The new decade starts with an ominous thud. Who could have possibly predicted that global commerce would grind to a halt like this. Now the name of the game is uncertainty. No one knows what to expect next, and as COVID-19 continues to become the new normal, a strange new reality starts to take shape as the nature of work begins to change. Mass remote working. social distancing and self-quarantine. states of emergency. A reliance on big brother to keep us all safe. Proper hygiene for once.
Panic and Fear.
Will we be in quarantine for months? How will the nations of this world recover from this disruption? How many people could possibly die from this? How bad will the coming recession be?
Maybe this thing destroys the world as we know it. Maybe climate change continues accelerating. Maybe this whole thing just ends up as a blip and the world continues consuming tomorrow’s resources today forever. Any prediction is as likely as the next.
It is reasonably difficult to be optimistic about the foreseeable future. Almost every person in the world has been affected in some way, and regardless of the state of politics devolving into sheer madness over the last 4 years, 2020 will always be known as the year the earth stood still. The collapse of oil demand. Unprecedented unemployment numbers. Citywide lock downs and bursting bubbles. It sounds like the setup for another post-apocalyptic film and it’s only March.
However in spite of the uncertainty, I still believe that we will get through all this and be the better for it at the end of the day. While there is almost certainly more pain to come, I also believe that the world cannot be locked down forever (lest society as we know it collapse into ruin), and humanity will find its vaccine and move on to the next event that comes to define us. Whatever ends us, I don’t think this is it.
But I do think we’re going to see some unbelievable things going forward. Death of fiat currency? The fall of Rome? 1984? Singularity? Everything I once thought impossible is now improbable, and the fever will get you. It’s just the nature of humanity.
