I would say over population is the number one threat to mankind's existence, that or the lizards in black that run the world.

The diminishing middle class and the ever expanding gap between the rich and the poor is a good one in my opinion. Especially since it affects design directly in sectors such as public housing.

cars - they improve certain kinds of mobility and access, but they are not only damaging to the environment, but also are damaging to our physical health, mental well-being, and make us more isolated and hostile toward others.

 

There's also the fact that there's a  tipping point where the economic benefits of the infrastructure we've built around them are no longer going to justify the costs.

social intolerance

covert discrimination

gaslighting

i hear the lizards are trying to help with population control, so maybe they're not that bad?

wealth inequality is the biggest problem.  if the world ends, then the world ends and it's all over.  if not, and wealth inequality continues, then there will be much suffering.

Thus far, I have strong arguments for environmental degradation and economic inequality/poverty, both pretty standard.

I'm trying to come up with an argument for complacency/indifference to global issues.

1. Environmental degradation

2. WW3

3. Corporatization/Fascism

4. Pandemic

4. Income inequality

5. Asteroid Strike

6. Lizard people

7. Justin Beiber

We also know that long commutes in cars are tied to complacency and indifference toward political issues.  And that political participation is much lower in auto-dependent communities.

 

I am handing you source material.

Society's 10 Biggest Challenges:

1.  Political correctness is censorship and will impede one's creativity

2.  Sustainability is overrated and also-ran, and the hippie movement and geodesic domes were around a long time ago

3.  Feminism and how it is now moot, since many women are the primary earners in families, but instead now fuels the battle of the sexes

4.  Starchitects charge too much and pay too little

5.  Fly united, or "unionized," instead of married

6.  Texting, and the social disconnect it has created, even bringing about death if flakily done while driving

7.  The greater "have and have not canyon" in society, and people the likes of Brangelina, Clooney, Babawawa, Oprah, the Kardashians, and Leona Helmsley (RIP, well, maybe not) should be taxed to their eyeballs to fund nice enough towers to house the less fortunate ... and have their names emblazoned on them as their remuneration for being taxed

8.  Too much "anti-social media"

9.  People who can't pick their political beliefs on an individual basis and need to have them tidily packaged for them, such as extreme liberals (who support Hillary, because it's the cool thing to do, when the Clintons really only pay lip service to liberalism) and extreme right wing nut jobs (who support a hick like Sarah Palin, monarchs like Mitt and Ann Romney, and neanderthals like Rick Santorum)

10.  IDP, and any other bureaucracies that make architecture, one of the already tougher professions by its very nature and milieu, more "bend over" with variable length internships and NCARB certificates when other professionals just apply to another state directly for a license.

Twentysomethings, the world is in your hands.  Have at it.

And, will someone attempt an answer for my budgeting CA time thread?

11. Get off of observant's lawn

12.  "Minnesota Nice"

13. Architects breaking antitrust laws, and conspiring to standardize fee rates

I think the complacency and indifference in the United States comes from the fact that if it doesn't effect your daily life directly; such as being able to drive because the government tells you you can't or you get evicted from your home or food is rationed to the extent you could only buy a burger once a week because it costs $50 or a foreign army is occupying your town hall people will not do much short of signing an online petition or bumber sticker activism.

The second biggest reason is that people internalize the structural reasons for why things are so bad right now; oh I didn't work hard enough, that person didn't take personal responsibility. Instead people need to start trusting the data being published by a variety of reliable sources about income inequality and resist blatant conflicts of interest between corporate owners and national political leaders.

Lastly people want to maintain material comforts as they know it out of fear that anything different is probably worse. As a result they'll support the status quo regardless of the hypocrisy and inequality embedded in it.

obviously you didnt know what you were walking into when you posted on here.

archinect operates under the guise of architecture but it really is a site to discuss the real rulers of the world... the reptilians and some amphibians... have you ever tried to have a staring contest with a 'pacman frog'... you got a lot to learn Richard... a lot...

The future will be broken down into numerical lists and timestamp captioned short videos. 

De Twan, I actually beat a pacman frog in a staring contest and while simultaneously fighting off a swam of Gila monsters. And what 

-jla-x  (aka chuck Norris)

the lizard men are an alien race controlling the power brokers and decision makers of the day, such as the bush family and rothschilds.  some say those families are lizard people.  they look like lizards.  the greys (the roswell ship) are subordinate to them.

Crab people

This thread.

Crab people

Josh, sir, Happy New Year, you lurker!

I agree.  Cancerians are listed as the types with whom I am least likely to get along.  Then, if I think of friends' birthdays across the year, that would sort of be true.

Now, if you meant crabby people, well, there are no crabby people on archinect.

1. The people that cannot take care of themselves are the ones reproducing at the highest rate.

2. The expansion of Google into military-grade robotics.

3. Economic cold wars

CARS

Hicks, and how many of them the U.S. has.

More of an annoyance than a challenge.

Good morning and Happy New Year.

the man asks about the lizard people. geezh. calls himself an architect!?