In the past few weeks, humanity has been tested severely due to the spread of coronavirus globally.
A virus that started in one of china’s wet markets is spreading throughout the world at an alarming speed.
Hundred of thousands have become ill and thousands have died.
China’s response when the virus was detected first was inadequate at best or criminal at worst.
Like all authoritarian regimes, China’s rulers put their own self-interest above the safety of their own people and people around the world.
As hard as the Coronavirus outbreak has been on all of us, we should not waste this moment to worry or point figures but to find a path to a better future for the time after Coronavirus.
In a few months, the Coronavirus will be defeated and I hope we never forget the lessons learned from calamity.
The path forward after Coronavirus
We should start to think about how we can use the lessons learned so far from this pandemic for a better path forward for humanity and our country.
These are my personal views, I am not an expert in public health nor international relationships.
I am an engineer and my company’s product is project management software.
But long before the coronavirus hit our planet I was greatly troubled by some of the things we do as a society for short term gains at the expense of our long term survival and well being.
As engineers, we are trained to solve problems and I think some of our most pressing issues right now could benefit from insights from those who have been trained to solve hard problems.
I hope other engineers take this opportunity and bring their ideas to the public debate which we will have after this thing is over.
Limits on Globalization
In no way, I am arguing the trade and exchange between nations are bad, but we have done things in pursue of Globalization and higher profits that put all of us at risk.
Do you know more than 90% of all basic materials for antibiotics are made in China?
Or that without Chinese imports we can not produce CAT scanners, MRIs, and other vital medical equipment?
This is nuts! As a nation, we should never rely on only one source for our vital products or materials we need to produce products.
As an engineer, I was trained to make sure when you use a part in a product it should have second and even third sources.
But as a nation, we rely on a dictatorship like China for all of our vital supplies?
When there is no freedom and democratic values, there is always tyranny! China is more dangerous for the future of humanity than the past evils we have faced.
An economic and military superpower with no checks and balances and history of subjugating and torturing its own citizen.
This is not a country we should rely on our essential supplies, products, and vital materials.
From now on we should insist that a portion of all vital materials and products are made in the USA.
We also should make sure there is more than one nation who produces the parts we buy for vital products like medical, law enforcement, military, and public safety equipment.
There are many other countries with a huge workforce who would be more than happy to get some of the business we send to China.
We should never be at the mercy of other nations especially authoritarian and undemocratic nations for our survival.
US bankers and wall street pushed US manufacturing jobs to China in the past few decades for the sake of profits.
One thing they did not realize was that the short term benefits of outsourcing our manufacturing do not justify the tremendous cost to our workers, their families, and our self-reliance as a nation.
We have become addicts to the ever-cheaper things at the expense of our future growth and prosperity.
Stop PC culture
Freedom of speech is one of our greatest strengths. Most of our advancement in the past century is the direct result of the free exchange of ideas.
But unfortunately, free speech has come under attack in recent years. It seems every word you outer might or will offend someone.
If you have to watch your words because they might offend someone then the free speech is under attack.
When we argue about new ideas, how we should live or work, how to raise our children or plan our common future, we should not give a damn if people get offended.
People who get offended easily are like drags on runners. They slow you down or even worse, force you to never move forward.
Those who are protected too much (safe space idiots) are the first to suffer and lose when inevitable change comes.
As a society, we should never tolerate PC culture. People should feel free to express their thoughts.
Not all ideas or speech are good, but in a healthy society, bad ideas are flagged fast and discarded.
Everything we say could be labeled as racist. We have been lectured constantly that we oppress people and don’t care for the poor and underprivileged.
Nothing could be further than the truth. Nowhere in the history of the world, a nation has helped other nations to improve their lives than us.
I can say this with confidence since I am an immigrant myself!
The funny thing is that those who have been lecturing us in the past two decades about social justice have been hoarding toilet paper as soon as an emergency like Coronavirus emerged.
Right now every country rightly tries to protect its own people first. The situation is so bad that some countries deploy intelligence agencies to find medical supplies.
The so-called global village disappeared as soon as a pandemic like Coronavirus showed its ugly head.
As an immigrant who came to the USA in the 1970s, I believe our strongest strength is the legal immigration of new talent to our country.
We need new blood to rejuvenate our creative energy and make our country stronger. This could be only done if new immigrants follow our rules and obey our laws.
We are good people and accept and welcome new immigrants better than any other country in the world.
Legal immigration should be encouraged and celebrated.
Retooling our healthcare industry
The world is changing but our healthcare system still stuck on old habits. For proof look at the ravage, Coronavirus is doing to healthcare systems in Italy and Spain.
We need more hospitals and hospital beds, but also simple and easy to use protective gear so in case of pandemics people still can go out and work.
Imagine if we had protective gear that everybody has access to. We all could have been going to work instead of staying at home.
The protective gear saves lives by stopping the spread of the virus and saves our economy by letting us work.
Smoking is a huge problem that is killing thousands of people and increases the healthcare cost for everybody.
If you choose to smoke, you should be prepared to pay for health insurance even in countries that have universal health coverage like Israel.
The same thing with obesity. In many cases there medical reasons for people who are obese. But that does not give you the right to eat a quarter-pound double cheeseburger.
If you don’t have the discipline to control your hunger you should seek medical help.
Home hospitalization is a new concept that should be checked and checked again. With the new technology, a good portion of people who stay in the hospital currently can stay home and have access to the best care.
One of the biggest problems the way Italy handled the Coronavirus was they put everybody including people with no symptoms or mild symptoms in hospitals.
This overwhelmed the health workers and as of this writing people older than 60 in hospitals are ignored. Can you imagine the scale of this tragedy?
In contrast in Israel, people who test positive but have no symptoms are self-isolated at their home and have access to physicians and nurses using technology.
Changing the way we work
We need to rethink the way we work. When we started centuries ago, we were scavengers, then became farmers and later worked in factories. In the past century, we started working in offices.
Technology changed the way we worked before and technology will change the way we will work in the future.
With the new technology, a good percentage of workers can work from home at least a few days a week.
The benefits of remote work are tremendous. From saving the time on the commute, using fewer fossil fuels for travel, making roads less congested, and making moms and pops available when their children need them.
I am a good authority on remote work. In the past 10 years, all our employees have worked remotely and the benefits have been tremendous.
At the same time, the productivity in our organization has not suffered at all and I can say with confidence has improved every year.
Emphasis STEM in education
We can only improve our lives if our children are educated in the right disciplines for the future.
We need more scientists, engineers, mathematicians, doctors, and physicists for the future.
Our K-12 and higher education are failing us. A lot of kids study for 16 years of their life and at the end practically know nothing.
The cost of higher education is going up every year. Our kids study useless subjects that do not prepare them for work and life.
We need more medical, engineering, science, economics, and nursing departments and less make to believe subjects like gender studies and social justice studies.
Forget about safe spaces! Life is a struggle, it always has been and will always be. The only certainty in life is “change”. Let’s get prepared for it.
Life Priorities
In the past few decades due to our prosperity and over-protection of kids by parents, we have lost our survival instincts and what is really important in life and what is not.
A life without purpose is meaningless and wasted. Think about what is really important to you? Money? fast cars? A big house?
All those are nice to have but if your number one priority in life is one of the above, you have lost your compass.
Family, friends, and community should be your priority. Self-improvement and self-reliance should be your goal.
We should strive to make our local community better and hopefully then our nation and then the world.
To improve the lives of everybody on earth should be one of the few subjects on your mind. Other things are just nice but not important when your life is challenged like now during the Coronavirus pandemic.
Take one day a week to rest and not work. As an observant Jew, the one day rest has been the best gift for my sanity.
Take the time to enjoy family and friends. Let your brain rest. You will surprise how much more energy you have after a day of rest.
Where we invest our resources next?
In the past decade, the majority of the VC funds have been targeting social media and communication apps.
There is a good reason for that. How anybody can argue with the success of companies like Facebook, Twitter, and Whatsapp?
But how many social networking apps do we need? shouldn’t VCs invest their money in companies that can make huge improvements in our lives?
Throughout the sixties, seventies, and eighties our scientists invented the transistor, personal computers, cellphones, internet, and many others.
In the past two decades, we only have used those technologies to make incremental products. Nothing earth-shattering like transistors have been invented in the past two decades.
Hopefully, the new emerging technologies like Artificial Intelligence (AI) and machine vision will open a new floodgate of innovations.
Our goal as a nation should be to explore space. When we do that we improve our technology by leaps and bounds.
What Elon Musk is doing with SpaceX and Tesla should be the dream of any college graduate and not Mark Zuckerberg.
Conclusion
We are resourceful people, we have overcome huge challenges in the past. We will defeat Coronavirus too. Stay strong, stay vigilant, stay focused!
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