I toyed with the idea of writing about our world today with only one change - that changed everything... teleports.

Anyone could set up a small door and jump to a GPS address. I thought about the world after... no roads or highways - solves our aging infrastructure problem. Solves the reforestation initative. Neighborhoods in forests.
Few outdoorsy people trekking around. Jump to visit your neighbors or family around the globe. The teleport screen would be afordable and portable. Trash problem dumped on unsuspecting astroids. Automobiles and airplanes eliminated. Security on the receiving gates would eliminate most crime. Our world would be able to thrive without mass human invasion...

Then I thought what would happen next...

Share your ideas...

Now, don't let this stop you ... but at least two major science fiction authors have written about the social implications of teleportation technology. One is Lloyd Biggle, Jr., who called it "Universal Trans," and the other, Larry Niven, wrote extensively (and I tend to think definitively ... but let me not stand in the way of anyone trying to put a new spin on the old idea, or finding new ground to cover!) about what he called "displacement booths."

So far as I know neither used them for waste disposal, because for them to work (except, for Niven, in the case of one very expensive and not-entirely-successful spacecraft) it only worked between two (arbitrary) doors or "booths," like sound can't travel over telephone wires without there being a telephone receiver for the sound to travel to.

Thank you for your reflection and the resources. I will have to look them up. I wonder if JJ Abrams Trek writers have read them? They seemed to leave holes in the fabric of the story with a miniturized portible self-sending/targetting teleport system sending Khan across the galaxy. (See the "How it Should have ended" YouTube clip)

I had thought about a shuttle mission to a close proximity astroid (sailing past earth) and implanting a door.

My "doors" would fold down into a carrying case. NASA could launch a probe instead and make it self-setup and then begin the delivery process...

My background as a pastor makes me want to pursue a world changing around the church: technology, politics, people, languages, melting pot systems... I always look at the youngest generation and ask myself what will these people know as their reality - the day they grew up in?"

Battery business would skyrocket
Lots of lives would be lost by terrible teleportation (teleporting INTO solid objects - btw - teleporting into gas (air) would also be lethal, too )
Energy production may actually increase
Lots of people lose their jobs in transportation business
Car manufactory slows - new factories form
I bet horseback riding wouldn't stop though - it's pretty great tourist business.