Anon is waiting for Japan

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
  
  What happened after 2000 that made everythimg bad?
  
  intellectually advanced society.
  How do you even measure that?

The US isn't innovating jack shit.
The US just created a massively polarized and unequal society so that when a country creates a new brilliant researcher or innovation, an American company can buy them out.
Basically, the insane poverty and lack of government services that the average American experiences gives them enough cash to buy up innovative people, companies, and competitors.
- Also the post-WW2 world order heavily favours their economy.
  Their allies buy their debt, and their weapons. They give access to theiir markets to US companies, and support US wars around the world. They invest in the US economy in an unbalanced way that favours the US economy.
  And all of this was in exchange for US security.
- Innovate people, companies, and competitors
  And quickly turn them complacent. I work at a Japanese company, and the amount of times I see an amazing Japanese expat turn into a busybody is insane. We have crafted the perfect "fuck your idea just do your job" culture
- Y'all are so jaded
  
  No, we just don't mislabel foreign brain drain as American exceptionalism.

If AI is the chief innovation in the US, then the US is massively fucked.
I'd much rather have a fancy shinkansen.
- That's a high speed train for the non-weebs
  
  Arigathankyou
- 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.
- 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.
- 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.

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.
- 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.
- Japan is on the verge if major economic collapse if they do not increase the population
  
  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.
  
  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'd require significant societal change to an environment where having children is actually manageable
- 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
- 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.

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.
- Eh, they seemed to have better access to new tech like phones, though most of that seems to have shifted to Korea these days.
- 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.
  
  Yes we are good at those, also, in addition to most other tech.
- 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.
- 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

They have no groundbreaking AI software
Neither does the US
- Huh? What countries have more advanced AI than the US?

Same thing that happens everywhere. Low cost innovation gets expensive as companies grow and salaries rise, profit seekers move to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere.
- That still hasn't happened in the US though. Hardware is produced overseas but a huge chunk of the most used software in the world is produced in the US. The chips are designed in the US, some produced here but most overseas. Does that only apply to manufacturing?
  
  Still hasn’t happened in the US? You choose a single industry as an indicator to base a claim on the state of US industry vs vast manufacturing losses the US has faced over the last 50 years?

Because AI software isn't ground breaking and is actually useless
- I had some use of it. It is really good at summing and organizing a bunch of text.
  
  Yes AI has good uses, it made my job faster, I can now focus on more important things because I'm not wasting time with bullshit that AI can do in a seccond.
  But you can't say that on Lemmy, here it's all useless, a scam and gave my dog AIDS.
  
  So good in fact that apple spawned a whole new category of memes making fun of how badly that works.

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.
- 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.
- 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.
- Sound like they have to drop capitalism like everyone else
  
  The problem isn't capitalism. US has always had capitalism and once we put good protections in it worked great, like post WWII up until like 1990ish. That golden arrow was mainly because there were strong protections for workers that were relevant to the time. A man working minimum wage could live decently and feed his family.
  The three factors of production are land, labor, and capital. All three are supposed to have equal seats at the table. But starting somewhere between the Reagan years and 1990s, we started to let capital run the table. Labor took a back seat. And what we have now is the result.
  Housing and health care became investments rather than services. Minimum wage didn't track inflation, didn't track CPI, and sure as hell didn't track worker productivity. The federal minimum wage has less buying power today than at any point since the minimum wage was implemented. And there is a very real trickle down effect, in that if the lowest worker is making $7.25, all other wages adjust based on that. IE, the slightly higher end worker makes $15 or $20 because that's double or triple the minimum wage. If the lowest worker was making $20, the slightly higher end worker would be making $40 or $60.
  The result is that the American people have less buying power at their disposal than they have in a very long time. Significantly less than during those golden years of the latter 1900s. And that is why shit sucks.
  Capitalism is not the problem. Unchecked unregulated capitalism is the problem. Regulatory capture is part of that problem. And that's what we have now in many industries.
  Fix that, raise the minimum wage, and stop letting corporations exploit not just workers but the nation as a whole. Then you have some capitalism that works for everybody.

dude had already swallowed the tech bs, thinks ai is the furthest advancement of technology when it can't compete with ancient tech. literally can't do what a calculator can do reliably. or a timer. or a calendar.
- Please let's try to keep generative AI from claiming the entire word "AI".
  Current generative AI is good at and built for mimicking patterns with boundary conditions.
  This means it does a decent job of imitating authoritative knowledge, but it's just mimicking it.
  People are hyped for it because it looks knowledgeable, it's relatively simple to make, and a lot of what we do is text based so it's easy to apply.
  There are a lot of other types of AI, the majority even, that work significantly better, take a small fraction of the computing power and provide helpful and meaningful results. They just don't look like anything other than complex math, which is all any of them are in the end.
- A calculator, timer or calendar can’t help me write an essay. You are comparing tools meant for different tasks. At least build your argumentets on something reasonable.
  
  funny how it's not "intelligent" enough to say "hey I don't really do math" and instead feeds me bullshit that I have to correct and then it'll say "oh yeah totally right sorry here's the actual answer that I wouldn't have given if you hadn't corrected me as the one who asked the question"
  also your essay fucking sucks. learn to put together a coherent thought instead of relying on a glorified autocorrect that doesn't have them at all to do it for you.
  
  Why argue with someone who isn't intelligent enough to write their essays without mechanical assistance?
  
  Take an English class you illiterate gremlin.
  Resource intense auto correct that does not understand the information it’s stringing together should not be used to write anything academically or professionally.

Ground breaking AI🤡

Japan still generally places more emphasis on quality over shitting out shiny new, overpriced garbage as fast as possible

Maybe Japan is so advanced it already moved past the overhyped generative “AI” and that’s why we haven’t heard anything about it

Doc: "No wonder this circuit failed; it says 'Made in Japan'."
Marty: "What do you mean, Doc? All the best stuff is made in Japan."
- What was the joke supposed to be here, that they had rapidly industrialised.
  
  I think they had a poor reputation and then rapidly improved which led to their current reputation

Their AI needs longer to develop cause it has to be folded a million times.
- They have impure silicon there so their software dev practices had to become way more advanced to compensate
- Found the Japanese sword enthusiast.

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

Japan is living in the year 2000, since 50 years.
- Are they still using fax?
  
  Largest market for fax machines...
  
  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.
  Edit: Turns out fax is insecure. Did not know this but it makes sense.
- Looking back, I think we can say that the year 2000 was a much better time than 2025
- 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.
- 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

I don't exactly keep up with the technological innovations of every country, but I get the feeling it isn't so much that Japan hasn't innovated in decades, so much as they haven't done anything he (it's 4chan, let's be frank, it's a he) personally finds interesting or that is publicized in the medium he gets his news from.

Anon forgets the switch:console ideals crystalized

I mean Misskey came from there. So they’re still innovating.
- It's more feature complete than mastodon, but it's also one hell of a resource hog on your browser

Nintendo Switch 2 will be released this year
- Nintendo comes out with pretty innovative gameplay.

i think with digital technology manufacturing quality not matter as much so everyone get cheap chinese shit

I guess Japan caught depression.

Anon probably thinks the gundam statues are just statues

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..

Hentai happened

The Plaza Accord happened. Japan was also demonized in media and politics like China is now.
Edit: The people downvoting need a history lesson. Here’s a good place to start:
The Coming War with Japan
Just one example of the attitude towards Japan during its height.

They invented Hikikomori.
- no they didn't lol hikikomori have existed in some form throughout the world for centuries
  
  They named it. Japan created whole modern corporate working culture, the problem is they overdosed with their invention.

Post nuke effect expired

anime

japan and germans selling goods to america with no tax etc, they had no serious miltary concerns, invesment, america protects them, there is a invest sell cycle to them so they can produce more tech and goods until 80s and 90s america stops buying because it hurts their economy and japan and german passed them now they both in crisis. no major market to sell no spare money to inovation no more protection.

I genuinely think using generative AIs to do your job for you should be grounds for immediate termination under just cause.
Machines have no agency and can never be held responsible for anything, thus should never be put under professional responsibility.
I can't wait for these models to colapse onto themselves.

it's wild seeing americans say japan is in decline... by whose standards? why must they want what you want?
- Just because Japan is in decline doesn't mean America isn't.
  
  We're not talking about America, we're talking about Japan. Or, gaijin are

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
- 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.
- 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