It may be a metaphor for “level playing field”; however, that itself is questionable. I do not know, as how do people consider world as flat, because I have not come across a “level playing field”, or “playing field is being leveled”.

Once Chankya said, a question cannot be an answer to a question; however, in current scenario, it would result in more insight as compare to listing of my thoughts alone. So, let’s start with some questions, which have been haunting me on this subject;

1. It is understandable that technology has bridged the distances and gaps in communication; however, has it also been able to “level” the disparities across world?
2. Do we have same social, economic and technological progress across the world?
3. It is understandable that there is lot of outsourcing, cross border collaboration … etc., has those been without any constraints? Are governments not protecting their local businesses / citizens? Are they not coming up with new constraints?
4. Will governments across world be working for the world, or their focus will be limited to their country / region first? If yes, why do we have divide across continents, and their economic growth?
5. Play field is being leveled – by adding more constraints, by making new laws to protect local interests, by working against the economic principles….. list just goes one?
6. Why do we have G8, G15…. OPEC, ASEAN etc.? The world is flat, why do we need those?
7. Can everything be done remotely; assuming you have the access?
8. Does internet make a world flat? Do “Collaboration”, “Social Computing”, “E-Commerce” …… make world flat?
9. Can we do away with “Keep up with the Joneses”?
10. Does world operate on needs, or it is “wants”, which drive the world?
11. Can it ever be flat?

You can have many more questions to this list, and in no way it is either complete, or lists the top ten (10) questions / arguments. It just represents my thoughts.

The point that I want to highlight is that it had never been flat, and can never be flat. It can be flat in ideal situation, just the way we have “Perfect Competition” in Economics.

The environment that we live in is full of constraints, irregularities, and preferences, resulting in decisions through emotions and / or imperfect conditions than through logical thinking, or perfect conditions. It could be as simple as we work towards fulfillment of “wants” and not through “needs”. Two or more, human beings can have same basic needs; however, their wants differ, and get influenced by the environment they live in.

I can explain each point that I have listed above in detail; however, the essence of each is, we can’ ignore the irregularities that we have in environment. Till the time we have those, which I believe can never be overcome, world can never be flat. Can it be?