Vanessa Bates Ramirez
Mar 22, 2020
This articleoriginally appeared on Singularity Hub, a publication ofSingularity University.
Depending on where we live, life has changed a lot in recent days, weeks or months. And it will probably continue to change as we try to contain the spread of the new coronavirus. But already we are tired of staying at home; we miss our family and friends; everything has been canceled; the economy is on shaky ground and we have fears and anxieties about what the future holds.
We want this situation to pass as soon as possible and we think it is only a matter of time. We make plans for what we will do when everything is back to normal and we are counting on that to happen.
But what if life never fully returns to the way it was before the coronavirus? What if this pandemic is a turning point and the world as we know it will never be the same again?
More importantly - and more optimistically - what if the world emerges from this crisis in better shape than before?
Hacking Darwin: Genetic Engineering and the Future of Humanity, technology and health futurist, geopolitical expert, entrepreneur, and senior fellow at the Atlantic Council , Jamie Metzl thinks it is possible, but it depends entirely on what we do and how we act now. At Singularity University's virtual summit on COVID-19 , Metzl explained why he thinkswe willnever "return to normal" and what we need to do now to build a better new normal.
The most dramatic geopolitical event most of us have seen in our lifetimes was the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. The world changed that day and was never the same again.
A flu-like pandemic with a relatively low mortality rate may seem insignificant compared to the deliberate murder of thousands of innocent people. But as Metzl says, "I would argue that this is something much bigger than 2001. I think it's more like 1941."
1941 was the middle of World War II. No one knew what the outcome of the war would be, everyone was terrified, and the United States and its allies were losing. "But even in these darkest of times," says Metzl, "people began to envision their future."
It was 1941 when President Roosevelt delivered his famous Four Freedoms speech and American and British leaders announced the Atlantic Declaration, outlining their vision of a post-war international order.
The situation we are in now is of course different; this is not a war. It is, as Metzl puts it, "the meeting of the worlds of science and biology and geopolitics." And as the coronavirus crisis continues, the geopolitical consequences will be even greater.
Metzl quotes a sentence written by Italian communist theorist Antonio Gramsciin the 1930s: "The old world is dying, the new is trying to be born. Now is the time of the monsters."
What an ambitious statement!
Metzl explains this in detail. First of all, he says, the post-World War II order in which we all grew up is dying even before the virus appears.
Those who planned the future after World War II envisioned a world in which sovereignty was shared and nationalism reined in. Today, however, we are in a period of serious nationalization of the world, with populist, extremist and dictatorial leaders in power from Brazil to the US to China.
Institutions that were set up to strengthen global cooperation (such as the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, the United Nations and the World Health Organization) have been weakened by this process of nationalization, leaving us with no effective structures to deal with global crises other than the coronavirus. For example, climate change, protecting the oceans, preparing for future automation and artificial intelligence - big issues that no one country can tackle independently of the others...
Still, all is not lost. "There are positive parts of this globalization story that we need to consider," Metzl says.
In 1918, when the Spanish flu pandemic began, the world population was 2 billion people, and of those 2 billion, only 30 percent could read and write, meaning that the "brain pool" to solve problems consisted of 600 million people.
Now the world population is 7.5 billion, with a literacy rate of 86 percent, which means that a total of 6.5 billion people can contribute to fixing what is broken. What's more, we are more connected to each other today than ever before. It used to take thousands of years to transfer information; now it can reach the other side of the world in minutes via the internet. "The pandemic is moving at the same pace as globalization, but so are the responses to it," says Metzl. "The tools we are using in this fight are things our ancestors could never have imagined."
But while we are experiencing this incredible energy and connection from the bottom up, we are also seeing the institutions at the top failing horribly.
Have you felt any fear in the last days or weeks? I certainly have. The stock market is down, some people have lost their jobs, some people are sick, and we don't know how we are going to get out of this, nor do we know how long this is going to last. In the meantime, a lot of unexpected things are going to happen.
For one thing, there will be an economic slowdown or recession and problems with the health care system. These are predictable things.
Metzl thinks we will also experience a lot of secondary and tertiary effects. If the virus is more potent in poorer parts of the world, we could see the collapse of fragile states and the inability of multinational organizations like the European Union to bear the burden.
"Even in the United States, there could be light blows as our democracies are tested," says Metzl. Speaking of challenges to democracy, there are actors involved whose aspirations and aspirations are very different from our own, and for them this period could be a unique opportunity.
"The world is not going to suddenly go back to the pre-crisis world," says Metzl. "When we leave here, we will find ourselves in a different world."
We don't know exactly what this new world will be like, but we can partially visualize it. Simply take trends that have already started and hit the fast-forward button. Virtualization of events, activities and interactions; automatization of processes and services; political and economic decentralization...
But in terms of the parts of the future we are not yet sure about, we are now in 1941. "Now is the time to think about how we want the new world to be, to plan for it and to build it," Metzl says.
In hindsight, it's easier to talk about how to take better precautions and achieve better results for the COVID-19 pandemic. What if a global surveillance system had been in place three months ago, and an international emergency team led by the World Health Organization had rushed to Wuhan when the first signs of an outbreak appeared?
"We - all of us - have to revitalize a global system that is independent of differences and inclusive of all countries," says Metzl. "Right now we need to define a long-term vision so that we can judge everything against that standard."
There is already a positive long-term vision - for example, the United Nations' sustainable development goals call for gender equality, end poverty, end hunger, jobs, climate action and justice (and various other goals).
The problem is that we do not have meaningful or robust institutions to ensure that these principles are realized; there is a mismatch between the global nature of the problems we face and the structure of national politics.
Just as our normal was the new normal of our grandparents in the mid-1900s, this new normal, which is so surprising to us now, will be the normal of our children and grandchildren. But there are some important and wonderful differences between the mid-1900s and today.
Today we have an unprecedented number of educated people, better connections, the ability to share information quickly, and a lot of technological tools and scientific knowledge. "The number of people who can participate in this communication has never been greater," says Metzl. "We couldn't have done it in the industrial age or in the nuclear age. The motivation at this time and this worldwide capacity have never come together."
In 1941, the global planning process was top-down: A small group of powerful, intelligent people were making decisions and taking the necessary steps to turn their vision into reality. But this time things are different; to succeed, the new global plan must have meaningful power from the bottom up.
"We need to recognize that there is a new locus of power," says Metzl. "And that is us. Nobody is going to come in and solve this for us. This is our time to really come together."