: climactic change and its impact on the economy and society. No surprise as he has been a consistent cheerleader for the technocratic elites (including his buddies the Saudis) and the idiotic notion that silicon valley will solve all problems. Frankly I wish he would go back to whatever haven he has been retired to and figure out just where his thinking went off the rails. He is no longer relevant.
22
As tough as it is for us, human beings, to adapt to what used to take a generation to learn and adapt to, now that we have a revolutionary technological prowess exponentially faster, we may get lost in it's labyrinth more often than not, to our loss. We shall be governed by A.I., robots, and an Internet so full of information and disinformation, that to sort things out may become impossible; hence, the paradox that, the more information, the less knowledge and even less understanding shall become the rule. Still, as we become more credulous and prejudicial, we may become easy target of charlatans and demagogues 'a la Trump' that will control us emotionally; and all they will need is find a black hole of discontent or disenfranchisement and claim they are the only individuals,with unique credentials to get us out of our predicament. As you said,continuing education and training shall be as routine as 'apple pie'. And 2020 is upon us, menacing if we consider that, among us, there are unscrupulous, malevolent minds, intent in benefiting personally no matter how Machaivellian...and how awful for justice and societal peace. It would be a 'brave new world' nearly impossible to adopt without falling into an unrelieved chronic stress, and it's nepharious consequences. If this becomes the Next America, you better watch out.
5
We need a plan. We have no plan. China has a plan (OBOR). How do we expect to compete with no plan -- just wing it? Seriously, we need a plan.
16
@Tom Pollan --No, over 70 years ago Hayek argued that planning is futile; it overestimates our knowledge, which is a fraction of what is needed. Plans fail consistently. In a technologically dynamic era, that is even more true. Who in government knows where 5G might lead? A: nobody.
1
planning even though they are most often off the mark, is better than not planning at all.
3
@daveW -- Yes, we do need a plan. Not a detailed blueprint type of plan; rather, a strategic plan that identifies where we want to go and by when. America's citizens will dictate how we get there....but "there" needs to be defined in a more detail than say, MAGA. And while Hayek is worth remembering and re-reading often, I don't think relying blindly on spontaneous order is a prudent idea.
Friedman makes a coherent case for rational leadership on 2020's biggest social issues.
Given what we've experienced since 2000, I see no reason to believe that rational thinking will guide any of the important decisions.
8
This article is wrong. The “Next America’’ will be - China.
2
@Fourteen
Yeah, I'm beginning to think that. And it implies nothing more than a comfortable 1984. Or Fahrenheit 451. Eh!
Tom...thought I'd inquire about a couple of things. First, what has more and more speed gotten us? Well, certainly that's more consumption and addiction to the screen for sure, so how's that going to help the environment if all development requires some form of resource extraction? Or will we just consume the screen images and not consume material things? Second, the rule of thumb for the information-age is 'if you're not paying for it, you're not the customer; you're the product being sold.' Surrendering our privacy for a little convenience all feeds AI, and most quantitative jobs: accounting, banking, brokerages etc. should start feeling the axe by 2020, with a total clear-out by 2025. Why do you think, when enforcement of the Sherman Anti-trust laws is NOWHERE to be found, the monopolists and information gurus are grabbing their money now? 5G, 6G...9G, 10G, and we're all logged-into, and have become, the images and algorithms no human government can control. Monopoly regulation? Politicians don't bite the hand that feeds them! And the warming seas, forest fires, weakening jet-stream, and hurricanes continue apace outside the edges of our screens until the flood waters are at our ankles. As the Nobel Laureate Herbert Simon once said: "What information consumes is rather obvious. It consumes the attention of its recipients. Hence, a wealth of information creates a poverty of attention." Deploy military spending towards climate-change mitigation, and stop 'feeding the beast.'
18
Thanks for including this bit of wisdom from the 1890 Sherman Act : its definition of Monopoly “emphasizes the need to ensure that the economic power of large companies does not result in the corruption of the political process.’’ Bravo! This is the quintessential bottom line. Defining Americans and creating policy only for “Consumers” has steered America very off course. This New America course correction journey is long, uphill and daunting.
15
"As AT&T notes in one of its 5G ads, 'Think of this as the next frontier in untethering, giving you the ability to take the ultrafast experience you have in your home or business with you virtually anywhere.'’’
Just because people think and say these things doesn't mean they happen. Remember 20 years ago when the wide availability of cell phones and pcs was going to make tele-commuting possible. This was supposed to be the death knell for most large cities. Now the NY Times prints opeds that argue that the movement of people to large cities is almost irreversible.
Mr. Friedman, you like every human being including this commenter, think you understand the world much better than you do. Don't take predictions of the future, especially of the social 'sciences' too seriously. Look at some of the predictions made 50 years ago when men first landed on the moon about future space travel. Virtually none of them have come true.
14
@James Ricciardi Right. Every column printed in the NYT or any other newspaper or online magazine or book should have a big warning right at the start: "The author is just one more imperfect human being who is doing the best he/she can. This is worth a read, but don't blindly believe everything in it."
2
@Gordon Wiggerhaus
This is worth a read, but don't blindly believe everything in it."
I thought that was a given.
Dude, you're talking about which decorator to hire when the foundations of the building are cracking. We've handed supreme executive power to an ignorant and unprincipled opportunist who's been legislatively and morally backed by a repressive minority party that seeks permanent dominance. Supreme judicial power is in the hands of movement conservatives. A once fairly objective and much smaller media has become a monster with a million mouths; only a tiny, financially ailing fragment continues the objective tradition.
These are the cornerstones of government and the political process. With them in such doubtful shape, do you really believe our people and our institutions can take on the kind of hypertechnical regulation you (correctly) say will be needed? Our legislators can't even agree to keep the government solvent. I don't see that happening until the underlying issue of Two Americas comes to some kind of resolution. There has to be an understanding across the political spectrum about sharing power. I don't see that happening. Trump is a feature of the system we have now, not a bug.
16
Friedman is so wrong it makes you laugh and then makes you cry. If this is the centrist elite’s understanding of our problems, it is no wonder we have Trumpism.
5G means faster cell networks; it will change nothing. Secondly the idea that the answer to technological change is lifelong learning is laughable. Humans can’t and don’t want to pursue several careers in a lifetime. The promise to reeducate workers in the 90s was a cruel promise that never materialized. It’s funny that you never see the people who advocate such nonsense do it.
Man’s relationship to work is changing.
Globalization has made the rich fabulously richer and left America’s blue-collar workers without decent jobs and her white collars worker with no job security and no benefits in a gig economy that only advantages employers. AI and robotics will do this to the rest of the world. Out of touch pols who tell workers that all they need is lifelong learning will be looking for gigs along with everyone else.
Capitalism is burning fossil fuels that will destroy the environment and they are creating systems that will eliminate the need for workers. Boy, those pesky contradictions just keep coming.
Can consumer capitalism survive without workers? Who will consume?
The solution is guaranteed healthcare, housing and income. The solution is communism, something humans have proven to be incapable of, they are just too selfish. Unfortunately, we won’t survive the end of work unless work becomes voluntary.
42
Great piece. But I disagree that humans have proven incapable of communism. Most of human history has been spent in very small groups that could be described as communistic in the sense of perennially sharing the means of subsistence. Private property in our sense of the term probably didn't exist until the Neolithic Revolution, possibly not until the appearance of the first civilizations. As Marx said, it's the existence of surplus value that creates the possibility of exploitation.
9
I do not understand why people insist on saddling a whole new reality with an obsolete economic system. We have machines that will do almost all needed production better than we can why are we looking at education to do what is completely unnecessary? It is time to look at a totally new paradigm that gives us purpose and meaning. The age of your work is your identity will soon be over and we will have a world where your identity is your work or we will all follow our lead lemmings over the cliff.
3
The "New America" will also need to answer a critical question: How many of our citizens are truely committed to an inclusive democracy? How many are willing to compete in a changing world?
FiveThirtyEight's analysis of polls tells us that after 2 years of unrelenting attacks on the foundations of democracy by a corrupt authoritarian President, Trump still commands about a 42% approval rating. Tens of millions of Americans support a President who attacks elections, law enforcement, a free press, and American citizens who dont look like him.
Mr. Freidman talks of "lifelong learning". Yet after 2 years of Trump's lies (6000+ per fact checkers), attacks on science, attacks on "disagreeable" facts, absurd conspiracy theories, there are millions of Americans who believe what they are told despite what they can plainly see. "Elite" levels of knowledge are considered unAmerican and untrustworthy by far too many.
The "New America" will not succeed with 40% of Americans of preferring know-nothing authoritarianism, lazy lies, and fearful disengagement over an active embrace of the challenges of a changing world.
The "New America" just cannot afford our current level of ignorance and fear. Fiscal discipline, smart technology regulations and corporate oversight, and other mentioned policies may be necessary but are hardly sufficient to fix what is broken in this country.
20
@LT How much will "lifelong learning" help those holding the 47% of American jobs McKinsey says will be permanently wiped out by tech by 2050? We obviously need a radical re-thinking of our political economy, or we'll sink together as tech turns America into a permanent Depression by wiping out so many jobs so fast that there's such a fall in aggregate demand that there's no way to get us out of Depression for good.
5
@LT Isn't "lifelong learning" just code for, "You and your children will have to pay through the nose to get an education, and once you finish all the required courses for your major, you'll only get to learn mindlessly dull things like subnetting because you'll have to spend the rest of your life paying off your student loans. And then when you're done doing this the first time, lather, rinse, repeat until the robots come for your job."
Meanwhile, the elites are the only ones who can go to good schools or afford to become airline pilots, scientists, artists, actors, or anything else that's fun and exciting.
I guess their new slogan is, let them eat Cisco.
1
The success of the '"Next America" rests solely on the "Next Republican Party". The one that emerges from it's present nihilistic state. If it remains the party of Trump, we may be looking at the "Last America".
7
Thank you! Millennials wholeheartedly appreciate posts like these.
"We will need to make some level of postsecondary education free to every American who meets a minimum grade and attendance requirement, so that every adult and every high school graduate can earn an associate degree or technical certificate free of tuition at a community college at any time."
And how do we expect this to go over with people that can't even see the need for this with health care. You might not be smart, but you will get sick and die, but even that certainty can't sway these people that apparently are happy to have their life's work hoovered up at its Twilight, if not sooner.
We can do it but it's going to take a lot of reckoning from people that so far show they are incapable.
I think you're totally right, Tom. These are the questions staring our country in the face right now whether we like it or not, see it or don't. The question is who will write the rules. Citizen leaders who fight for the common people of this country? Or corporations who have already tipped the scale and are reshaping every aspect of our lives? I desperately hope for the former. I think The Republic depends on it.
I have seen these predictions for 70 years The actual results never look like the predictions. The things you expect dont happen and the things you can't dream up do happen. The result looks nothing like the prediction. But there is a slight resemblance occasionally.
6
"In sum, the Next America requires addressing each of those issues, and many more — from climate change to zoning rules — and how they interact. So the next election must too. The craziness around Trump has delayed much of this discussion. But 2020 won’t let us do that again. The Next America won’t wait."
Mr. Friedman, you may be right about Next America, but as for these being election issues, if Mr. Trump runs for re-election, and there is every chance that he will, I can guarantee you that none of this will be his elections issues. I can also guarantee you that if a candidate is foolish enough to bring these issues up, and that candidate would not be Mr. Trump, then they will lose.
Mr. Trump reads the NYT; I gather that he hopes that all Democratic potential candidates take your advice. That would mean 4 more years.
3
Tom,
You set high expectations for a government in a country who’s political class can’t seem to walk and chew gum at the same time. (And 40% of us would be angry for the glee of it, if we walked and didn’t chew gum.)
I know you're in love with "lifelong learning" but the people who struggle to get through high school and who can't fathom another day in a classroom are not going to cease to exist just because there is no place for them in your brave, new, educated, world.
Maybe in the next 50-100 years, universal college will be the standard but until then, regular people doing regular jobs need to earn living wages. Feudalism does not need to return because you don't think these people are any better than serfs. Not everybody is going to become a nurse, coder or carpenter.
6
I agree with most of Tom Friedman's observations about "The Next America," and the powerful role of technology as the conduit for these anticipated changes. In parallel with these dynamics, there needs to be a transition toward a more supportive and people focused government at all levels that enables our citizens to capitalize on the attendant benefits as described in his column. The American people should prosper from 2020 onward, not just the major corporations, the special interest groups and high ranking government officials. Let the majority of our people be an integral part of this progress as we move away from enhancing the lives of the top 1-2% of our society.
If the suggested changes are to become our new reality, then let's authentically start by addressing the needs of the American people hand in glove as these changes evolve. With "The Next America" on the horizon with all its promise, kickoff the process to deliver to the American people and give them not only what they need, but what they truly deserve.
1
Our Lobbyocracy can't even fix healthcare. I'm not holding my breath that it can tackle the big challenges like climate change. The Next America may be a very sad place if we don't get money out of politics, get rid of the Electoral College, etc.
15
On balance, you sound scared. So am I. Just as people are having increasing difficulty in keeping up with technology that directly affects them, so the creators of such technology are losing track of themselves and the things they produce.
Hardly a day goes by that I don't encounter a clash between a program that was written for one purpose and a directly conflicting program written elsewhere for another purpose.
Software is piled into our systems - iPhone and PCs alike - in a frantic effort to keep up with itself, and as often as not, one "fix" creates another problem.
Hackers are the true terrorists of the near future. They don't always just steal or vandalize for the fun of it. They alter critical programs that threaten our increasingly fragile cybernetic infrastructure to the point that such tampering could bring down entire economies in the blink of an eye.
I'm getting on in years, and while I'm not sanguine about facing the Grim Reaper, a part of me is glad to be checking out before this electronic house of cards collapses around humanity's ears. I've lived though the very best of times, in the very best of societies.
Good night, and good luck.
19
If the Don is your 2020 choice
You have spoken aloud with your voice,
Turned your back on Science
In utter defiance
Of Trump, empty barrel of noise.
You’d like to be pre-Civil War?
That’s what the Don is good for
In the stove just put coal
CO2 takes its toll
Deny each gasp or what’s Hades for?
25
@Larry Eisenberg... in utter compliance
Of Trump
2
The U.S. has reached the point where the current constitution no longer protects ordinary people. There needs to be a constitutional convention to revise and reform what has become a dated game plan. I have no doubt that the U.S. will be left in the dust of world events if they don't move their laws and their thinking into the 21st Century.
Unfortunately, I don't think this is possible.
8
You maybe right. However, we certainly do not want the current Congress to be responsible for revising any part of the Constitution .
5
@Boba Fett, Revising the constitution will be virtually impossible because it requires the following:
The Constitution provides that an amendment may be proposed either by the Congress with a two-thirds majority vote in both the House of Representatives and the Senate or by a constitutional convention called for by two-thirds of the State legislatures.
So nice to hear that 5G is coming, woo hoo. Now if only the power lines running outside of my house and down my street did not look as if it were installed in 1930, which surely it was.
We all love to go on about hi-tech, self driving cars and other flashy, newfangled devices but the reality is we need new infrastructure. Crucial life supporting stuff like sewers, new gas and waterlines, drainage areas, refuse/dumps, oh and other little things like roads and highways. Infrastructure is not nearly as sexy as say rocketing to Mars or a new Tesla or I-Whatever but it is a necessary reality.
122
@Tim
Can you do this without raising taxes or increasing the size of government?
I understand the GOP are looking for potential converts in NY.
1
@Memphrie et Moi
Higher taxes is coming, sooner rather than later.
Windfall profit taxes on private equity warlords, merchant bankers and other disrepitable greedheads should follow.
Time to put the Porsche Cayenne SUV up on blocks and dust off the Honda.
17
@manta666
666 was once my mailbox number when I moved to a town that had a one year wait time for mailboxes but 666 was available. Nobody here in Quebec or at least 80% don't believe in God and the beast doesn't even occupy our nightmares.
Anyhow I am sad to hear higher taxes are coming to a location near you. We have high taxes and a roaring economy and our government will only give a small part of their excess revenue to we seniors. What kind of government invests in a future when we seniors are not likely to see much of it? Can you believe they make us pay for parking when we visit the hospital. When my wife spent almost two weeks in hospital it cost me almost $50 for parking to visit. Good thing it didn't cost us for anything else.
11
Recent polling shows that 70% of business leaders state that the the pace of change is accelerating. So much so that the ability to adapt to that change or perish is becoming their primary emphasis, and their biggest worry is that their own workforce’s could be largely obsoleted within 10 years without massive retraining. Expect “knowledge base” to once agin as it was in the 1990s become the meme.
Also, along with 5G, I expect VR, 3D printing and telecommunications to get a huge boost if not reinventions as a result of 5G.
Mr. Friedman, I think you meant, raise taxes AND trim military spending, didn't you? Just kidding.
No, seriously. You know better than any of us, drastic measures will become necessary and tolerable as long as fairly good government prevails. Otherwise, I see a second Civil War coming in one form or another
7
The elephant in the room of this article is that a political system incapable of overcoming Trump, or of squarely addressing the grievances he exploited to become president, does not stand a chance of grappling effectively with the coming technological and social challenges outlined here. Especially in the context of the further unmentioned herd of global inequality, global limits to material growth and global climate disruption.
Ergo, to avert further decay and disaster, America urgently needs to reform and repair its broken political system, especially the worst part of it, the part strictly unmentioned in our Constitution, and which is now -more than ever before- a dead two-headed albatross upon the body politic: the decrepit and derelict two party duopoly.
The Republican establishment cannot credibly deny its culpability in not stopping Trump, neither can Democratic establishment. For different yet reinforcing reasons (ingrained deceit and hypocrisy of the GOP, ingrained cowardice and phoniness of its faux opposition), both parties have become incurable scourges, and require drastic remaking and/or replacement.
Two party insanity as usual has run its course, and has run the country aground. We need to heed the warnings of America's founders who rightly feared the corrupting and corroding effects of political parties. We need a return of high school civics, reform of campaign finance, balloting procedure and redistricting, and adoption of ranked choice voting.
19
@Sage
Although our Founding Fathers and their peers warned against political parties, they immediately formed them. Historians I've read deem them counterproductive and inevitable.
If America wants to truly see a revolt trim Social Security. The wealthy have gotten most of what they have charged the political class to do. The rapacious producers of arms and weaponry have been bilking the public for years. The Pentagon has never truly addressed waste in their organization and the effectiveness of our military is in doubt. Have we ever won a war since WW II ? The tax cuts, marshaled through by Ryan and McConnell, have decimated any real chance of balancing a rigged system. Topping off Social Security contributions allows the wealthy to avoid paying their fair share, while we of the middle class are ever-increasingly burdened. Much of the social safety net has been destroyed and the regulatory agencies rendered toothless. While middle and working- class Americans mouth platitudes that "America is the greatest country" and thank American mercenaries "for their service" the wealthy are picking the carcass clean. Thomas Paine is watching from above and weeping.
88
@MichaelWe now have extreme unfettered Capitalism likened to the times of trust buster Teddy Roosevelt. Unions have been tamed, and corporations have been allowed to no longer provide pensions, but instead provide 401k plans that, if lucky, will provide some percent of matching contributions. However, with the current low state of education, it will no doubt take years for the general population to learn to save and manage it properly.
5
“...the Next America...will be “continuous lifelong learning”
But the future won’t necessarily belong to those who simply digest more information, but rather to those who develop a true appetite for discernment and quest for wisdom. And this can only occur if we have leaders and a populace intent upon the cultivation and dissemination of actual knowledge (formerly known before the pre-Trump era as “truths”).
20
Unfortunately, 2018 America hasn't even mastered voting rights....at least in its neo-Confederate states where tyranny of the minority is having a Jim Crow Renaissance Revival.
How can you expect meaningful government and smart regulation when the Robber Barons and their comprehensively corrupt political front men are rigging the vote like it's 1880 again ?
The only ones leading America are coastal democracies and and America's businesses...our Electoral College Presidency is a Trump University mascot riding a horse backwards to cheering idiots and a sea of serfs sipping snake oil as the ruby red, religious Senate hands out Bibles and anoints corporate supremacists and voting rights nullifiers to its Robber Baron bench.
America's radical right regressives need a swift 2020 kick in the political groin if this country is ever going to be able to put on its thinking cap and take its IQ out of its Fake News microwave oven that has turned its collective brains into White Wonder Bread soaked in acid rain.
America's federal government needs to lead on education, renewable energy transitioning, science, infrastructure, healthcare, campaign corruption reform, taxation reform, voting rights and representative government.
Instead, we have a giant overflowing Trump Toilet spilling effluent, criminality and cultured stupidity across the nation.
The Republican Party requires a massive federal Superfund clean-up to remove its toxic chemicals from America.
Then we can move forward.
370
I’m from Caldwell. Love and agree with your reasoning
11
@Socrates Is the flag factory on Bloomfield Ave. still there? Keep up the great work in the old 'hood.
7
@Socrates thank you for this I'm laughing but it's just to keep from crying.
11
???
Thanks to Google and its ilk, all of the world's more public knowledge – most every image and in every language – is a couple of clicks away...
Have several paid – and several gratis – papers available instantly at my fingertips...
If I want the truth on anything, I have my AI bot ingest HuffPost plus Breitbart – and divide by two...
Can self-teach idiomatically correct foreign languages – or access mankind's greatest science and technology, and narrative and art...
Amazon plunking down 25,000 good-paying jobs in Queens – and all folks can do is grouse about the impending cronut shortage...
If you want to know who could lead us back onto a better path and brighter future, how about the former mayor of NYC – who, with his analytical team, set the stage for NYC’s resurgence...
Best quote I’d seen recently regarding the promise and potential of AI was about Magnus Carlsen:
“...world champion Magnus Carlsen won't even play his computer...He uses it to train...But he won't play it, because he just loses all the time and there's nothing more depressing than losing without even being in the game...
40 years ago, Steve Jobs remarked:
“…the computer is the most remarkable tool that we’ve ever come up with. It’s the equivalent of a bicycle for our minds...
Was going to suggest an update – but some folks, as usual, way ahead of me...
https://www.rightpoint.com/thought/2017/10/25/if-the-computer-is-a-bicycle-for-our-minds-artificial-intelligence-is-a-harley-davidson
5
Dear 'Next America'...While some people were planning the next new thing, the health of the planet was ignored for too long. We were short-sighted, arrogant, stupid and very greedy. So sorry for your loss.
Best regards, the Present
58
"The Next America" is also the title of a 2014 book by Paul Taylor, a senior fellow from the Pew Research Center. Its analysis is similar to what Friedman notes, with perhaps a bit less emphasis on the technological gadgetry.
I tend to be suspicious of sweeping predictions, but hope to around long enough to see what happens. Given the atavistic features of our current administration, one wonders what will prevail.
1
It’s very simple to answer this. Follow and adhere to the Constitution. The US rose from dirt to the world’s wealthiest and most successful nation in just two centuries doing just that. Don’t like it? Amend it. This is a question that should not even be asked.
6
When the next Congress begins in 2019 to consider the available evidence to determine whether or not Donald Trump should be impeached, the most important issue may not be the dozens of instances of obstruction of justice nor the conspiracy to rig the 2016 presidential election nor the compromise of national security in return for freshly laundered and untaxable money from Russia.
The most important issue pointing toward impeachment may be that Donald Trump – through his dishonesty, narcissism and ignorance – simply wastes too much of America’s time.
In a fast-moving world culture where education and personal re-invention will be a lifelong activity for any American who wants to cope with new challenges and technology, as Thomas Friedman discusses, the distraction of Donald Trump cannot be allowed.
13
America will need to reverse the top-heavy tax breaks enacted under the current Administration at the same time as it rebalances its public resources more toward the nation's future then its past.
That means investment in the young even if it means disinvestment in the aged. Since young people have no franchise and the recently young tend not to vote, such a policy recalibration will be a difficult hill to climb.
As for the prospect that "microsensors in [my] shirt will gather intelligence and broadcast vital signs to [my] doctor," what can possibly go wrong with that? For my part, I'm hanging on to all the shirts I currently own. To the best of my knowledge, not one of them is equipped with microsensors.
7
@John lebaron: " even if it means disinvestment in the aged." Why do you buy this dipolar nonsense? Why can we not do what we need to do and be a civil society? If you want to exclude civil society, be very careful, for the barbarians will come back to bite you.
1
This article paints an optimistic picture of what we can and need to do with the coming of 5G technology and progress with much more breathtaking speed if we want to remain a viable nation.
First, this will require reversing all that is going on today that is stopping the runaway train going in the wrong direction.
Taking money out of politics, guaranteeing fair election, getting rid of gerrymandering, making voting easier, electing thoughtful, compassionate and intelligent leaders, providing opportunity for higher education for all, controlling the social media to be more responsible, making the rich to pay more taxes, national health care for all and a solid safety net for all which will not allow weakening social security and addressing climate change etc will have to be addressed simultaneously to meet the challenge.
We truly have a tremendous job.
35
@The Observer
Aye, but Progressives (we) are up to the task.
3
In 2020 the right work model indeed may be “continuous lifelong learning’’ instead of using an education for 40 years ,or using it for 20 years and then retraining. But, the way things are going technologically, that 2020 right work model will only be a temporary stop on the way to the "most jobs will be performed without people" model. Now that will truly be revolutionary and require a fundamental re-thinking of how we are to live our lives.
15
I don't view the technological changes that are outlined in this article as being net positive in any way. First, let's stop referring to any device or connection as a "smart device" or smart whatever. This is one of the biggest false labels pushed by the tech industry and the use of that term should be stopped immediately - the dangers of tech gone wrong as equally as dangerous as candy flavored cigarettes, if not worse.
The second significant negative is implied via the following:
"But in fact, in the Next America, argues McGowan, the right model will be “continuous lifelong learning’’ — because when the pace of change is accelerating, “the fastest-growing companies and most resilient workers will be those who learn faster than their competition.”
If anyone actually believes that society will function normally and properly in a state of constant limbo, well good luck. People by their very nature crave stability and certainty for their future. Society will break down when everyone is told that they'll be irrelevant tomorrow if they don't learn some unknown skill set..
I am very concerned indeed.
81
The need to learn continuously is the main thing this article got correct about the present: it has been this way for 20 years. Truly, it is this way not because of the rate of change in technology, though that has been great, but because or the rate of decline in our social stability, precipitated by the withdrawal of support in social structures and the lack of funding or foresight towards a new infrastructure to support our growing capabilities.
My generation (Generation X) has had to scrape, scrabble, and scramble for every edge we could get to pull us along: if you did not have a continuous learning mindset, you were not able to hold on for even a few years, let alone decades. Now you tell us that this brings instability? Instability is it's mother.
So how do we fix this? I propose that we follow Mr. Friedman's advice, start a conversation about this; bearing in mind that if we are not provided for as a society, society will be a mean place indeed and instability will continue to fester and plague us.
9
The fact that in this hotbed of innovation called the United States there are only two Internet carriers should tell us something about the state of antitrust enforcement.
65
@WJL
Coupled with doing away with net neutrality and it is the Glided Age 2.0 - The internet should be maintained just like the airwaves, with not any one company having a threshold over 25% or so.
Just a thought ...
23
@WJL, thank you! I am aghast at how few people are outraged by corporate welfare of ISPs. As I understand things, in many places the creation of municipal broadband has been *declared illegal.* I would love to know the reasoning behind this, but I'm guessing there is none, except greed.
13
"The Next America won’t wait."
It will if Hillary runs again. She'll sink it for everyone with those three million votes burning a hole in her pocket. She and Bill are narcissists at the same level as Trump. They need to help from the sidelines now, not from the main stage. If she runs again, she will split the vote and, if nominated, she will lose again to Trump. Then we will put the pedal to the metal on our own little highway to you-know-where. Forget about all the optimistic technological improvements you discuss here. Forget about helping with climate change, or health care, or infrastructure, or education, or relations with our allies, or gender and income equality.
After Trump wins again, it will be more of the same with racism and traumatizing immigrants to continue to play to workers who have been, and will continue to be, left behind.
Will Mueller save us? He didn't before the midterms, and the Senate will bury his report.
We constantly talk about Trump. But he's not the big story. He's old, and fake, news. It's all about Democrats regaining full control in 2020 *so they can actually implement progressive policies to get America back on track.* It's all about Hillary getting out of the way. It's all about her announcing, immediately, that she will not be running again. It's all about her coming to terms with not being the spoiler again.
Absent that, the rest is all just talk. It won't matter; these ideas will all be stillborn. We will be lost.
18
"That is: How do we govern the “Next America’’?"
When reading the above I paused and thought, simple, govern like President Obama did. Then all that arrives later in the column falls into place.
Govern with compassion for all the citizens, have high moral standards, demonstrate a willingness to compromise, and most importantly, treat all who reside on American soil with dignity.
That's the way we use to do it before the current President, so let's just return to our roots.
39
Tom, for all your forward-thinking futurism, you're out of step with the latest trends sweeping the world, and are stuck in the past. Globalism is not the future, it's the past. The future is nationalism. While you've been busy exploring the latest technology or gadgets, I took the time to see what people really think about modern world. You'd be surprised to know that they care deeply about seemingly old-fashioned concepts like nationhood, and blood and soil. These fundamental concepts haven't gone away. Denial of human nature -- or glossing over it with the words "The Next America" -- is counterproductive.
10
So here is what I am thinking... those of us who are familiar w Virilio’s WAR ( French thinker) And many wisps of ideas that fly by F A S TTTT will agree that things will move rapidly... but then u can’t ignore Mother Earth and other planets who are likely to spook us, not to mention more evil entities than the tame caravan that so badly wants to grasp ‘the American dream’. So hey, I wouldn’t name a year! The time maybe right round the corner:)) and keep the faith.
3
So here is what I am thinking... those of us who are familiar w Virilio’s WAR ( French thinker) And many wisps of ideas that fly by F A S TTTT will agree that things will move rapidly... but then u can’t ignore Mother Earth and other planets who are likely to spook us, not to mention more evil entities than the tame caravan that so badly wants to grasp ‘the American dream’. So hey, I wouldn’t name a year! The time maybe right round the corner:))
1
Walt Whitman knew of what he was singing about when he characterized us as a nation of upward, onward, outward. Trump is an aberration, a negation of the fundamental idea of progress. Yes, the future is cloudy and our current president has exposed our flaws. All that aside, resilience has been our unifying trait.
5
The Next America is pretty much identical to the Old America we are already too familiar with: rich people can do practically anything they want, while the rest of us are struggling to survive.
I wish Mr. Friedman would get over his obsession with the Next New Thing and see that in terms of American political economy, there is nothing new under the Sun.
89
Tom is correct - up to the border. But he talks as if America was the universe. It's not just the Facebooks and the Googles that will need to be regulated - it's the protected and regulated Chinese Internet giants and social media platforms that are starting to edge into our universe. And if Europe ever gets around to a single digital Europe and gets competitive - them too. Europe is already trying to regulate our giants, perhaps because they haven't grown their own. If we think of the Next America we will be ignoring the Next World.
5
Thank-you to the author of this summary.
It is in short a potential he summarizes for the number one issue is how do we maintain our humanity without more serious conflicts. How do we find the time for considerations. First we need to look at economic disparity for otherwise there is not enough money for the majority. Second, we need to find a way to a foundation of morals since we no longer think religion is the answer. Third, there will be many, many not able to adapt, what do we do for them ? We will not be able to live in a world, for instance, with today some sixty-four million refugees and growing.
7
Thomas Friedman is once again channeling Herbert Spencer, the Social Darwinist with his "lifelong learning" trope. As evidenced by our vapid, round-the-clock entertainment culture, most humans are not built for this endeavor and what could be more coercive or dispiriting than to constantly retrain for jobs that you are guaranteed to find tedious, unpredictable and unrewarding? Even graduate school is pushing it for most people as far as secondary education and that is in a subject that actually interests them. Our corporate masters have placed rings thorough our noses and Tom cheers them on as they will never stop tugging until after we're dead. Its also implicit in his argument that the onus remains on the worker and any failure to thrive in his 5G dystopia is on them. Companies nowadays are loathe to invest in their workers, considering them disposables and expecting them to appear fully formed. When "futurists" like Friedman are asked about what the "jobs of tomorrow" will be, they immediately equivocate because they don't know more than anyone else. Yet, they are all too eager to have workers shoulder enormous debt on a gamble.
How ironic that all this technology had always been predicted to finally free mankind from drudgery and has only succeeded into making him into what Frank Zappa termed "A loyal plastic robot for a world that doesn't care."
215
@stan continople You're expected to arrive fully formed...when did companies stop training their employees?
9
@stan continople
And how does one "re-train" for jobs that don't exist anymore because of AI and automation?
4
@stan continople: I've known a number of people who went back to school after 50 to "retrain" and for the most part, it does not work out for them.
A lot of so-called "retraining" (ala Hillary) is just giving people low quality "certificates" to do lousy jobs like home health care -- paying about $9 an hour with no benefits. The idea is this will REPLACE a job as a coal miner or auto assembly worker, which paid $70,000 a year WITH a pension and health care!
The jobs that are the "hottest" today -- computer coding, nursing, engineering -- require not merely "retraining" but skills, knowledge, aptitude. Everyone is not good at "book learning" or good at math or chemistry! Those jobs take special, unique skills.
My best friend in college was the most brilliant person I've known, with straight As, perfect SAT scores and a National Merit Scholarship and graduated magna cum laude from a 2nd tier Ivy. But she majored in...English Lit. After a few years as a low paid editor, she decided to go back to college to learn computer programming, as a way to earn more money. AND SHE FLUNKED OUT. She couldn't learn it, it was just alien to her way of thinking. And this woman was in MENSA.
NOT EVERYONE CAN BECOME A CODER OR A NURSE.
27
"So the Next America may very likely have to raise taxes or trim military spending, or Social Security or Medicare — just when all the baby boomers are retiring."
Hey Tom. I know you're not reading the comments section but just in case you are: You may not need social security/medicare. But a lot of folks do. This theory sounds good at the upper west side cocktail parties, or their Beltway equivalent, but it won't fly in most neighborhoods.
In terms of life-long retraining: All just groovy. Just one thing: try getting a well-paying job after 60 no matter how trained-up you are. Ask some of your former Times colleagues.
459
@newshound Absolutely correct! I'm a 63 year old special educator (still working full-time) who has looked for a part-time job for the past year (to help pay off bills faster before "actual retirement"). I have applied to Kroger, Target, and Costco and all have responded with the line "We're sorry. You don't have the qualifications we are seeking at this time." I guess a Master's Degree puts you out of the running for grocery shopping (and taking them out to someone's car) and stocking shelves. Thought these places were crying for help? I guess not if you're 1) over 60 and 2) educated.
82
@newshoundm Very well said.
10
@newshound
This is so true. My father-in-law got laid off from a high level corporate job at the age of 55. He was unemployed for almost a decade and probably sent out a thousand resumes during that time. No one wanted him. These days, he gets by doing tax returns, but he’s used up all of his savings. If it weren’t for social security and Medicare, he’d be living on the street. Is re-training really the best we can offer him?
17
I am wondering if Trump was elected at this time to show us how bad things could be if we don’t pull ourselves together and move forward in sanity.
Complaining is one thing but doing something about it is what moves one forward.
I met a man today who is moving to Canada. I have a friend who moved to Ecuador. People are quietly leaving this country.
21
It's as though we have forgotten our own history. We are in the 2018 version of the industrial revolution. "Buggy whips" are now obsolete, rich industrial tycoons, who are also founders and investors call the shots, they treat employees poorly, no regard for environmental issues. The system can't hold up under this, employees demand their rights, there are wars, there is a great depression, and dust bowl. People are out of work, banks have collapsed, and the government has to step in to help or a lot of people won't make it. We are in that era now, once again, different technology, pretty much the same mentalities. We can repeat the same cycle or we can vote for progressive thinkers who know what they are doing to make sure monopolies aren't formed, that employees have fair rights and our environment/banks are protected.
12
If the PRC has not eaten America's "Next Generation" for lunch, I'll be satisfied...
"So the Next America may very likely have to raise taxes or trim military spending, or Social Security or Medicare..." Why would anyone (other than a Republican) even consider adding the last two of these into the potential pies to cut, after trump robbed the entire 99% of us to give himself and buddies the gift of their lives this year? By all means, take it from the military, or take it back from the rich, where it never should have gone, but do not touch money we PAID IN OURSELVES for our own security in our old age! This is the rankest heresy. If anything, we must give everyone the gift of health care. It is obscene that this country does not care enough for its citizens to offer health care, let alone threaten to take it away from those who already paid for it while young so we would have it later.
884
@Seagazer101 Although I agree completely with your main point, I want to point out one common fallacy. Social Security is a tax, not a savings plan. The money we pay into it goes to support the current retirees. When we start to collect it, we're being supported by the SS payments of current workers.
Most of us, if we live long enough, receive a great deal more in benefits from SS and Medicare than we originally paid in.
30
@MC
You can call it a tax but in the end both employee and employer are contributing money to a retirement plan. That's all.
50
@Seagazer101
Yes, and SS pays little enough to retirees. I have been bankrupted by illness during my late years, unable to work at all for five years, now only able to work part time, and I will have nothing for retirement except social security. I saved for my entire life, and it's all gone for illness and hospitalization and general survival; but some people never have enough to save.
And yet, they will try to make that little bit even smaller.
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Lots of great ideas.
None will be implemented unless we give equal voting access to everyone, and insure those votes are counted properly. It's taking our eyes off the ball of elections for decades that has left progressives way behind in gaining power.
Paper ballots, mail-in elections, risk-limiting audits, in every jurisdiction. Then our leaders will begin to address what needs to be done.
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How ?
Before readers comment I I recommend they read
"The Next Society"
https://www.economist.com/special-report/2001/11/01/the-next-society
Peter Drucker is the founder of Modern Management Theory
========
Peter Ferdinand Drucker was an Austrian-born American management consultant, educator, and author, whose writings contributed to the philosophical and practical foundations of the modern business corporation. Wikipedia
The only way things get better in the Next America is for Citizens United to be overturned, political contributions severely limited, gerrymandering stopped, monopolies and too big to fail banks be broken up, government or military service comes with a lifetime ban on working as a lobbyist and we start treating the planet as if we care about the people that come after us. I have to disagree with Tom that new technologies will even scratch the surface of this mess, they will just get miss-used just as easily as a progressive agenda will get manipulated unless we systematically re-integrate ethics into all facets of our society. When all of the pigs previously mentioned begin to fly, we may have a shot.
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@Kevin
Exactly right Kevin. Big money owns Washington. Former Senator Al Franken said Congress spends half its time going across the street to dial for dollars. I will add to that 'and they spend the other half listening to big money lobbyists plead their case while letting them stuff money into their pockets'. Corrupt money needs to be eliminated before our democracy can move forward. Until then our government will continue to work for the 1% as their plutocracy.
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@Rick
You are both better articulating what I say when I listen to NPR or read the NYT: We are doomed.
Not just the U.S. but the planet. I am very relieved I didn't have children. The planet is becoming a much more difficult place to live.
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@Rick
@Rick
For example: it costs about 1.5 cents to make a penny. Why do we still have the penny, or haven't made it from material costing less than a penny to make? Lobbyists from the copper and zinc industries.
And I would not be the least surprised that many if not most of the copper and zinc people hate socialism. These people are parasites on us.
America needs a thorough overhaul. A revolution.
Viva Social Democracy.
24
"But in fact, in the Next America, argues McGowan, the right model will be “continuous lifelong learning’’ — because when the pace of change is accelerating, “the fastest-growing companies and most resilient workers will be those who learn faster than their competition.”
That means that in addition to our traditional big safety nets — Social Security and Medicare — we will need new national trampolines."
Almost 50% of americans recently elected an anti-science trog who has never read a book and openly disdains fact based knowledge as secondary to his "Gut":
AND his VP is wedded to a world view which existed in 5,000 BC!
There's gonna have to be a competence and science and humanistic based fumigation of monumental political proportions before we can even begin to talk sensibly about the absolutely imminent challenges and opportunities you outline.
The window is closing rapidly.
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@dave Not even 60% of eligible voters voted in 2016 so not even close to 50% voted for this regime. But quite a few did.
1
@dave:
Americans suddenly embracing "competence and science and humanistic etc"?? Sure, some of us.
But what about the 'masses,' dumbed down by and addicted to 24/7 right-wing radio and TV?? I think the window already closed on those folks. In fact, they gladly helped push it down and lock it (to extend the metaphor).
6
The first order of business must be for OUR Socially Conscious hired/elected leaders to undo the worst damage the democracy-destroying Robber Barons have done.
Investigate The Con Don and his Robber Baron brethren with the end game of impeachment of all of them for treason. No hurry. We do not want Mike Pence in place of the current operative.
Increase the size of OUR U.S. Supreme Court by as many justices as necessary to overcome the hard-right takeover and pack it with Socially Conscious, progressive Women and men to level the playing field. Then pass a law or hard rule that 60% or more of OUR U.S. Senators must approve all federal judge positions. That will stop the judicial system destruction of the past 40+ years.
Increase the size of other federal judicial courts, with the same purpose, to compensate for the democracy-destroying judges being put in place by The Con Don as we speak.
Break up BIG corporations - especially social media and other tech companies - seriously regulate them and tax them fully.
SERIOUSLY regulate the financial industry and tax them at 99.9% to claw back all the wealth they have stolen from
WE THE PEOPLE. Use the funds to preserve/restore/improve OUR Social Safety net.
That will be a great start!
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@njglea
Dream on. Vast numbers of citizens don't vote at all, and many who do are "low information" voters.
50 years ago, we truly were "the greatest country in the world." Sadly, most Americans assumed this would go on ad infinitum.
It will take more than wishful thinking to turn the country around. At this point, I think we need a savior; and it won't be from the Republican party, of which I used to be a member.
15
@njglea Your bold suggestions lead to overhaul the American democratic rule, free enterprise and law and follow the chart you outline to COMMUNISM of the worst kind. Some of your suggestions are:
1. Break up BIG corporations-especially social media....
2. SERIOUSLY regulate the financial industry and tax them at 99.9% to claw back all the wealth they have stolen from WE THE PEOPLE.
3. compensate for the democracy-destroying judges being put in place...
-You forgot some other "wise" suggestions your path leads to, such as:
a. Increase the number of prisons.
b. Set up public gallows to hang or torture into submission those dissenters who object to your ideas.
c. Change the Constitution of the USA.
d. Elect only leaders who advocate those changes.
Those are somewhat harsh measures you advocate.
You may be surprised to learn, as I was, that 2018 midterm voter turnout in Washington State was the highest it's been since th 1970s, bync.
Gordon, it will take draconian measures to stop the International Mafia 0.01% Robber Baron/radical reliigon Good Old Boys' Cabal from starting WW3. Predatory capitalism - using inherited/stolen wealth - is a main component of the equation they are using to try to destroy the lives of average people around the world.
WE THE PEOPLE are the only ones who can stop them and I will do everything in my power to help. WE simply cannot sit idly by while they play their destructive games.
NOW is the time to make sure their plans do not come to fruition.
1
I agree with most everything here. Except about Trump. Even the dumbest of his Collaborators are getting a clue that HE is toxic. Not only for our Country, but also to their Party. And most importantly, to their own “ Job “. And the dirty little secret about Politicians is that nearly all of them could never, ever, obtain and succeed at a commensurate level in the private sector. They’re too incompetent and self serving. And deep down, they know it. They’re terrified of not being re-elected.
Trump will be Medically removed from office, within the next Year. Removed from the Oval Office, on a stretcher, restrained and heavily medicated. Count on it.
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@Phyliss Dalmatian
I'd rather see him frog-marched out of the oval office in ankle cuffs.
3
Also, and perhaps most importantly: climate change.
99
Double and triple that assessment
15
It is scary to contemplate a panel interview in which candidate trump in 2020 is being asked to comment on what guru Friedman outlined as issues of great complexity and yet so consequential.Trump has no idea, unless climate change can be sopped by tariffs.
But I think, Mr. Friedman, that it is not the future of the Next America at stake; it is the future of Planet Earth!
7
The "Next America" (and the "Next World") will face a crisis of trust we're just beginning to understand. Yes, we'll have even faster download speeds, and social media platforms will continue to endanger the structures of democracy unless sensible regulation is instituted.
But technology will soon offer "fake video" and "fake audio" that's impossible to distinguish from reality (at least by average people). There have been recent articles here and elsewhere about the latest developments in such technologies. We're nearly there now, and we've already seen the power of fake stories on Facebook and Twitter. If our climate continues to degrade, and people have no confidence in what they see or hear via the media they consume, conditions are perfect for even more extreme authoritarianism.
None of the advancements or regulatory issues Mr. Friedman mentions will matter unless we have an environment that is sustainable, and some common understanding of shared facts, truth, and reality.
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One way to address the complexities of the Next America is to reconcile with the Previous America.
1. Have a "truth and reconciliation" process that enables the Native American, African-American, Latino, LGBTQ and women to speak truth to power and to have straight, white males listen and respond - without shamer, without guilt - with the truth of what they did. Too much of the Previous America was built on the blood, sweat and tears of slaves and oppressed peoples. This is not a matter of reparations, but speaking and listening to truth.
2. Recognizing Nixon's "War on Drugs" was an effort to disempower the African-American and progressive communities, reduce all non-violent offenses for drug crimes from felonies to misdemeanors.
24
I can’t see any connection to what this article is about.
5
@Brad
Any truth and reconciliation, which is a great and necessary idea, needs to include Asian Americans and the poor, such as Appalachian communities who have had the resources extracted from under their communities for years as well.
5
“This has provoked calls for a return to the definition of monopoly in the 1890 Sherman Antitrust Act, which emphasizes the need to ensure that the economic power of large companies does not result in the corruption of the political process.’’ OR the corruption of the judicial/legal system, or the corruption of individuals rights, or the corruption of international agreements or rights of nations to govern themselves.
We can’t just catch up to where things have already gone wrong, we must also guard against where they are headed.
11
I hope so, your column paints an optimistic picture, I just hope we can put down our surfaces long enough to take stock in the present and future and our place in it. So far we've been failing.
10
I am going to predict that the current President is NOT going to be on the ballot for 2020. The pressure on him, his family and backers is going to be so immense by then, that there will not be a platform for him to sustain himself or the party.
Having said that, the greatest shift I think WILL come about is the reversal (after decades upon decades) of privatization of absolutely everything. You had a clue in your column Mr. Friedman, with a lot of others things I tend to agree with.
That is the idea of advanced education available for anyone, at any place and time (within reason) so that people will have access to any new technologies. The private sector is unwilling and unable to offer that. The government will.
Furthermore, there will be a break of conglomerates and monopolies. The areas of health care will become under government control, as well as the military, education and even government itself. There is going to be MASSIVE Progressive shift that will enforce the laws (especially electoral) on the books, as well finally implementing a true Progressive tax system. (where if you make more, then you pay more upwards - not less)
The demographics, changing attitudes and latest election results all point in that direction.
Into the future, and not back to the past.
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@FunkyIrishman
And we will put an end to the antiquated and biased Electoral College so our votes will actually count. Then we'll see where progressives actually are.
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@Seagazer101
I don't think republicans would hold office ever again, and would be nothing more than a minor regional party. - if that
24
@FunkyIrishman
I hope you are right about this. This shift needs to happen sooner than later, or we're in big trouble.
22