Apocalypse Yesterday? (original) (raw)
Related papers
The Coronavirus Pandemic as the Crisis of Civilization
Our Place in the World: A Journal of Ecosocialism, 2020
In this essay, I will argue that the Coronavirus pandemic adds the infectious diseases as an existential threat to humanity to the ealier widely acknowledged such threats: catastrophic climate change, the Sixth Extinction, and nuclear holacaust. I will then proceed to argue that mainstream and Marxian theories of crisis by their philosophical and methodological underpinning cannot explain such crisis. I will discuss these and propose an ecological theory of human nature, hence an ecological and social theory of history using insights from Marx's and Engel's own materialist conception of history as well as accumulated scientific knowledge over the course of past 150 years, especially in anthropology, archeology, and biology.
Apocalypse in this context is a global traumatic event resulting in mass deaths. I have made a humble attempt to summarise my own articles published in the Academia.edu and serve as a whistle blower for the forthcoming apocalyptic events. Using Adiyen's Numerology an attempt has been made to estimate the extent of the danger to mankind. Let us be forewarned.
An Eschatology of the Coronavirus: The New “Brave” World Ahead of Us All
Strategy&Future, 2020
There is now a need to find, if possible, some model which can explain to the billions of people around the world where we are, where we're headed, and what kind of social and political order might emerge from the ashes of the current crisis. In order to do so, we can look to combine four intellectual pillars: History; Utopias and Dystopias; Futurology; and Geopolitics. History-or even the philosophy of history-allows for the interpreting and the taking of some historical precedents from the past and applying them to current reality; Futurology can help us to predict what kind of future awaits us both in the long-term and the short-term;
Has the COVID-19 crisis changed our relationship to the future ?
Futures and Foresight Science, 2021
The first wave of the COVID-19 pandemic crisis introduced a sudden discontinuity into the functioning of human societies worldwide by affecting individual habits as well as economic and social life. This paper is a first attempt to investigate whether that discontinuity also altered our relationship to the future, in particular through the production of scenarios of a “world after” significantly different from the world before. We analyzed the representations of the future produced at the height of the first wave of the crisis, between March and June 2020, through a selective review of these productions. From the 60 sources found, we selected 23 texts yielding 83 scenarios. We used a classic four-category typology (Continued Growth, Discipline, Collapse and Transformation) that allowed us to identify scenarios of continuity and discontinuity. The results show a paradoxical predominance of continuity scenarios, contradicting our hypothesis that the crisis would have fostered creativity regarding the “world after.” The discussion focuses on potential explanatory elements. These relate essentially to the way the scenarios were produced, notably in terms of time horizon, explanation of the methods and selection of the variables structuring the scenarios. These elements seem to indicate that these scenarios were rather generated from a reactive posture, showing a reluctance to rethink the present as a moment of discontinuity opening up the horizon of possibilities. This initial work paves the way for a more systematic exploration of the practice of anticipation and the capacity to produce creative/imaginative futures in times of crisis.
CORONAVIRUS: THE BEGINNING OF A NEW END
Journal of Global Resources, 2020
This short article uses data gathered from an online survey which 950 respondents completed from 58 different countries across the world. Respondents were asked about 1) their views of coronavirus, 2) the lockdown and social distancing, 3) their perceptions of media and government and 4) the future. The results of this paper draw on section 4 of the survey to discuss participants' views on what the coronavirus outbreak may mean for humanity in the future.