Corona-view?

Recently, a former schoolmate of mine alerted me about a Financial Time (FT) article by Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem.

He’s a guy with a pretty dystopian view of humanity, announcing, among other calamities, the advent of the “useless class” of people by 2050.

His FT article basically says that big government is spying on everyone and going to know us so well that we will soon be under its thumb. He also laments that at a time when nationalism becomes the new normal, we should instead become a tight-knit global village.

Hard to disagree with these premises, except that they are the result a lofty view from 40,000 feet high.

The view is much closer to the ground for the vast majority of people that are scared of the virus, worried about their aging parents, their kids, their job, the food they’ll have to put on the table and their rent money, not to mention an economy in free fall. It would be great if everyone were well educated, able to think critically, but that’s unfortunately not the case, as this is a long-term project that will take a lot of efforts, tax dollars and time.

More immediately humanity might be well advised to shut down Facebook and its social media offsprings...