Is the World Flat?

I purchased The World Is Flat 3.0 edition by Thomas Friedman over the weekend and read the first two chapter in about 3 hours. The original book was written in 2005 and the author has extended its content quite a bit over the years. I believe there is a second and bigger book after this one. There are over 600 pages of trend-tracking and stories about how the world looks like in the 21st century.

In this book, Friedman explains how technology has leveled the "playing field" for individuals, countries, and anybody willing to make a change including terrorists. Information, processes, and services can be diced and sliced, packaged, and be meaningful to everybody. For example, services like haircuts and food preparation is still a local activity. However, taking orders, billing, budgeting and other menial tasks can be automated with software and cheaply organized elsewhere to reduce overhead cost.

Another view is transportation. In the past, people have taken days to travel from point A to point B. With the advent of faster and safer transportation, goods and people have been able to move anywhere around the world for the right price. The electronic communication age e.g. telephone, fax, Internet opened the flood gates so that everybody can create their own wealth.

I will continue to read the book over the next couple days and develop my ideas. Additional, I was asked to think how to world is not flat. What is an alternative explanation/view to a flat world? Is this a permanent paradigm shift in the 21st century? Or is this a natural step in human history? Can people predict where technology is going? i.e. printing press, telegraph, telephone, Internet, world wide wide, next?