英語教育への120万円投資/ 翻訳の初仕事 / SNS映えするディストピア動画 / ロビン・ダンバー / 絆を維持する不確実性の震え / 言語は毛繕いの進化形 / 会話の7割はゴシップ / News Feed Eradicator / 2ヶ月のプチ移住でキャラ変 / 好きな自分でいられる街に住む / 猿とエンドルフィン、などなど 質問：ロンドンは治安悪化が顕著ですが、今後も住み続ける場所として、どう感じますか？ 今後定住するのであればどこがいい、などあれば教えていただきたいです。映える治安の悪さの正体 SNSのアテンションエコノミーが生み出す「都市の終焉」という記号。刺激的な情報に私たちが翻弄されてしまう理由を、人類学者ロビン・ダンバーの理論から紐解きます。 言語は声による毛繕いである なぜ人間はこれほどまでに噂話やゴシップに惹かれるのか？生存戦略としての「言語的毛繕い」が、私たちの脳に与える影響とは。不要な情報をカットする拡張機能も紹介。https://chromewebstore.google.com/detail/news-feed-eradicator/fjcldmjmjhkklehbacihaiopjklihlgg 住む場所を変えるのはキャラ変に近い 私がロンドンに住み続けたいのはこの街が「好きな自分でいられる場所」だから。マリオカートでキャラを選ぶように、自分の特性が一番活きる「ハードウェア（環境）」を選ぶ重要性。 「世界を動かしているのはアインシュタインの知恵ではなく、日々の取り留めのない噂話である私たちは社会的な生き物として、どの環境で、誰と、どんな話を紡ぐべきか？質問はこちらから受付中https://note.com/riekimoto_harken/n/nfaee4c5260bfThe radio programme is in Japanese with a script, and below is the English summary. Today, I want to address a question from Monkichi-san "London's safety is said to be deteriorating, how do you feel about continuing to live there? And if you were to settle somewhere permanently, where would that be?" Is London's safety actually getting worse? I get asked about London’s deteriorating safety quite often, but there’s a pretty significant gap between what I experience living here and the terrifying picture of London that gets amplified through social media. This makes me think of a dystopian NONSENSE video on Threads, showing what was described as a “declining and decaying London.” In this post, this Japanese guy said, Can you still call this a “developed country”?From London, you can see several “Fourth Worlds”…First World: developed countriesSecond World: communismThird World: developing countriesFourth World: below the Third World, left behind economically and socially excluded, traditional regions. My guess is it was probably the temporary chaos after some kind of market or pop-up event, but on social media, that fragment gets transformed into a dramatic symbol of “the collapse of an entire city.” We get so drawn in by this kind of “aesthetically compelling lawlessness.” I find myself overreacting to ICE-related news from the US, too, so I’m not immune to this. In the attention economy, shocking information like this just naturally spreads faster. Robin Dunbar and the Evolution of "Linguistic Grooming" A clue to why we are so drawn to gossip and shocking news comes from British anthropologist Robin Dunbar’s work on primate grooming. For primates, grooming is far more than basic hygiene, it’s a survival strategy. The act of fingers moving across skin, with its subtle and unpredictable sensations, triggers the release of endorphins in the brain, acting as a powerful social glue that holds groups together. However, in communities of around 150 people, the scale Dunbar identifies as the limit for maintaining smooth relationships (now known as “Dunbar’s number”) , physically grooming everyone would simply be impossible. There aren’t enough hours in the day. Language as “Vocal Grooming” The solution invented to resolve this impossibility was language: an efficient substitute for grooming. Language enables one-to-many communication, generating social bonds without any physical contact, which is quite remarkable when you think about it. According to Dunbar’s analysis, the tipping point in language evolution coincides with the period when grooming began consuming more than 30% of the day. With hunting, sleeping, and everything else to attend to, there simply wasn’t time to keep grooming. As it turns out, roughly 70% of everyday conversation consists of gossip and rumour. If being human is all about talking, it’s the tittle-tattle of life that makes the world go round, not the pearls of wisdom that fall from the lips of the Aristotles and the Einsteins. We are social beings, and our world - no less than that of the monkeys and apes - is cocooned in the interests andminu tiae of everyday social life. Dunbar, R. (1996) Grooming, gossip and the evolution of language The seemingly trivial gossip of everyday life was, in fact, an indispensable tool for identifying who could be trusted and who posed a threat, a way of maintaining the safety of the community. Because social media amplifies this unnecessarily, strange things end up happening. I use this chrome extension that completely hides my feed when posting on social media. If you want to post for whatever reason but don't want to get distracted by random viral content, I'd highly recommend it (This is just a personal recommendation, with no affiliate links or sponsorship). Migration: Choosing a Place Where You Can Be Your Favourite Self As for the remaining part of the question, “How do you feel about continuing to live there? And where would you settle permanently?”, my answer is: I want to stay in London. (An immediate, enthusiastic yes.) The reason, as I wrote in my book, is simply that this city is a place where I can be the version of myself I actually like. London’s characteristically grey weather carries none of that relentless pressure to be cheerful. There’s something deeply satisfying about sitting under a dim sky, surrounded by the warm glow of library lights, coffee in hand, studying. It just feels right. The city is also beautiful enough that I naturally find myself walking ten thousand steps a day. And it has this quality of feeling both rural and urban at the same time — so there are genuine opportunities to meet people, while also feeling like you’ve retreated somewhere quiet. It’s a place where you can move between feeling like a hermit in the woods and a person very much in the middle of a city. That back-and-forth suits me perfectly. Try Becoming a Different Character by Changing Where You Live The kind of moving I’m talking about here isn’t limited to relocating abroad or across Europe. It includes things like shifting to a different neighbourhood within the same prefecture, or moving from Tokyo to a regional city. Changing where you live is a bit like updating your own hardware. Just like switching characters in a game, think Mario Kart or Smash Bros, where each character comes with different weight, speed, and traits, the same person can find their personality and daily rhythm shifting dramatically depending on where they are. For me personally, heavy characters like Bowser or Donkey Kong are too unwieldy, I can’t control them well enough to win. But with Peach or Yoshi, suddenly I can. It clicks. The place you were born into isn’t necessarily the setting where you perform at your best. So wouldn’t it be great if people had the chance to try things out with that same lightness you feel when cycling through characters in Mario Kart, something like a two-month trial relocation, just to see how it feels? This is a public episode. If you would like to discuss this with other subscribers or get access to bonus episodes, visit riekimoto.substack.com
