I think I’m jealous of future generations. They’ll grow up with all this neat technological stuff that we’re just hearing about now, like the ability to regrow a damaged joint in your own body. The stuff of science fiction to us will be taken for granted by them.
On the other hand, they’ll have to deal with problems that we don’t, just as we’re having to deal with things that our great grandparents never dreamed of. Maybe I should be satisfied with my place in history.
It does sometimes make one hope that the religions that believe in reincarnation are right, though. 😉
Of course, that’s assuming one would be reincarnated in a socioeconomic and geographic situation that one could take advantage of such advances. We are very lucky to have been born with the opportunity to use the technology that we can.
It’ll spread. Developing countries are getting more developed every year. In fifty years, I’ll be very surprised if any of today’s third-world countries still merit the term.
Sub-Saharan Africa has some big problems to overcome, some of which won’t be cured until AIDS is eradicated and the governments there stop having very bloody civil wars, but as for South America, India, and east Asia, you’re definitely right; and that’s most of the Third World right there.