Скачать или смотреть How an 1875 Document Controls Your Digital Life #3

Your last name feels personal, but what if it's not? What if it's a piece of technology, invented by a government to make you searchable, taxable, and controllable? This is the hidden history of the surname.

We travel back to Meiji-era Japan, 1875. We watch as a fisherman, who has never needed a last name, is forced to choose one. He looks out a window, sees a mountain, and in that instant, 'Yamazaki' is born—not from family history, but from a bureaucratic demand. His choice, made under pressure, becomes a permanent piece of data.

This single moment is a key to a global story. From a 1539 French law that stopped names from changing, to a Habsburg decree that sold flattering names to the rich and branded others with insults, to a catalog of surnames handed out alphabetically in the Philippines. This is how states learned to see their citizens.

This isn't just history. The same logic that turned a person into a line in a ledger now powers our digital world. The koseki became the social security number; the scribe's brush became the blinking cursor on a sign-up form. Discover the startling connection between an ancient piece of paper and your online identity.



00:02:14 A man is standing at that desk
00:05:58 And even more crucially it standardizes the
00:08:24 But if you were poor Or if
00:11:13 So he devises a solution that is
00:13:41 Even brand new nations forged in the
00:15:48 When you really step back and look

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history, documentary, surnames