The world after coronavirus - by Yuval Noah Harari Created by Yossi Karov, based on Y.N. Harari paper : “The world after coronavirus”

Yuval Noah Harari is an Israeli historian and a professor in the Department of History at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. He is the author of the best- sellers Sapiens: A Brief History of Humankind, Homo Deus: A Brief History of Tomorrow, and 21 Lessons for the 21st Century.

Summary * According to Harari the present fight with covid-19 is forcing us to make decisions that will shape our future.

* He is concerned with the possible legitimization of mass surveillance implemented to control the pandemic as opposed to citizen empowerment through transparency and full disclosure of pandemic data.

* The other concern is the choice between nationalistic isolation and global solidarity as a Humanity strategy to fight covid-19. Harari discusses the choices with clarity and perspective.

His message is: * Let’s be careful not to accept those incursions of fundamental civic rights in the name of the fight against covid-19. * We should unite, citizens, nations and choose global cooperation and mutual help to fight this virus and any future global challenges. Critical times - what is at stake

* Humanity is facing a global crisis.

* The response decisions made by people and governments will shape our future world.

* This is a watershed moment, our world, economy, our privacy, our civil rights, the way we govern ourselves, international relationship, health care, cultures all those may change as a new world emerges in the covid-19 aftermath.

* When choosing our response and strategy in the fight against covid-19 we need to be mindful of the long term consequences, not just the immediate threats of the virus. Two critical choices

At this moment humanity faces two important choices:

1. To contain and isolate the virus high tech surveillance technology can be used in a total- itarian fashion or in a way that empowers the citizens. China is an example of the first ap- proach and South Korea, Taiwan(?) and Singapore are examples of surveillance that is built on citizen cooperation, trust and full disclosure of data by the government to its citizens. (what are details of those two approaches?)

2. Global community response can take two distinct forms. * National isolation, erection of barriers and focusing solely on own challenges. OR * International collaboration, information exchange and coordinated global strategy to fight this pandemic. Mass Surveillance

* China has implemented mass surveillance based on cell phone data. Prime minister of had authorized similar surveillance.

* High tech biometric mass surveillance could lead to the kind of big brother oversight de- picted in Orwell’s novel 1984.

* Loss of basic civil rights and freedoms may result.

Let’s be careful not to accept those incursions of fundamental civ- ic rights in the name of the fight against covid-19. International Community, Leadership and Citizens

* The current US administration has * Trust is the KEY and in some countries (US) abdicated its international leadership it has been eroded by political leaders. These role, abandoned its allies, attempted to leaders may attempt to use the pandemic to im- buy monopoly rights for the covid-19 pose authoritarianism. vaccine. It does not have a global action plan. * Tracking technology should empower people, not governments. * Trump has never taken responsibility, never admits mistakes, takes credit for * The coronavirus is a major test of our citizen- himself while leaving all the blame to ship! We citizens should trust scientists, health others. experts and not self-serving politicians.

At the present the international community is in paralysis, there is no international plan for working together to fight the virus.

So the global community has no leadership and no action plan!? Perhaps it is time for European leaders to come to- gether, reach out to China, perhaps to Russia as well and agree on global strategy? This may be the final chapter of the US decline as a global leader. Global, Inernational response to coronavirus

* This epidemic and the resulting health, social and economic crisis is global and to address those challenges effectively we need to work in the spirit of global cooperation. We need to share information globally (this is done!), help each other nation with medical supplies, medical staff, and medications.

* Humanity needs to choose between Interna- tional disunity and global solidarity. Disuni- ty will prolong the fight and probably result in more catastrophes in the future (climate change inaction, the threat of nuclear war, global con- flicts). Global solidarity will help in the effective war against the virus, the future pandemics and - What can we do to ward off the threat to civil rights and basic liberties? other global challenges such as climate change. - How can we defend democracy? - How can we support international cooperation and use the present crisis to strengthen global collabora- tions?