I was riveted by this recent article in The Tyee. You can read the complete article here. The major points of the effects of pandemics:
(1) Immutable Forces of History
(2) Pandemics Thrive on Upheaval
(3) Pandemics are Social Accelerators
(4) Pandemics Reflect the Civilization in Which they Flourish
(5) Pandemics Erode Trust
(6) Pandemics Always Discriminate
(7) Pandemics Spawn Irrational Social Movements
(8) Pandemics Possess Long Tails
(9) Pandemics are Biological Icebergs
(10) Pandemics don't End with a Political Command or vaccine
Excerpt:
"The technosphere represents a quasi-autonomous metabolizing system composed of concrete, plastic and steel infrastructure. It runs on fossil fuels, and its ever-growing complexity now requires artificial intelligence. Unlike the biosphere which generates no waste, the technosphere gobbles energy, water and resources only to spew out continuous streams of poisonous waste such as carbon dioxide, mine tailings and plastic garbage. The technosphere’s human-created components now weigh more than all living creatures on Earth.
Pandemics, which can play the role of constraining rapidly growing populations of any kind, act as a sort of biological blowback to this relentless conquest.
Moreover, they are not random. They remain critical barometers of our social and economic fragilities. They accompany ages of discord like crows and coyotes on a rotting elk carcass. Disorder and violence follow in their wake. They accelerate every bad trend in society, whether it be political disintegration, inequality or the rapid advance of dangerous technologies such as AI. And they unleash dangerous social movements."
The whole article is well worth the read. The multiple upheavals on our planet right now are merely a symptom of massive and dangerous underlying symptoms which we ignore at our peril.
