The New Normal

The Coronavirus pandemic has left us all with a heap of uncertainty. Endless cancellations and postponements, from school classes, sports games and proms, to graduations and internships, have created a new world view where our hours, days and weeks look very little like they used to. What’s more, it’s difficult to plan anything when you don’t know what tomorrow will bring.
Where will we be in six months, a year, ten years from now?
Trapped in my room in this lockdown, I lie awake at night often wondering what will happen after this, what does the future hold for me and my family. What if this is how we will be living forever. What if this is the turning point of human civilization?
There are numerous possible futures, all heavily dependent on how governments and society respond to coronavirus and its resultant economic aftermath. Optimistically we can only hope that we will use this crisis to rebuild, produce something better and more humane. But if there is also a really good chance we may slide into something worse. The responses to the pandemic are simply the amplification of the dynamic that drives other social and ecological crises i.e. the prioritisation of one type of value over others. This dynamic has played a large part in driving global responses to COVID so as responses to the virus evolve, how might our economic futures develop. From an economic perspective, there are four possible futures: a descent into dystopia, robust state capitalism, radical state socialism and a transformation into a big society built on mutual aid. Versions of all of these futures are perfectly possible if not equally desirable.
This reality we’re living resembles that of an entrepreneur or somebody who is starting a business. Many of us are absorbing the blow right now, and it is sending us off course. An entrepreneurial mindset will help us to adapt. The most important commodity to be affected during this time is data.
I thought data is something that is weaponised against an enemy of the state, who I initially perceived as a definite being of flesh and blood. Think terrorists, insurgents or even the rival nation’s general. 2020’s other cornerstone moment of Washington killing the Iranian general Soleimani wasn’t via an autonomous drone. The fact that autonomous weapons weren’t truly unrealised, made it seem only sensible to visit my article later…much later.
As it turns out, today’s times of COVID-19 change our own definition of domestic and international security. Our perception of an “enemy” is a loosely defined thing. It initially could have been who we protested against, the insurgents we fight or nations we rivalled. But our enemy had a human form. This stable perception now fades in the face of a ruthless virus. And if we’re infected we become the enemy we’re sworn to be protected against.
The exponentiality of the virus has reversed our understanding of what it may mean to be under threat and have human rights. We thought China’s facial recognition (and social metric project) was controversial, the chances are that we may be implementing it globally, if there isn’t a slowdown, even in the face of Global Data Privacy Regulation.
Facial recognition could just be Phase 1 material. Different vantage points in public can facilitate infrared temperature detectors, observe the coarseness of a cough, what we buy, what we listen too, what we click on, what we don’t even value or know is our data and how! All this perhaps can masquerade as a lamppost, a hydrant or dustbin! Given the overtness of drones, I believe they are just part of a transition phase, towards a covert ‘data dictatorship’. Just don’t be surprised when the govt. can access a real-time X-ray of you in public.
This isn’t new information and has become talk of the town for a while now. Brexit, the 2016 American Election and China were just a foreshadowing. Foucault, the renowned scholar calls this biopolitics where the state’s authority is eventually internalised into our actions and psyche.
I predict we’re not moving towards oceans of data as magazines like the Economist may predict…in a few years we would be moving to planets of data…and then in the next few a galaxy of data, the pattern is obvious. It’s funny… I asked if we were converging to a Call of Duty-like universe, it turns out we’re moving to a world closer to Watch Dogs (or Black Mirror, if you’re not a gamer) where data is being the public good it is, can scrutinise you upon the probability of your committing a crime.
My fear can also stem around the potential of ‘Brain-Computer Interface’ where our brains can work in synergy with devices without physical intermediation. Think Elon Musk’s Neuralink. Richard Dawkins believes the way it possibly enhances us could, in fact, create a human-made evolution: augmenting the brain despite the static-ness in its biological evolution.
It can also mean our brain is connected to a cloud. Either way with data created, we’re susceptible to a ‘hack’ and the most beautiful creation of all can be attacked: the mind. These prosthetics can enable and disable us simultaneously.
There’s a cheesy 90s movie, Batman Forever where its antagonist; the Riddler (played by Jim Carrey) created a mind-reading apparatus called ‘The Box’, brainwaves could be reflected onto a TV, visualised as 3D images. I watched it as a kid in the early 2000s, little did I know as a kid, that (the potency of Moore’s Law would imply) we’d see this become a possible reality.
Data much like school and marriage can become a functionally important institution of society. Already a hotbed for philosophy, the rise of geek-culture and the repetition of “AI-Machine Learning” means data can become a religion in itself beyond just a cult following.
The rampant increase in data surveillance by the government could be observed by taking China as a case study. Over the last two months, Chinese citizens have had to adjust to a new level of government intrusion.
Getting into one’s apartment compound or workplace requires scanning a QR code, writing down one’s name and ID number, temperature and recent travel history. Telecom operators track people’s movements while social media platforms like WeChat and Weibo have hotlines for people to report others who may be sick. Some cities are offering people rewards for informing on sick neighbours.
Chinese companies are meanwhile rolling out facial recognition technology that can detect elevated temperatures in a crowd or flag citizens not wearing a face mask. A range of apps uses the personal health information of citizens to alert others of their proximity to infected patients or whether they have been in close contact.
Experts say the virus, which emerged in Wuhan in December, has given authorities a pretext for accelerating the mass collection of personal data to track citizens, a dangerous prospect given that the country does not have stringent laws governing personal data.

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