After the agricultural revolution 10,000 years, and the industrial revolution 200 years go, comes the information revolution. This revolution will be much faster, and adoption of the technologies it produces will become ever harder for more backward societies/countries. For example, Europe and the US could build trains and rails 200 years ago, but almost all African countries are incapable of that today, even though they have higher incomes. They could however operate train systems built for them by outside powers. This information revolution is different in that its products may prove impossible to adopt without an industrial/knowledge base of the first order. For example, a new biotechnology which requires that your country have thousands of capable scientists for you to manage it. Almost all African countries would fail to produce this much needed workforce for the adoption of the new technology. It is not only biotech, but almost every field of science that will undergo this shift.
Somalia has not even mastered the agricultural revolution, let alone the industrial revolution. I fail to see how we can even begin to comprehend what is headed our way, and the way of the third world as a whole.
