Transcriber: Anna Sobota Reviewer: David DeRuwe
There is a famous saying “What goes around, comes around.”
Now, I know that it is mostly used when talking about consequence of actions,
but I believe there’s a wider meaning to the saying.
I believe it is the way life works -
a full circle with whatever happened in the past,
revisiting us again as we head into the future.
Just take this quote and let it be an example:
“The children now love luxury;
they have bad manners, contempt for authority;
they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise.”
Now, this could be said in this room today and everyone would agree.
(Laughter)
But it was Socrates.
Socrates was, in fact, the one who said this quote in 470 BC,
some 2,491 years ago.
I mean, doesn’t this just begin to suggest
how we can’t distance modern society from the past that much?
Well, to answer this,
I’ve decided to cover two of the most current topics for you:
the pandemic and healthcare,
something that is being projected on our screens
and discussed in the media 24/7.
By looking at the past,
we can gather some information about where the future of COVID is heading
and how human behavior changes during times of a pandemic.
Firstly, it’s very possible for us
to be dealing with seasonal coronavirus outbreaks in the future.
If we look at the H1N1 swine flu of 2009, for example,
it continues to circulate and cause deaths every day.
Therefore, COVID-19 will not just disappear any time soon.
In fact, it’s likely to just become a less fatal disease,
like the seasonal flu.
There’s another possibility that COVID-19 may work
like the bubonic plague or cholera has done.
The bubonic plague has repeated three times since 541.
While developing nations right now are facing
the longest seventh pandemic of cholera,
it’s highly possible that COVID-19 could repeat 100 or so years from now
and that this could all happen again.
So if we're due to see many more pandemics and diseases coming our way,
wouldn't it be beneficial to explore the mass human response to them
to prepare better for the future?
In the mid 14th century, the Black Death swept over Eurasia,
during which the English began to violently attack
the foreign merchants and weavers.
To deal with the devastation, they scapegoated outsiders
for no other reason than that they were different.
Now, this brutality hasn't happened in such extremes today.
However, there is still a trend for humankind to blame and shame those
who they feel are responsible for their suffering.
Does this then, perhaps help explain the rise in racism
that we have seen since the start of the pandemic?
Well in 2019 to 2020, anti-Asian hate crimes were reported
to have increased by a whopping 150% in places such as New York and L.A.
In 2020, four in 10 Black and Asian adults reported increased racial tension
since the start of the pandemic.
So what do we do with all this information?
Well, if we use this knowledge, we can take a step back
and prevent similar discrimination from happening in the future.
After all, when faced with a pandemic that affects millions worldwide,
surely we want to unite as a species,
not battle one another because of our irrelevant differences.
Now, what about technology,
an area of our lives which continues to evolve all the time?
You may be wondering then
how I will link our supposedly tech-filled future with the techless past.
However, technology has affected something
that has been a part of life since the very begining of humankind:
communication,
more specifically, human communication.
Let’s start with a common scenario
that I know most of you have likely experienced.
The whole family are together in the living room at the same time,
which I say is a miracle in itself,
(Laughter)
but nobody is talking.
Everyone is on their phones,
and you just sit there for a good five to 10 minutes in complete silence.
Now, surprisingly, this kind of behavior has a name:
“virtual distance.”
This is when people are physically together
but unable to detach themselves from their mobile phones to communicate in person.
So it seems that human communication was impossible in the past
due to the lack of connections, due to the lack of technology,
but are we heading in the same direction now?
Will human communication become increasingly impossible
as future generations are born into a world of virtual distance?
Well, technology's actually linked to an overexposure of EMFs,
which are invisible areas of radiation.
Developing children can, in fact,
face cognitive changes due to this and grow up in a more isolated manner.
But all of this applies
if there is a future filled with technology.
What if we’re heading towards a boycott of technology?
Just think about this.
Technology and specifically social media
are causing a rise in mental health issues.
They are causing a rise in mental health issues;
many have started to leave their social media
in hopes of improving their mental health.
Will people just opt for no social media in the future?
In 2017, a study was undertaken of adults age 19 to 32.
People with a high social media use were more than three times as likely
to feel socially isolated as those with the lowest social media use.
Many have also started to delete their social media
in hopes of improving their mental health.
It’s highly possible that, in time,
the success of social media could actually backfire
as more people delete their platforms for their self-improvement,
reducing the need for household technology altogether.
So the question I’m posing is:
Do we need to look at our past to see our future?
To which my answer is, yes.
We need to look at our past to see our future,
but most importantly, to change it.
To quote Socrates,
“The secret of change is to focus all of your energy,
not on fighting the old, but on building the new.”
So let’s accept the past.
learn from it,
keep the best parts,
tweak the worst,
but most importantly,
use it to our advantage to go full steam ahead into the future.
Thank you.
(Applause)