Dude you might want to read Olaf Stapledon's Last and First Men. It's pretty heavy going but it's like an evolutionary future history of mankind. If you can get through it it's really good.
With regard to your point about poverty, I don't know what it's like over there, but here in the UK poverty is more often the excuse than the cause. Middle class people actually turn to poverty, for want of a better phrase, as a way of never having to face up to the responsibility of making something of their lives. It's quite pathetic, but it's gradually becoming the norm, which is extremely worrying.
In my opinion, the solution to the increasing problem of street crime is not to try to eliminate poverty, although this is something we should be doing anyway. Most crime is not caused by a need to obtain food or sustanance any more. Most crime is caused by gangs of kids who would rather terrorize people than get a job. So the solution to me would be public humiliation. Prison isn't a deterrrant any more; these people wear a stretch inside like a badge of honour. You would get the same thing from Tony Blair's ASBO orange jumpsuit street cleaning thing. What we need is to make crime not be cool any more. And that's the real challenge.
(Sorry for the soap box moment there! It's just that this is something I tend to get quite passionate about).
Exactly. And there we have the root of the problem.
