In this essay for Emergence Magazine, author David Abram shows to us the gift of COVID-19 to our civilization. Not only is the earth slowly healing and its creatures reclaiming the space that once belonged to them, we are also learning the importance of empathy and community to our survival.
As we are all forced to physically distance ourselves from our neighbors, we are also rediscovering the power and beauty of community. Now, more than ever are we able to experience and live the true meaning of interconnectivity among human beings, and between human beings and the earth.
Abram hopes that after this pandemic, we will no longer be able to stomach the injustices and the violence that has kept us apart from our fellow.
Implications for AI
The shape of our future depends on how we emerge from this pandemic. It will be built on our capacity to empathize with our fellow and all of the earth, and our desire to listen to an emerging future.
Perhaps The Great Turning is truly here, Or maybe this is just a premonition of worse things to come. One thing is for sure, however. It is not the high tech gadgets and computers that will bring us to a new future [see The Pandemic Has Shown Us That Our Technologies No Longer Address Our Most Basic Needs]. Rather it is our human and planetary communities that we have chosen to build.
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