CHINA: China's Communist Party boasts today that it is able to recognize any of the country's 1.4 billion citizens within seconds. Europe must find alternatives to the growing polarization between China and the United States.
CHRONICLE: Science has made rapid progress in producing a vaccine against Covid-19. But can vaccine programs be based on active consent and autonomous choice by citizens? And does scientific rationality now go hand in hand with creative forms of irrationality?
FREEDOM OF SPEECH: The opportunity to say something is always very limited, says MODERN TIMES's regular writer in this essay about different authorities' use of force. Away from today's mass media, an "underground" network of intellectuals has now emerged, including experienced journalists, intelligence officers, renowned professors and politicians.
Self Straight? The companies behind platforms, smartphones and the Internet of Things continuously track all our movements. With a digital footprint, one can determine a person's access to credit, transportation, social services or health care. We lose our individual freedom and autonomy.
Is globalization an evil that should now be fought? No, it's more nuanced. We who have an international orientering looks with fear at how international cooperation is now weakening with the pandemic.
Mike Davis: According to activist and historian Mike Davis, wild reservoirs, like bats, contain up to 400 types of coronavirus that are just waiting to spread to other animals and humans.
SCENARIO: Imagine, this is the year 2050, and we look back at the origin and evolution of the coronavirus pandemic over the past three decades: both the plagues of pandemics, flooded cities, burned forests, drought and other rising violent climate disasters. We offer the following scenario for such a prospect from the future.