Here are my few comments:
About what language to become the universal one, I think english could be a good one (I don’t know much about Esperanto, though). It would be practical because it is a fairly simple language, what makes his learning accessible to more people (I don't think a chinese language would be a good idea, since these are very complex and hard to learn...), and because its use & teaching is already widespread. The univeral language doesn't need to be a "rich" language, imo; the goal here is for the different peoples of the world to be able to communicate, not to create a universal culture.
The "dialects" (or bastardised languages <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/winkwink.gif" alt="" /> ) and the evolution of languages are a product of culture, though. No language remains the same over time; and to what I know of the world (wich is not much, so I may be wrong), languages most always evolve on a divergent way; that is the birth of dialects, wich might become completely different languages after lots of time has passed (if the people remains pretty isolated). The different dialects are a product of the culture and thus, imo, are not something that should be so disparaged, to a certain point (as long as the peoples can find a "grey zone," a way to understand each other). The best example I know is French: France French speaking people and Quebec French speaking people talking together, having the goodwill to use the "correct French," wich is common to both, will understand each other very well; but if they both use their respective familiar language, wich is full of regionalisms and have very pronounced accents, they won't understand more than the half of what each other say. It seems to be the same with the different English dialects.
As for people not wanting to learn more than what they’re forced/obliged to, I’m afraid that it’s but one of the many points that reflect the mentality of the capitalist society of these times (at least it is here in North America): consume more, and do all you can to “ease your life,” to have the less efforts to make. <img src="/ubbthreads/images/graemlins/disagree.gif" alt="" />
I’ll come back with a new question a bit later if nobody has anything else to add.
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