Once, the question of whether there were advanced civilizations on other planets came up in the presence of the great physicist Enrico Fermi. He immediately uttered a famous quip that became known as the Fermi paradox: “Where is everybody?” He meant that since the universe is billions of years old and has billions of planets, we ought to have seen our neighbors by now.

A paradox that preoccupies me increasingly is: “Why am I in Podunk?” By this I don’t mean that I want to move to the bright lights of the big city. I mean, what’s taking the promise of the wired world so long to manifest itself in ways that would make my life delightful?

I grew up with three commercial networks and a primitive public channel on my black and white TV with its rabbit ears. Choice was limited. Obviously we’ve come a long way. Color, giant flat screens, surround sound, a wide choice of channels, streaming video, pay-per-view and so forth.

And yet, a tiny percentage of all the BBC’s, Canalplus or other foreign content will ever be available in America on my TV. I can watch endless runs of some old shows, but never see others. Practically every book that is no longer under copyright can now be accessed digitally, but a tiny fraction of TV is available. Decades ago I enjoyed Clark’s “Civilization,” “The Six Wives of Henry VIII,” “The Pallisers,” “The Ascent of Man” and many others. Why can’t I pop them up on my home screen anytime I wish and see them again? The technology exists.

I read about shows I would love to see on New York stages or at Chicago’s Steppenwolf or the Guthrie in Minneapolis. For example, currently on Broadway there’s the hip hop “Hamilton,” “Funhouse,” and many other shows. I can drive 800 miles, rent a room, pay for food and gas, cough up $100 for each ticket. By the time I’m done, I couple be out a thousand bucks for three or four platys in three days.

Or I can wait for a touring company to show up, or a local theater to mount an inferior production — years from now. I haven’t got that many years left, and it is entirely unnecessary to make me wait. The National Theatre in London has begun solving the problem, but has only gone halfway to a solution.

They now offer performances from their wonderful seasons broadcast live. It’s as if you were there. Coming soon, NTLive will let me see Benedict Cumberbatch in “Hamlet,” “Jane Eyre,” “Of Mice and Men,” “As You Like It.” The catch is, the shows are only available at participating venues. And, Catch 22, if you live in Podunk, venues probably don’t participate.

Briefly a theater in my town allowed me to see three or four NTLive shows, but I was one of eight or nine lonely audience members. It pulled the plug. Now the nearest venue is 30 miles away and I schlep myself over there. But it doesn’t display all the shows London makes available. To see some I’d have to drive 150 miles, 300 miles or more.

And yet the video exists and could surely be streamed to me for a similar fee to that charged by the movie theaters. Why can’t I choose to see these plays in my home as well as productions from The Globe, from Broadway, from opera houses or symphony halls around the world?

Why isn’t every sporting event in the world that is already televised to the home audience available to distant fans? Why can’t I attend lectures I choose by brilliant scholars, artists, writers, scientists?

Put a camera on a droid, give me a galley map and let me take a virtual tour of the Prado, the Rijksmuseum, the Tate, the Uffizi. Put a camera on a Ranger and let me visit the National Parks. Wire up an astronaut and let me do a space walk.

We all know this sort if thing is not just feasible but inevitable. It is already being done with boxing matches and concerts on a pay-per-view basis. So what’s the hang-up? Royalties? That seems short-sighted. Something from people in Podunk is obviously preferable to nothing. Most of them are never going to visit in person. Why? They live in Podunk.

It may be argued that there are too few in my little Podunk to make it worthwhile to stream any of these experiences. But if you aggregate all the people who would be interested in all the Podunks in the world you’ve soon got a huge audience. Isn’t the internet supposed to annihilate distance? Well, get on with it.

I have a selfish interest in the impresarios wising up and going digital. I’m not getting any younger. There are places I will never see, places I can’t afford to visit and places I am too creaky to walk around, but the technology could get me to Bruges and Persepolis and Prague and Angkor Wat and Khajuraho in the blink of an eye while I loll on my sofa.

So, when I turn on my computer or TV, where is everything?