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Chapter Overview
When looking at social problems from the past, we see that many social issues have become less pronounced today than they were in previous years. Today, rather than dealing with survival issues, while they still do exist, many first-world countries, like Canada, have come to focus on identity politics: the political demands by women, LGBTQI+, older people, poor people, immigrants, racialized people, Indigenous people, and other minorities to be treated equally under the law.
David Walonick believed that forecasting methods for future social problems fell into one of four categories. Trend exploration is a way of examining historical trends and cycles to make predictions based on past patterns. Genius forecasting relies on the intuition and insight of people who know something about the field. Conesus forecasting reviews a series of outcomes that experts can then offer judgements on and evaluate their answers. Simulation methods rely on making complex models and then getting these models to make predictions about the future. Scenario methods involve describing a potential series of events. The future of technology will directly influence our predictions of what comes next in our social world. In this way, technology is human knowledge and ingenuity applied to the solution of a problem or need; it is applied science. Robert Merton created the acronym CUDOS (communism, universalism, disinterest, organized scepticism) to describe how technology has moved science forward over the centuries.
With regard to poverty, the future of poverty will be dependent on the responsibility of financial organizations and the handling of society’s money. Poverty levels are projected to continue to decline but marginalized groups will still face greater hardships than the charter groups in Canada. Diversity in Canada is also projected to increase with growing immigration. Not only will Canadian society diversify, but gender dynamics are also expected to shift as women are expected to become increasingly numerous in society. Education will also be a standard that grows in the future, with more and more people taking on post-secondary education to have a competitive edge in the marketplace. With crime and terrorism, increased use of personal technology is going to create privacy issues. Increased use of social media will trigger online harassment and bullying problems. War is also expected to propel us into the future as more weaponry is developed and “failed states” try to gain leverage on the global stage. The environment is a continual problem in the future, and this will affect food production, natural disasters, and weather patterns across the planet.