Covid Pandemia - A Chance for Progression of Human Kind?

Contrary to custom I will answer before examining the question:

A chance? Yes...chance taken? No

Why could such horrible incident like a virus pandemia be a chance for human kind? To understand the warrant of this question we have to look at the past (just to mention that analyzing the past is always recommendable for understanding the present and anticipating the future).

Human advancement started with the big step of evolving a conscious mind. That didn't happen cause some superior being like a god gifted it nor aliens implanted it to create some kind of experimental laboratory on earth. It had been just a necessary step in evolution to let human race survive. In the beginning humans were very weak creatures not having any special skills like physical strength or distinctive sensory organs. Instead they were much more quarry than predators trying to hide not to be eaten. But climate changed in Africa, the birth of humans and woods turned into steppe. Cause of that humans started upright walking to have a better look for preys. But out of that there grew a dilemma: benefits while hunting came along with better visibility for predators. So there had to be a next step of evolution for human survival: creating collectives to preserve from danger and to become much more efficient with hunting.

To optimize the corporation of individuals every member of the group has to find their place where their abilities can be used most effective. Carnivorans (like humans are) normally build rank orders within a herd by fighting hierarchic encounters. But that wasn't the optimal solution for a weak creature like the human. So next step in evolution was to distinguish individuals on their personal skills: the birth of split of labour. And to be an effective team every member has to KNOW their place and what to do there, they have to be aware of themselves: the birth of human conscious mind.

From then on humans started their triumph and settled all over the world being able to handle all difficulties like climatic differences or fast growing food requirement cause of their abilty to team up optimally based on combined individual strong suits for the good of all.

Knowing that we now have to look at the present and answer the most important question: are we still thinking and acting at large with good of all as the main purpose? If yes we could not only handle the pandemia but also all the other existential issues like climate changing, human overpopulation or scarcity of raw materials.

But that's just wishful thinking. Reality is showing quite another matter: division of labour that had been the initial impetus for human success story in the beginning changed to individual monodimesional thinking leading human race to deadlock. Why did that happen? Cause intelligence and conscious mind have their two sides: on one hand like in the beginning they offer multiple solutions for optimizing common benefits, but on the other hand they show possibilities to the single one to increase their own benefits at cost of others.

Main problem is leadership. Temptation for most leaders to abuse their power only for own advantage was and still is too strong. In the beginning a leader was needed to organize the group and to put everyone at the place where they give most value to the group. But over time leaders figured out to get a much more comfortable life based on others work. For that they used the faith on supposed supernatural phenomenon being the only ones to explain them. They shepherded those mysteries and shared them only with their families and friends: the birth of religions. For millennia that did work very well mostly secular and religious power being in same hands. But beginning in the Middle Ages things changed cause of expanding science what created other mighty castes like merchants and bourgeoisie. And the fast growing commercial relationships let the importance of money as an abstract payment method enhance gigantically: the birth of mercantilism and later than the birth of capitalism.

That's the situation we are still living in all over the world. On top of all interests determining the decisions of individuals, families, groups, societies and at least the whole world there is money as the standard for showing importance of the individual. Money turned from some useful currency to an abstract value itself. So it had been no wonder that something like the great depression starting with the Black Friday in 1929 or the banking crisis in 2009 could happen: business was just based on abstract qualities missing real equivalent values. So the song title "Money lets the world go round" is telling the truth. But the question is in which direction will that turn go...

Coming back to the opening question we have to know that ALL decisions to be made depend on financial interests. Some current example is the buying of vaccines against covid19 by the EU: they tried to get the price down and now needed vaccines are missing cause the manufacturing companies are delivering first to those countries that pay best. Or look at the USA, the UK or Israel (and many others too): they ordered vaccines only for their own people to get back to usual economics by people working to increase the GDP. The EU wants the same but fell behind for now. So where will that kind of acting lead to? If a country would be successful in vaccinating the whole population they would have to close their borders strictly cause it isn't known yet if the vaccines prevent from infection. But countries are slaves of globalization, some contingent on exports others on imports. And now the key question: how will the decisions look like? Ok that is some rhetorical question cause of what is told before. They will do all to get back to business as usual of course. And the pandemia? It will stay and become a regular feature for human life in future.

Only alternative would be some global concerted action based on the archaic spirit that started the success story of human kind: every individuum doesn't matter if leader or normal one has to think and act only for the benefits of the group (which means in this case the whole world). That would be the next step in human evolution to solve a global problem. Such an auguring vision.. but sadly its just an illusion.