Time is starting to drag on.

As the shelter-in place orders keep dragging on, things feel like they aren't changing that much lately. News seem to turn around the pandemic, with few other things seem to be happening.

Political events that could change the landscape, or business deals that could mean a big change moving forward are all focused on containing the pandemic. The economy not being kick stated out of fears that the pandemic might get worse, and as time goes on it will take longer to restart it.

The usual thing that people could do to distract themselves, are put on hold since sport and entertainment venues are closed. Not only that, places where people could gather or just get to for some distraction are not available.

Though with the content in the Internet and the ability to contact our loved ones without having to leave our homes has helped somewhat, they are not full substitutes for actually going out to meet people or distract ourselves from our daily routines.

Even for the few of us that still have the chance to go to work at our normal places, days seem not to be all that different. There are not much options for actually doing something to take us out of our daily routines.

All we can do is to keep doing our best to shorten the quarantine, by following the advice of doctors and nurses.

New opportunities are coming, but not all are going to be able to benefit from them.

The economic downturn that the COVID-19 shutdowns brought, are creating a lot of new opportunities in business and technological development. How many will be able to actually benefit from this new opportunities, will the ones who are positioning to take them as soon as they can.

Most of those who can actually able to take those positions, are the ones who already are in that position and those who have the flexibility to take those position in a timely manner. Those who will be most likely to do so, are those who are small enough to adapt to the new situations, and have the finances to be able to take them.

Not all small businesses could be benefited though, since they have been some of the hardest hit by the shutdowns. This means, that many of those who survive the shutdowns possibly won't have the best financial position to make the best of the new opportunities.

Freelancers on the other hand, could benefit greatly of the new opportunities. They could approach them in ways that businesses could not, allowing them a better shot to position themselves to take advantage of the new opportunities as they show up.

We are in a turning point, but with all the changes coming our way we might not see where this changes will take us.

The Internet is a public utility.

One thing that the COVID-19 shelter-in place orders have proven, is that people Internet access is vital to keep working and for children have to have keep getting an education.

No one can argue that access to the Internet is a luxury, since an access to an education and to work are considered human rights. For many people, having access to a Internet connection is the only way they can receive an education, or have a work that allows them to maintain themselves and their families. As such, access to the Internet has to be at least affordable for those people who need to be readily available to them.

It might not mean to have free access to the Internet everywhere, but it means that price of to such access can not be so expensive that it cut anyone to be able to access it.

Other thing that the shelter-in place order can prove to many employers, is the feasibility of many roles can be done remotely. This can have the consequence of more people working from home than ever before, since this could be a much better arrangement for everyone involved for many reasons.

On the education side of things, the Internet has already been an important complement for a vast number of students. What the shelter-in place order did, was highlight how important it is by making it the sole way students could not only have access the tools they need for homework, but the whole material since it is the only way teachers could actually give students the material they need to complete they classwork.

It has been proven beyond any doubt, that the Internet is a public utility, and is time to classify it as one.

People are starting to make a difference by shaping local policy.

One of the things I've noticed, and found quite interesting, is how people have become a lot more proactive not just holding each other about their actions; but also their local government and other representatives about their handling of the pandemic.

Not only that, in some cases they were at the front of not only proposing what actions to take, but of actually taking them before an official came out to enact such actions. People are becoming not only more socially conscious about the needs of their local neighborhoods, they are actively shaping policy and how it is enacted.

 

People finally become active participant not only sharing important information among themselves, but actually having a hand in shaping how governments respond. It is becoming quite hard for governments to hide what they respond, and how they do it.

Finally it seems that more people are becoming conscious that they can wield the power to shape the response of local governments. And this is a very significant, since the best place to see how much importance has civil participation, and where the results can be seen more readily and faster. There is no better place to set the example that people can actually make a difference in all aspects of our lives, and we should be the ones having the biggest say on how the government does things.

One of the most lasting effects of the pandemic, and one of its most positive ones, is create a precedent that what people does matters.

Home office might finally become more widespread.

One of the things that it seems could change significantly after the pandemic, is the way we work and collaborate with each other. With employers asking a higher percentage of their workforce to work from home, and the amount of time that people will have to fulfill their jobs this way, it quite likely that a significant percentage of the workforce might just keep working this way.

This could be beneficial not only for employers, and the employees, that fall in this arrangement. This could mean less people having to move on daily basis to their workplaces, alleviating some of the congestion we have on our cities, but also it could mean that by staying home they could spend a larger percentage of their income on local businesses of their neighborhoods. Not only that, quality of life could greatly increase by not having to commute and sharing more time with their families, or friends.

Not only employees could save money, and increase their quality of life. Employers could see the benefits of an increase profits by not having to support offices for all their staff, and more productivity by having happier staff working more effectively.

Not everyone will benefit directly from this, but in the long run this could be a better way of conducting business. The technology was already in place, but there was no real incentive for companies to implement remote working. Actually, many where reticent of doing so out of fear that their employees would abuse it. But now that everyone involved has to make it work, it might help to make the case that its a real option to move forward.

While we might still have to see how it pans out, home office might finally become more widespread.

No country is fully standing on its own.

One of the things that the outbreak  of COVID-19 has demonstrated, is how interconnected the world has become. It highlights how much people move around, not only for tourism but also for business.

Very few things are completely manufactured in one country, or any country produces all the products that move their market places. Economies are interconnected in various degrees, directly or indirectly. There is no country that is fully insoleted from what happens on other countries, it has become a question on how much it will impact them.

For better, or for worse, we have built a world where we share a common fate. This is why we need to start demanding governments to start working together in such a way that allows people to work together in a more effective way. Closing borders is no longer a viable option to make the best possible future come for us.

Such integration is not out of the hands of the those who want to stop it, now we have to work to make beneficial to as many people as possible. We adapt to the new reality, or will be left behind.

We stand together, and on own we fall.

New brave world, we can choose if it will be for good or bad.

For me, one of the thing that is more underused, and underrated, about smartphones, is how easy they make for us to access any information(and content) at any time, anywhere we are at the moment. Not only we can access it, but we have the opportunity to be active contributors to the pool of knowledge not just passive consumers of it.

This fact marks a flexing point in human history, when the traditional gatekeepers of what went into that pool, and who could access it, are losing its power. Now, that role has been spread into more hands, many of which would be even considered possible. Old barriers have been broken, new ones come and go as we are still learning how to use this new power.

Now, we need to learn the tools needed not only to find the information we want, or learn new skills. There is a need to learn how to filter trough until we get to the relevant information, and to process it in order to use it effectively. We are now directly responsible to find, and use, more of the information we need for our daily activities.

Also, we have a bigger say on the content we consume, while being able to create and share our own. We can now be as active, or as passive, as we choose to be.

While, both as a society and as individuals, are learning how to be active participants of this new brave world, I've hope that'll have a positive impact for all of us.

No silver bullet for complex problems.

The fact that there are no simple solutions to the problems we face, is something that most people don't seem to be able, or want, to coupe with. So much so, that people seem more than willing to over simplify things just in order to feel comfortable with the world around them.

Add to that, it seems hard to make sense of things with all the information we are constantly bombarded with continuously it make harder to make sense of things. It hard to filter what's information is relevant to solve any given problem, not to mention that its even harder to determine what is true.

Without the tools of critical thinking, is hard to recognize what information is actually relevant to solve any given problem. To make things worse, not everyone receives the education needed to have the tools needed for critical thinking, much less how to use them. This complicate things, because it makes it hard to communicate that the solutions we need are complex in order to actually solve things in a way that its actually beneficial to as much people as possible.

There is no silver bullet, or simple solutions, to any of the problems we face. Yet, there is hope. Access to information by an ever increasing number of people has never been easier, or cheaper. Not only that, there ways that people can access to better education, and skills, to be better prepared to help move forward solutions.

What is needed in order to do so, is more people to willing to take responsibility to help bring solutions to the table. Also, work to make those solutions happen. All of these, being conscious that there always be new problems to solve.

If we want to make things better, we need to be part of the solutions.

Change has become a tool in the hands of the people.

It's interesting, and somewhat irritating, that every time changes come our way people tend to forget that things haven't been a certain way. Specially in the last hundred years, we have seen changes come with unprecedented speed and scope.

For the looks of it, things will continue to keep constantly changing in the short and medium terms. Only the speed of these changes might change depending on the area we are talking about, but things will be changing we like it or not. We'll have to adapt, and solutions found to the new issues that those changes bring.

At the end of the day, people will have to learn to adapt to change and make the best out of it. For the look of it, the new generations are learning not only to cope with change, but actually be a part of it or be who makes change happen. More and more people are not willing to see change, but to change things by themselves.

Change is becoming a tool, and not a problem. People are learning to see change as something to be desired, specially when people takes control of it with the communication tools we have now at out disposal. Things like smartphones, and the social media they allow us to tap into, means that organizing for change at the glass root level is becoming not only easier, but actually affordable for an even larger portion of society.

The question is how long it'll take us to master this power for change, so to make it more effective to change thing in our favor. I'm still hopeful that is more of a when it'll happen, and not if it'll happen.

From this time forward, is time to take a more active participation on building the future we want.

Ignorance is not bliss, but the tool that keeps us subjugated.

One of the biggest ironies of having the tool that enable people to actually look into things to learn about them, or find all the information you need to understand whatever you want, is that most willingly don't do it. There are people who are even proud of not doing even basic research to have some level of understanding about any of the subjects that affect them.

In some ways, ignorance is now somewhat of an option. With the advent of the Internet, and smartphones that give us access to it from mostly everywhere we are, is hard to make a point that people don't have access to information they need to learn about anything. Not only that, now there are many ways to access courses that allow people to learn almost any skill they choose, or have an interest in.

Not knowing something is not an excuse any more not to go, and learn something about it.

Whats more, now more than ever before we have access to news from many different point of views. Which means that making our minds is far easier than before, and we have better information to question what we are being told. Now we can actually come closer to the source than ever before, while having access to more than one expert to better understand what is going around us.

Not being actively learning, and keeping in touch with what is going around you, is detrimental to your interests and those of your community. It saddens me when I hear people repeat misinformation, and half truths, they hear because they didn't take the time to do even basic research to verify what they heard.

What's worse, is that the expectation of simple solutions to complex problems. It seems that there is a denial that reality is complicated, as such there is no silver bullet to solve the problems we face. Solutions will take time, and effort, in order to work. Most importantly, we'll need to keep learning new skills in order to face the problems that we'll be facing in the future.

Ignorance is not bliss, but the tool of those who want to keep us subjugated to their interests. If we want to be free, we need to arm us with knowledge and the skills needed to build a fairer world.

Socialism, the Internet, smartphones, and free markets.

One of the oddest combinations the Internet, and smartphones, have created is combining socialism and the free markets.

What I mean, is that they have brought together people in order to see socialism as the form of government that brings the most benefits to the majority; and the free market as the economic system to follow that brings prosperity to the majority.

As a democratic socialist, I've always believed that the combination of a socialist form of government, and a free market economy, is the best way to create more fair and inclusive society.

The main reason why the combination of the Internet and smartphones is bringing socialism and the free markets together, is that it not only increases the transparency of both governments and corporations. It also allows people connect self organize, and have more say on how the government works, and to free markets even more by allowing, both the individuals and small producers, by allowing them a more direct access to the markets.

I feel somewhat vindicated that now I've the proof that socialism and the free markets can go together. It has always been a matter of how to bring them together, no if they can go together.

Socialism is a form of government, and the free markets are on the economic side of things. As such, socialism is the way we give the market a framework over which to work in such a way its benefits reach the most people as possible, while the negatives are minimized as much as possible.

The idea that markets will self regulate in a way that benefits the people, has been proven wrong several times. That's why we need a way for the peoples have way to regulate markets, through other means than the markets themselves. So far, governments have been the best way to do so.

Yet, the advent of the Internet, and smartphones, that allow people to connect among themselves and create groups, to have a more direct way to sway not only on governments, but on the markets themselves bypassing the need to use the old gatekeepers.

Now more than ever, the combination of socialism and the free markets, empower the people to have a stronger hold on their destiny.