LOCK STEP
Scenario
Narratives
A world of tighter top-down government control and more
authoritarian leadership, with limited innovation and growing
citizen pushback
In 2012, the pandemic that the world had been
anticipating for years finally hit. Unlike 2009’s
H1N1, this new influenza strain — originating
from wild geese — was extremely virulent and
deadly. Even the most pandemic-prepared
nations were quickly overwhelmed when the
virus streaked around the world, infecting nearly
20 percent of the global population and killing
8 million in just seven months, the majority of
them healthy young adults. The pandemic also
had a deadly effect on economies: international
mobility of both people and goods screeched to
a halt, debilitating industries like tourism and
breaking global supply chains. Even locally,
normally bustling shops and office buildings sat
empty for months, devoid of both employees
and customers.
The pandemic blanketed the planet — though
disproportionate numbers died in Africa,
Southeast Asia, and Central America, where
the virus spread like wildfire in the absence
of official containment protocols. But even
in developed countries, containment was a
challenge. The United States’s initial policy of
“strongly discouraging” citizens from flying
proved deadly in its leniency, accelerating the
spread of the virus not just within the U.S. but
across borders. However, a few countries did
fare better — China in particular. The Chinese
government’s quick imposition and enforcement
of mandatory quarantine for all citizens, as well
as its instant and near-hermetic sealing off of
all borders, saved millions of lives, stopping
the spread of the virus far earlier than in other
countries and enabling a swifter postpandemic
recovery.
China’s government was not the only one that
took extreme measures to protect its citizens
from risk and exposure. During the pandemic,
national leaders around the world flexed their
authority and imposed airtight rules and
restrictions, from the mandatory wearing of face
masks to body-temperature checks at the entries
to communal spaces like train stations and
supermarkets. Even after the pandemic faded,
this more authoritarian control and oversight
of citizens and their activities stuck and even
intensified. In order to protect themselves from
the spread of increasingly global problems — from
pandemics and transnational terrorism to
environmental crises and rising poverty — leaders
around the world took a firmer grip on power.
At first, the notion of a more controlled world
gained wide acceptance and approval. Citizens
willingly gave up some of their sovereignty — and
their privacy — to more paternalistic states
in exchange for greater safety and stability.
Citizens were more tolerant, and even eager, for
top-down direction and oversight, and national
leaders had more latitude to impose order in the
ways they saw fit. In developed countries, this
heightened oversight took many forms: biometric
IDs for all citizens, for example, and tighter
regulation of key industries whose stability was deemed vital to national interests. In many
developed countries, enforced cooperation with a
suite of new regulations and agreements slowly
but steadily restored both order and, importantly,
economic growth.
Across the developing world, however, the
story was different — and much more variable.
Top-down authority took different forms
in different countries, hinging largely on
the capacity, caliber, and intentions of their
leaders. In countries with strong and thoughtful
leaders, citizens’ overall economic status
and quality of life increased. In India, for
example, air quality drastically improved after
2016, when the government outlawed highemitting
vehicles. In Ghana, the introduction
of ambitious government programs to improve
basic infrastructure and ensure the availability
of clean water for all her people led to a sharp
decline in water-borne diseases. But more
authoritarian leadership worked less well — and
in some cases tragically — in countries run by
irresponsible elites who used their increased
power to pursue their own interests at the
expense of their citizens.
There were other downsides, as the rise of
virulent nationalism created new hazards:
spectators at the 2018 World Cup, for example
wore bulletproof vests that sported a patch
of their national flag. Strong technology
regulations stifled innovation, kept costs high,
and curbed adoption. In the developing world,
access to “approved” technologies increased
but beyond that remained limited: the locus
of technology innovation was largely in the
developed world, leaving many developing
countries on the receiving end of technologies
that others consider “best” for them. Some
governments found this patronizing and refused
to distribute computers and other technologies
that they scoffed at as “second hand.”
Meanwhile, developing countries with more
resources and better capacity began to innovate
internally to fill these gaps on their own.
...
Re: Horus-Ra as the Archontic Alien Parasite: A follow-up interview with Maarit
Reply With Quote
Bookmarks