I (Kaz) am a native Japanese, born and raised in Japan. Since I was in elementary school (around 1992), I have been questioning the sustainability of society. These concerns weren’t about the surface-level issues like increasing greenhouse gases, pollution, an aging population, or declining academic performance. Rather, they stemmed from the sense of unease I felt regarding the “invisible reasons behind people’s actions or the value of products” that I observed in my parents, friends, their parents, door-to-door salespeople, and advertisements. For example, I felt discomfort when the value system imposed by a friend’s parents seemed baseless, or when the value of products marketed by salespeople was unclear in terms of practical benefit.

My relatives and parents refused to abandon old customs. For example, during my grandmother’s funeral, they invited people with whom they had no personal connection and served them food, strictly following long-standing traditions. Even when I asked my parents why these customs should be observed, I never received a satisfactory answer.

Friends and their parents often blamed me when my friend got hurt in a fight. Without understanding why the fight happened or investigating the circumstances behind the injury, they simply projected their fears onto me. I remember feeling isolated, sad, and powerless, being blamed for something I did not intend, with no outlet for the anger I felt.

One day, a door-to-door salesman suddenly showed up at our house, trying to sell us educational materials or insurance that we neither needed nor wanted. He emphasized how important these materials would be for my future, implying that rejecting them would mean missing out on crucial opportunities. He used excessive fear tactics, offering discount tickets for theme parks and household items as bait, while taking up our precious dinner or gaming time. I felt ashamed of myself and my mother for not being able to turn him away.

On TV, every week, the Super Sentai heroes fought monsters, each time with a new transformation form, weapon, or giant robot, and new toys were released accordingly. Every year, the hero would change, and with that, new toys would be launched in rapid succession. I remember feeling miserable, comparing myself to friends who received those new toys each year while I couldn’t.

As a child, I felt that society was controlled by forces beyond my influence, dominated by adults, and I feared that in scenarios like natural disasters or alien invasions, we powerless individuals might not survive without access to food and energy.

(The fears I had back then have now become a reality in some parts of the world.)

Back then, I couldn’t articulate my doubts properly and feared that something was wrong with my perception, which made me hesitant to speak out. I grew tired of interactions with family and friends and started imagining a future where I would live a self-sufficient life alone. This led me to constantly simulate scenarios in which society collapses seconds later, due to disasters or alien invasions, or if my parents failed to return due to accidents, incidents, or even elopement. How would I survive the next day? I wasn’t interested in school subjects, and instead of actually studying, I spent countless hours at my desk pretending to study, while immersing myself in the realization of my fantasies. I loved technology and often tried to connect it to the worlds depicted in “Back to the Future (1985, Universal Pictures)”, “Iron Man (2008, Marvel Studios/Paramount Pictures)”, and “Big Hero 6 (2014, Walt Disney Animation Studios).”

Furthermore, I thought that all natural phenomena could be simulated on a computer, and that if the laws of energy were programmed correctly, an autonomous universe-like world could be created. If this was possible, I started to think that maybe our world itself was a computer simulation, and that we were being kept alive for someone else’s benefit.

These thoughts were depicted in movies like “The Matrix (1999, Warner Bros.)” and the game “Star Ocean 3 (2003, Square Enix)”. I felt reassured knowing there were others who thought similarly, but at the same time, I envied those who managed to bring these ideas to life.

(Frustratingly, with the advent of technologies like 3D printers, generative AI, AlphaFold, and materials informatics, these fantasies are gradually becoming a reality.)

This drove me to believe that there must be something I could contribute as well.

At that time, personal computers (such as IBM’s PC/AT or Apple’s Macintosh) were too expensive for a poor family like ours. However, in Japan, we had the Family Computer (Famicom) from Nintendo. It had been in our house since I could remember, allowing me to immerse myself in the digital world of Super Mario. A little later, I was one of the first to experience iconic Japanese series like Dragon Quest, Final Fantasy, and Pokémon. I was fascinated by identifying the enemy (or goal), understanding the effects of different skills, weapons, and items, and finding ways to achieve the goal with fewer resources than my friends.