On Thursday, we were lucky enough to have Mr. Brown, the head of the KIT Future Design Institute in Tokyo, to give us a lecture on the ancient Japanese and how they dealt with the many problems they had to face and all the limitations in technology. He talked about how Japanese people were very clean and eco-friendly. Even many of the problems and issues that occur in our everyday lives were present in that era, the difference being that some of the methods that they used to help Japan become a more civilized and sociable community, were different from today’s world. I personally think that some of the methods should be brought back as I feel they are very effective. One of the methods they used that I thought was very smart was composting urine and feces for months so it can be used as a natural fertilizer. From attaining this knowledge I now have more faith in a better future where people are more environmentally friendly and less wasteful.
I think that learning history is very important because by having the knowledge of people’s lifestyle in past, we can not only learn from the people’s methods and beliefs, but we can also learn from their mistakes. The presentation demonstrated that Japanese people were very smart and were very careful about sustainability and inventing things that would last for generations to come. I think that there is some kind of notion that the world is getting smaller because the world is slowly overpopulating and soon earth won’t have enough space and won’t have enough natural resources for the human race to sustain a living on it.
