[Viewpoint] Surviving

There was a 'Survival Series' of educational comics for elementary school students. Surviving in the Jungle, Surviving on a Deserted Island, Surviving in the Desert, Surviving on a Glacier. When my elementary school son was immersed in these survival educational comics, I, as an adult, also found myself captivated by various scientific facts and adventures that I had never encountered in my childhood, enjoying imagining bravely surviving in extreme situations. I wonder if the series is still being published these days; titles like Surviving Fine Dust, Surviving Viruses, Surviving in an Artificial Intelligence World catch my eye. When I was young, adults mainly shared stories of surviving wars. As a child, my biggest worry was, "What if I become an orphan on the evacuation road?" How should I evacuate if a war breaks out? What if I get separated from my family? I remember going to bed pondering how to survive.

We face many difficult situations throughout life. The stories of those who overcome hardships and survive are history itself. Since history is written by the victors and survivors, no matter how brilliant a culture they created, if they were defeated or did not survive, their stories are buried as mere legends. Nowadays, we are trying to survive in a quarantined world triggered by the novel coronavirus infection (COVID-19). This situation is a very different type of crisis compared to the economic crises or wars we have experienced before. When danger is visible, we can tighten our belts or muster strength to overcome or fight it, but the COVID-19 crisis is a war against an invisible virus. Protecting myself, my family, and my workplace from an unseen enemy leaves me with no practical means to act.

Many warned that the arrival of the Fourth Industrial Revolution would drastically change our way of life, but it was hard to grasp what that era would concretely look like. However, due to the COVID-19 situation, we have unexpectedly stepped into the Fourth Industrial Revolution era. Even if not the whole picture, we have seen at least one facet of this era. The New Normal era has arrived, characterized by new socio-cultural changes such as the recession of face-to-face services and the spread of non-face-to-face (untact) culture, leading to a restructuring of industrial systems. Like any era, the New Normal has its light and shadows. As historian Yuval Harari mentioned, in a situation where no specific future can be guaranteed, the only certainty is that everything will change, and most of the skills we learn today may become useless by 2050. This means that most jobs relying on current technologies will become obsolete. In the Fourth Industrial Revolution era, many ordinary people will have to engage in fierce competition to survive.

Economic depression, war, COVID-19, the Fourth Industrial Revolution. These are crisis situations we must survive. These challenges are not given only to individuals; they could be problems for all humanity, or at least common tasks that many people must collectively solve with wisdom. Yet, there are desperate situations where survival must be fought on a personal level. Children who escaped parental abuse, children who died trapped in a cramped trunk, security guards who chose extreme measures due to abuse of power, students who fell from rooftops to escape beatings, athletes who sounded the alarm with their deaths after no one listened to their stories of abuse, and people who suddenly chose death amid social suspicions or ongoing investigations. Why did they give up on survival? Behind such extreme choices lies the dark selfishness of humans who seek to survive even at the expense of others. In educational comics, everyone joins forces to overcome danger and survive, but reality is not like that. It is time to reflect on whether, in our desperation to survive, we have overlooked the dangers faced by those around us. A society that forces those struggling to survive into extreme choices?this is the frightening world we live in today.

This content was produced with the assistance of AI translation services.