The global spread of the epidemic provoked a dramatic acceleration of historical processes. Entire countries have unwittingly become a zone of large-scale social experiments, as a result of which it has already become clear that the world is changing rapidly, and soon we will live in a new reality. How will the lesson of the global threat affect relations between states, and what choice will be made between nationalist isolationism and international solidarity?
Will governments lift the emergency control measures taken in connection with the quarantine regime? In Israel, for example, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu approved an “emergency decree” instructing the Israel Security Agency to deploy surveillance technology, commonly used to combat terrorists, to track patients with the coronavirus. Such measures have been taken in most countries to prevent the uncontrolled spread of the epidemic.
Modern technology and surveillance tools allow for centralized biometric monitoring, tracking and manipulation of people. None of us knows exactly how we are being watched, who will later gain access to our personal data, and for what purpose they will use it. Today there is a digital transformation of the existing model of people management. It is becoming increasingly universal and, embedding itself in every user of communications technology, is invisibly introduced and forcibly invaded into the life of every “digitized” person.
The experience of forced isolation teaches us not only to seek a way out of the situation together, but also gives us time to think about what we really want, what is most important in human life, what we can do without, and what has completely depreciated and become unnecessary. The sooner we realize our inextricable connection and dependence not only on each other but also on nature, the more effectively we can establish global cooperation on a new level. If we learn to be caring, considerate and responsible to those around us and to the world around us, to use resources rationally, to adhere to a reasonable level of consumption, to build good ties between people, nations and cultures, our common tomorrow will be more harmonious than it is today.
Society is us; it is we who shape the reality in which our children will live. We need to learn how to play the game ourselves, not to be blind pawns in someone else’s game. And in order to do that, we need to understand what free will is. Man’s free will is that he himself chooses the path of development: against nature or together with it, in harmony.
Once each of us feels the desire to do something for the sake of the other, and in return for our actions receives mutual care, the relationship between us will move to a qualitatively new level, and then even the most sophisticated techniques of control and manipulation, which do not benefit society, will be useless.
