Post nuke effect expired
The idea that Japan was ever more technologically advanced than the US is a tough argument to make. Perhaps they had better consumer and transportation technologies, but the US led the world in nearly all other forms of technology (see silicon valley, NASA, US defense technology, etc). It’s cool the hate on the US but there’s a reason it was the world super power for decades. It’s too bad it’s turning into an anti-science christo-facist kelptocracy.
I think it’s mostly that they did way better than the US in terms of making many consumer technology products widely available at a higher quality and better cost than the US did. Like, Japanese brands were huge for televisions, audio equipment and similar goods. I can think of several that were the go to brands for TVs when I was growing up, but I can’t think of a single US-based manufacturer, even a crappy one.
They also did way better in terms of building out internet access and public transport than the US has done.
It might only be within a few limited sectors, but when those sectors account for the vast majority of peoples’ interactions with technology, it’s going to have a far greater impact on their perceptions of relative advancement.
Also, in the pre-internet days, it probably helped that non-Japanese people largely didn’t see all the ways that Japan can be an extremely conservative country, like their reliance on fax machines long after pretty much every other country with the means to do so had almost entirely left them behind as obsolete.
RCA, Westinghouse, and Zenith used to be big American TV manufacturers. Westinghouse and zenith were the cheaper brands, but RCA used to make some high end models.
I mean, I know there had to have been some, but 2/3 of those are out of business and weren’t competitive with their Japanese rivals, while Zenith’s most recent “notable product” on Wikipedia dates from the 1970s and has been a subsidiary of a Korean company for nearly 30 years.
And Curtis Mathis
yahoo, billion dollar missiles!
You go back far enough and you’ll find every country did horrible things or stolelands or killed half their citizens etc.
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to be fair it’s always been a kleptocracy. literally founded on stolen land, with stolen labor. even after emancipation it kept the stolen labor tradition alive til now with increasing intensity.
honestly youd be pretty hard pressed to find a country now that wasnt previously stolen
different degrees, but yeah pretty much all land has been taken by force. still is. the difference is how though.
Sure but the scale and recency of European colonialism certainly leaves a bad taste in many people’s mouths, even the descendants of colonists.
Many are also put off by European and its new world colony’s claims of moral supremacy over those victimized by colonization, especially as it was the birthplace of nazi-ism and countless genocides.
So I agree with you. Humans have been nafarious for a long time. But I think many see the legacy of European colonialism and the Trans Atlantic slave trade as an atrocity at a scale never before seen in human history.
Eh, they seemed to have better access to new tech like phones, though most of that seems to have shifted to Korea these days.
The tech for silicon valley comes from Asia. You literally couldn’t build a chip factory in the US right now, the know-how doesn’t exist there anymore.
So the US is leading the world in writing code and building long tubes spewing hot gas out of one end.
Maybe Japan is so advanced it already moved past the overhyped generative “AI” and that’s why we haven’t heard anything about it
They have no groundbreaking AI software
Neither does the US
Huh? What countries have more advanced AI than the US?
If AI is the chief innovation in the US, then the US is massively fucked.
I’d much rather have a fancy shinkansen.
You seem to be implying an argument based on Modus tollens:
- If AI is the chief US innovation, then the US is massively fucked.
- The US is not massively fucked.
- Ergo, AI is not the chief US innovation.
Well I disagree with the premise 2:
The US is massively fucked.
With that, no conclusion can be gained from premise 1.
I’m implying nothing. Some things are meant to be tongue-in-cheek.
llms and image generators alone are a tech that will change the world
They will and are changing it, to be sure. Whether those changes are positive remains to be seen.
No, AI is one of the chief innovations which is a huge money maker. Don’t forget the US still dominates the enterprise server market which is worth trillions. Processors and GPUs are still designed and some manufactured here. Innovation comes in all shapes and sizes, AI is just the latest buzz.
That’s a high speed train for the non-weebs
Arigathankyou
Gesundheit
Japan is living in the year 2000, since 50 years.
Looking back, I think we can say that the year 2000 was a much better time than 2025
Are they still using fax?
Largest market for fax machines…
and floppy discs
Not true. Their goverment stopped requiring floppy disks… *checks notes* …last year!
im sure its still the biggest market.
On God.
There are some things where fax still makes sense. Maybe I’m old, but I’m not a fan of “digital signatures” and “digital seals” for professional licenses. In cases where a document needs to be signed and/or sealed, I would much prefer a fax to a PDF with a “digital seal”. But that’s just me and I’m a weird dude.
There are some things where fax still makes sense
Nope.
Fax is insecure, you’d be better off signing w/o a “digital seal” or whatever and emailing it in. You can also print, sign, scan, and send, just like w/ a fax, but send as a PDF instead of insecurely over the telephone wires. I’ve done both digital signatures and scanned regular signatures, both work and are better than fax.
Modern PDF signing creates a digital fingerprint showing the device it was used on, whose credentials were used, a timestamp, and even a location if location services are turned on.
But yea, I guess all that just can’t compete with the ironclad security of a fucking ink pen. Oh, sorry. A copy of an ink pen. So much more secure and traceable.
I actually find this interesting, part of me wonders if there technological advancement meant they didn’t need to make changes/innovation, which led to others having issues having to innovate beyond what Japan did.
Hence why they are still stuck in 2000s
what does that even mean?
I think it means that they were ahead of the curve prior to the year 2000, which is when they started to fall behind the curve.
Not going to comment on the accuracy, but it makes sense to me.
Nintendo Switch 2 will be released this year
Nintendo comes out with pretty innovative gameplay.
Tradition trumped innovation
Unfortunately their tradition also causes them to work their asses off to such a degree they have even less kids than other developed countries and their restrictive immigration policy prevents this problem from being at least softened a little bit. Whole villages are getting deserted, not because of local industries vanishing like in the US (mostly) but simply because there are no young people anymore causing the necessary infrastructure for kids and teenagers to vanish as well -> nobody moves there -> everything’s fucked.
Unfortunately they keep voting for conservative governments as well, so no necessary change ever happens.
Because Japan has become conservative in everything it seems, including technology…
Sadly Japan may be a culture in decline.
Their culture is basically work yourself to the bone even more than the US. Young people study their ass off and get a job working long hours while still living at home because they still can’t afford their own place. And you have stuff like if the subway is a minute late they hand out apology slips to workers so they don’t get in trouble with their bosses for being 30 seconds late. Meanwhile there is a very strong ‘defer to elder authority’ note in their culture. And in many industries people are expected to work a 10-hour day and then go drinking with the bus until 2:00 a.m. only to be back at work the next day at 8:00 a.m.
The end result is young people have neither the time nor the money to have kids. So they don’t.Their population is literally aging and shrinking. They are facing a very serious problem in wondering who is going to take care of their elderly. Their birth to death ratio is 0.44, meaning that for every baby born in a year more than two people die. In a nation of about 125 million, the population is shrinking by just under a million every year. That’s not good.
And while the Japanese people are highly educated and very capable, the ‘defer to authority’ culture prevents the sort of entrepreneurship you see in the US. An example of this, Japanese companies have a stamp called the hanko, when a paper memo is circulated around the office each employee stamps it with their personal hanko stamp to signify that they have read it. Many Japanese companies stayed in person during COVID simply because there was no digital equivalent to the hanko and managers refused to give it up.
If you wants an example, look at Toyota Motors. It’s been obvious to everyone with eyes that electric vehicles are the future, and it has been obvious for probably 8 or 10 years. Every major automaker is investing in EV technology. Except Toyota, which up until recently was still betting the farm on hybrids and hydrogen. But that’s because the good Mr Toyoda didn’t like EVs, and unlike in an American company no one would dare challenge him on that.
It is really too bad. Japan is a wonderful place with an amazing culture and rich history. But if they are going to survive they need to make very serious changes to their society and they need to do it soon. That is going to involve dumping most of what currently qualifies as Japanese business culture, an instituting some real work-life balance laws with teeth. I don’t know if they’re going to do it.
This is a good summary, but I think it misses another big point. The country is super racist. They don’t allow enough immigration to offset demographic issues. They also don’t get any other benefits of immigration like cultural changes that could actually help companies be more adaptable, or maybe trying something different than the exact same thing for 100 years is a good idea.
I had sex with a Japanese girl once. Not relevant, I just like telling people.
The most fascinating thing about their extreme “defer to authority” attitute, is the appearance of the “angry american” phenomenon, which is just a japanese-speaking white dude employee, which is literally there to voice the staff grievances and suggestions to the boss, without anyone japanese having to lose face. Literally the reinvention of the court jester in modern times!
Wait, they got a job where you’re supposed to be professionally angry?
I gotta go to Japan asap.
Sound like they have to drop capitalism like everyone else
Economics Explained has an interesting video on the topic. After WWII, Japan became the first country in Asia to undergo an industrial revolution and soon became the second largest economy after the US and was by many accounts set to match or even overtake the US. They then suffered an economic collapse due to unchecked growth and speculative markets and decided to never again speculate on the future and just stick to tried and true methods.
Since the 1990s, Japan’s economy has barely changed while other nations have seen huge growth. You’d assume that would mean Japan is now far behind, but they aren’t. They seem to have mastered keeping everything the same for decades without the normal decline that comes with it.
Japan is on the verge if major economic collapse if they do not increase the population
That’d require significant societal change to an environment where having children is actually manageable
Which is why this is a problem
They’ll survive it, their markets and investments aren’t overvalued like ours are. They’ll crash, re-evaluate their societal priorities, and start to build again
That’s an incredibly optimistic outlook.
hard to function with a negative outlook
I mean every society has to rebuild after a crash, I’m just optimistic that they’ll do it faster
You might want to look into the population studies on Japan. They are pretty bleak
Got a summary? I know the onus is on me, but I’m not likely to dig much further
Within 50 years the population will shrink to 70% of current levels with 40ish percent of the total population being elderly.
No, they’re absolutely not. Their GDP will majorly decline, but their QOL will stay the same or even improve and their GDP per capita also won’t see much change.
Birtherism is bullshit.
Their nation needs tax revenue. That depends on having people to tax. If the population declines too much they cannot afford to maintain social services and QoL will decline.
None of this is particularly controversial or surprising.
The services’ costs are dependent on the number of recipients. They’re already in the slump of elderly being a drain on the system, it can only get better not worse.
The only concern of the population decline that I can see is the decrease in funding available for Military Expenses.
And, if things get really bad, all they have to do is open up for immigration and able bodied workers will magically appear.
You are the only person I have seen claiming the elder population of Japan is decreasing or that there is light at the end of the tunnel.
https://www.ipss.go.jp/pp-zenkoku/e/zenkoku_e2023/pp2023e_PressRelease.pdf
Japan might not get the right immigrants at the right time. They shouldn’t count on skilled labor appearing when they need it.
If Generation A has a higher number of people than Generation B then when Generation A dies off there will be a lower number of elderly. It’s a temporary slump. It might last a decade or more, but it is temporary.
According to your source the Percentage of people aged over 65 peaks in 2042 or 2043 at about 38% if the government does nothing, compared to the 29.6% currently.
Right now a lot of skilled workers are fleeing to the EU, so Japan could totally capitalize on that. Or it can just educate its population to be skilled labor and give all the low skilled labor (if that even exists) to immigrants. Immigrants work hard for lower wages and are less prone to crime, there is no good faith argument against that.
The projected population of elderly people is projected to be 40% of the total population within 50 years unless substantial shifts happen. They are not replacing workers fast enough.
Japan has never wanted more immigrants and soon they will need a LOT of immigrants. Japan’s traditional xenophobia might prevent them for getting enough people.
I’m interested to know how you believe the elderly will be cared for? Let’s assume for a moment they have no issues financially supporting the elderly, but physically who is supposed to care for them? Who will make up the nurses, doctors and caretakers now that their population pyramid looks like a chicken drumstick?
Japan has a large amount of unused labor in the current demographic breakup of 29% elderly, Japan has a large number of educated inviduals, and Japan has a large amount of capital even without infinite growth shenanigans.
Any failure to take care elderly even at 38% or even 50% would be a failure of the state as a result of greed or corruption. It’s a relatively simple task to accomplish. The year is 2025, automation replaced most other jobs a long long time ago.
Honestly, sounds great to me. I know they’ve had “issues” (is it really an issue for me if my money becomes more valuable?) with deflation, but I’d be OK with that if it meant no more speculation.
I hate inflation based economics. So ngl, japan seems really nice in that regard
And that, actually, is a great thing. You don’t want explosive growth, you want stability. This is a lesson the US is learning right now
After WWII, Japan became the first country in Asia to undergo an industrial revolution
After WW2? Industrialization during the 20s/30s was the whole reason they attempted to conqueror the Oceanic island states and the Chinese/Korean/Indochinese mainland.
They then suffered an economic collapse due to unchecked growth and speculative markets and decided to never again speculate on the future and just stick to tried and true methods.
The Japanese Economy was undone by The Plaza Accord and The Louvre Accord, which western nations used to devalue their currency and undermine Japanese export prices. The downturn, followed by a financialized corporate consolidation and expropriation of revenues through foreign investment, permanently crippled the Japanese economy in the aftermath of the 90s Asian recession.
What sets countries like Japan, Korea, and the Philippines apart from China is the domestic control of their industries. Their markets are dominated by private equity and fixated on steady profit margins rather than long term public investments. Consequently, the capital cities are flooded with cash and industrial development while the rural areas are devoid of commerce. There’s no shortage of speculation, but its rooted in the private equity markets and focused largely on fictitious capital - debt instruments and their derivatives - rather than real capital or technology.
Chinese investment in the periphery and its rising tide of middle class wage earners is what propels them into the 21st century. They’re the ones building out new transit lines, new public housing projects, new universities, and blue sky research. The Xi Government is openly hostile to speculative investment, doesn’t bother to bail out failing financial institutions, and focuses primarily on expansion of utilities, trade corridors, and mixed us developments.
I spend at least a month in Japan every year and the tech there is great for the most part. All of the critical parts infrastructure tech is brilliant and incredibly stable.
The lack of risk taking is very noticeable though especially when it comes to contemporary software and UX. There just so much broken tech because everything moves so slowly - for example to pick up a reserved train tickets you need to bring the same physical card you made you payment with and thats the only way. So if you used a virtual card or forgot your card at home you’re screwed.
Japan has been living in the year 2000 since 1980.
The last good year. Truly they are the most intellectually advanced society.
Except no one can get laid apparently
And they’re a bunch of xenophobic racists.
Thought you were talking about America’s elected government for a second there.
Such a good one dude!!! You should try stand up!!!
So it’s exactly like my year 2000, too!
Oh you can if you have money, just head to Soapland in Tokyo.
They have 2d waifus, who needs women?
According to my research all of their genitals are pixelated. What did they expect?
What happened after 2000 that made everythimg bad?
Social media maybe?
Social Media didn’t exist yet was all user groups, mailing list, irc, and AOL chat rooms. Would be another 4-5 years before they came onto the scene as we know it today
Wish I developed a brain sooner to enjoy that age properly…;_;
9/11
I forgor 💀
Damn it I forgor too
Fuck you, actually making me laugh out loud at something
intellectually advanced society.
How do you even measure that?
China king of tech advancement
yeah right.
- EVs that blow up easily.
- DeepSeek AI being a wrapper for ChatGPT’s API.
- Skidded designs (aircraft, cars, etc)
- infrastructure that barely holds itself together (tofu dreg)
The only thing they consistantly innovate is how to fuck over their own population.
DeepSeek AI being a wrapper for ChatGPT’s API.
I don’t think that’s true and their innovations are pretty impressive. Sad that they are ruled by genocidal dictator fuckhead
they are ruled by genocidal dictator
Who isn’t these days?
Precisely
I’m glad you are able to recognize China’s technological shortfalls.
You’re clearly a smart person, I was wondering if you could help me with my aero-defense project. We’d like to armor our planes to better survive being shot at. Here’s an image of one of our bullet riddled planes that landed a few hours ago:
Where do you think I should put the armor? Just where all the red dots are?
i know what survivorship bias is, you 5iq inbread. But imagine for a second actually challenging my fucking claims instead of blindly gulping down china’s dick
You say know what it is, and yet your original comment shows you don’t. You clearly never questioned if the information you were receiving about China was perhaps filtered. You barely hesr about the hundreds of millions that China has lifted out of extreme poverty, you do hear, get video clips, and see constant reposts when an escalator has a catastrophic failure a decade ago.
the information you were receiving
same goes to you lmfao
hundreds of millions that China has lifted out of extreme poverty
I can also lift millions of people out of poverty by lowering the poverty line. 🤡
you do hear, get video clips, and see constant reposts when an escalator has a catastrophic failure a decade ago.
nah, my info’s pretty fresh. I’ve never seen western countries detain people randomly and then condem them to death tho.
nah, my info’s pretty fresh. I’ve never seen western countries detain people randomly and then condem them to death tho.
I’m not even a big China fan, I just recognized the bias in what you were saying. You’re assumptions about China are like my dad thinking there’s a good chance he’ll win the lottery because every day he hears about a lottery winner. If the media that reported on every lottery winner had to also spend equal time reporting in every lottery loser, that would disabuse everyone of that notion.
You’re upset not because I accused you of something that is false, but that you know I’m right and that’s embarrassing for you.
I’m not embarrased of being wrong lmao, but you’re right about America doing that shit. That place is a lost cause ngl. I was thinking more about europe.
And I don’t know about my bias, but i’ve seen a lot of things and know a lot of history.
I hate China, but they absolutely are ahead of of the curve on science and technology. They still produce cheap worthless shit but that doesn’t change the fact that they also produce cutting edge shit which can be found nowhere else in the world.
Even their AI costs less to run than OpenAI. Luckily their investment in it will yield nothing of value.
In my opinion they only have solar and batteries going for them. Cutting edge silicon is nowhere to be found in China which I think it’s a lot more important.
I would not take any Chinese numbers at face value. Especially when it comes to costs, training, running, etc.
Also (tangent warning), i feel like their AI project was a part of some propaganda by their part. Like, it’s fed Chinese facts like “nothing happened in 1989” or “China had never been in an armed conflict” or “China has never had famines”. Making it open source exports just their propaganda which I feel was the secondary goal in all this.
anime
Defines “ages”. Blue leds came out of Japan somewhat recently and that’s pretty huge
Veritasium has an awesome video about the Japanese scientist that discovered blue LEDs, guy basically did it single handedly despite pushback from his boss. Absolutely insane scientific achievement
