5.1. Global community - B.
Virtual communities.
Global political parties.
Multinational citizen.
Corporates.
Global research institutions.
Global science foundation.
Global health organisation or G.H.O.
Global infrastructure.
Global exchange.
Global insurance.
Global university.
Global standard organisation.
Global social welfare organisation.
Star foundation.
Interest groups.
GHT.
We are witnessing the birth and evolution of virtual communities.
These communities cut across national boundaries.
They are virtual global communities.
People in these communities have a common interest, cause, passion,
inclination, thinking, or philosophy which unites them.
There is no leader for these communities.
There is no governor for these communities.
They exists because of the common interest.
These virtual global communities are the new form of society.
They come into being and grow or decline, depending on the individual's interest.
They are governed by their collective behaviour.
They are dynamic and can change in time and circumstances.
The members of the virtual communities are electronically linked to each other, in real time.
Though officially they have no formal powers,
they still have a strong influence on global and national policies.
We can expect in the new feature that the influence of these communities,
would be comparable to that of individual nations.
Just like the brain is much more than the sum of its neurons,
these virtual communities would have a superior collective intelligence.
We can choose to take the view that most of these virtual communities,
would have a positive impact on the world.
We need to hope that the direction of the individual nation's policy,
would be directed by the influence of these virtual communities.
For example, if there is a virtual community, which strongly cares for ecology and the environment,
we can expect global and national policies to align to this view.
Traditionally political thought and parties are associated with a nation.
It is understandable since the parties will be tuned into the national conditions, culture, economics, issues, etc..
This trend is likely to continue.
There are many common thoughts in political thinking.
We can visualise the emergence of global political parties.
For convenience we will call the major ones as the Red, Blue, and Green parties.
They would have a broad ideology.
Different national parties might align to one of the global parties.
Of course there could be other parties like Violet, Indigo, Yellow, Orange, etc..
Individuals regardless of nations, might align to one of the broad political philosophies in the world.
This will help track global trends in thinking of the global citizens of the world.
The followings of the different parties, might wax and wane at different times.
National parties would watch these trends with interest.
We can expect global party trends to influence the policies of national parties.
Citizens typically belong to a single nation.
The concept of a primary citizenship may still continue.
It is possible that countries accord guest citizenship status,
to citizens of other countries.
Guest citizenship status could be accorded for various reasons.
It could be for contributions to science, to arts, or even to sports.
This increases the degrees of freedom and mobility of talented people.
For example, it would be common for universities,
to have a series of visiting professors.
Indeed, a professor might work in multiple universities.
A sportsmen might play for his country, and for a club in another country.
As the concept of guest citizenship evolves to different professions,
the loyalty of citizens would become more diffused.
Citizens perceive themselves not only as a citizen of a country,
but also as a multinational citizen.
Institutions also become increasingly transnational.
The most obvious of these institutions are business.
Many businesses cut across national boundaries, and are present in many countries.
The world has many well known business conglomerates.
We will refer to them as corporates.
Their loyalty is shared across many countries.
They pay taxes in many countries.
The corporates adapt to local conditions.
For example, they might offer their services in the local language.
Nations tend to influence corporates,
and corporates tend to influence nations.
This is one more example, where global identity overwhelms national identity.
Another type of institution that will experience globalisation, is science research institutes.
It is recognised that advancement of science is a global cause.
Specialised research institutions, working on advanced scientific concepts, using very expensive equipment,
will have international participation.
Research of fundamental particles, interplanetary space missions, astronomy, and many basic sciences,
including life sciences are carried out by global research institutions.
There are many examples where nations co-operate to build global scientific institutions.
International space stations would have many participating nations.
Astronauts are trained in different countries to conduct experiments in space.
The experiments and the equipments, are designed in a large number of research institutions,
spread through out the world.
Space vehicles from many countries, transport astronauts,
scientific equipments and cargo to the international space stations.
Space station is connected in real time, with participating research institutions.
Astronauts researches routinely conference, with ground research stations.
This allows the experiments to be fine tuned, on a continuous basis, based on the results.
It is as if like ground research stations, have an extension in space.
Missions to other planets, and even to nearby stars, are now a shared endeavour.
Space vehicles which explore distant planets require large investments.
This cost is now shared by many participating nations.
Ground based telescopes, and space telescopes now probe the universe, to unravel its mysteries.
They carry expensive and sophisticated equipment,
which continuously generate a large volume of data.
This data is live streamed to various research institutes,
where scientists collaborate to analysis it, and look for new discoveries.
A large and complex problem such as astronomical studies,
on a universal scale is now a shared enterprise.
There are many areas of science, which require fundamental research.
The nature of elementary particles, gravitational waves, quantum theory,
are some examples where research is being done, for the pure pursuit of knowledge.
There are no immediate commercial benefits.
From the beginning of civilisation human beings have been exploring the unknown.
The efforts have been fragmented.
With global corporation, science is able to explore its frontiers with more talent and resources.
Apart from national aspirations, humanity now has global aspirations.
Expensive scientific research is now sponsored and funded by many member countries.
It is now common for scientists across the world to participate,
full time or part time in global scientific endeavour.
Science is pursued as a global aspiration.
The global science foundation sponsors research in the education institutions of member nations.
It acts as a platform for global collaboration in most of the scientific fields.
Data for research is a global resource.
The data is diverse and large in volume, which makes it a rich source for research.
It is shared world wide.
For example, research on linking of MRI images to thought processes, generates a large, diverse and rich data.
The Neuro-Connectom project hopes to understand the functioning of the brain.
No single scientist or institution can hope to achieve this objective.
But a collaborative effort of scientists across the globe , in different institutions can strive to achieve this goal.
Collaborative efforts results in cross fertilisation of ideas, and generation of new approaches.
Another example is understanding the functioning of the human genome.
It requires talent and data on a global scale to achieve this mission.
The global science formation is funded by member nations, and in turn it sponsors research,
in the institutions in the member nations.
The research findings are available to all member nations.
It is possible that translation of research into technologically and commercially viable products and services,
is left to the individual nations.
This model supports collaboration at a higher level, and competition at the downstream level.
The global science foundation is committed to synergy in scientific research.
Good health is one of the primary objectives of human beings.
The global health organisation or G.H.O. is a collaborative effort of member nations,
to promote and maximise good health of its citizens.
The primary emphasis of health care has shifted to preventive health care.
With proper care and precautions it is possible to prevent many illnesses of millions of people.
The best example for this would be vaccination.
It has helped prevent diseases in millions of people.
It has even eradicated many life threatening diseases like small pox.
Adequate and balanced nutrition is one of the requirements of good health.
Global health organisation works to provide nutrition to economically weaker sections of society.
Good hygienic practices can prevent many illness.
G.H.O. promotes good hygiene to all sections of society.
Universal vaccination for all known diseases which can be prevented by vaccination,
is one of the objectives of G.H.O..
Many illness are spread by vectors like mosquitoes.
This can be prevented by eliminating or reducing the target mosquito population.
CRISPR has been found to selectively control mosquito population.
By editing the genes, it prevents the mosquitoes from reproducing.
Over multiple generations the target mosquito population fades away.
G.H.O. promotes such measures in many countries.
Blood, Urine test etc., have been used for a long time for identifying certain illness.
Dramatic improvement in testing methods are now available.
Advanced tests can identify bio-markers for many more illness, much before the actual illness being recognised.
For example, certain markers can identify that the person is likely to get cancer or TB.
This helps to take advanced action.
The earlier illness is identified, the easier it is to cure it.
Priority is now given to routine screening of people to identify illness well in advance.
G.H.O. promotes such screening in all its member nations.
What cannot be prevented has to be cured.
There are many diseases like cancer and AIDS which are widespread across the world.
Treating them is a challenging task.
G.H.O. sponsors cutting edge research in many widely occurring diseases.
The fruits of this research is shared by all member nations.
G.H.O. is also sensitive to illness caused by modern sedentary lifestyles.
Obesity is a common problem, which is reaching epidemic proportions in many countries.
G.H.O. promotes a healthy lifestyle which includes natural physical activity like walking,
to prevent this illness.
The overall good health of global population is the mission of G.H.O..
It has developed various parameters to measure the overall well being of people.
Child mortality, life expectancy etc., are some examples.
It uses these indices to measure this progress in promoting good health.
It used to be common practice for countries to build their own infrastructure.
This continuous to be so for most of the local infrastructure needs.
There are some areas which requires global infrastructure.
The world now has a global communication network.
A system of satellites now orbit the Earth.
They are interconnected and now provide a global communication infrastructure.
These provide high speed voice, video and data communication.
They also provide services like GPS and remote sensing.
This infrastructure facility is now funded by nations, and administered by the U.N..
Weather forecasting and forecasting of extreme climate events like cyclones,
and other potential disasters like earthquakes, are now a global responsibility.
The infrastructure for these are built in a shared resource,
and the facilities are made available on a global bases.
This concept enables sophisticated resources to be built, continuously upgraded,
and shared by the global community.
Nations have their own exchanges for commodities, bonds, stocks, and other financial instruments.
The global exchange has been formed to act as a medium for global trading.
For example, the global commodity exchange trades in all international commonly used commodities.
Some examples are metals like, steel, copper, aluminium, rare earth metals, etc.,
and consumables like, wheat, sugar, coffee, etc..
The global exchange provides the platform to trade most of the international commodities,
to all participants of member nations.
The price of these commodities are determined by global demand and supply.
Trading of commodity futures helps to determine future prices of the commodities.
This facility helps both the consumer and producer, by providing a transparent pricing mechanism.
The global exchange trades in bonds, offered by corporates and even countries.
This allows corporates and countries to borrow from the International financial market.
Even a city could offer bonds to fund its infrastructure development.
Investors would buy these bonds depending on the quality, reliability and value offered.
The global exchange also trades in stocks of corporates.
Typically these corporates operate globally.
Technology is moving at even faster pace.
Corporates have to adapt and align to emerging technologies.
The nature of institutions is also changing.
Many corporates are now aggregators and integrators.
The value of these corporates is now determined by international investors.
It also offers a medium for global funding of corporates.
The global exchange works on a 24 cross 7 basis.
It is managed by professionals drawn from member nations, and overseen by the U.N.
A global insurance agency works with the objective of insuring member nations.
Natural calamities like earthquakes, and tsunamis, severe weather events like cyclones, etc.,
can be insured or reinsured with this agency.
During the emergency a country can draw upon the insurance funds, to deal with the event.
The concept of insurance is getting more broad based.
For example, a potential epidemic caused by a super bug, could also be insured.
Small islands which feel threatened that they may be submerged by global warming,
can now take global insurance.
It is possible that cyclic events like drought, could also be covered by global insurance.
In this way a global community involves itself, in the well being of all members.
The world has a global university.
It is a virtual open university.
It is collaborative in nature.
It has hundreds of thousands of talented knowledgeable people willing to share their knowledge,
perhaps for a fee, or some kind of compensation.
The contributors could range from noble laureate level to college students.
It has millions of users who wish to learn from them.
Learners could range from research scientists, housewives, CEO's, and school children.
Global university acts as a platform to link them.
Modules covering a myriad of subjects and topics,
are offered at the global university.
It could be high level topics like cosmology, quantum physics, DNA, neuroscience, protein structure, etc,.
It could be topics of interest like piano, yoga, origami, cooking, gardening, etc,.
The entire range of knowledge, is typically covered in the global university.
The education has no formal structure.
Traditional barriers between subjects are broken.
For example, there is no hard delineation between physics, chemistry, maths, biology and philosophy.
In fact there is a high value for inter related courses, like quantum biology, or the physics and maths of music.
Credits are offered for courses taken.
These credits supplement and augment the knowledge offered by the city universities.
There was a time, when different nations adapted different standards.
The standard 'weight' measure had widely varying standards in different countries.
The standards were often arbitrary.
The yard for example, was based on the measure of the arm of king Henry VII.
The metric system was formulated through international collaboration.
It succeeded in establishing standards for various measures.
The international system of units, or S I is the modern form of the metric system.
Most of the countries today follow the S I system.
With advances in science, the way these standards are defined are changing.
The S I unit for the metre is now measured in terms of the speed of light.
The S I unit for a second is based on the cycles of radiation of a caesium.
Similarly other standards are sometimes redefined based on scientific progress.
The global standard organisation performs the role for defining standards for all member nations.
Initially the standards were for basic units of measurement.
The scope is now expanding.
The global standard organisation refines other standards which are of international standards.
For example, standards for air quality, noise pollution, water quality, energy efficiency, safety, etc,.
Standards are also formulated for globally traded commodities.
The organisation is also moving forward for developing quality standards for different products.
Most of these quality standards are basically a collaborative effort of the standard institutions of member nations.
Many companies aspired to acquire a high global quality rating.
These quality standards help facilitate international trade of goods.
In any society there is bound to be a small percentage of people who suffer from disabilities.
For example, people with vision impairment, hearing and speech disability etc,.
These people would require special facilities and care.
A progressive society will take responsibility of taking care of these people,
educating them, and integrating them into the economic and social fabric of society.
Such care is best given when it is personalised and comes with a human touch.
Mere allocation of funds will not achieve this objective.
Social welfare organisations needs to be decentralised and personalised.
Every community in the city can have a small social welfare organisation.
It may cater to certain kinds of disabilities, for example, visual impairment.
Between the communities, different kinds of disabilities would be taken care of.
A city would be able to take care of all its disabled citizens in the city, and surrounding areas.
Members of the community volunteer to serve on a part-time basis,
in their local social welfare centre.
The community also provide funds for the special needs of these people.
A strong social bond is established between community members and the members of the welfare organisation.
This provides a mechanism for the community to provide education,
special aids etc,. to enable the disadvantaged people to acquire skills required to make a living by themselves.
The community takes care to provide job opportunities for such people.
Having a disability does not disqualify a person from contributing the society.
For example, with modern technology, a visually impaired person can train to be a scientist.
People with disabilities, can always aspire to do things, using other abilities.
This recognition by the community and society in general, helps to nurture and integrate these people.
We can conceive of a large number of such social welfare organisation being dispersed,
in all nations, cities and communities.
People with the same disability exist in different nations across the globe.
They have common needs.
For example, learning resources for visual impaired people.
Mobility aids for visually impaired people.
It is possible to develop and share these resources across similar social welfare organisations globally.
The global social welfare organisation,
works towards coordinating the efforts of thousands of decentralised welfare organisations.
Research is conducted, new resources is developed globally for the welfare of all people with similar disabilities.
This organisation has a global mission and objective,
but all implementation is done locally, in a decentralised and personalised way.
The global social welfare organisation exists only to achieve synergy of the efforts of all the participating local organisations.
It channelises the efforts and shares the fruits of the effort.
For example, there is a global repository of learning modules for visually impaired persons.
This does not mean, that there is a centralised database.
The actual modules are resident in thousands of sites, of the authors.
They exists in a distributed manner.
The global social welfare organisation merely provides a platform, which offers a single point access, to all these resources.
Users are free to use the resources and use it as per their requirement and convenience.
The organisation also has access to augmented intelligence software, which can translate the modules into many national languages.
In this way a learning module prepared with great effort and care, is accessible to any visually impaired person, in the world.
Similarly, resources are available for people with other disabilities.
The organisations also sponsors research to help prevent the disability, and cure it where possible.
For example, it coordinates the global program, to prevent blindness due to known causes.
It promotes eye donations, and hosts a virtual eye bank, for the use of all member nations.
It also sponsors advanced stem cell research, which could potentially cure certain types of blindness.
A progressive society breeds philanthropy.
The desire to help others with needs, exists in a broad cross section of society,
-from the common man to the wealthy business person-.
People are willing to give their time, efforts and funds, for a worthy cause.
The global social welfare organisation, acts as a nodal agencies to channelise donations,
specially from wealthy individuals and organisations, to achieve global welfare missions and objectives.
It is funded entirely by voluntary donations.
Another innovative way has been designed to fund this organisation.
There are trillions of stars in the universe.
Scientist usually give a unique code to the stars.
In addition to the code, a star could be given a name.
It could be the name of a person.
The responsibility of given a name to a star is given to the 'Star foundation',
which comes under the auspices of the U.N..
Every year the star foundation releases a list of stars, that are to be named.
This is put up for auction.
Wealthy individuals and organisations are encouraged to bid for these names.
The amount could be very large.
Organisations buy these names, to promote their brand.
Wealthy individuals who wish their identity to be preserved for eternity,
bid for these stars.
In this manner a substantial amount of funds is generated for the global social welfare organisation.
These funds are then dispersed to the numerous small welfare organisations in all member nations.
This serves to channelise global wealth to noble causes.
Apart from professional interests people have hobbies and personal interest.
There is a large variety of personal interests.
It could range from dog lovers, kitchen herb growers, bird watchers, or thousands of other interests.
Interest groups are now global.
A person having any hobby can join the interest groups,
and interact with people around the globe.
Many experiences and tips are exchanged in the interest group.
Doubts can be raised, and typically someone would answer.
This makes the hobby more engaging and interesting.
A bird that has been tagged in Canada, might be identified by a bird watcher, in New Zealand.
This is posted in the interest group.
Sparking interest and excitement, and a discussion by members.
Even experts of the subject benefit by participating in the interest groups.
There are many heritage items which are housed in museums.
These are of interest not only to citizens of the owner nations,
but also to many other people in the world.
There is a trend now to entrust custody of heritage items and museums to a global body.
The global heritage trust, or GHT holds custody of heritage items and museums,
on behalf of member nations.
The heritage items are moved by GHT to other museums across the globe.
This enables many more people to experience these items.
Private parties can own the heritage items.
This is a virtual ownership, while a physical items is always in a museum of GHT.
Private ownership encourages income creation from wealthy individuals.
Private owners feel a sense of pride, in owning valuable heritage item.
It is also a good investment, since the ownership can be transferred, if required.
This helps to channelise income from wealthy individuals, for the common good.
This is used to fund efforts to find and keep more items.
In this manner valuable heritage items are shared world wide.
Art items like paintings and sculptors, are also kept in custody of GHT.
Similar concepts helped to share these items globally.
Private parties can have virtual ownership of expensive art items.
At the same time it is available for public viewing.