When I was studying physics as an undergraduate at the university, I wrote an essay arguing for the necessity of reducing the cost of international phone calls. The argument was that the borders of nations could be defined in terms of the "connectivity" of the graphs representing information flow. Within the borders of a nation state a dense connection of information exchange was to be found, whereas there was less information flow across the border.
I did not take the borders of nations as an a priori entity. By making more information flow over the national borders, I hoped to dissolve the difference and conflicts between the nation states. A dramatic reduction in the cost of phone bills seemed to be a good strategy to that end. I even argued for the involvement of international organization such as the united nations to bring about that change.
What I did not anticipate at that time was, of course, the advent of the internet. The 20 years old I was arguing to introduce a "flat rate" system for domestic and international calls, as a moral requirement in the global age. The flat rate for information flow has been more or less actualized. Using the internet, it is now possible for us to communicate without necessarily being aware of the national borders.
If there is to be a single nominee for the Nobel Peace Prize, Mr. Internet should be the most appropriate candidate.
4 comments:
Dr. Mogi, you are nominated a posteriori for Nobel Peace Prize, for your brazen and youthful offense of attempting to up-end the capitalist system.
The Internet help people who live abroad can talk to their family or friends while looking at their face. They don't need to be worried about the fee, and it makes people happy.
That is how I feel from my experience.
I think we should make good use of the Internet and enlarge happiness or possibility.
Thank you for your wonderful entry!
I agree that the internet is clearly one of the most important inventions in the history of mankind and we are probably in the midst of a revolutionary shift in our communicative/sociological paradigm at a global level. Living in Japan however, I remained deeply worried over whether our country is at all capable of successfully adapting to this dramatic change. Two correlated factors need to be brought up: One, the inevitable fact that much of the fundamental communication in this country has predominantly been about "indirectness" and two, we are just so allergic to proactively adopting/applying the ways of international (aka English) communication. I view the fundamental issue at hand being the delusion (often taken as a discriminative concept) that we the Japanese, are people who are all aboard our own independent "ship", apart from (if not voluntarily isolated from) other ships, and that we are all obligated to remain on this ship, still after all these years afraid to become the "stake" sticking out. To make matters worse, as "conservatism" has never taken root in our country in its truest sense (my view is that we have always been "flexible (or irresolute, wavering and perhaps frivolous)", we do not have any subjective wisdom to actually guide and navigate our delusional ship and are consequently in lack of competent officers and crew with meaningful knowledge and experience to steer our vessel. Meanwhile, we fail to grasp the actual reality that every one of us is actually swimming alone, we are actually free to swim anywhere we like, and that we probably need to infact acquire the skills to swim anywhere we like and start "directly" communicating with others swimming in the sea as our only means of survival, otherwise we are all destined to be trapped by our own delusion and sink on the Titanic altogether, both from a psychological and economic standpoint. I strongly believe it is critical for our country to establish, as our first step, a correct understanding of the significance of the internet and how we should make appropriate use of it and accordingly change our individual ways of life.
SK
Dear: Mr.Mogi
I agree with you. One of my best friend is in Austraria.
How wonderful to talk with her on skype. We can see each other naturally. It is so good feeling for me, I
don't loose my anything with good friends. I think a great number of people are same as me.
I wish it use more and more for peace in the world.
I am impressed with your shadow peace.
Thank you so much.
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