Hi, Because of the changes in national governments and their increasing desire to regulate their citizenry and their economies according to flawed economic and social dogma we will see the following: - primary research will still occur in the 1st world countries where the interest, money, and infrastructure can support it. - practical applications of this technology will be developed in the 3rd world countries where the destabalizing impact of technology won't hurt as much because the central government infrastructure doesn't exist. - it will become harder and harder for individuals with intellectual capital to express their rights within these 1st world enclaves. In particular, leaving the country. Perhaps it will get so bad that we'll see a return to the Soviet style of sports competition (ie KGB stoolies following all the athletes around). What will be the end result? We'll see bastions of 1st world culture surrounded by a sea of balkan areas that are 'governed' by economic and cultural ethos alone. As this process proceeds it will erode the stability of the 1st world countries and cause their break-up into small independant balkans. The results of this will be: - there will be a slow down in basic research in about 50 years because there won't be any large infrastructures that can support basic research. Hopefuly the balkans will find a way to cooperate in an economic and technological manner. If so the roll of technology will resume, albeit potentialy at a slower rate. - small balkans will band together for periods of time to explore research and develop the base understanding. it'll end up being sort of like a MCC or Sematech at the political level. One aspect that does worry me is that as technology speads the cultures around the world homogenize. This could have a negative impact on the balkanization because the motive to go from here to there won't be relevant because there will be here. It may turn out that xenophobic cultures like the Talibans and Chinese may actualy help in the long run because of their unwillingness to compromise their world views. ____________________________________________________________________ The seeker is a finder. Ancient Persian Proverb The Armadillo Group ,::////;::-. James Choate Austin, Tx /:'///// ``::>/|/ ravage@ssz.com www.ssz.com .', |||| `/( e\ 512-451-7087 -====~~mm-'`-```-mm --'- --------------------------------------------------------------------