Post-Pandemic Futures: Balancing Technological Optimism with Sociocultural Fairness

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly affected the geopolitical and sociocultural global systems. Despite massive setbacks, technological advancement has been a driving socio-economic force during the pandemic. In this study, we examine the future prospects associated with politico-cultural, socio-communal and techno-economic trends through a review of both scholarly literature and news sources. We aim to contribute to the current debates by offering a conceptual analysis that identifies the techno-economic trends as moving in ameliorative directions while the socio-political-cultural trends are moving in harmful directions, in terms of social justice and equitable development. The positive effects of technology over the lives of workers and consumers have become tangible particularly in the fields of communications and biotechnology, yet technological developments also enable large scale dissemination of misinformation and generate isolation and inequity. Public policymakers and private entities must boost their efforts for accelerating the positive changes that technologies can bring forth, and curbing their negative effects, in order to alleviate poverty and reduce inequity-worsening tendencies unleashed by the pandemic.