• TheBloodFarts@lemmy.ca
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      6 days ago

      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

  • HighFructoseLowStand@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    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.

  • شاهد على إبادة@lemm.ee
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    6 days ago

    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.

  • Brejela the Purple@lemm.ee
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    7 days ago

    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.

  • hayali99@lemmy.world
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    7 days ago

    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.

  • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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    8 days ago

    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.

    • alvvayson@lemmy.dbzer0.com
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      8 days ago

      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.

    • JustAnotherKay@lemmy.world
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      8 days ago

      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

      • masterspace@lemmy.ca
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        8 days ago

        No, we just don’t mislabel foreign brain drain as American exceptionalism.

  • circuitfarmer@lemmy.sdf.org
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    8 days ago

    If AI is the chief innovation in the US, then the US is massively fucked.

    I’d much rather have a fancy shinkansen.

    • weker01@sh.itjust.works
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      7 days ago

      You seem to be implying an argument based on Modus tollens:

      1. If AI is the chief US innovation, then the US is massively fucked.
      2. The US is not massively fucked.
      3. 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.

    • Trollception@sh.itjust.works
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      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.

  • ImplyingImplications@lemmy.ca
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    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.

    • Phoenixz@lemmy.ca
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      8 days ago

      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

    • UnderpantsWeevil@lemmy.world
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      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.

      • tetris11@lemmy.ml
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        8 days ago

        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

      • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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        8 days ago

        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.

        • Shard@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          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?

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            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.

        • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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          8 days ago

          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.

          • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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            8 days ago

            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.

              • finitebanjo@lemmy.world
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                8 days ago

                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.

                • RowRowRowYourBot@sh.itjust.works
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                  8 days ago

                  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.

      • Cait@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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        8 days ago

        That’d require significant societal change to an environment where having children is actually manageable

    • prole@lemmy.blahaj.zone
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      8 days 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.

    • Dr. Moose@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      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.

  • hobovision@lemm.ee
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    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.

    • superkret@feddit.org
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      7 days ago

      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.

    • shikitohno@lemm.ee
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      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.

      • A7thStone@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        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.

        • shikitohno@lemm.ee
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          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.

      • Surp@lemmy.world
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        7 days ago

        You go back far enough and you’ll find every country did horrible things or stolelands or killed half their citizens etc.

    • pyre@lemmy.world
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      7 days ago

      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.

        • shawn1122@lemm.ee
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          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.

          We can all agree thar humans have been nafarious for a long time. But, many see the legacy of European colonialism and the Trans Atlantic slave trade as an atrocity at a scale never before commited in human history.

        • pyre@lemmy.world
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          different degrees, but yeah pretty much all land has been taken by force. still is. the difference is how though.

  • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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    8 days ago

    Same thing that happens everywhere. Low cost innovation gets expensive as companies grow and salaries rise, profit seekers move to exploit cheaper labor elsewhere.

    • Trollception@sh.itjust.works
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      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?

      • RememberTheApollo_@lemmy.world
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        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?

        • Trollception@sh.itjust.works
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          Whatever. If it’s Linux, Democrat, anti establishment, and anti US then it’s popular on Lemmy, got it. Lemmy feels more and more like it’s just a big group of edgy teenagers.

      • TheEighthDoctor@lemmy.zip
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        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.

        • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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          7 days ago

          A lot of people here on Lemmy keeps saying that AI is bad because it failed one task it wasn’t built for. Or because it can’t do everything. I don’t get it.

          • taladar@sh.itjust.works
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            7 days ago

            Name one category of tasks that you would feel confident it can perform with at least a 90% success rate.

            • datendefekt@feddit.org
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              5 days ago

              Translating text. I recently had to translate a bunch of architectural requirements into english. I honestly don’t know if deepl.com uses GenAI or what. But the job was pretty much copy and paste. Occasionally I had to change a word because the connotation was a bit off, and a few times it got confused with tangled, run-in input and I had to rephrase whole sentences. I’m a native speaker in both languages and I estimate it would have taken me at least three times as long.

            • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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              6 days ago

              Improve text that I have written. With improve I mean change the text accodring to the specifications in the prompt provided to the AI.

              Here are a few more:

              • Since ChatGPT has parsed most of the puplic internet, it can be useful when trying to find information about something that is very obscure - (for example settings for an old or not as used software), where my ordinary searches has failed me.
              • In addition to the previous one, it can be good way to find better search terms.
              • Write repeated text with slight variations that I could do myself but an AI can do instantly.
              • Translate and XSD (XML specification) into another structure (for example classes when writing code).
              • Create macros for World of Warcraft.
              • Explain errors outputed buy some software (ties into the first two).

              I am sure there are other usecases that I could not think of.

              Is the money, time and energy spent to create a tool that can do this worth it? That is perhaps the question want to ask and perhaps your answer is no.

          • lightsblinken@lemmy.world
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            7 days ago

            maybe go for a “its bad because of the return on investment” angle? for the amount of literal billions we have thrown at it, perhaps its ok to expect more. if you gave me a mere couple of billion, i’d make healthy lunches for school kids to foster education and health outcomes (2-4-1!)

            • MouldyCat@feddit.uk
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              How many billions (in today’s money) were spent on going to the moon? What about the billions poured into refining the internal combustion engine? The billions that have gone into making and running massive particle accelerators?

              Technology is constantly advancing and we often don’t know where it’ll take us until we get there.

            • uranibaba@lemmy.world
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              I haven’t spent billions on it, so it is not a bad ROI for me. Perhaps it is for those who has invested in creating OpenAI, LLama etc, I am not one of them.

              Spending the same amount of money to create a better world would be ideal. But if the money was not spent on AI development does not mean that it would be spent on anything better. That is also a discussion about the money spent on AI and if it has been worth it (a discussion very much wroth having), it does not diminish the usefulness of AIs.