While putting severe pressure on healthcare systems worldwide and causing a global economic meltdown, the COVID-19 pandemic has created several challenges. One of the core ones is the question of responsibility for vaccination.
In June 2020, the German cabinet introduced a regulation banning certain single-use products made of plastic; the European Union had already introduced a similar regulation in May 2019. In future, the sale of products such as throwaway plastic cutlery, plates, straws and cotton buds will be prohibited.
On the face of it, COVID-19 has changed everything. Suddenly, homeschooling seems to be the new norm and many parents have to tackle a tremendous challenge for which they have hardly been prepared.
How can international climate protection work if the Trumps and Bolsanaros of this world attempt to block it with all their might? Climate protection can only be achieved via joint negotiations and compromises as well as constructive cooperation between the members of the global community.
The Slovak pension, education, and health systems and services should not depend on the government holding power at any given time. Instead, a fundamental political consensus is required. Better than calls from abroad for Slovakia to behave more rationally, the nation itself must come to its senses.
Perceiving, enforcing, and defending freedom requires character traits which need to be taught and trained. Civic and political education has to empower people not just to recognize and comprehend the complexity of the modern lifeworld, but also to master it.
With a sample of 4,000 Slovak students, the Economics Olympiad revealed the most serious weaknesses in economic education of young people. Memorizing is believed to be a long-term problem, but knowledge useful only as a part of quiz shows remains a crucial element of the Slovak education system.
AI and robotics are termed “disruptive technologies”, which sounds somewhat dangerous and fraught with risk. But according to the Fraunhofer Institute for Production Technology, disruptive technologies are simply “innovations which replace a successful, existing technology, product or service or oust it from the market”.
People cannot always decide for themselves whether a message is false or distorted. No one is solely in possession of the final truth. However, getting the facts straight and actively pursuing “counter speech” is a task not only for the media but also for civil society and each individual user.
Most political systems still encourage politicians to promise people to solve the problems at hand with the same tools which created them in the first place: by more spending and more intervention. This, in turn, results in eliminating personal incentives and responsibilities.
