Israeli trend predicters and futurists tell us what to expect in the post-Covid world, from how we will buy to how we will fly.

Feels like we all need a group hug as we get out of our homes and back to routine. But hugs and handshakes won’t return so quickly, and routines may never be the same.

Futurists everywhere predict a post-coronavirus economic recession and fundamental changes in how we socialize, shop, work, learn, travel and eat.

Global institutions and governments may unravel, leading to a new world order where Google or Amazon collect taxes and provide health and banking services.

Below, four Israeli pundits share fascinating insights on how things may play out in the immediate wake of the pandemic and for years to come.

Some of the massive shifts in our lives will be unsettling and inconvenient. Others could point us toward a better future.

PROF. DAVID PASSIG: futurist, lecturer, author and international consultant on technological, social and educational futures; head of the Graduate Program in Information and Communication Technology and the Virtual Reality Laboratory at Bar-Ilan University School of Education

Passig has an impressive track record of accurate predictions, among them the 9/11 terror attacks and the 2008 financial crisis.

He divides the post-pandemic future into immediate (up to 3 years), short-term (4-10 years), midterm (up to 30 years) and long-term (30-50 years) segments.

The picture Passig paints isn’t pretty.

In the immediate future, we will seesaw between open and lockdown periods as governments struggle to manage Covid-19. This uncertain reality will affect everything from economics to emotions worldwide.

The short term will be characterized by the decline of globalization and the rise of nationalist and populist movements.

The globalization and capitalism we’ve known since World War II was at death’s door before Covid-19 anyway, drowning in a toxic sea of fake news, too much information, conflicting “expert” opinions and failed public institutions, Passig says.

One result of this malaise is that the World Health Organization had no authority to tell China what to do as the epidemic unfolded. When institutions meant to help us instead disappoint and confuse us, their days are numbered.

In the short term, the transition could be dangerous.

“Historically, leaders used pandemics as an opportunity to take over and spread hatred,” says Passig. “Based on models and statistics, there is a 50 to 70 percent probability of conflicts and possibly wars in the next decade between nations already in conflict.”

However, in the midterm years a different globalization will arise. Borrowing a term from quantum physics, Passig and his colleagues call the new model the “entanglement mindset.”

The new globalization will inspire institutions and policies built on the recognition that we are all in the same boat.

“In the entanglement mindset, international bodies will have the power to manage the ways we are entangled,” says Passig.

“That mindset will evolve into really understanding how a person in a market somewhere can affect the whole of humanity. And we’ll have to bring it into our new institutes.”

Passig is part of a worldwide group of futurists studying how entanglement globalization will look. One possibility is that people will be less influenced by what celebrities do and say, and more open to ideas from previously marginalized people – for better or worse.

ARTICLE FROM:  https://www.israel21c.org/what-will-the-world-look-like-after-corona/