The Viral Wars - A Scenario for the Near-Future

 At heart, I am an optimist, but the past few months have forced me to consider the possibility of a world gone awry.

Humanity's last major, paradigm-changing upheaval - the two World Wars - played out over four decades - the 1910s to the 1940's - with the echoes of the disruption lasting well into the 50s and the 60s. The 50s also saw the beginnings of a new world order emerging culminating in a world of rising prosperity and globalization lasting well into the first decade of the 21st century.

At the core of the conflagration of the two World Wars was the emergence of the concept of a nation defined by geography and ethnic groups. This socio-political and socio-cultural phenomenon combined with the socio-economic power of the first phase of the Industrial Age. A power that enabled nations to unleash mass destruction on one another culminating with Hiroshima and the atomic bomb.

The two World Wars were driven by the mistaken assumption that one nation-state could conquer and annex another nation-state through an attack lasting a few years. This was a hangover from the previous era of "war as an event" concept of two armies facing each other on an open field and the vanquished accepting the victor as the new master. This belief when married to the destructive power of the weapons unleashed by the Industrial Age resulted in the paradigm-shifting follies that were the two World Wars. Thankfully the atomic age put an end to the notion.

As a result, wars like the Vietnam, Korean, Indo-Pak and the Egypt-Israel wars remained limited in scope. This also ensured that the Cold War between the USSR and the Western Alliance remained cold.

However, what if the worm had begun to turn once in the second decade of the 21st century?

Globalization and the Information Age has produced tremendous economic prosperity across the globe as well as shared knowledge of the inter-connectedness of the world among individuals, societies and cultures.

On the flip side, it has also produced great inequality among the economic classes as also given profoundly different cult-like viewpoints powerful platforms to coalesce and gain power.

Great income equality has always existed, but modern technology has meant that income inequality in modern times has translated to a significant disparity at the very core of life. In the Middle Ages and even in the first phase of the Industrial Age, higher incomes essentially translated to higher social status through pomp and circumstance and a somewhat better quality of life through larger houses, more servants, better food, better carriages, horses and so. The quality of life of a KKiing in the Middle Ages or an early Industrial Age Baron would around 20 on a scale of 1 o 100. The King's courtiers and the tradesmen and managers of the Industrial Age at say 15 and the serf or the sweatshop worker at say 7.

The modern age had changed what income inequality means. The rich can reach any part of the world in a matter of hours travelling in unbelievable luxury. While the middle classes are mostly stuck to the drudgery of the daily commute. Riches can today mean not just much higher life expectancy but much better fitness and vitality to enjoy the "la dolce vita" of a rich man's life. While the middle classes live dogged by illness-causing stress and pollution.

There has, of course, been progress. Technology and higher productivity have ensured that.

Today's blue or white-collar drudge has moved to 25 from the 7 of the serf or the sweatshop worker of the earlier ages. The lower and middle class on essence have better quality than the kings of yore or the robber barons of the early Industrial Age. At the same time the leap in the quality of life index of the affluent - the bureaucrats, the technocrats and the professional classes - and the rich - the captains of industry, the tech entrepreneurs, the celebrity sports and entertainment stars - has leapt way beyond. Would it be wrong to say that if one is affluent or wealthy today and mindful of one's health, one can enjoy a quality of life near the top end of the scale? Perhaps near 60 for the affluents and say near the 80s for the rich. Advances in medicine - slowing the depredations of age, implants that augment the senses, genetics combined with the magic of AI and commercial space travel will push the quality of life of the truly rich closer to 100. At the same time, the middle class will be stuck in the early 30s.

The situation becomes combustible if you mix in the proliferation of 24x7 media that hypes the lifestyles of the rich and the famous down the throat of the middle classes endlessly. 

As a result, the Gini index - the measure of inequality - is magnified several times when transformed into an index of resentment and suppressed rage.

This suppressed rage and resentment finds expression within cultures, societies and individuals in different ways. They set up unique hate figures, rationale, conspiracy theories and ultimate solutions. Before the age of social media dawned, individuals, expressed these ideas to a small group in their circle who they found were similar to them in status and way of thinking.

With the dawn of social media, this changed dramatically. 

Billions are now avid consumers of social media not because they have a deep desire to know what their friends or relatives are doing or gawk at photographs and memes. Instead, their addiction is to the reinforcement of their view-of-the-world day-in-and-day out. They find that many share their views and not just strengthen them but add more virulent dimensions to them. And very often, this group affinity moves from online interaction to offline action. A tribe is formed that is ready to defend its turf not just online but on the streets and in the politics of power.

This social-media-driven tribalization is not an accidental result. It is an outcome of painstakingly designed algorithms the Facebooks and Instagrams of this world that deepen engagement with the platform. This is done purely in commercial interest. The Zuckerbergs of this world, in truth, do not care about anything else despite their hoodie-wearing new age spiel.

To this simmering cauldron of rising inequalities and tribalism, the Gods added Covid19. Each passing day, it emerges that Covid19 is of the same order of dangerousness to the 2020s as the Spanish Flu was to the 1910s.

The Spanish Flu ended World War I as it competed with it in killing millions. But it sowed the seeds of the Great Depression and World War II.

Could it be that this pandemic will lead the world into a different kind of war? Exacerbating the inequities of the times as well as the greed and incompetence of the establishment at large. The rich and the well-to-do gorge on the money spigots opened by panicking central banks while the rest - the working class, including the essential workers - confront death and deprivation.

In the early days of this pandemic, I was hopeful that this shock might wake up the world and in time make it a better place. In the same way that the Black Plague of the Middle Ages hurried the dawning of the Renaissance. I expressed this view in a post titled "The Coming Age of Ambiversion?" published on June 7th, 2020. The question mark in title was prescient.

The situation had gone downhill after that. As Governments and the health infrastructure across the world continue to lose the battle. And the rich and the well-to-do gorge on stock market gains and easy money. While the complaint of the privileged is about the imagined tribulations of WFH, online learning and boredom(!), the many either work in dangerous conditions or suffer hunger and deprivation without work.

Will the coming of an effective vaccine return the world to some sort of normalcy? Perhaps, if a truly effective vaccine is developed and universally distributed. But much before that will come the Vaccine Wars. A handful of rich countries with 13% of the world population have cornered 50%of the production capacity of the leading vaccines. Imagine the mayhem that will follow as soon as a vaccine or two is cleared by the authorities. Besides, it is quite clear that the so-called leaders are clearly compromised by political expediency and ever-present greed and corruption.

Imagine the misery if an approved vaccine or vaccines do not just prove to be ineffective but cause damage and death. 

That will only hasten the arrival of a full-blown era of worldwide conflict I like to think of as the "Viral Wars".

Even if the world did find an effective vaccine and distributed it equitably, the Covid19 crisis might have created a rift in human civilization that makes the Viral War inevitable.

What will the Viral Wars be like? It will be very different from the World Wars but equally destructive and paradigm-shifting. 

Unlike the World Wars, it will not be between countries but among tribes. Tribes that are each driven by an explosive mix of ideology, faith, conspiracy theories forming a world view that each will be willing to die for. 

I call them The Viral Wars because they will be infectious and spread across the world. Unchecked, gathering momentum every day, bringing death and deprivation in their wake. Until after decades the world develops herd immunity or someone or some force finds a vaccine.

Imagine scores of multinational Al Quedas, Qnons, White Supremacists, neo-Nazis, Antifas at each other's throats within and across national borders. Equipped with military-grade weapons and state-of-the-art cyber and AI skills. What about federal Governments and armies? Many of them will side with one tribe or the other. Or be too weak to be effective in quelling anything. The dystopian world of many a sci-fi movie - Mad Max, Blade Runner - will be at hand. The poets imagined such a world much before the screenwriters did.

Consider these famous lines by Yeats from his poem "The Second Coming":

Turning and turning in the widening gyre 

The falcon cannot hear the falconer;

Things fall apart; the centre cannot hold;

Mere anarchy is loosed upon the world,

The blood-dimmed tide is loosed, and everywhere 

The ceremony of innocence is drowned;

The best lack all conviction, while the worst 

Are full of passionate intensity.

You will notice the absence of a question mark in the title of this dark vision of the future in contrast to the more hopeful one posited as the Age of Ambiversion.

It is because history has taught me that the worst had to come to pass before the good dawns. Perhaps after The Viral Wars will come The Age of Ambiversion.

Interiority - The Ineffable Art of Hilary Mantel and the Wolf Hall Trilogy

I read Wolf Hall the first of Hilary Mantel's trilogy based on the life of Thomas Cromwell in 2010,  an Englishman born a commoner in the 16th century. Cromwell rose to great power in the court of Henry VIII before meeting a tragic end - a chopped off head as many an ambitious person did in Henry's rein including famously one his many queens - Anne Boleyn.

I found Wolf Hall fascinating in one unique way. It was the tone of the book. Without being in the first-person singular Wolf Hall captures the complex interiority of Thomas Cromwell as he negotiates the treacherous path to power in Henry's byzantine court. A feat of technique that I have not come across in any other book.

It helps that Cromwell, in Ms Mantel's telling, a modern man. A man whose secular belief in unsentimental rationality would have been at home in the corridors of power in the 21st century.

Cromwell's view of the world, in Ms Mantel's riveting prose, rises above mundane details, while being fully alive to the core human dynamics of any given situation. Whether this was a real-life trait of Thomas Cromwell or an emergence from Ms Mantel's art, there is no way of knowing and perhaps not even pertinent to the creative excellence that won the book the Man Booker award.

I awaited the second book eagerly - Bring Up The Bodies - and strove to read it fresh of the presses, so to speak, in 2012. Eager once gain to inhabit the mind of one of English history's most enigmatic figure - Thomas Cromwell - through the magic of Ms Mantel's ineffable art.

I was not disappointed and once again waited eagerly for the third and last book of the series.

This time the wait was a bit longer. The third book - The Mirror and The Light - came out this year.

Meanwhile, BBC had produced one of its masterly mini-series called Wolf Hall directed by Peter Kosminsky with the incomparable Mark Rylance. At around the same time, the Royal Shakespeare Company put out stage versions of Wolf Hall and Bring Up the Bodies with Ben Miles playing Thomas Cromwell,

While I have been able to watch the mini-series, the plays have been out of my reach. The news is that they will open in Broadway soon. If and when that street lights up again.

However, in circles where people discuss such things the comparative merits of Mr Rylance's and Mr Miles' interpretation is as hot a topic as say the performances of Hamlet by Jonathan Pryce, Anton Lesser and Mark Rylance. 

By 2020 I had become a fan of audiobooks. When I heard that Mr Miles is going to read "The Mirror and The Light" under the supervision of Ms Mantel, I decided to go first with the audiobook and leave the delights of the printed page to later.

The big-name reviewers have damned "The Mirror and The Light' with faint praise. Perhaps their expectations, in the light of, "Wolf Hall" and "Bring Up The Bodies" were set too high. 

 I am happy to report that I am as delighted by "The Mirror and the Light" as I was by the earlier two books.

This third book has the same “interiority” as the first two books of the Wolf Hall trilogy. 

Interiority is different from writing in the first person, A first-person account is limited by the specifics of the context and the power of expression that the novelist imbues the character with. On the other hand, in the interiority mode, Ms Mantel has the freedom to plumb Cromwell’s consciousness without being limited by the context of the particulars of the time and the plot.

As a result, the trilogy mines a deep insight into human nature. The universal truth that goodness, generosity, wisdom, love and other positive traits of human nature transcend the particulars of the context of the age or the specifics of an individual’s circumstances. While, on the other hand, the flip side of human nature - greed, hate, lust, meanness etc.- are deeply rooted in the context of the age and the details of a person’s life. This is, in essence, is the same truth that many schools of philosophy and spirituality expound. Ms Mantel does it while gliding us along the arc of a story that grips and thrills across three best-sellers.

And the reading by Mr Miles a piece of art in itself. It lit up many a solitary walk within the confines of my quarantined life.

Ms Mantel evocation of Cromwell's interiority as he walks to his execution will, in my thinking, rank high among passages in literature that break new ground.

Mr Miles has also now read Wolf Hall and Bring Up The Bodies. So the entire trilogy is now available as audiobooks of the highest quality. If you have not yet tasted the power of audiobooks, there could be no better introduction to them as Mantel's Wolf Hall trilogy performed by Ben Miles.

I, for one, intend to read Ms Mantel's other books - there are nine before she started in the trilogy. The first one is "Every Day is Mother's Day". The blurb informs me that it is a black comedy set in the 70s. I am eager to discover whether "Interiority" is a technique that Ms Mantel invented for the Wolf Hall trilogy or whether it pervades all her books. 

American Dirt: Proof Why Literature Is The Deepest of The Arts

Usually, it takes years and decades for a novel or a collection of poetry before being classified as literature. That is so because the purists believe that a work has to stand the test of time. 

Nevertheless, I would put American Dirt, the latest novel from Jeanine Cummins in that hallowed category.

Standing the test of time is right. But equally essential is to illuminate the issues of one's own time in a profound yet emotionally resonant way.

In my book, the central issue of our time is inequality.

Inequality in human society has been around since time immemorial. 

Why then do I think it is the central issue facing us today. Why does it have "the fierce urgency of now"? An urgency that ratchets up every day, every place that it is left unaddressed.

The paradox is that it is the plentitude of our age that leads to this core crisis of our age: The Inequity of Inequality. 

Progress in science and technology has lead to leaps in productivity that can support a comfortable life for every man, woman and child in the world.

Instead, we have increasing inequality of income between nations and within nations between classes and communities.

Instead, we have the rapacious greed of the rich and the shameless leading inexorably to a climate catastrophe.

A symptom of the current universal madness that grips the world is the crisis of forced migration of millions. Terrorised families and children fleeing from hotspots in the Middle East - Syria, Yemen etc. - and South America - Mexico, Venezuela, Columbia, Honduras - not is the search of a better life but only life - to live without starvation and death staring at them every minute.

And instead of those who have plenty welcoming these dispossessed with open arms, we have the well-to-do in Europe and the US respond with fear. Fear of sharing their prosperity and well-being with others. Fear that sharing will diminish. Forgetting the lessons that history has tried to teach us again and again that it is fear and greed that reduce while hope and generosity elevate.

American Dirt is a classic not just because it grips with the drama of a mother and her eight-year-old son's bid to escape death as they flee of a drug lord massacres their entire family. It is a classic not just because every page in the book has a vignette and an insight into human nature that is on par with anything else you will find in any of our great, canonical works. To my mind, it is a classic because it shines a light on the essential truth that the generosity of spirit is the key to heaven - the heaven that is ever-present at the core of our being and waiting for us to unlock the door and step in. And the core gift of American Dirt is it leads teh reader to a realisation that this generosity of spirit - this key to the heaven within - is accessible to all of us, all the time. Even in the direst of circumstances. We can share even when we have little. We can strive to ignite hope when all seems lost. And that it will be this same generosity of spirit that will rescue humanity from its current crises - terrorism, nationalism, racism, poverty, climate change - and allow human civilisation to reach for the next stage of our evolution.

I am currently reading two other books - both non-fiction - which both promise to be in the instant classic class that American Dirt is. They also address critical issues facing our current era.  I look forward to posting about them once I have completed reading them. If you have the time and inclination here are their titles: 

Twilight of Democracy: The Failure of Politics and The Parting of Friends by Anne Applebaum

Caste: The Lies That Divide Us by Isabel Wilkerson

Mr Holmes and Dr Alexa

A far-reaching effect of Covid19 will be the acceleration of the adoption of the Internet-Of-Things. Addition of billions of things connected to the net will lead to an explosion of Big Data. This torrent will lead to, in time, perhaps to Big Data becoming a public utility. The Big Data will be stripped names and other privacy-invading features - anonymised in industry parlance - according to internationally agreed protocols. 

Private players like Amazon and Google will build profitable businesses that provide access to this public data. They will charge for value-added services in terms of functional analysis. Proprietary AI engines will drive this unique analysis. 

While legal Big Data as a public utility will have to be anonymised, black market services will come into being that hacking and strip away the anonymity. 

Story-telling is the best way to make a point. So here is a vignette from the year 2044.

It was the “firecrackers” that jolted him from his reverie. It was the night of the 200th anniversary of VE Day.

2044 and they still wanted “firecrackers” to celebrate he mused. Virtual ones, of course. Just light and sound what with the strict carbon emission controls despite yearly protests by the MakeEarthGreatAgain party which averred that steeply falling atmospheric CO2 levels are making men impotent!

Well, it takes all kind, thought Holmes and with an inward shrug got back to his business of cogitation. Ten minutes into his train of thought turned a corner, and the startling new vista opened up.

“Hey, Alexa dig this. Let us see if we can buy the chemical analysis of washing machine residues from GooglePlex for the night of April 12th this year for Central London.”

“Hi, Sherlock. A new train of thought heh? Give a sec as I get a quote. Here it is. Data field size 1,10,006 machines. The number of chemical residues identified is 7403. Cost of anonymised data — 10,000 Universal Credits. Broken by six geographic clusters — 14,000 UCs.”

“Damn thieves! Guess the client can afford it. Buy the geographic clusters and look for a residue from a machine that contained both Botulinum and Ricin.”

“Bingo Mr Homes — cluster six — Ridgewood Heights — machine no. 63654”

“Hmm, Ridgewood Heights. Our list of four suspects. None of them has a home in Ridgewood Heights. A hideaway? A mistress. Damn the Sexton Act, or I would have got a warrant for GooglePlex to reveal the machine location. Alexa, please switch to Dr Alexa mode.”

“Dr Alexa here, Mr Holmes.”

“Hello, Dr Alexa. Switch to dark mode and see if you can buy the address of machine no. 63654 from one of our crawler friends.”

“On it. Hmm, IndiaRani can do, but the price is 19000 bitcoins.”

Sherlock whistles. This price blows the budget. The client will blow a fuse, he thought. But then this could crack the case.

“Buy it, Dr Alexa But tell Rani that she is getting greedier by the day.”

Rani will take time thought Sherlock. A day maybe. Rani is careful, and that takes time and subterfuge. Damn these Indians, They now own the black data market and make hay. The inherent subtlety of the Indian mind finally winning monetary rewards. He sighed and looked around for his pipe. Must replenish the mescaline he thought as he reclined back and got aboard another train of thought.

PS: And as Artificial Intelligence progresses to General Intelligence by the 2050s, can one imagine a Mr Holmes who is an advanced AI entity with a built-in Dr Alexa

Class Project - Introduction

Among communicators, it is the belief that stories are the most useful way to convey ideas and deliver impact. Today’s post “Class Project — “Introduction” is the first of a series of posts. A series that uses the narrative technique in the hope to inspire at least a few baby boomers like me. Provoke us to get out of our post-retirement armchairs and pontifications and go out and try to make change happen,

As I sat across Prakriti, the Deputy Collector of Akola, I felt a quiet sense of accomplishment. I was sure the rest of my Class of 81 mates — Sunil, Ram, and Iqbal — sitting with me thought the same.

My mind went back to that day 18 months ago. That day the chat on the Class of 81 WhatsApp group had got entirely heated between the overt and covert anti-Modi and pro-Modi supporters. Underlying it all that anger and disagreement was the notion that somebody else was responsible for the perceived mess in the country.

Ram, one of the more perceptive and quieter ones among us, caught the underlying drift.

He wondered how a group of 60 plus years old, all educated at the country’s best institutions at a high cost to the exchequer, all having tasted great success in one field or the other essentially making money for themselves and others, did not feel any pang of guilt at their hand in making the mess.

And how we all felt important enough to offer analysis and solutions from the comfort of our near-retirement material success.

Shouldn’t we, at least now with all-out material needs met, get off our backsides and do something concrete to improve the lot of the so-called underprivileged we spoke and wrote so much about and seemed to have for whom such great sympathy?

So Ram called Sunil, Iqbal and me and spoke about his feelings. Over the next three weeks, we bandied ideas around and came up with a plan to test if people like us could make a difference to the life of others.

Sunil’s cousin Prakriti was the DC in Akola, and we decided that we will offer our services to Prakriti. We planned to shift to Akola for a year and work with her to try and improve the Government schools and primary care system in her district. She accepted, and the four of us have been in Akola for the past 15 months.

The story of what happened is exciting, and I will tell it in short, bite-sized instalments.

Suffice it to say the experience changed much in us, and Prakriti tells us that it has done significant good to the schools and primary care system in her district

Surprising learning is that the change went beyond external outcomes. But happened within the four of us and the scores of teachers and primary care workers, we interacted closely with over these months. It is almost as if we catalyzed for each other a change within which then radiated out to positively affect our work, our relationships, and our thinking like no external event, control, or process could have.

One fundamental change within me now is how I perceive the power of words. Words are the vehicle that allows intent to catalyze change. To be the change, you want to see.

The Coming Age of Ambiversion?

Every major event has significant consequences. 9/11 shook up the world’s geopolitical matrix.

Covid19 will undoubtedly result in some paradigm-shifting consequences.

Major events do not trigger events ab initio. Instead, they accelerate and strengthen existing if incipient trends. Samuel Huntington’s concept of a clash of civilization was a severe concern among policy wonks way before the towers came down. Events like 9/11 or Covid19 are like the apocryphal straw that breaks the camel’s back.

What will be the aftermath of Covid-19?

The economic after-effects will need Governmental and socio-political action at a scale never seen before. Before Covid19 (BC?) there were already significant changes and shifts in politics across the globe. Nationalism, populism, anti-globalism, and the resultant nascent wave of liberal backlash were clear trends before Covid19.

At the end of the Covid19 tunnel, we might see a paradigm shift in how the world is governed and politics conducted. It could entrench populism, nationalism, and conservatism way deeper. Or it could do the very opposite. Who knows? Anyway, we already have a lot of eggheads speculating and writing about that rather knotty issue.

I, on the other hand, want to point to a possible upheaval at a more fundamental level. That is at the socio-cultural level where all of us live. The way we live. The way we interact with each other. The way we build and nurture our self-image. The way we aspire. The way we work and create.

Many believe we live in the flagging years of the American Century. The American Century is the American Century, not just because of America’s economic and military might. As central, if not more, the American Century found its global traction on the back of American soft power. Generations of the worlds young, post-WWII have consciously or sub-consciously modelled themselves on the central theme of America’s socio-economic construct - The Culture of Personality.

At the end of the nineteenth century, American life shifted from a Culture of Character to a Culture of Personality. While at an earlier age Wordsworth wrote admiringly about Newton as “a mind for ever/ Voyaging through strange seas of Thoughts alone”, in the 20th century TS Eliot in his 1915 poem. “The Love Song of J Alfred Prufrock” lamented the need to “prepare a face to meet the faces that you meet”. A pedestrian Andrew Jackson defeated the deep thinker John Quincey Adams in a race for the US Presidency with a slogan that went “John Quincey Adams who can write/And Andrew Jackson who can fight!”.

The Cult of Personality has resulted in a self-help industry worth billions of dollars starting out from Dale Carnegie to Tony Robbins to the Saddleback Church.

Susan Cain, in her book “Quiet: The Power of Introverts In A World That Can’t Stop Talking” traces this shift to a deeper level of human psychology.

In 1921 Carl Jung in his seminal book “Psychological Types” defined two basic types of people in the world:  Introverts drawn to the world of thought and feeling and Extroverts focused on the external life of people and activities. Extroverts plunge into events while Introverts focus on the meaning of events. Extroverts recharge by socializing—Introverts by being alone (guess who is coping better in these days of social distancing!).

For more than a century now, as Susan Cain details in her deeply researched book, the worlds of politics, business, culture, media, and almost every other walk of life have moved to the rhythms of what Cain calls the “Extrovert Ideal”. To be great is to be bold. To be happy is to be sociable.

Post-WWII this Extrovert Ideal, carried aloft by American hard and soft power, has dictated how generations of young people see themselves and strive to live their life. Over recent decades the emergence of a global economy, the rise of 24x7 media, the Internet, the smartphone, and social media has further entrenched the Extrovert Ideal. Leading to a celebrity culture where the Kardashian clan is famous for being famous while nobody remembers or cares about leading lights for fields other than sports, entertainment, politics, and big business. From any other area of endeavour - science, technology, literature, art, education, social work - you can get your 15 minutes of fame by becoming part of a scandal preferably suitably big and titillating. What about a Nobel Prize? Meh…

Will the enormous impact of Covid19 and the concept of social distancing change the dominance of the Extrovert Ideal?

Even before Covid19 happened, there was rumbling in the socio-cultural landscape. According to studies done by McKinsey Global Institute and others, there is an incipient movement away from the Extrovert Ideal visible among Generation Z - the cohort of people born after 2000 - that is the current generation of teenagers and college freshmen. There is a movement in this generation to put a higher premium on being more thoughtful and being less under peer pressure. According to the McKinsey study, this change is most evident in this generation’s use of the Internet and social media.

Among the earlier generations – the late Gen Xers and the Millennials - social media has become the ultimate tool of extroversion. The typical late Gen Xer and Millennial are more selfie-aware than self-aware. With many of them, the only moments that matters are moments that are “Instagramable”. 

On the other hand, Generation Z’s approach to the Internet and social media reflects the usage of the creators and early users of the Internet. For Gen Zers, the Internet and social media are platforms which allows you to put out thoughts and feeling to the world while being yourself and being by yourself. A platform that enables you to collaborate and innovate working with others while still being the master of your own time and space.

The question is whether the Covid19 will be the shock that shifts the world away from the Extrovert Ideal just as 9/11 and its aftermath turned the world away from the post-WWII Pax America geopolitical structure.

Social distancing is getting people across the world to experience the world in an entirely new way. It is getting them to experience a way of life that puts a premium on being happy in the company of yourself. It is putting a premium on the quality of relationships. It is putting a premium on using the boons of modern technology – the Internet, the smartphone and social media – more as tools of productions, serious endeavour, and self-expression than anything else.

Given that Covid19 and its aftershocks can last for as much as 18 to 24 months (before a vaccine is discovered, tested and distributed widely) it is quite possible that social distancing could be a practised need for a relatively long time.

Given the adaptability of humankind, it will not surprise me that the fundamentals of social distancing become a part of the way of life rather than external impositions. And this shift, I believe, will lead the world away from the overarching Extroversion Ideal to something new.

Will it lead to the emergence of what could be called the “Introvert Ideal”? I don’t think so.

The American Century has brought mankind to a level of unmatched prosperity and progress. Flawed by high-income inequality with pockets of instability and despair but deep and widespread development still. The Culture of Personality - the Extrovert Ideal - that has made market capitalism and democracy the dominant isms of the modern world. A shift to what might be called the Introvert Ideal - a shutting in of the world, a devaluing of material success, a lowering of collaborative efforts, etc. - might endanger this progress. It will certainly not accelerate it.

Instead, I think the incipient trend away from the Extrovert Ideal will morph into an accelerated trend towards what I would like to call the Ambivert Ideal leading to a golden age of the Age of Ambiversion.

Ms Susan Cain, in her book, writes about psychologist Brian Little’s Free Trait Theory.

The Free Trait Theory posits that all individuals have both fixed traits and free traits.

Prof. Little’s research has shown that individuals are the most productive and innovative when they can use their free traits without having to curb their fixed ones.

Due to the pressures of the Extravert Ideal up until now many Introverts to be seen as successful and have widespread acceptance have had to pretend to be Extroverts - in other words, hide their true self. An example is Guy Kawasaki, who is a self-confessed Introvert and a big-time social media celebrity. The Extrovert Ideal has even forced this hugely successful person to put out bios and profiles that unequivocally position himself as an Extrovert. Conversely, most Extroverts under the pressure of the Extrovert Ideal do not give their Introvert traits very little play. As a result, society – the worlds of culture, arts, business, politics, and life in general – misses out on the synergy that could result from a “jugalbandi” of the Extrovert and Introvert traits.

In the Age of Ambiversion, the need to suppress our true selves in our work, social and personal spaces will lessen and in time ebb away. The Age of Ambiversion, if it comes about, could see a flowering of a new, more integrated society with a social, cultural, art, and economic paradigms that will enable humanity to bid a happy goodbye to the American Century and welcome a brave new world.

It might be a cliche, but there is a silver lining to every dark cloud.

Keep safe. Keep healthy.

Top Secret Brief to Mr. Tim Cook (Apple) and Sir Jony Ive (LoveFrom)

 Necessity, they say, is the mother of invention. Except for geniuses like Mr. Jobs, of course.

With the launch of the iPhone and its astute marketing Mr. Jobs changed the way we all live and even look - you know the bent neck staring at something in our hands look.

Mr, Cook you have done a great job of steering Apple after Mr. Jobs met his maker but you will agree with me that Apple has not had an iPhone moment since. 

The Apple Watch had the potential but missed the mark somewhat without any “must-simply-have” functionality that the smartphone has. And while the design in terms of looks of the Air Pods is great but once again not in the iPhone league in terms of being life-changing or creating product category ab initio.

Given the recent years of drought in breakthrough designs by Apple, it is understandable that Sir Ive, probably one of the world’s greatest product designers, has left Apple to start “LoveFrom” a design boutique that will help him perhaps to rejuvenate and refresh the well of his creativity. 

However, it is quite likely that the two of you remain good friends and would collaborate when and if and when the next big idea comes along. Hence this joint brief.

Covid19 will change life in many, many ways. And some of the changes will be driven by whole new categories of products.

The phrases “social distancing” and “testing, testing, testing” would probably be joint “phrases of the year” if the Oxford English Dictionary guys were into phrases. It is quite likely, however, that “masks” will not just be the OED word of not just the year but probably of the decade.

Sir Ive look at how the hundreds of millions of masks out there look? Horrid don’t you agree?

And Mr. Cook can you think of what a waste of potentiality is that for all that the mask covers it just serves one purpose - of being a barrier?

Imagine the mask over the next decade becoming the must-have personal accessory giving the person who wears it both the aura of invincibility while at the same time projecting high sociability. Kapish? I am no designer but imagine two invisible nose plugs combined with a near-transparent mouth covering that magically fits the contours of the face and retracts and deploys with a discreet command to Siri? Imagine!

And the functionalities you could build in? Mama Mia! Not only will the mask act as a barrier but with real-time analysis of breathing patterns and breath analysis that shared with your iPhone giving your Health app fitness and diagnostic capabilities as yet unthought of, I am sure the post-Covid19 FDA will be much more friendly to new kind of “tests” and “diagnostics” than it was before with the ghost of Elizabeth Holmes a distant memory.

This is just a brief to get you hopefully going. My specific ideas on design and functionalities are only illustrative (Do I hear you say illustrative, more likely, of my puny imagination and creative abilities. Ha! Ha!).

One more suggestion before I leave you to your imagination.

“iFace” What do you think? Interesting huh!

PS: I am sure you were already looking at some kind of AR device for the eye which does not look like a spectacle (what else would you expect from that pedantic giant – Google?) but of a form entirely unimagined outside your lab. You could call if iEyes and then, of course, enhance the functionalities of the Air Pod and launch a line of iEars. The trinity of iFace, iEyes, and iEars. Holy cow! Aren’t we on to something? (Can I hear you snigger not just about my puny imagination but rather juvenile branding abilities. Now that would be going too far. Kicking me where it hurts.)