Location Transport

How would a transporter beam affect society?

I received this question as a homework assignment. The date is May 31, 2058 and it is exactly 20 years since a company released a transporter beam capable of transporting both living and inorganic objects between any two points on the Earth. The point is to describe how it has changed any of employment, manufacturing, transportation, education, travel or politics. You also have to describe how it would impact countries that could not afford the technology. Any ideas that aren't obvious like roads becoming obselete, living and working in different places or international travel becoming instant? I believe it is instantaneous transportation, but the assignment wasn't clear as to whether or not a country would have to purchase incoming/outgoing stations for itself, and whether or not those would have to be transported there and how they would. And a question, why would more people work from home with the transporter beam being invented? This is what I've done so far: “Beam me up, Scotty!” This famous catch phrase was made famous by Captain Kirk on the hit show Star Trek nearly 90 years ago, lest did the writers know that less than a century later, it could be done for real. As we’ve hit the 20th birthday of the Transporter Beam released by the Boolean Institute, I thought this would be a great time to reflect on what it has done for our civilization. Walking, driving and flying; these are all methods of transportation that have been left in the past in most modern countries today. The ability to travel in an instant has revolutionized the way we do business. Importing and exporting used to be done by ship or maybe even plane, today it is done simply by loading the transporter beam. International trade has become simple, with products being moved between wealthy countries with ease. But some countries like Russia are unwilling to make the switch to the Transporter Beam fully and use the technology sparingly just like the former French airplane the Concorde. The cost of the outgoing and incoming stations for the Beam would cost a substantial amount for Russia, something they do not want to harm their economy. But both Canada and the United States have become reliant on the Transporter Beam, which uses a technology mimicking the speed of sound for people to travel around the world. I had a moment to catch up with the Prime Minister of Canada, Mr. James Rose, and he told me, “The Transporter Beam has changed everything about our lives. We do business easily; have more times for things we enjoy and can travel to another part of the world in seconds. The only negative to the Beam is the harm it causes countries who cannot afford it, who lose lots of commercial interest.” As I analyzed what the Prime Minster said, I was intrigued by the final thing he mentioned. Since the Transporter Beam has come to life, very few of us have thought about the countries that cannot afford the technology. The entir continent of Africa, still full of raw materials to die for, has not improved for the past 20 years and much of it still lies impoverished. The Transporter Beam’s cost would still cost countries in Africa too much of their annual GDPs. Until the switch to the Transporter Beam is made, countries in Africa and even parts of South America will be left out of the world’s economic picture. But the Transporter Beam certainly has made life in North America a lot easier. With an estimated 73% of people working outside of their home province, many can finally find a job that suits them personally.

Public Comments

1. technicaly it will solve logistic problems but if the costs for such technology is very expensive it will be used only spaerly , like the french airplane the Concorde. asuming the economic advantages are ok then for those who have no access to this technology will have an disadvantage, because they will be slower ( here i asuume that the beam works like the startrek beam that is transportation with a small delay of nano seconds ). my 2 cts Hmmm your answer is best so far ! some other thoughts that entered my mind : criminaliteit : crime easier to break in physicly into a bank's case and steal the money. Besides the beamer itself there is a need for a device that makes it impossible for a beamer to work. Note how similar this is in environments with animals there are preys and hunters no one can exist without a counter part. there is a lock and there is a key, a cooler and a heater, the whole world lives in one harmonious symbiose, this principle also holds for the beamer. And a question, why would more people work from home with the transporter beam being invented? I dont know and i doubt it. A reason to work at home is because the environment is familiar, you can sit on your own seat at home that may be more confortable then at work. Some people prefer the company of coworkers and will still choose to go to a common place to work. Because of the enormous flexibility of the location where to work , there will probably no need for 'fixed' offices. can one transport an entire country to another place ? ( in the futur may 31 3058 for instance ) does the invention of the beamer start a new cold war ? like the one we had in the 1950's/60's70's with nuclear arms? these are things to think about for politicians/philosophers and 'futurologists' Ah and privacy : do you want your ex to popup next to you ? beamer opens a way of "non-intrusive-removal-of- braintumor" just beam the thing out of the brain.
2. well traffic would decrease becase mnay more people would be working at home and the coutries with out this technology would lose a lot of commercial business with other countries
3. The world just becomes smaller, much like the combustion engine, air flight the newspaper and now the internet the world continues to shrink. Nothing really changes, we don't create things to make ourselves obsolete we create to make life easier. So you have to ask yourself is it easier to beam myself to the grocery store or is it easier to beam grocery's to me. The internet is not much different just takes a little longer. I can order online or go to the store. I am assuming this isn't instantaneous transport because that gets into a whole nother world. And roads could not be obsolete, Im assuming two transporters would be required to send and receive, so someone would have to deliver those physically to a site. Someone would have to drive out and fix transporters that break. And if a transporter can send and receive instantly what you have there is more like a time machine.
4. Don't forget standards and protocols. Imagine that the technology that was originally invented has been improved on, and from there several forks of the same type of technology have emerged. Do the systems interoperate well or not at all? What if a family of four were traveling and 3 arrived but 1 disappeared because the place they were going employed a transporter technology that wasn't completely compliant with the standard of where they left? If different countries use different standards, do you still have travel layovers, e.g. do you have to go from the U.S. to Finland to Russia because the U.S. and Russia don't have systems that interoperate? How do the transporter units allow for error recovery (i.e. so you and the fly in the unit with you don't end up scrambled)? What about power loss in mid-beam? Have extradition laws changed because of the ease with which a criminal can jump around to different countries? Are companies like FedEx and UPS obsolete? A patent lasts 20 years. Did the company that created the technology become a world monopoly or did others come up with other ways to transport people? Or was the creating company forced to share their technology?