Recommendations for an ultra-free society 6: Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me

■Recommendations for an ultra-free society 6: Recommendations for an ultra-free society 5: Quickly do the work for me    

　Try imagining what you would do in an ultra-free society, rather than what other people would do.

　Specialists’ jobs will be taken by specialized AI, and generalists will have the advantage. Try recklessly planning and fantasizing, and polishing your skills. Put on more pairs of straw sandals.

 

　After that, it’s a revolution in the way you play. Distribute your time among e-sports, live comedy, or guerrilla band activities. You’ll read and watch more. Which reminds me - for the past few years, the number of books people read has been steadily falling, but this is because the number of other things people are reading has been going up. That’s because people are reading things like Internet news, columns, aggregator sites, or tweets rapidly and in large amounts.

　According to research by the University of California, San Diego, the spread of the Internet meant that the amount people read tripled from 1980 to 2008. People are becoming even more of reading creatures.

　In the last few years, the number of movies I’ve watched has also decreased. What I mean by “movies” here are those from theater films to theater films converted into films for DVD or Internet transmission. However, the amount of time I’ve spent watching filmed works has significantly increased. This is the fault of - or rather thanks to - Netflix, Hulu and Amazon.

　 “Hibana: Spark” on Netflix was not shown in theaters, so is it a movie or something else? There is a dispute about whether the Cannes Film Festival should recognize Netflix works, but even in the conference on promoting film in the government’s intellectual-property headquarters, the definition of what constitutes a movie and the relationship that it has with media needs to be put in order. Former Tokyo University president Shigehiko Hasumi wrote that “anything not on 35mm film is not a movie”, but by that definition, there are no movies anymore.

　There are many jobs I just wouldn’t be able to do from the start.

　I wouldn’t be able to become a taxi driver. I have confidence in my driving, but my grasp of geographical space like what road to take and how is low, and I would get scolded by the customer. Please head from Akasaka to Hiroo. “Do I go from Aoyama Street to Seijoki Street? Do I pass through Nogizaka? Do I pass through Roppongi?” - to be able to draw out a route map in my head like that and immediately plan out a route is a superpower to me.

　Kyoto was built as an imitation of Xi’an, China. To someone from there, roads exist in a checkered pattern to the north, south, east, and west, and as long as you know your starting point and destination, the distance is fixed no matter which path you take, and you’ll manage somehow as long as you set off. The problem is where north is; if you always look at the mountains at the basin to confirm it, and make sure your first step isn’t wrong, you’ll be fine. In Tokyo, there are no mountains, and the roads are diagonal or form arcs or circles. The roads in Tokyo are ridiculous. You can’t drive on them without being smart.

　I couldn’t be a sommelier either. Burgundy, Bordeaux, Tuscan, Napa Valley, Chile. Pinot Noir, Chardonnay, Cabernet Sauvignon. I don’t know any of these things. I don’t know anything apart from the things you can tell by looking - if it’s white, red, rosé or has bubbles. I can’t create any miraculous pairings of food and wine. This job requires delicate taste buds, the imagination to drag pieces of information out of one’s memory database and hybridize them with one another to match them together, as well as the creativity to recreate those pairings in real life.

　I couldn’t be a teacher either. I have the title of a professor, but I couldn’t teach. The knowledge I have has been put down in writing, so it’s enough for people to read it. What I can do is provide a setting for projects and let people participate and learn there. I can’t do educator-like things. I take my hat off to all the teachers around the world.