My comments on COVID-19, Part 2: Your Generation

 ■My comments on COVID-19, Part 2: Your Generation

Since I was so free and had so much time due to the stay-home by the coronavirus, I watched "My Generation" directed by David Bhatti.

The 1960s was a time when the younger generation smashed the old system. Not only in London, but around the world. Not only music, but also movies, fashion, and politics. Yes, and universities, too. What made them do it? Economic growth, population explosion, urban concentration, industrialization, media evolution, and democratization. At least it wasn't because of the plague.

What will be different after the pandemic from pre-COVID-19 era? The first would be distribution and virtualization. It will be an irreversible chemical change in society, and there will be no return to pre-COVID-19 world. It also means that community and communication will be rebuilt. 

Over the millennia, humans have been urbanizing. Civilization is the history of cities. The theme was concentration and accumulation. The residents protected themselves with city walls. However, that's why the plague spread within the walls, and by the 14th century, 20% of the world's population was dead. Wars, nuclear weapons, religions that cause conflicts, and economic depressions are all the result of civilization. If you die from it, you deserve it. The enemies of humanity are natural disasters and pathogens. All of them may shorten their own lives by concentrating in cities. Cities have learned that clusters of pathogens might happen. 

The "Attack on Titan" which depicts another civilization, may have been a sign of COVID-19. The uncivilized civilization that keeps within the city walls is being devoured by creepy titans. The wilderness outside the walls is also the territory of unintelligent titans, intelligent titans, and unknowable myths. The residents living inside the wall are reeling and have no choice but to fight.

IT and transportation were the means to completely turn over the urban concentration at once. From the latter half of the 20th century to the present century, an advanced information society and a highly mobile society have been constructed. We now have the means to communicate anytime, anywhere, and to travel anywhere, anytime. It has given us the prospect of leaving a city and spending an elegant time in a countryside.

So, what happened? More and more cities are becoming concentrated further. Tokyo has seen an increase of 2 million people over the past 36 years since 1980, and we have seen severe concentration of those people especially in the central part of Tokyo. Once IT and transportation were developed, the community wanted more intense communication, and everyone wanted to be closer. The advanced information society and the highly mobile society were denied, and in spite of this prospect, a high-density economic society was formed. Decentralization? Technology has worked in the opposite direction.

COVID-19 is bringing down the hammer on it. You guys, get away from it. The plague repeats itself. Protect yourself with technology. You know it, so why don't you do it. Disperse. Keep your distance. Make the clusters smaller. Since the world is connected by IT and transportation, this time the alarm should be sounded not locally, but globally. That is the voice I hear from the above. 

I came to my senses and looked around. People around me started working virtually by teleworking. People started to work at home. Urbanization has brought us closer to jobs and housing, but that's not good enough. Why can’t we have our jobs and housing at the same place? Why have we put ourselves through commuting hell? Why did we choose to go along with boring drinking parties of our bosses? Just an internet drinking party would do. We didn't need paper or a Inkan stamps. I feel like an idiot for spending redundant time in a conference room. I could have had meetings and drinks at the same time if I had a few terminals. I can't go back to pre-COVID-19 world.

I am sure we have something that we lose due to the coronavirus. I was hoping for economic growth relying on inbound, but it may not come back for a while. I've been trying to grow an urban live event, but I may not be back for a while. We need a new design for post-COVID-19 world. 

I'll tell you my story. It's about a story when I was in a university. I think the coronavirus will destroy universities I've just established a university, and maybe It is not quite right to say this, but I think it would be a good idea to destroy them.

Nowadays, online education and online teaching materials are being presented one after another all over the world. A number of prominent professors from prominent universities are also working on this, constantly uploading various materials. Japan also has local elementary and junior high school teachers (world-class excellent teachers) who are uploading their lessons on the internet. This works well for traditional teaching. 

No more individual teachers using a single textbook and individually copying it into their students' heads. Instead, students just watch the videos that the world's best teachers have uploaded on the internet. But teachers at school are important. Based on the recognition, we all think together, discuss together, and create together. Teachers become facilitators, not a person to just teach or to give information. The world that IT introduction to education has been aiming for is finally coming true.

Then, a list of certificates from various online courses would be more valuable than a university diploma. Learning history on the Internet carries more weight than the world in the classroom. The school becomes a place to "create” something.

Such a world should be coming in five years. I really hope it comes quickly. I want to use iU as a platform for this purpose. I want to create a virtual school coalition called "Super School," to accelerate the response to the new world.

After the coronavirus pandemic, the landscape should be changed in all areas. There are some areas where things should go back to the way they originally were before the pandemic. However, there must be many areas where things will move forward at once without undoing anything. I have a feeling that the latter will occupy a pivotal place in society. I want to endorse it.

If that is going to happen, what we need to do in anticipation of this is to get rid of the generation that cannot keep up with these changes, and to transfer the post-COVID-19 world to the younger generations. How do we design post-COVID-19 er, or what we call it Reiwa? I think that is the mission of people who were born in Heisei era. I will comply with the new design, and I hope they will come up with an awesome blueprint.

I was so free that I saw My Generation. That was my comments on it