[01/16/1999-12/21/1999]: 42-t-26444787-20080359F-001-002-2013

• ARMS Email System Page 9 of 11
u What are the local ~nd global consequences of the AIDS catastrophe
looming in Africa?
u What are the social implications of the advancement of genetic
engineering?
u How will high-bandwidth, point-to-point, global communications
transform the behavior and intellect of the typical human being? The
typical
government? The market economy?
u How will a globalizing, growth-dependent, consumption-measured,
profit-worshipping economy grapple with increasingly obvious environmental
limits to resource sustainability, threatening the very tree of life on
Earth?
u What environmental solutions might emerge and how will economic
interests shift if easily scalable means are discovered to generate
electricity with little or no expenditure of fossil fuel?
u How will geopolitics evolve if breakthroughs in our understanding
of
physics yield the ability to influence the force of gravity - turning
garages into landing pads?
u Recognizing that world wars framed the productive priorities of
humanity through the 20th century, what kind of vision will frame our
future
productive priorities?
u What unifying and rational spiritual meaning can fill the
increasingly painful vacuum left in the hearts of people - a void incapable
of satisfaction by the matter of profit, divisive religious dogma, and
sterilized science?
Hidden in such seemingly-intractable, potentially divisive challenges rest
rare and potent opportunities for collaboration, openness, and unity in
spirit crossing every kind of background, boundary and border. Such are the
subjects our world's leaders must be prepared to tackle in the first years
of the new millennium. .
Each of us equipped with a connection to the Internet now ·has a global
voice, enabling us to share our reasoning with each other broadly. Every
quarter or so, I'll share with you my thinking on these types of questions,
inviting you to join me in a humblingly challenging quest for useful
answers.
21st CENTURY SCIENCE