THE YEAR THAT WAS

IWONDER what an alien might think if it were sitting on a hoverboard just south of the Supermoon, watching the events of 2016 unfold on earth below it.

Chances are it would have no idea what in the universe is going on here and as a visitor from outer space it’s likely to be technologically ahead by a few light years but even still I bet it wouldn’t be able to play first person shooter games with ‘gore’ settings online, download ‘kiddy porn’ to their phones or watch travesties like Aleppo unfold on a Tweetable daily basis and feel powerless to do anything about it.

When I was at uni studying communications decades ago, we dissected the Hawke government’s Minister for Science Barry Jones’s book “Sleepers Wake: Technology and the Future of Work”.

One of the key premises of the 1982 book was that ”in the future” nations, regions and people would face unique threats and opportunities because of rapid advances in science and technology.

We are living in that future he wrote of and science and technology certainly come to the fore in 2016.

Data breaches (hacks) this year included the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, U.S. Department of Justice, the US Internal Revenue Service, Snapchat, the Philippine Commission on Elections, Yahoo, Hotmail and Gmail, Linkedin, Dropbox, the National Payment Corporation of India, Cisco… “those” emails.

With a shift in the journalism industry to an increasingly online forum so too has there been significant changes to how communities get news and information.

Sadly the rise of misinformation is now a symptom of our digital connectedness. Where a Chinese Whisper can, and has, whipped people into a frenzy over information proven to be completely false, fuelling racism and homophobia.

There is so much information out there, 2016 felt like the cup runneth over. Some of it is mind blowingly amazing, like being able to watch from the couch NASA TV streaming live vision of astronauts doing repairs to the space station and yet some of it is disappointingly ordinary, where cases of online bullying have driven youth to suicide or death cults spread their message of hate with images and films of gut-wrenching depravity.

Science and technology have given us a window this year into some troubling home truths, like the Panama Papers and the realities of Climate Change.

We know what president elects are thinking at three in the morning via Twitter, military might fights wars from afar using gaming technology and drones, humanoid robots came onto the market … and the future rushes in.

There was a sense this year that the changes technology brings is all happening far too fast.

And yet, the problems of yesterday still remain unsolved, war, displaced people (68 million), disease (Zika virus, Ebola, Anthrax), terrorism (suicide bombings) and environmental disasters (earthquakes, pollution). Thankfully it hasn’t all been doom and gloom. The first ever flower was grown in space, a zinnia, Myanmar’s first freely elected parliament in 50 years had it’s opening session, Jeb Bush suspended his presidential campaign, Ted Cruz suspended his campaign to be the Republican Presidential nominee, we had Pokemon Go (well it was fun for a day or two) and Leonardo Dicaprio FINALLY won an academy award.

“Muslims, Mexicans, China, the political establishment, the media, women’s rights and gun control lobbyists were all targets of Trump’s fear mongering.” – Greg Smart