Collapse

French

I was and wasn’t surprised. I’ve been expecting a collapse like this for so long, not because
I aspired for it or imagined a beautiful and just and ideal world in replacement. No, I presumed its arrival because it was inevitable but what metaphor or form or shape would it navigate ?
It could have been a nuclear war but it was a virus. It suddenly emerged and the world collapsed while governments shut their doors and windows and borders.

It didn’t just come about. It brought death along and bewilderment and fear and its invincible reality. It took away my life and made me a prisoner while the disease itself remained free. It still roams somewhere around me, or maybe in me. Or not. I don’t know. I do my best to avoid it but I can’t identify it. Neither timid nor hidden, it’s too small to be seen and I have no idea of what I am searching for. I collect information. I try to learn about this thing, I want to understand what it does, how it works. The effects of it. Sciences are studying the virus. We need to dominate it, they say. Every morning I read the news, hoping they discovered ways of killing it but for the time being we only have theories, algorithms predicting how it might move. They don’t really know much about it.

Governments all over the planet closed their borders. Some favored confinement. Others choose to ignore the possible impact of the virus. A few days and the global economy crashed and the word went silent. A few days and everything changed. It’s such a tiny virus and it just appeared and took it all. I can’t deny having some admiration for this organism so small and yet so powerful. Taking control like that of a whole planet. I am still quite amazed.

For two months I have observed the esplanade below my window. It used to be busy, people exercising, playing football, children on their skateboards, scaring dogs, elderly people enjoying some sun, chatting on a bench. Then, one day, the plaza was empty, totally and relentlessly empty because of the lockdown, the shutdown, the stay-at-home order, or confinement. Or detainment. Words that suggest you are not free doesn’t lack.

As a writer, I would be tempted by describing the gray and sad sky, loaded with rain that does nothing to reassure us. But during the lockdown, the weather was lovely, sunny, the sky was blue, so blue and it was so warm. Undeniably, the weather didn’t care about us. Or maybe it possesses consciousness and choose to be beautiful at a time when we couldn’t escape our homes, who knows. A sort of payback. My human intelligence does not allow me to speak cloud language and I deeply regret it. From time to time I imagine having a conversation with a cloud or two, and sometimes I try but they never answer back. I’m okay with that. And I understand the payback, retaliation, revenge, whatever word one uses to say retribution.

For almost two months, I have been staring at this emptiness of the plaza, thinking of these billions of workers who have been forced into a stay-at-home order, or detainment, all over the world, of those millions of people who, like in India, returned to their village, walking for days, because they lost their jobs and didn’t want to die of hunger. I think of families living in slum and in tent cities, with little or no access to water and no possibility of social distance. I looked at this esplanade, so empty. Every day I thought of how we got there. It was all so fast. Yesterday the world was open, today, it’s closed.

I was confined in France, near Paris, in a small suburb called Vincennes. In prison, sort of. They say confinement, not imprisoned. It sounds more acceptable, almost as if I had myself chosen to be in a shutdown.
I didn’t flee the city, like many did, traveling with the virus in my luggage to hide in a villa by the sea. I stayed where I was. In spite of being poor, I can’t and will not deny that I was privileged because I was confined and because I live in a pleasant area near a small forest. I could avoid people, avoid contamination. But even now I feel the rage in my stomach. Every day I read the news of the world. I am stunned by the speed with which authorities closed borders and paralyzed their countries. I am impressed by the power governments actually have, how they could undertake whatever they wanted, thinking or not about consequences. In India, millions walked through the country, trapped between quarantine and hunger. Millions of people who did not have my ideal conditions. When they were ordered to stay-at-home, did anybody think of hunger? Or was it just collateral damage? Others, unconfined and unprotected, went to work daily so that I, sitting behind my window, could eat as much as I wanted, stay clean because I had water, inform myself and talk with friends online because I had electricity. I was happy because I had these conditions. But so many didn’t.

People who continued to work every day in supermarkets or in hospitals, or drove trucks were also locked down but only after work, sometimes with the virus already in their lungs.

The virus, this thing that appeared and went global and is named a pandemic.

People who worked during the shutdown, the ones who occupy essential jobs, poorly paid, never enough to live, sometimes not even enough to eat properly, are also the ones who will be paying the debt to save our economic system that suddenly went bankrupt.

Today we try to get the world up on its feet. Some countries unlock their borders, others don’t, one never really knows. I hear voices rising from everywhere, voices that express opinions, fears, anxieties, emotions, voices of panic. I see crimes expanding. Hate crawls out from under the rocks. All over the planet, people are angry. They all need to battle, to get the fear out of the body. This unsettling feeling of a small thing named Covid-19, a disease we don’t really know and that has already become the symbol of the unknown that might kill us. We fight against racial discrimination, reduced salaries, unemployment, police brutality. People demand equality. Those are not new problems but two months of isolation has accelerated anger and despair and a feeling of being powerless, having no control of our lives. If life was complicated, we know it will be even more so.

It’s a Chinese virus, declares Donald Trump, the President of the United States, whenever he has the opportunity. A statement that incites to so much hate. A sentence of nothing but so convenient when you need to find a culprit. Someone needs to be held accountable. Everybody wants someone to blame. Somebody must be behind this virus, being guilty and responsible for all those lives taken. In the end, everybody fights against everybody.

Economy broke down.

I am used to thinking of economy as my enemy, the bad guy, the human-invented-virus that devastated the globe, its arrogance and narrowness, how citizens have been ruled by power and money, how budgets have been cut, without any real resistance. I always thought that we would be better off without economy. But during this breakdown, I realized that the economy is mine, or it has to become mine. Economy maintains the world. It doesn’t belong solely to rich people but to everybody and if yesterday it was an enemy, tomorrow it can be a friend. Economy is just a way of exchanging and imparting value to all sorts of stuff.

The virus is emerging as a political, economic, philosophical, literary problem.

And I can’t help thinking that the virus did well to land like it did, so unexpectedly.
Perhaps, ultimately, it is he who will save us from this dehumanization that we have created, caused, that we have built like a cathedral and that stares at us, coldly.
We have been managing inhumanity as if it was in itself a purpose
and we have justified our behavior by repeating that it’s fate.

Today, we have a tiny opening to something else. That is, if we desire it.
And if we are capable of going for it.

I am a writer of fiction. I look at perspectives, I concentrate on articulations, I try to figure out movements. I like to feel the wind blow, I listen to birds, how they keep talking, maybe about us and sometimes I have the feeling that whatever is going on, it follows a sort of movement. Not a fate, a movement.
Economy belongs to me, as do globalization. It gives me my liberty.
The virus offered us a moment to reflect and analyze the world we all live in, with its economic system that has been playing us and taking us down for so long.
We have the opportunity to question ourselves and enforce our humanity and our society as an indispensable value and freed from the obsession of a miss-to-win, the shortfall. Maybe we should try not to waste it.

But what happened? What created this panic? The virus? Or was it the fact that we are not capable of handling whatever kind of disease that comes along?
It went global. Consequences will be pandemic. Not one country will escape from repercussions. And we still haven’t grasped the opportunity to think. We are regardless rushing forwards, fueled by emotions and anger, prisoners of our outdated economic system based on an outdated reality.

We couldn’t handle a virus without destroying the world because of the miss-to-win. The shortfall. We vaguely heard about a disease in China that they struggled to control. At that point in time, media communicated death lists and the virus approached. People that I didn’t know, living far away, came and died in my kitchen while I read my newspapers. And then, suddenly, the precautionary principle went mad and locked us down, using technology to keep the world going. Exploiting technology… Now that the lockdown eases, increased surveillance and a society governed by algorithms are becoming reality, using the health system to maintain control. And still, the real questions, the really important ones that concerns our survival, are not considered.

Overnight, millions and millions of people lost their jobs and millions will have to face hunger. Never has the planet had to confront an economic problem like this.
But it was expected. It was not a surprise.
We were told that we needed to save lives. We had to flatten the curve. Slow down the virus because there was a lack of ventilation and hospital and staff and beds, masks, tests.
Only the very ill got tested but they had to be actually dying.
Don’t carry masks, stated the government.
Then, later, masks became mandatory. Or not. Not everybody carries one. Not every country made a decision about masks. Not every country test people.
How many lost their lives because of political decisions? For decades, all over the world, funds have been reduced. Everything had to be profitable. There was a miss-to-win.

To die because of a lack of material is to die from a shortfall. This isn’t a local but a global problem, it concerns everybody. It’s a pandemic death.

For decades, we have heard of improvement of the health department, the education, public services. When we talk of reform, it often indicates that the government will take away something in order to gain profit for shareholders. Reduce budgets stand for less staff, fewer doctors, fewer nurses, less equipment, it means reduction of lives.
When a protest is uttered, the justification is already on the table: we need to pay the debt.

For decades, and all over the world, public service is said to have a deficit. It needed to be partly privatized. It needed to be or become profitable.
And what is this deficit, always spoken of? A loss. Or a shortfall, counted as a loss. A shortfall is virtual, hypothetical, a miss-to-win. It’s what we could have gained if we had made efforts. It’s the removal of a hospital bed because the bed isn’t constantly occupied. Reducing a budget is the salary that won’t be paid to a nurse, a firefighter, a police officer, a professor. All hospital beds should be constantly occupied but the same bed will be unavailable in case of emergency.

The idea of shortfall/miss-to-win has become an obsession and with the precautionary principle, an absurd system is born, a system where we have radically lost our faculty
of proportion and our overview.

Born out of good intentions, the precautionary principle rapidly became an infernal circle. An incident/accident, deliberate or not, an isolated case always results in a law for everyone, a law that downgrades personal freedom and our sense of responsibility.
The precautionary principle is used to dissuade and converts into a punishment. The fear of lost profits has grown into an important hunt for cheaters or thieves. In Paraguay, more than three hundred persons died in a supermarket fire. Why? Because the doors had been closed, locked and sealed by order of the manager to avoid looting. In order to discourage 5% from cheating or stealing, we penalize 95% of people who do nothing illegal.
Everybody becomes permanently guilty. Guilty of what? Guilty of nothing specific but guilty till the day we can prove we aren’t guilty. It’s a view of the mind, a perspective, the angle from which we perceive humanity.
You’re guilty, always.
Of what?
Why do you keep asking this question? I don’t have the answer.
But why do you accuse people of being guilty?
It is what it is.

Born out of good intentions, the precautionary principle turn into a danger to humanity. If we don’t embody the notion of proportion, we can’t handle and control its outcome. It mutes into a system of punishment. The precautionary principle requires limits but how can we set them if we have no sense of proportion? What does it mean, save lives? At what cost?

This fascination with the shortfall has plagued the planet. The economy, in the hands of a few multinationals, continues to track the shortfall. A salary is currently considered a shortfall. Working in an office is now generating a shortfall. Why pay an office space if you have the possibility of not paying? All you have to do is speed up the automation. It increases profitability, there are fewer errors and an algorithm or a machine never complains, they don’t need breaks, they don’t have back pain, they claim nothing. In addition, they’re not sensitive to viruses and as we’re told today, we will have to get used to viruses, confinement, social distancing. And we need constant surveillance for everybody’s benefit.
Get used to it!

This obsession with the shortfall seem to be the reason why all countries lacked beds during the pandemic and, furthermore, the stimulus of an entire planet that is collapsing.
Remarks like how could we have known aren’t welcome. Fact is it was predictable, only nobody wanted to invest in public health because of the shortfall. Ironically, the precautionary principle was not applied, only its capacity of punishment structure, transferred to the shortfall, was applied.

Public health accessible to all has never been a gift from the rich to the poor. It’s a system that was created to prevent a virus from turning into a pandemic. The calculation is simple. If everyone participates, just a little, the cost of public health decreases. Only tax havens and the hunt for unrealized profits have gotten the better of public health as a civic service. Why? Because the rich no longer share, no longer pay taxes, they outsource their money. We were notified that we had to flatten the curve. Without the possibility of choice, we have all been fixing the faults of the ultra-rich and political choices by sacrificing our own lifetime. A time of life I can’t buy at the supermarket, that I can never recover. My lifetime represent an absolute value, unique and irreplaceable and can’t be reimbursed. I don’t understand why my lifetime should be employed to restore rich people’s mistakes.

Without the participation of the wealthy, ordinary people have to pay more to keep the system work for everyone, including those with bank accounts in Panama or other tax havens. People just can’t pay any more. No jobs, no salary, no usefulness. And what do you suggest? Should we kill the ones who can’t pay and who becomes unusable by the system? Or find a way of making life possible for everybody?

Those who practice the shortfall as a real thing must answer for their actions. People often end up in prison for non-important reasons. And what about those who are guilty of illness and death? The ones who cut hospital budgets? When will they be charged? Isn’t it time for repayment?
The public service now operates as a business that can’t afford the slightest emptiness, or trombone theft or shortfall. Everything must be profitable, even losses. In spite of what we know, we keep on cutting budgets. We complain that there is no money. Anything that doesn’t make money is eliminated.
The shortfall frames our perception of society. As everything has to be bankable, the shortfall at any cost change our behavior and influences and determines our linkage to life, to people, to our close ones. We create commercial values where there were only friendly qualities or generosity. Why let a friend sleep on your couch when you can rent it for 20 dollars? He will have to pay for the couch, or it’s a missed gain. Isn’t it where our inhumanity takes root? Where people begin to see and define themselves as economic elements?

The meaning of democracy is built on the idea of sharing. It’s not an ideology but a practical organization that allows a possible functioning of society. Democracy depends on our behavior in society and our behavior depends on our education. Are we instructed to comprehend what makes the foundations of a democracy, the value of sharing, of participation? Or are we taught into becoming an economic element? If I think everything is about me, am I not producing a dictatorial behavior? I would be tempted to say that the end of democracy starts in the cradle… But who wants to talk about democracy today when dictators, far-right governments, authoritarian regimes settle in all over the world? And why would I want peace when I can have a war? And why would I prefer people living in homes when they can live on the streets? Yes, why would I want a better world? Why would I want nature when I can get oil? Why would I save the Amazon Forest when I can have industries? Now comes the time when cuts must be made for the system to survive. In France, we thought that the Covid-19 might save public health or at least give it a survival extension in time. But did it? People have been dying and are still dying due to lack of care, equipment, staff. With time of starvation and increased poverty, who knows? With the world leaders we have, we might get another world war. Unless we say no. But do we still know how to say no? For quite a while, saying no has been considered as a negative attitude. I can’t help but think that the virus arrived at a perfect moment, at least for some. Rarely has a virus been so useful. All over the planet, people were protesting on the streets. Hong Kong, France, Chile, India, Algeria, Iran Iraq, Venezuela, Lebanon, Sudan, Haiti, Ecuador, the United States...
Protesters were confined while the virus was frolicking outside, free. The planet went silent. The virus and an emergency state evolved and were weaponized. Many asked themselves. Will governments give up their weapons? Stay at home, it’s curfew time. Don’t socialize. Keep the distance. Technology and the automation of the world know an intense turn. The virus was and is an opportunity, it wasn’t to be missed. Algorithms, telecommuting, working from home, online school and teaching, the AI technology is used to keep distance, to help sick people. Friends share aperitif and sex parties on Zoom. The quarantine of freedom. Stop driving. Stay at home. Wear a mask. Already, in Asia, citizens have chosen a connected life, social distancing persists and becomes a permanent confinement. We got the new world we have feared for so long and we haven’t been included in decision-making. What will our future be? Can we afford to wait and see? Now that there are no jobs left, will there be some kind of salary for people not working? Will we get back to this outdated idea about creating jobs? What solutions can we expect? And how come one man can decide to close the world? I want the world to open again. I want real globalization. But who will decide? A dictator? Maybe an algorithm? It knows us from tip to toe and can deduce, by analyzing our profile, whom we will vote for, whom we would like to meet, what we dream about. What we’re likely to ask. No more need for polling stations, for counting. Increased profitability. A shortfall is no longer a lost gain. Stay at home. Out there, it's dangerous. The virus is waiting, lurking in the shadows. He’s preparing for his return. The virus got us. Or should I say the handling of the virus got us. Unable to take care of ourselves, unable to act, we were forced to obey. Intoxicated by politics and media, we were kept in a state of shock, also becoming permanent. We no longer see time go by, we’re not aware of this everlasting extension. We’re kept in an emergency state and therefore unable to genuinely analyze the situation, to question it and eventually fight it. Because sustainability is exhausting and boring. The feeling of challenges quickly runs out, always. After a stay-at-home order, or a real confinement, we recovered our liberty. Or so we thought. It’s not over yet. The virus is out there, waiting. Fear is stabilized. Fear is conducting every move we make. Our thoughts are heavy with fear. Words appear. Doom surfing or doom scrolling. We hunt bad news, all the bad news we can dream of. Science tells us it will never be over. When you’re considered immune, you're not really immune, they add. The virus will come back and if it doesn’t, others will. Be afraid. We got used to limiting our outdoor life. Used to carry permission when we left home. Used to police brutality. We have been keeping a social distance and those who ignored safety instructions are considered as murderers. Stay at home and have gatherings on Zoom. We’re getting used to living with fear. Life is dangerous. The idea of social distance and lockdown develops into a structure. We articulate ourselves around the virus and its dangers. Or whatever comes up. We settle in. Companies who have suffered from fear of contamination invest in AI, in algorithms. If people can work from home, they should do so. In the meanwhile, we don’t need real offices anymore. We’re restructuring to save lives, to stop the virus from spreading. We’re all keen to see this work out. The new normal is a thing. Is globalization behind us? A thing of the past? We have been inventing, for years, portable phones, laptops, music, everything to favor movement. Will globalization be only by Internet, virtual, not real? Shouldn’t we think globally, find global solutions on this pandemic fear? Algorithms are global. How can we deal with them if we think locally? Globalization is real but is it reserved for business?

But the Covid-19 has shown us that we can change whatever we want in a matter of hours.
If they can break down the world in a few days, we can decide to rebuild it in a few days.
We don't have to kill human society. Suicide isn’t necessary. It’s urgent and vital and essential to ask questions, and preferably without filters, without censorship...
We need to aim the essential…

Collapse

Who designed the algorithm that shows us the curves of the pandemic? What kind of person? How do we know that the markers are the right ones? Are they chosen by a human being or by an algorithm?
Where do the algorithms we use to calculate Covid-19 cases come from?

Many of the algorithms used by businesses and by governments have been invented, created to keep us in a state of emergency. Did they also make the Covid-19 algorithm?

This world in which humans have no real control of their system is already holding us in its grip.

And I look around and I hear and see anger and bewilderment. I feel fear, profound fear. Times are scary. The information that we receive daily about the virus keeps us prisoner of fear. We’re too afraid to think, to ask questions and yet we are angry. Only we’re not sure why…
The everlasting unemployment grows and gets uncontrollable. Will real jobs be necessary again? If people work from home, restaurants and stores aren’t as needed. Who wants to get on a plane? We’re told we should forget all about flying. Traveling is dangerous, they say. Living is dangerous, I say. Living is about dying every day.
The physical number of people not working is getting higher. What will become of them? Do we need to decide if we should kill unnecessary people or find a way for them to live and prosper in a society driven by robots? Is that where we’re going?

People speak out here and there and protest and resist but at the end of the week, people are exhausted. What can we do? It is what it is, as it has always been. We challenge the system but does it make a difference? Black lives matter has been protesting for quite a while and it has, hopefully, made a real difference. Statues disappeared and with them, symbols. But India still has a system of caste… And women all over the world are still enslaved. Women still need asking permission to decide for themselves, like to get an abortion.
People oppose authority and inequalities all over the world but few talks about algorithms.
We all know they’re taking over, yet we don’t focus on it. We don’t rally against the use of algorithms.
Why?
Because they don’t solicit our emotions? It doesn’t feel like a humanitarian cause? It doesn’t create sympathy? Algorithms are scary, not sexy, not hot.

What is the exact power of an algorithm?

The lords of American and Chinese technology are becoming world leaders in artificial intelligence and therefore owners of the world thanks to the accumulated databases. They’re the masters. Their global economy practically owns our lives. Countries that resist this technological boom will quickly fall into a Third World state. And what is the world supposed to become? What is the main idea? Survival for 5% of the world population?
How much permanent unemployment should we expect? 50-60%? Only those who know how to code will be able to make a living.
And people will fight to death to recover the crumbs. States will explode under pressure because of people not working.

Governments have been delaying the whole algorithm package for a long as they could because they knew they couldn’t handle that kind of unemployment, just as they couldn’t handle the virus, because of a series of bad decisions being made over decades.
The unemployment that we refer to as a crisis has settled in over time as a problem that we need to solve. It emerges as an argument used again and again to calm people down, an argument based on a false promise. Politicians know it will never be solved. We have been in a lasting crisis for more than 35 years now and we keep on talking about creating jobs to solve the crisis. Sometimes we even talk about emergency. It has turned into durability, into a system.
But today the unemployment curve increases as fast as the coronavirus curve flattens out. The new thing might be emergency…

The Covid-19 is an accelerator. It’s obvious that algorithms and robots have become a huge part of our lives. While we were confined, or imprisoned, or under a stay-at-home order, we got used to working from home, juggling with video conferences, purchasing our essential or not-essential goods on Amazon or Alibaba. The planet suddenly shrank. If I can be everywhere from home, if the whole world is available from my apartment, why would I work in an office where I might get contaminated? Online teaching, although it’s not perfect, prevents from diseases. Social distance becomes normal. Not all over the world, though. Food, infrastructure like electricity and water and access to health isn’t obtainable for everybody. When people live through a lockdown in a slum city, it’s a death sentence.
But in most countries, socializing comes to an end, even though society is based on it. We’re creating isolation, segregation despite being interdependent. We’re all connected to each other. We are not and can’t be disconnected.
Why?
Because we’re 8-9 billions of people on earth. If we were 4 billion, we could isolate but we are, at the least, 8 billion.

The human-made algorithm becomes a place of absolute truth. We rely on the algorithm to lead us. We trust it to do our thinking, to make our decisions. But can an algorithm evaluate a situation? Articulate? Change its mind? Have a feeling of something? Have a human reaction? Do something surprising? An algorithm is nothing but an algorithm, a function. It’s not a kind of truth. It doesn’t tell us anything. It’s a super calculator and it measures and estimates probabilities, as many as we want. We just have to choose between them, pick out the good one. But knowledge is vital, it’s necessary to learn how to code, we need to understand how it operates, how to read it. The code. Even if we get a no-code computer, it’s nonetheless a code and we still have to translate it. There is always a code.
And trusting an algorithm, is it not trusting the people who manipulate them?

The use of algorithms has been influencing our perception of the Covid-19. We have followed orders from the algorithm. The curves that influence our decisions about what to do, lockdown or not, are made by mathematical models of which I do not know the markers. And who can confirm that these algorithms have been verified by competent people? They analyze how many lives will be saved by confinement. But have they analyzed how many will starve to death afterwards?
Can algorithms relate to different domains, can they see how the world is linked?

We have focused on the Covid-19. Dying from hunger or cancer or a stroke is omitted in the curves. How many need to die to save us from Covid-19?

Between the promised recession and permanent unemployment of 60%, it seems to me that it’s time to sharpen our demands. And it can’t be denied that the virus has given us an important perspective: we all agree to the fact that the Covid-19 is a common enemy, together, we hate our new enemy.

Governments all over the planet are weakened by the impossibility of fleeing its responsibilities. They confront consequences of what has been their choices and actions during decades.
The virus offers us this unique moment, where we can use our human mass and require, loudly and firmly, the society, the system, the economy we want. We will never get an occasion like this again. If we miss it, we miss our future as such. Maybe we shouldn’t waste this opportunity…

Recession, depression, bankruptcy, end of the world. 24 hours a day, we hear those awful words. We want to get back to living but we focus on the virus. In Europe, we ask ourselves if it’s gone for good. It’s supposed to reappear. If ever it doesn’t, there will be another. And we have our economic situation. We will never be without fear. We have lots of words to help us to be scared. Media are already preparing for the succession: the mosquito. Ebola. Plague.

Maybe we should resist fear…

The government warned us of the confinement two days ahead. In France alone, more than a million gathered on trains and planes, sharing the virus without restriction. In India, millions left the city.
Result?
The government was no longer responsible for the expansion, as some people have ironically suggested. It cleared itself. People should have stayed where they were to prevent the spreading but they wouldn’t listen. And power took the opportunity to reinforce a state of health emergency, opening the way to an authoritarian regime. We will be able to requisition what we need, claimed some governments. Increased surveillance met no opposition. Everybody was struggling against the virus and governments did whatever they wanted.
Shouldn’t we fight against the arrogance of these leaders who think small and who maintains poverty? Who decided that hospitals should be profitable and gain money and then closed unused emergency beds? These leaders who rule the economy and select who gets to live or not? Isn’t it about time to reflect on the global world and take under consideration that we’re all connected, instead of concentrating on isolated local spots around the planet?

If the United States is (or was) the assumed super power number 1, with all the benefits it brings about, like having the American military placed all over the earth, creating an extension of home everywhere, why has the world citizens ever voted for the American president? Shouldn’t we be able to vote for the leaders of world power, whose actions touch the entire planet? The American president claims that Americans come first. He explains whenever he has the opportunity that he doesn’t care about other countries. He made it very clear that, around the planet, there are two kinds of citizens, superior (Americans) and inferior (the rest of the world). His decisions (or non-decisions) have without a doubt influenced globalization…

Two-three months of lockdown has shown us that society can switch into an authoritarian system in just a few days. It showed us that people, if afraid enough, doesn’t contest or rebel against it. Some countries activated a health emergency act/law. Others challenged the labor code and the individual freedom and supervised every movement. Freedom was taken away. Police were patrolling all over, heavily armed. Horses, bicycles, motorbikes, helicopters, drones, all of it was used to restrain populations indoors, except for one hour a day when we could purchase what we needed to eat. But our shopping bags were searched through and the police judged if the content was essential or not. If the reason for going to the store was essential or not. We were to carry a certificate, with our address and the hour we left home, or send a text message to the police station. We were under a penalty of fines and in the event of a repeated offense, a few months in prison.
Has been set up, just for a short moment, a totalitarian system, now called authoritarian regime but nothing to worry about, said governments all over the world. We made a choice, we decided that you were to save lives, you either obey or you end up in prison, but don’t worry, it’s just for the time being. But be proud, you’re saving lives.
All of a sudden, the state regulated our space and privacy. They confiscated our liberty. Saving lives became and is now a tool for oppression. With fear in our stomachs, we passively accepted these new regulations of our lives. We had to, the coronavirus was out there and it wanted to kill us. If we didn’t obey, we would kill other people, we would become murderers. We all said we will figure it all out but later on, afterwards, when it’s all over.

If we had tests and masks and emergency beds, none of this would be necessary.

Is humanity coming to an end? Humans don’t seem to be able to handle their lives anymore ... it looks like we’re living in a worldwide decadence. Will we perish like the dinosaur? We have been asking ourselves for so long and every time the answer is yes. The dinosaur disappeared as we will...
The society, as we know it, is behind us, that’s how it works… that’s how fate works… Amen…