The future of the world

When I think about the future with respect to the present given the scarcity of resources and at the same time the advances in information technology.  I cannot help but think that the future of production is going to be a local affair whereas the future of ideas will be global.  The reason being that high prices of energy will drive up cost of transporting goods from around the world cancelling out comparative advantages and making it more worthwhile to do things close to the market.  However, the advances in Information sharing such as search and social media which I believe are only in its early adolescence will continue to advance, allowing ideas to be shared regardless of distance.  So the future might look a lot like the reverse of today: where the factory jobs and closer to home, but the ideas will come from universities and gurus abroad since the democratizing of knowledge will allow experts to emerge from anywhere around the world, and a simple matter of population size will determine where they will come from.