If anything I think the global pandemic has shown how unprepared we are to come together globally and utilize technology to solve hard problems. Maybe something good will come from all of this in that direction and we will learn from our mistakes.
No. Life is a constant struggle against the encroaching entropy and I suspect keeping civilization going will never get easier.
That said, coronavirus is not even close to being a threat to human civilization. Compare this to 1918 Spanish flu and the contrast can't be clearer. Despite enormous growth in human population and much higher connectivity, we are managing global death toll an order of magnitude lower. We absolutely can be much better but we can't ignore 100 years of progress either.
Yes, but we're stretching our global economies thin in the process. At this point in our civilizational development, it's the systems that are important. If this or a future pandemic pushes most economies past breaking point, the death toll will very quickly skyrocket from a mere million to a bit larger billions dying in wars and starvation.
That's a weird way to see it though. Historically some humans have struggled to acquire the basics of survival, but actually the planet we live on is a bastion of low entropy in a sea of chaos precisely because of "life". Better to go a little hungry and keto than be constantly choking on noxious fumes and fishing nothing but old boots and cans out of the ocean.
Outside of the US and Brazil, I have been really impressed by the ability of people to come together and deal with a massive collective action problem.
If anything, it has shown that people have the capacity to pull together when they need to.
Lots of cases here in Spain but hospitals are generally coping fine (with Madrid being a bit of an exception at present in that hospital numbers are rising as well, but are currently manageable).
To be fair, it's much more difficult to have an effective lockdown a country that has people tightly packed together and that isn't a WEIRD individualistic society.
