NOTE108|電経新聞

NOTE108

I found the book “Techno-Libertarian” (written by Tachibana Rei, published by Bunshun Shinsho) very interesting. The book focuses on the mentality of entrepreneurs active in Silicon Valley, including GAFA. It explores the reasons why they are able to expand their businesses on such a large scale. The book states that whether it is Elon Musk or venture capitalist Peter Thiel, what is at the bottom of their hearts is, surprisingly, despair towards the real world.
They are all smart. In terms of IQ, they are geniuses with an IQ of over 80. From an ordinary person like me, I can only envy them for their intelligence, but it seems that they are suffering immensely. They cannot get along with the people around them, are constantly plagued by misunderstandings and discrepancies, and unconsciously become pessimistic.
To escape from such a hopeless situation, they dream of a new world. One of them is cyberspace. They want to create a new world in cyberspace where there is no despair or danger, where true freedom is guaranteed, and live there. They truly believe this. So even if they have amassed enormous wealth, they will continue to forge ahead in pursuit of true freedom. In short, it is not a question of money, but of ideas. Because true freedom is their goal, they will expand in scale and become greedy in developing technology to realize it.
On the other hand, the book suggests that they have already given up on cyberspace. This is because cyberspace, like the real world, has become a world of despair and danger, far from true freedom. The fact that they are now turning their focus to space development is proof of this, and perhaps they are trying to create a new world in outer space where there is no despair or danger, and true freedom is assured. Since the goal is not money, status, or curiosity, but true freedom, the scale of space development will also expand.
Conversely, if one becomes caught up in immediate gains and losses, the scale will inevitably become smaller. Without ideas or philosophy at the base, it cannot have a large scale. (Kei Kitajima)

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