Many possible futures
Yesterday, I posted my thoughts on the Corona Virus pandemic and the pivot, or lack of it, that this may represent ( see here ). I was optimistic and concluded that while science will rise to the challenge, the shock will not break the economic system but instead reinvigorate it. But at the same time, a short crisis would indeed consolidate some of the worst aspects of our current social system - inequality, the surveillance state, national chauvinism - and leave us even worse off. The only hope I could see was in the resurrection of our political selves while the economic man has been forced into hibernation. However, while I was far too certain, I was perhaps not clear enough. I considered only one kind of future, a rather short crisis, and yet, did not say what life on the other side of the crisis would really look like. While I am painfully aware that prediction is a perilous business, speculation in this season of uncertainty isn't out of place. But this, though, mus...