The best of times, the worst of times…
2020 has been a cathartic year in so many ways. It has been a year of loss, isolation, and duress, but it has also been a year of bonding, self-reflection, and progress. We have a lot to be thankful for this year, most of all that we are fortunate to be here today! More than anything else 2020 has taught us how fragile life is, and how important it is to cherish every moment that we have.
As we look forward to 2021 and what lies ahead, it is worth remembering where we are in the arc of human history. We look around us and most of us see tragedy, despair, and injustice, but every now and then it is worth reminding ourselves of where we were 100 years ago - coming out of a Great War where we lost 40 million people, in the midst of a global pandemic that killed 20 to 50 million people, and less than two decades away from a war that wiped out 3% of the human population.
In almost every way imaginable, human life has improved since the darkest days of the Second World War and colonialism. We live longer, we kill each other less, and have greater access to education than ever before. Just over the last 3 decades, we have pulled a billion people out of extreme poverty. We have exponentially more computing power in our pockets today than the guidance computer that led the Apollo 11 astronauts to the moon. The fact that we use this computing power to record TikTok videos is not lost on me, but I would rather our 20 somethings fight it out on PUBG than in the Somme or Verdun.
But, we can do better. We have to do better. This pandemic has taken close to 1.5 million souls in less than a year. The markets, being a forward indicator of the economy, have shown resilience, but millions have lost their means of livelihood. A once in a 100-year pandemic is by definition rare, but cannot be treated as a black swan event — it’s happened before, and will happen again. We have to prepare a lot better for it, at the level of each individual, family, community, country, and ultimately globally. A good start would be to realize that viruses do not affiliate themselves with any country, party, or people, they simply infect and kill. Combatting an enemy like it requires a similar unemotional, scientific, and ruthless response.
Even more significant challenges — the impact of AI on work, and the many impacts of an exploding global population, particularly on climate change, lie in front of us. We have to do a lot better than we have with COVID if the world is to come out on the other side of these challenges relatively unscathed.
More than the challenges though, it is the opportunities that lie ahead that should motivate us. The ability to cure cancer and to live longer, healthier lives. The possibility of living in a world where what we work on is no longer considered work, but life’s calling. Moving towards a world where our differences are not simply tolerated but are celebrated. Ultimately living in a universe where space is no longer an aspirational frontier, but an explorational reality. We are made of stardust and a touch of the divine, let's make it count!
