Yuval Noah Harari: We need a global economic rescue plan

Τhe Israeli Professor and intellectual Yuval Noah Harari is optimistic about the scientific developments in the battle against coronavirus yet at the same time expresses his concern for the digital technologies that are all of a sudden introduced in peoples' daily lives due to the pandemic. In his interview with the Sunday newspaper «To Vima», the widely read author of world best-sellers «Sapiens», «Homo Deus», and «21 Lessons for the 21st Century» points out that it is possible to use new surveillance technologies to contain the pandemic without undermining democracy and the right to privacy. He notes that the «health or privacy» dilemma is false and suggests strict control when a surveillance system is put in place, not by the police but rather by a special healthcare authority, independent from commercial or political interests. «When establishing this new surveillance system don't think only about what the current government might do with it. Rather, think about the politician you most fear, and imagine that he or she might win the next elections» he points out. He also stresses the fact that «whenever you increase surveillance of individual citizens, you must simultaneously also increase surveillance of the governments and the big corporations. If surveillance goes only from top to bottom, this is the high road to dictatorship» or even worse for the establishment of the worst totalitarian regime in human history. Harari believes that close cooperation between countries all over the world is needed to tackle both the pandemic and its economic repercussions. «We need a global economic rescue plan», he notes, adding that «if this epidemic eventually results in closer global cooperation, it will be a victory not only against the coronavirus, but against all the...