Discussion Forums » Big Issues of our Time
Top 10 Big Issues of our time in the UK
-
Although the site is about Ideas, in many cases these are as a result of issues that need to be addressed. So without wishing to focus too much on the negative rather than the solutions, I do think it is valid to discuss what we see as the Top 10 Issues of our time in the UK.
The list below is addressed in the Manifesto of Ideas and the original list published here has been edited to reflect that list, so takes in some of the comments in the responses below. Each topic is also expanded on in separate outputs on the site.
Do you think there are other top issues equally important, or do you agree with some or all of these as Top 10 issues? it would be good to develop a member wide view of the top 10 over time and try and tackle ideas about these between us.
Overcoming the housing crisis - can we get back to situation where our young people on typical salaries can afford a home.
Continuous escalating cost of NHS and Care system - can we reverse this in the future through prevention, application of new new technology and scientific advances?
Ensuring Businesses, including overseas businesses, contribute to our society (including tax) in proportion to the business they do here and exercising moral judgments not just 'letter of the law' judgments.
Ensuring our education system is designed for the 21st century, keeps up with change and educates for success in life generally not just academically.
The March of Intelligent Automation - the potential impact on jobs and society unless we plan how to manage it
Improving Government in the 21st century
The country not having been run for all - the failure of successive Governments to ensure everyone is benefitting from growth and scientific advances in a way that is perceived as fair.
Lack of long-term thinking in Government - the incentive for Govt. to worry mainly about the short term and the next election, rather than the issues building up especially for the next generation.
Badly Managed Government spending - the number of projects which appear to waste huge amounts of taxpayers money through overrun or failure with no apparent consequences for those involved
Democracy and decision making in the 21st century in need of an overhaul to make people feel their vote counts and be more able to influence decisions
Government and the State poor at keeping up with the pace of technology and the pace of scientific advancement. Therefore fail to deal with both the consequebces and the opportunities fast enough
The media - those aspects of the media which have negative consequences for our society rather than positive.
The negative side of the Internet - how do we stop the internet and digital devices being a paradise for criminals and mitigate the negative aspects of social media, fake news etc
Population Growth - not in principle but in practice because of the strain it puts on country infrastructure and resources (both national and global). How do we manage population, immigration, free movement in the light of infrastructure impacts.
So, do you think there are other top issues equally important, or do you agree with some or all of these as Top 10 issues? it would be good to develop a member wide view of the top 10 over time and try and tackle ideas about these between us.
This post was edited by # Probably42 at August 6, 2018 10:51 AM BST -
I don't disagree with any of these as being big issues, but they do have a heavy government/political bias. I would add Terrorism and the Environment to this type of list.
Thinking about issues that can be tackled on a more personal basis I came up with obesity, drug usage, divorce rates and materialism.
-
A slightly revised suggestion list for the Top 10 Issues below.
What other issues do you think are important and ought to be considerations for the Top 10?
Suggested Top 10
- Overcoming the Housing Crisis - The broken housing market and the impact on our young people.
- Continuous escalating cost of NHS and Care system - can we reverse this in the future through prevention, application of new technology and scientific advances?
- The March of Intelligent Automation - the potential impact on jobs and society unless we plan how to manage it (see the Ideas blog on this subject)
- The country not having been run for all - the failure of successive Governments to ensure everyone is benefitting from growth and scientific advances in a way that is perceived as fair.
- Lack of long-term thinking in Government - the incentive for Govt. to worry mainly about the short term and the next election, rather than the issues building up especially for the next generation. In particular in the context of the pace of technology and the pace of scientific advancement.
- Getting the balance right for the role of business and rewards in society, including clear rights and responsibilities of organisations and individuals.
- Internet fraud - how we stop the internet and digital devices being a paradise for criminals.
- Population Growth and Immigration - not in principle but in practice because of the strain it puts on country infrastructure and resources (both national and global)
- Democracy and decision making in the 21st century in need of an overhaul to make people feel their vote counts and be more able to influence decisions
- Educating for success in life - deciding what our education system should be designed to do in the 21st century.
Other contenders
Badly Managed Government spending - the number of projects which appear to waste huge amounts of taxpayer’s money through overrun or failure with no apparent consequences for those involvedThe media - those aspects of the media which have negative consequences for our society rather than positive.
- Overcoming the Housing Crisis - The broken housing market and the impact on our young people.
-
I was prompted to have a look at this discussion thread about the Big Issues of our time because it had quite high visibility on Google. In reviewing it I was surprised to find nothing much had changed in the least 3 years! These are all still big unresolved political issues.
We cover all these in our Manifesto of Ideas set in the context of an Artificial Intelligence Society, with a lot of proposals on how we should address them.
Take a look and see what you think.
We would be interested in other things that you think are big issues, we've limited ourselves to 10 in the Manifesto but we discuss lots of other issues in our meetings. What would you like to see discussed?
-
-
