New Edition of Creating a Super Free Society 3: Will it create a new Renaissance?

■ New Edition of Creating a Super Free Society 3: Will it create a new Renaissance?

　Recent book "New Edition of Creating a Super Free Society: After Coronavirus is the Era of Cats." An excerpt is below.

From Chapter 1 "Super Coronavirus Strategy".

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○ Will it create a new Renaissance?

Congratulations. Fushimi Inari, Koyasan, Zenkoji Temple, Naritasan, Tsukiji Hongwanji. Temples and shrines in various places live-streamed the first temple and shrine visits of 2021. New Year's Day crowds were sparse, but the online carnival was bright. Higashi Honganji has made offerings cashless. Shimogamo Shrine made omikuji a QR code. There were Gacha. Some places sell amulet tickets for a fee. Some of these costs are covered by crowdfunding. The New Year's scenery changed. “Carnival” (The Cardigans)

What will be different after Coronavirus than before Coronavirus? The first is decentralized and virtual. It will be an irreversible chemical change in society, and we will not return to the pre-Coronavirus situation. It is also about rebuilding communities and communication digitally.

Humans have been urbanizing for thousands of years. Civilization is the history of cities. The theme was concentration and accumulation. The inhabitants defended themselves with walls. However, in the 14th century, the plague spread within the walls, killing 20% of the world.

War, nuclear weapons, divisive religions, economic crises, all come from civilization. No, no. It's selfish to die then. The enemies of mankind are natural disasters and pathogens. By concentrating in cities, both may shorten our own lives. We have long learned that cities are clusters of germs.

"Attack on Titan" may have been a sign of Coronavirus. The savage civilization you keep within your walls is devoured by ominous giants. The wilderness outside is also the realm of mindless and intelligent giants and enigmatic myths. The inhabitants inside the walls will have no choice but to panic and fight.

IT and transportation were the means of overturning urban concentration into punk. From the latter half of the 20th century to the present century, an advanced information society and a highly mobile society were built. We now have the means to communicate digitally anytime, anywhere, and move anywhere, anytime.

In the 1980s, when I was just starting out as a member of society, I often heard the phrase “do it while here" in the advanced information society theory. With the development of telecommunications, people can work, go to school, shop, and have fun while they are home. Banzai at home. A multi-polar distributed country will be formed by correcting the unipolar concentration in Tokyo. People will leave the city and live in luxury in the countryside.

So what happened? Urban concentration is progressing more and more. The population of Tokyo increased from 10 million in 1962 to 12 million in 2000. Over the next ten years, the number of people increased by 1 million to exceed 14 million. Moreover, it is concentrated in the center.

With the development of IT and transportation, the community sought deeper communication and everyone wanted to be closer. "Do it while here" was a lie. An advanced information society and an advanced mobility society were denied, and a high-density economic society was formed against that prospect. Local distribution? Technology worked in the opposite direction.

Coronavirus is a hammer for that. What? Get away, you guys. Epidemics repeat. Protect yourself with technology. Even if you get it, why don’t you do it? Disperse. Keep your distance. Since the world is connected by IT and transportation, this time the alarm bell will sound not locally but globally. That is the voice I can hear from heaven.

Infection is caused by "concentration and denseness." In order to prevent that, we try to be "distributed and sparse" in IT. Will it stick after Coronavirus? Would you like to say goodbye to the urban civilization you have built over thousands of years and head for the idyllic rural civilization? No, no, that would be an illusion.

Along with the extreme development of IT and transportation that enable decentralization and sparseness, concentration and density have accelerated. I don't think thousands of years of civilization will go backwards any time soon, just because the Coronavirus has sounded the alarm bell. People will still want agglomeration, urban concentration, and smart cities.

However, the online rate and virtual rate should remain high. Telework, which was only 10%, will be able to do about 50%. Only about 10% of universities were able to do digital education, but if they can't do it, they will collapse. It won't be long before the 6% e-commerce rate rises to 20%, which is on par with China.

Universities that have moved to online all at once are starting to see students returning, and hybrid education of virtual + real, online + offline is being explored. Other fields must also design new blends.

Living in the city, close to work and home, secure close and comfortable real + virtual communication and freedom of movement. The era in which centralization and decentralization, denseness and sparseness were opposites has passed, and we are aiming for a society that combines concentration and decentralization, denseness and sparseness through the combination of real and virtual. The new concentrated/dispersed, dense/sparse blend is the "new dense." That new normal should be a better world than before Coronavirus, a world which we choose for ourselves.

In 1996, I wrote a book called “Internet Freedom for Us.” Individuals gain power on the rising net. Expression and transmission will be free, and a TV station with 100 million people will be created. Business will flourish. Overthrow all order. Punk. I want you to set “me” free.

25 years later. Mobile + social has powered up both individuals and organizations. As Professor Negroponte of MIT advocated, the advancement of atoms (real space) to bits (virtual space) has been completed. Business has become digitally driven.

The world's top five companies by market capitalization have become IT companies. Digital is also the main battlefield in the military. The Egyptian system will be overthrown by the connected people, the American president will oppose the mass media on Twitter, China will control the Internet, and the Islamic State will gather overseas young people on the Internet.

"I" became quite free. But my data will be siphoned off by others, and I myself will be monitored by cameras here and there, increasing the degree of control. I wonder if it will fit in a moderate seasoning somewhere. Even so, the Internet is evolving steadily, and AI and blockchain are riding on it, increasing freedom, while nations and regions are strengthening their control, and it is no longer a free paradise.

However, the Internet is still in its early days, a quarter of a century after it began to spread in earnest. It has not reached maturity. What's more, the humans who use it have just stood at the entrance to the digital society, and the etiquette is not fixed.

14th century plague. Is there no heaven? With this, the authority of the church and lords was lowered, the people became stronger, and the Renaissance was born. Art and science were born. The Middle Ages passed and the modern era arrived. So what will the Coronavirus bring? Will Coronavirus give birth to a new Renaissance? What is being born while the earth is struggling now?