Challenges and Opportunities

The global community has the potential to become a nightmare:

• A world of conformity:with billions of people wearing the same baseball caps turned backward, the same baggy shirts, the same blue jeans, and the same tennis shoes, speaking the same language, and laughing at the same jokes.
• A world of short-term stimulation: with countless hours spent on mindless television, video games, and a virtual reality that begins to eliminate the real human experience of life on earth
• A world of isolation: with lives spent in front of a screen striving for personal excitement and gain with little thought for the other residents of the community and even less effort devoted to helping future generations.

The global community has the potential to be a dream come true:

• A world of diversity: with billions of people being able to communicate, trade, share cultural experiences, and appreciate each other, with access to an infinitely diverse range of products, services, religions, cultures, philosophies, and languages that can all help to stretch and develop the human mind
• A world building long-term value: with countless individuals connected as the "global mind," working together to advance the evolution of our species, building upon what has been learned around the world in a manner that is incredible, efficient, and productive
• A world reaching out to humanity: with people being able to touch and help each other in ways that could never have been imagined, celebrating each other's success, and helping the less fortunate members of the community become productive and successful.

Will the global community of the future become a nightmare or a dream come true? No doubt it will be some of both. The present increase in global communication, global trade, and global culture will continue. The evolution of new technologies will not slow down. Attempts to stop the flow of communication, trade, or culture will fail. By inspiring today's citizens and educating them in the values of celebrating diversity, building long-term value, and reaching out to humanity, we can begin to build a global community that is less like a nightmare and more like a dream come true.