📚Series: Unorganized and Fragments: In a World Becoming Unmanned, We Are Losing Our Names

Lead Paragraph

Unmanned registers, self-check-ins, and so on—procedures where no face is seen.
What are we losing now in exchange for "convenience"?
Systems are safe and rational.
However, people cannot live solely within systems.
What appears in that fault line is the strange and important term: "proper name".

Table of Contents

1. In a World Where Unmanned Systems Are Advancing

2. Proper Names Cannot Be Translated

3. A Small Fable That Happened at a Bank

4. Moral Hazard Created by Systems

5. Why the Generative Side Is Suppressed

6. Systems Identify People, but Proper Names Make People Exist

Main Text

1. In a World Where Unmanned Systems Are Advancing

Now, unmanned systems are advancing everywhere.
There are no people at registers or service counters.
What identifies me is not my face or my name, but just a single credit card.

This mechanism is efficient and safe.
But at the same time, "I" as a person have become merely a point of passage.

2. Proper Names Cannot Be Translated

Proper names are mysterious words.
For example, "Taro Suzuki" is "Taro Suzuki" in any linguistic world and cannot be translated.

While common nouns carry meaning, proper names have no meaning.
Even so, proper names point to people, call them, and initiate relationships.
A proper name is not a meaning, but aword that lets existence pass into the world.

3. A Small Fable That Happened at a Bank

There is a story like this.

One day, at a bank counter, the teller looked at a man's face and said,
"Mr. Sato, it's been a while. How can I help you today?"

The man replies,
"I lost my card, so I would like to request a reissue."

Then the bank clerk says, in a businesslike manner:
"Please provide something that can verify your identity."

The man pauses for a moment and replies:
"You just said, 'Long time no see, Mr. Sato,' didn't you?
Isn't that identity verification?"

But the clerk says with a troubled look:
"Even if you say that, according to the system, I need identity verification documents."

4. Moral Hazard Created by Systems

There is no malice in this exchange.
Systems were created for safety and have been strengthened to protect humanity.

However, what is happening as a result is the
invalidation of the human capacity to 'know'.

Even if you know, you cannot use it.
Even if you see it, it cannot serve as evidence.
Not making a judgment becomes 'correctness'.

This is a modern form of moral hazard.

5. Why the Generative Side is Suppressed

People cannot live solely within systems.
That is something everyone understands.

But the generative side—
calling someone by name, accepting context, allowing for ambiguity—
these things cannot be measured, recorded, or have responsibility clearly assigned.

Therefore, the system does not deny them, but rather
pretends they do not exist.

6. Systems Identify People, but Proper Names Make People Exist

Systems identify people.
That is essential for society.

However, proper names make people exist.
They make the fact that this person is here known to the world.

As unmanned processes advance, proper names become unnecessary.
But at the same time, people become 'beings who are not called'.

Afterword

This is not a critique of systems.
It is about the fact that systems alone are not enough.

For people to live, they need not only to be identified, but to be called.
I believe the smallest unit of that is the proper name.

Keyword Explanation within the Article

• Proper Noun
  A name that has no meaning and points directly to an existence. It cannot be translated.

• System
  A mechanism for identifying and managing people for the sake of safety and order.

• Generation Side
  A human domain where relationships and meanings arise on the spot.

• Moral Hazard (in the context of this article)
  A phenomenon where human judgment ability degenerates because systems take over the burden of decision-making.