Civilization Design, by Moowoo Sunborg, DMI 2016 Conference presantation

1. Civilization Design
Conceptual & Theoretical Framework
MooWoo S.P. Park
m.sunborg@gmail.com
D.FLEX Institute
www.dflexinstitute.org

3. Red Button●Comics.com
• Think and Think !
• At last, one of the greatest ideas in human
evolution !
Civilization Design !

4. What is Civilization ?
• Civilization is the state of a subset of
human race which is substantially
affected by certain media, and, as a
result, displays crucial changes in
Perceptual Sense Ratio of the subset
members as a whole.

5. What is Civilization? (easy version)
• Civilization is all about technology.
• C is all about interaction between technology and
HUMAN
• Technology = Media
• C is all about interaction between MEDIA and HUMAN
• ref. McLuhan : Media are extensions of HUMAN
• eg. car, clothing, housing, book
• McLuhan-Moo∞ ("無") Media (“MM Media”)
ref. Moo∞ ("無") is Nothing / origin of Everything
MM MEDIA are Everything made by HUMAN

6. What is C? (easy version cont’d)
• MEDIA are extensions of HUMAN
• Then, MEDIA = Human-Self / Alter Ego
• C is all about interaction between you and
(artificial) yourself – another “YOU”, alter ego !
• ref. AI is Alter Ego of HUMAN? YES !
• Then, you don’t have to be afraid of AI !
• Be afraid of MEN who use AI for automation
which scraps away every your job !

7. What is Civilization Design ?
• Civilization Design is an extensively
interdisciplinary research domain to
search for the ways to maintain an
equilibrium between media impact and
human capacity to fully utilize media
and effectively react to the impact.

8. What is Civilization Design ? (cont’d)
• More practically,
Civilization Design is a research
domain to search for an optimal
MM Media Mix which enables a
community to maintain or
accomplish balanced Perceptual
Sense Ratio.

9. What is Civilization Design (cont’d)
• More precisely, Civilization Design is a
research domain to search for the
optimum between MM Media
(Technology) and MM Technic (Art),
which enables a community to maintain
or accomplish balanced Perceptual Sense
Ratio.
ref. Lewis Mumford : “Technics and Civilization”
Mumford-Moo∞ ("無") Technic (“MM Technic” /
“生技術”)

10. What is Civilization Design?
Civilization Design
Media-Sense
Interaction (MSI)
Research
MM Media &
MM Technic
Equilibrium
Social Design
Sustainability
Perceptual Sense
Cannibalization
(PSC)
Sensual Paralysis
Trap
Passive Node
Trap
Awakening,
Recovery and
Revival of Sense
and Sensibility
Critical Path
“Small is Beautiful”
(E.F. Schumacher)
“The End of Work”
“European Dream”
(Jeremy Rifkin)
“The Third Way”
(Anthony Giddens)
Disciplined Flexibility (中庸)

11. Civilization Lifecycle Hypothesis
Media-driven
Civilization Lifecycle Hypothesis
• Intersensory Media Civilization
• Reductive Media Civilization
• Electronic Media Civilization (Chinese Mobile
Civilization)

12. Reductive Media
Reduction / Reductionism
• To divide and divide to the smallest parts and
re-assemble the parts
Reductive Media
• Alphabet
• Gutenberg’s Movable Type Printing
• Products by Interchangeable parts-mass
production system : Car, Gun, Apartment

13. Gutenberg’s Movable Type Printing (1439)
The First Mass Production System
Lewis Mumford

14. Reductive Media Utopia
UTOPIA
• Equality by voting right
• Escape from Hunger, Epidemic and War
R-MEDIA UTOPIA
• Standardization
Interchangeable Part-based Mass Production
Blind Faith in Global Standard
• Identical Thinking and Behavior
• “American Dream” as National Identity
• Cultural Diversity Hampered
• No change in Social Hierarchy: Winner-Take-All Society
• Flexibility Limited (Low D.FLEX)

15. Chinese Mobile Civilization
Survey on Chinese usage
of PC, tablet and smart phone
• 99.9 % of youngsters in their 20s never used
PC during a month preceding the survey.

16. Chinese Mobile Civilization

17. Chinese Mobile Civilization
American Civilization
• 200 years since 1790s
• Eli Whitney – Interchangeable Parts – Mass
Production (Musket)
• Oliver Evans – Full Automation with No Human
Hands (Flour Mill)
Chinese Mobile Civilization
• Expected Lifecycle : Less than 100 years

19. Lifecycle : Civilization vs Human
Chinese Mobile Civilization Lifecycle
Less than 100 years
Life Expectancy of Newly-born Baby
142 years
Civilization Lifecycle < Human Lifecycle
So, we need Civilization Design !
After all, you have to make a plan for your child!

21. Media-Sense Interaction (MSI)
• Media Impact on Perceptual Sense
• Humans create Media, Media transform Humans.
ref. Human-Computer Interaction (HCI)
• Perceptual Sense Cannibalization (PSC)
ref. Product Cannibalization
eg. iPhone cannibalized iPod.
eg. Steve Jobs said “Cannibalize yourself.
If you don’t, someone else will.”

22. Case 1. Perfect Pitch
Table 1. Ratio of Students with Perfect Pitch among
Music Conservatory Students
Start Music Training English Speakers Chinese Speakers and
Other Tone Language
Speakers
At or before Age 5 8% 92%
Between Ages
6 and 9
1% 67%

23. Case 1. Perfect Pitch (cont’d)
TEST ANALYSIS
• English Speaker - Perfect Pitch Sense Cannibalized
(American Adult : 1 in 10,000)
• Alphabet (Reductive Media) eliminated the need for
perfect pitch (tone).

24. Case 2. Color Blind
COLOR Blind
• Red and Green Color Blind
• 1 in 20 Men and 1 in 200 Women in America are Color
Blind.
IMPLICATION
• A part of Color Sense Cannibalized
• Skewed Visual Sense
• Inference – Visual sense has been restructured
(reorganized) to focus on linear pattern (book),
perspective pattern (city, road) and risk factors (risky
media) including car and gun.

25. Sensual Paralysis Trap
HISTORY of American Civilization
Consistent and Relentless Media Impacts Bombing
Perceptual Senses
• Eg. cotton gin, gun, watch, sewing machine, car, electric light, skyscraper, telephone, movie,
gramophone, AC/DC electricity, elevator, escalator, refrigerator, typewriter, fax, space rocket,
nuclear weapon, high-speed train, camera, camcoder, computer, CD player, printer, PC, razor
printer, internet, 3D printer, social networking service, smart phone, robot, AI, etc.
RESULT
• Excessive Perceptual Sense Cannibalization
• Sensual Paralysis of Community, Society and Country as a
whole
• Autism, loss of sexual instinct, communication problem
• Reductive Media Utopia

26. Passive Node Trap
Susan Greenfield :Tomorrow’s People / ID
• Passive Node to receive information from and send
to internet all the time
• Brains of youngsters addicted to computer games are
similar to those of old people suffering from
Alzheimer’s Disease.
Survey: Chinese usage of PC, tablet, smart phone
• 99.9 % of youngsters in their 20s never used PC
during a month preceding the survey

28. Disciplined Flexibility
Disciplined Flexibility (D.FLEX, 節制柔軟性=中庸)
• New Name of “中庸” - Philosophical idea created by
Confucius, which has been absolutely misunderstood
as taking middle of the road.
D.FLEX : Guiding Principle of Civilization Design and
Everything
• NATURE is origin of Flexibility.
• Sense is interface between Human and Nature.

29. Media & Network Convergence
• D.FLEX links Media Theory & Network Theory.
Network Theory Perspective
• Sustainability : A kind of “Controllability” toward a
certain direction
D.FLEX is true Sustainability.
• Ever-continuing emergence of new modules
(community in society)
• Ever-changing hierarchy among old and new
modules

30. Conclusion
Goodbye Sustainability, Hello Disciplined Flexibility !
McLuhan-Moo∞ ("無") Media (“MM Media”) Mix
Mumford-Moo∞ ("無") Technic (“MM Technic” /
“生技術”)
D.FLEX teaches MM Media Mix and MM Technic.
Ride on Megatrend of R-Media Cannibalization !
How to cannibalize CAR?
How to cannibalize GUN?

32. Conclusion (cont’d)
European Civilization Design
• Goodbye EU (R-Media Utopia), Welcome Brexit !
• Electronic media already changed the world into
Global Village – worldwide unification, making EU
a Redundancy.
• Sovereignty is the option for the highest risk-
taking.
• Option is Flexibility. Shake Up !
• Revival of Sense and Sensibility (Cultural Diversity)

34. EC Dilemma
Red Button●Comics (see the previous page)
• THE LAST SUPPER for EC served by MooWoo
It's time for the last decision.
This is a DILEMMA bomb.
If all of us push 13 red buttons together
exactly at the same time,
the world will be a paradise without any DILEMMA,
and all of us will be Gods.
But, if anyone doesn't push the red button,
all of us except the betrayer will go to hell.

35. Conclusion (cont’d)
Chinese Civilization Design
• Double Impacts (R & E-Media) Now
• Double Traps (Sensual Paralysis & Passive Node Traps)
Ahead
• Revival of Disciplined Flexibility (中庸) as national
philosophical foundation
American Civilization Design
• Cannibalize Yourself ! If not, someone else will do.
(Steve Jobs)

36. Design School Crisis
• Products and Services Cannibalized by New
Media and Automation
• Eg. watch, telephone, public telephone system, movie theater,
gramophone, typewriter, fax, post office system, calculator, camera,
camcoder, computer, CD player, off-line music distribution network,
printer, PC, credit card, branch-based banking system, etc.
• Media Cannibalization
• Civilization Cannibalization
• Advances in Science and Technology far
overshadow Design Research and Innovation

37. Business School Crisis
• Together with Product and Service
Cannibalization, Management Positions are
vanishing.
• Most knowledge presented by Business
Schools became plain vanilla.

38. Crisis Management
Civilization Design is a Breakthrough !
• New Truly Interdisciplinary Study
media and communication theory, network
theory, cognitive science, brain science, evolution
theory, biology, medical research, etc.
• New Principle : Disciplined Flexibility
Ancient Chinese Philosophy revived
to be principle of everything
• New Business & Design Management Curriculum for
Multidisciplinary Research