From: Jim Choate <ravage@EINSTEIN.ssz.com>
Date: Tue, 8 Sep 1998 00:52:58 +0800
To: users@EINSTEIN.ssz.com (SSZ User Mail List)
Subject: Government Regulation & Scienctific Research
Message-ID: <199809071711.MAA04033@einstein.ssz.com>
MIME-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text



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.


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