Some of the most fascinating topics covered this week are: Lifestyle (Habits vs Goals, who wins?), Social Media (Secretive world of the Indian content moderators), Quantum Computing (Are we prepared for the end of Moore's Law) and Health (World after Coronavirus; Learnings from Singapore; Home quarantine won't help much)
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At Ambit, we spend a lot of time reading articles that cover a wide gamut of topics, ranging from zeitgeist to futuristic, and encapsulate them in our weekly ‘Ten Interesting Things’ product. Some of the most fascinating topics covered this week are: Lifestyle (Habits vs Goals, who wins?), Social Media (Secretive world of the Indian content moderators), Quantum Computing (Are we prepared for the end of Moore’s Law) and Health (World after Coronavirus; Learnings from Singapore; Home quarantine won’t help much).
Here are the ten most interesting pieces that we read this week, ended March 27, 2020-
1) Yuval Noah Harari: The world after coronavirus [Source: Financial Times]
Covid-19 is said to be the world’s biggest crisis of our generation. The decisions people and governments take in the next few weeks will probably shape the world for years to come. They will shape not just our healthcare systems but also our economy, politics and culture. In this time of crisis, we face two particularly important choices. The first is between totalitarian surveillance and citizen empowerment. The second is between nationalist isolation and global solidarity.
Today, for the first time in human history, technology makes it possible to monitor everyone all the time. By closely monitoring people’s smartphones, making use of hundreds of millions of face-recognising cameras, and obliging people to check and report their body temperature and medical condition, the Chinese authorities can not only quickly identify suspected Coronavirus carriers, but also track their movements and identify anyone they came into contact with. Centralised monitoring and harsh punishments aren’t the only way to make people comply with beneficial guidelines. When people are told the scientific facts, and when people trust public authorities to tell them these facts, citizens can do the right thing even without a Big Brother watching over their shoulders.