Staring into Space

What is this life if, full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare….

- WH Davies 1911

It was the start of a short poem bemoaning the “hectic pace” of life in 1911. A few years later the world was plunged into war, and when it ended the old order was changed forever. More than a century later, as life was becoming even more hectic, we have been forced to stop, to think, and to take the time to realise what is important.

Now is the opportunity to “stand and stare”, to see the beauty of our environment and how the slower pace has had positive impacts amongst the tragedy and chaos. It is easy to feel guilty for thinking that there may be some positive outcomes from what is, for most, a huge and tragic crisis. However, I think there is a duty to search for the positive.

We need hope and optimism to survive. I am hoping, perhaps naively, that the global lockdown will be an opportunity to try to reset the system to build a kinder, fairer and less hectic world, rather than treating this lock down as a pause, until we all just return to the same old ways.

Artifiical intelligence will create huge social change driven by the loss of jobs. How will people be paid in a world where there is less work to do. New industries may be created, new services may be offered, new jobs created, but even such disruptive change has its potential positives.

It seems unlikely that in the future people will be working in the same way as they have since the industrial revolution. An anathema to many, a universal minimum income paid by Governments to everyone may become the norm. It is difficult to imagine that happening in today’s world, but it has been talked about for some time, in the most unlikely circles, including the tech entrepreneurs of Silicon Valley.

Government is close to paying a universal income now, for those who are furloughed and staying at home. They are being paid 80% of their salaries by the Government. It was an almost instant response to a crisis, so is being treated as temporary, but it shows what is possible, even for a Government that leans towards a free market model.

Will the lockdown will turn out to be an unplanned dry run for the day when many people don’t go to work in the same way as they do now, or perhaps just don’t work so hard? Governments will have to work with business to find positive ways to share the wealth the AI programmes and robots generate. It will be difficult and controversial.

Artificial intelligence will change the world as we know it, more than the virus will, but the imaginative policies introduced to cope with the social and economic consequence of this lock down show that Governments are capable of acting out of character.

Let us hope this lock down ends soon, and that those of us lucky enough to work from home and cut down our travel remember the calm of these quieter times. We can then spend time helping our wonderful communities, so we can face the changes that are coming in the future together.

The poem ends…

“A poor life this is, if full of care,

We have no time to stand and stare”