WRONGS THAT NEED CORRECTION

CONCERNING SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGY

On July 21, 1969, the first human being walked upon the moon.  Since then, many ambitious projects ha ve been suggested by prople in power.  For example, in 1989, our first President Bush called for a permanent lunar base, and a mission to Mars; for which experts predicted a cost of half a Trillion 1989 Dollars during the next thirty years.

An unfavorable effect of the newborn space age was the birth of a kind of "space race," eventually involving the United States' NASA, the European Space Agency, and the USSR.  It caused NASA to attempt to accomplish "too much too fast"--which resulted in reduced quality control and some disastrous consequences. 

However, humanity has at the same time reaped benefit from our newfound technological accomplishments. Today, satellites furnish twenty-four hour weather coverage of the entire globe; and worldwide communications systems have become much improved, thanks to satellite support.  Further, a distant, but nonetheless possible prospect of people being able to take up residence upon worlds other than our earth may hold the key to human survival, in the event that one or more of the numerous potential disasters facing us today should happen to occur.

Today as well, international cooperation in space-related activities--a bit similar to that which I herein propose for all of man's activities--has caused our former haste and needless duplication to greatly decrease; and the dangers and disadvantages implicit in such practices to somewhat abate.

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One effect of our continuing to exist as a group of separate independent nation-states, however, is the fact that the level of scientific and technological knowledge and development, as well as the enjoyment of the benefits thereof, differ widely in various parts of the world.  This is due to the fact that access to information within the worlds of science and technology obviously likewise varies significantly in different places, resulting in a "diffusion lag" concerning new tecxhnologies in the less developed regions.

Even regardng an everyday device like the telephone, the United States was recently said to have had ten times more phone lines than Latin America, twelve times more than Asia, and forty eight times more than Africa.  (Notwithstanding, an exception regarding this has emerged in the form of sudden widespread worldwide access to cell phones in many of these places.)  Moreover, the use of new advanced materials, such as ceramics, superconductive elements, fiber-reinforced plastics, and numerous other even more recent discoveries, has been estimated to be one hundred times greater in advanced countries than in some less developed places.    And worse, this "technology gap" has widened instead of contracting, and (with the exception of a few countries that have now eagerly--and some say recklessly-- entered the industrial age) continues to do so as time goes on.  Research and development continue to march forward in the scientifically and technologically advanced nations; while in other places, things continue to be done as they have for decades--even centuries

A single worldwide perspective, fostered by the absence of borders, and a single worldwide governmental orientation, would automatically advance the spread of all the blessings of the modern world to all parts of the world; instead of their being obstructed and confined by national boundaries, together with a myriad of different national systems and economies.  Hopefully, this will one day come to pass.

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