Where in the world?

If the world was your oyster, and you had more money than sense, would you move?  If you would then where would you go?  The feeling of wanting to run away is something that I've felt many times, the trouble is despite the barriers to actually doing this, in a perfect world even if I could just up sticks and move my entire life, I don't know where I would go.  The reasons for wanting to run away from everything mostly come down to politics and whilst domestic politics in the UK right now are miserable, the state of international politics doesn't seem that great either.  Everywhere you look from pole to pole all around the world the same problems seem to exist and it really feels like the problem isn't political ideologies, but rather humanity itself.

We've been around for thousands of years and in that time we haven't been able to figure out the problems we face as a race, that tells me that either these are problems that we can't solve or we are the problem and that as long as we exist they will continue - that last admission is rather fatalistic of course, as it's basically an admission that we're never going to solve these problems that despite our best efforts we are destined to carry this burden.  I do have to wonder whether this feeling is normal and represents something that everyone comes to with age when optimism and naivety give way to cynicism and pessimism or whether this feeling is the by product of a society that has managed to advance technologically with such pace that it has now surpassed our sociological development and that we now lag behind the technology we created.

In computer science there is a moment hypothesised in the future known as the technological singularity, the exact definition of that term and the timing as to when it will occur is open to debate but it is generally believed to be the moment when sentient AI will be born, this advancement chosen above all others as it would represent the moment that technology would surpass human understanding as any sentient AI with the ability to rewrite its programming would experience an intelligence explosion and advance quickly beyond human comprehension.  I would perhaps choose to redefine this term and choose not to use AI as the marker but rather to use technology and what it is capable of as a general marker and to pit that against what humans are capable of in comparison.  By this definition by any account the technological singularity would have already occurred.  We are already living in a world where technology is capable of doing more than humans are capable of doing.  Not only this, but our sociological development has not advanced in line with technology.  The technology we create disrupts our lives and whilst there are still people who understand how it works and can explain every detail of the process, that number is dwindling the more advanced it becomes.  Humanity as a whole does not possess that knowledge, it only exists within the minds of a few people by comparison to the size of humanity as a whole.

Where then can you run away to in order to escape the effects of this singularity?  The answer is rather simple, nowhere.  The reach of technology is now at a point where no matter where you go you will not be able to escape it.  With initiatives that set out to connect the poorest nations to the internet and provide yet more technology we are fast reaching a saturation point.  The only place you could really go is to some deserted island in the hopes of living out the rest of your life in isolation but that desire is one that is unrealistic, as human beings we are social animals and need contact with others in order to survive and stay sane, without it we descend into madness quite quickly and whilst I admire the gumption of those who retort that they would be more than willing to give it a go, I do question how strong the survival instinct would be within most people and what practical skills still exist in order to survive and be self sufficient in complete isolation.

On the flip side you can modify the question and instead of asking where you can run from technology, ask instead which nation has embraced technology the most, which nation has arguably shaped their beliefs and advanced their sociological development in line with their technological development - in answer to those questions only 2 nations spring to mind, Japan and South Korea, neither of which I could afford to move to and live there, that's before you even consider the language barriers that would need to be overcome, still it's interesting to entertain the thought.