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Aging Japan Looks to Bots For Care
An anonymous reader writes to mention a Yahoo! news article about robotics in Japan. While many research bots are working on interacting with their environment, some of Japan's commercial robotics are focusing on building bots for elderly care. From the article: "The 100-kilogram (220-pound) robot can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells, can tell which direction a voice is coming from and uses powers of sight to follow a human face. 'In the future, we would like to develop a capacity to detect a human's health condition through his breath,' Mukai said. Japan is bracing for a major increase in needs for elderly care due to a declining birth rate and a population that is among the world's longest living." That sure sounds familiar.
In the future, all that Japan will have left would be Gundams... feh.
Serving time in Aristotelean prison for violating laws of physics
There was an older article (six months to a year and a half ago, maybe) about the elderly in Japan turning to robots.
The article had an especially strong lead paragraph about an immigrant who would never be able to get a job taking care of the elderly because she was a foreigner and because she wasn't a robot; the point of the article was that racism is so strong in Japan that old people actually shy away from a human's touch when the human isn't the right kind, and that they prefer robots. (Well, that was one possible conclusion -- certainly there are others.)
Does anyone remember seeing this? Any hints on how to track it down?
We recently had heard in the office over one of the Yellow Machine that's made by Anthology Solutions.
The problem with this type of research is that the elderly are among the least able to pay for the development in this area. Monies must be siphoned from other profitable medical areas like pediatrics and radiology in order to pay for advancements in elderly and hospice care.
It makes sense, then, that the guy's name is Mukai. 'Mu' means 'none' or 'no' in Japanese. 'Kai' means 'shell'. So Mr. No Shells can also be read as Mr. No Clams. And if you ain't got no clams, you're one poor dude.
Built for elderly care and can distinguish smells. Am I the only one that's thinking these things were built to wipe old people's asses?
I've heard of this before, on /. I suspect, and I recall that the reason put forward for the Japanese preference for robotic workers rather than cheap third world labour was racism.
Now, I don't know if that's a factor or not (it hasn't seemed to be to me). What I think is a major factor is the fact that Japan is already incredibly crowded, not to mention in an Earthquake/tsunami zone where no-one should be living anyway. So robots aren't a bad idea.
We have the problem of people in high places just looking out for themselves -- caring for them won't be their problem; life-extension or other medical advances won't be in developed in time to help them, etc.
And the sad part is, when younger people get into those places, we will probably do that same thing.
DYWYPI?
Hrm, i'd like a Beowulf Cluster of these! What would you do with a Beowulf Cluster of old people?
Versus about 4 million yen for a real live nurse, if only Japan was more accepting of foreign labour to look after all the old folk.
A Japanese girlfriend of mine has a sick mother who needs constant care all of the time. Nobody is at home to look after her. The father needs to work to pay the bills. She doesn't want to quit her job to stay home to look after her. It is expensive to live in Japan, and it's boring to stay home and look after parents. She doesn't want to do it... in fact none of the family want to do it. She doesn't want to throw her future and career away to do it. Her whole family feels that her mother is a real burden to everyone else, and the whole family wishes that she would just go into a hospital and not be an extra thorn in everyone's lifestyle.
I just can't help but feel that it's very sad that it comes down to needing a robot, but I guess lifestyles and nuclear families are upsetting Japan's old age care system.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
No, that's a lie, I love being pedantic. Anyway, Mr BadAnalogyMan by name, Bad Analogy by nature, his kanji is , not , which is Mr Facing The Well, if we want to try to put an English meaning on it.
Obviously i was thinking of the bots. Since it's japan they'll come with a plethora of combat abilities and naturally combine to form a even bigger bot.
Hmmm... Pie...
He's called RI-MAN, Robot Interacting with huMAN. No word on his pushing or shoving capabilities, vis-a-vis a stair-rich environment.
Sorry man, that just a few steps to close to being used as batteries!
Horns are really just a broken halo.
In Japan, robots are only for old people?
They don't have any young people to tear them apart and put them back together. Even the robots are being made by other robots.
Although a robot is being built, the developers are still a long way from making a commercially available product. By the time the functionality and usability of the robot is at the standard required, the user's needs may have changed, as will their price range. We're still a long way from seeing robots caring in an everyday household.
In Korea, only old people ... wait.
Sorry
will they really want to be shovelling oldie shit and giving sponge baths? Nope they'll go get a better job down at the car factory or sort post or whatever.
Engineering is the art of compromise.
... Selling Robot Insurance. Because robots steal old people's medications and use it as fuel... and robots are strong...
I for one, welcome our breath-smelling robot overlords!
Don't be apathetic. Procrastinate!
I'm glad I got grandma to sign up for Old Glory Robot Insurance.
The Rapture is NOT an exit strategy.
and for a while it was good...
On a side note I think the reason these robots are being developed for the Japanese market is not just down to a reluctance to accept foreign workers but more to do with the fact that elderly japanes people are very light. With a (future) maximum load of 70Kg you'd need an army to care for an obease Seppo* or Europian.
* Seppo, slang: Seppo->Septic Tank->Yank.
In the not too distant future, next Sunday A.D.
This story is a tad bit old.
i es/093005dnbusworldview.1b969a1b.html
http://www.wfaa.com/s/dws/bus/columnists/all/stor
I think the bigger reason why the US is not pouring money into elderly helping robots is that the US is significantly less xenophobic then Japan. The US is happy to throw open the borders and let cheap labor in. Robots are highly unlikely to be cheaper then Mexican labor any time soon. Japan on the other hand has fanatically strict anti-immigration rules and are extremely xenophobic. Their xenophobia goes double and triple if you are black or another Asian.
To give you an idea of there level of xenophobia and anti-immigration policies, my dad told me a story about the last time he visited Japan on business. Apparently he was sitting around with Japanese colleagues when the server came over. The Japanese at the table immediately identified her as a non-Japanese. My dad ended up talking to her later on that night and her sad story turns to be that she was the descendent of Koreans - two generations ago. She and her parents were both born in Japan but were still not considered citizens. She had a family line that started in Japan since just before the invention flight, yet she still wasn't considered a citizen.
To be fair to Japan, they are not the only ones. A lot of Asian nations still have large (but very slowly shrinking) xenophobic population. My girlfriend's mother for instance is from Taiwanese. I love her to death, but when it comes to Japanese and blacks she is racist enough that could easily sit around bullshitting with the worst American racists you can imagine.
...the last thing I want after a long life of working hard is to have "Short Circuit" taking care of me. Funk that, I'll take up skydiving without the parachute, thank you very much.
Authority questions you. Return the favor.
I have seen several types of articles on robots for the elderly. One that comes to mind is one that was on here quite a while ago. It was robot that was almost completely mechanical (few electronics) powered by compressed air and controlled wirlessly via a pentium 4. At a price tag of 100k US it was not too expensive concidering nursing homes generally cost more then that per year. This was supposed to be released quite a while ago (2-3 years i thnk) and could vacume and wash dishes as well as other things.... but of course have yet to see anything come of that.
It looks like they are getting closer, but its hard to say if we will have anything viable on the market anytime soon.
In countries near and around japan labor is cheap, dirt cheap. Philipines, Malaysia, Taiwan, the list can go on. I'd expect this robot to cost no less than 70-80k and would only be for the extremely wealthy %1 of the population.
For the average japanese joe in thier sunset years, they're more likely to import labor from other countries to work in thier nursing home facilities (why not? We already import Filipino nurses like crazy in california) for the price of 1 robot, you could pay the salary of 4 imported nurses, or a nursing home facility.
And despite the report saying there is a decline in birth rates, everyone has family to lean on at some point.
Realistically, would you want to be taken care of a cold, unloving robot that couldn't imagine what I was feeling? What's this thing going to do, detect if I stop breathing and call the coroner? No thanks.
Screw intelligent robots! Screw AI in general. We already have it. It's called the human brain. Let's stop working on computer AI (as it applies to inteligent robots) and start figuring some of the following things.
1: How to stop the brain from degenerating from the age of 30 onwards
2: How to connect the brain to robotic limbs (direct attach)
3: How to disconnect the brain from the body (o2 source, nitrition, remove byproducts of metabolism etc)
Tah-dah, no more old people. Just robotic bodies with human brains. I bet inner-city americans will pimp theirs out with chrome and ground effects.
BBH
Hmm... it would be intresting to see how robot can cope of changing diapers... :-) I would not like to be the first guinea pig for this experiment.
In Japan, only old people have care-bots.
We have a project here in Latvia already some time around in wich scientists of Physics institute have developed an electronic sensor - so called "nose" that can distinguish some 10 thousands of smells. http://www.cfi.lu.lv/ http://www.cfi.lu.lv/ionics/CFI_lapai_lat/e-nose.h tm (quite ugly page and latvian only)
should i bring those guys in contact .. ummm..
I wondered what would bring humanoid robots into the mainstream, and this looks like it. As the world, not only Japan, population ages and there are fewer people to provide care, the economic drivers to satisfy demand really kicks in...
I love the 21st century
Jeez, I'd hate to be the person working on *that* feature. Slaving away all day to create a robot that can recognise feces, urine, and decomposition... god damn, that would suck.
I don't think its so much racism as pride. Which is more preferrable, being able to push a button to raise your bed into a sitting position and then using an assisted walker to make it on your own to the bathroom (for the third time that night), or calling out weakly to your nurse at 4am and hoping they hear you and respond before you wet the bed.
from the article you wanted (posted above)
Interacting with other people can be difficult for the Japanese, he says, "because they always have to think about what the other person is feeling, and how what they say will affect the other person." But it is impossible to embarrass a robot, or be embarrassed, by saying the wrong thing.
The simple truth is you can't be a burden to a machine. Putting it all down to racism is akin to saying that American's elderly is so accustom to thinking of other races as beneath them that they have don't get embarressed by it at all.
Bot - probably an unfortunate choice of name considering what caring for the elderly almost always comes to involve.
Las qué passoun
tournoun pas maï
The 100-kilogram (220-pound) robot can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells
Once it can distinguish both the smells of urine and faeces what else does it need in order to care for the elderly?
Anime has already tackled this subject by none other than the creator of the pop-culture anime-film AKIRA.
1 42849877/sr=8-2/ref=pd_bbs_2/103-2542910-4413459?_ encoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=130 ) was an anime film about a computerized hospital bed that is supposed to care for an elderly patient. However, the computer turns out to be a prototype for a battle robot and to top it off, the damn thing takes on the personality of his former wife, and therein starts a chase through Japan, tearing up the countryside, as the bed tries to take the patient on a trip to the beach, one last time.
Roujin Z ( See http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/630506251X/qid=1
Overall, it's a pretty decent film and very amusing as well.
If telephones are outlawed, then only outlaws will have telephones.
An elderly Japanese man wakes up in a small, white, hermetically-sealed room. He's alone, except for a shiny metal robot with red glowing eyes.
The robot hands him a note, which reads, "Dear Honorable Father: Given the rising cost of healthcare and living, we've decided to have your interned for your own good. The robot will take care of your every bodily need, feed you nutritious OldsterChow(TM) and constantly monitor your lifesigns. Because we don't want you getting sick by being exposed to other ill people or spending hard-earned money on frivolities that are merely fleeting earthly sensations in an already dimming life, you'll have to get used to spending the rest of your days in the safety of this room with the robot as your only companion. We've been told that the robot has a somewhat limited vocabulary. Oh well. Cheers and have a great life!"
The robot pokes the old man in the ribs and asks in the politest, most formal Japanese, "Honorable sir or madam, have you expired so that I may dispose of the worn-out container of your physical being and relieve your kin or other payees of the burden of having to pay for my services?"
The man throws the note at the robot and curses profusely. The robot just stands there, unflinching, and after a moment pokes the man and begins reciting again, "Honorable sir or madam, have you expired...."
...and all that crap. All the Japanese, Chinese and Koreans I've ever known from those countries take family obligations and expectations very seriously. (Warning! Gross generalization detected!)
I find it hard to believe that a culture as deeply grounded in society and family as the Japanese would actually "abandon" their elderly. I'm more inclined to believe that there are simply not enough young bodies to care for the old bodies. Caring for an elderly person who is losing mobility and strength is a lot of work, and it seems the older they get, the more they try to hang on to their independence. Tools that will compensate for the deficiencies of an aging body are a way to allow a person to be independent longer and maintain their dignity. Nursing care is when you have to be given baths, medications, meals and helped to walk or wheel to the bathroom. Independence is being able to dress yourself, go where you want, transport your own groceries, clean your own house, cook your own food and accomplish the tasks that make your life worth living, such as gardening or reading. Reading books might now take a magnifying glass, but the magnifying glass gives you the independence to read the book when and where you want. (The average Japanese living space is crowded with lots of things in too little space. It's a lot like living in a submarine. Things are put away, and many times lots of things must be moved to do ordinary tasks like sewing or ironing. For the elderly, this could present a major problem.)
The immigration of nursing care is probably acceptable to someone who needs it, but a "companion" from a different culture, who doesn't share your history and doesn't speak your language well, is less desirable than being independent. (I wonder how many of the people who point to the availability of Indonesian and Filipino "care assistants" are the same who bitch because the Dell or HP technical support in Bangalore doesn't meet their standards..!?! Why is not wanting to be touched by a cultural stranger more "racist" than wanting to be able to clearly understand the person at the other end of the tech support phone?)
Mike Burke
"The mind works quicker than you think!"
It seems for a long time that Japan has been developing the really bleeding-edge, twenty-first century, products and services. Why is America's economy still considered the premier economy of the world? Is it because so many international companies are based on the U.S.? Is it because we have the political clout to set up advantageous-to-us trade deals/relationships?
Someone let me know. Because I just don't get it.
What comes first, finding a teacher or becoming a student?
For a lot of us that have to work elsewhere, away from family that is, sometimes I think the tech is not developing fast enough. Consider this: you want piece of mind, knowing your folks are alright, and that immediate aid and a watchful eye can be available 24/7. (Like the robot won't be on his cellphone dammit.) Sufficiently advanced bots might be able to slow down the onset of Alzheimers by means of intelligent conversation on topics of interest, or hobbies. I just finished re-reading Itsy Bitsy Spider, an SF short by James Patrick Kelly in Year's Best SF 3. Here, the father lives in a retirement suburb and the interesting thing is, the careBot was made in the likeness of the daughter, sort of 'frozen' in time at age 10 or so, the way he would like to remember her.
Now how exactly is that flamebait?
Johnny five is alive....
every day http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:Random
In Japan, bots play with you.
.... a terminator rolls of the destruct line. Equipped with state of the art systems and the ability to kill in a thousand different ways, it has only one mission. To give an old guy an enema.
We've got 'em in the USA too, except here they're usually in charge of patient authorizations in managed care plans.
can also distinguish eight different kinds of smells
including ex-dogfood?
Hal Spacejock: Science Fiction with Nuts
The most technologically advanced country on the planet, most educated workforce, highest average IQ, clean, virtually crime free ... why would they want to ruin that with 3rd world immigrants? They see the turmoil foreigners cause in the form of the US military base at Okinawa. They can see all the problems in France, Australia, Germany, England with immigration. Xenophobia is completely logical and warranted.
Why is it that when I read these things, I Robot comes to mind?
On another note, it wouldn't be a bad thing to have some facility in older folks' homes that can sense extreme health events. More than the buttons for "I've fallen and can't get up." Something that can sense seizures, heart events, and labored breathing.
The good news is, that dogs can be trained to "see" many of these types of events, and can help their owner out quite a bit. Dogs have the added benefit of giving their owner companionship. The only shortcoming of the dog caregiver is that they have trouble communicating with the outside world - a bot might be better able to communicate with emergency services or family members.
A Passionate Independent Musician
Its finally coming true.
1 (short ton / firkin) = 89.1432354 slugs / keg
Point them at Congress and get something actually done. Nothing scares congress more than angry old people.
Hopefully, most of the elderly in Japan don't live where there are stairs in the house. The consequences could be tragic...
That is awfully shortsighted and I can't help but think that people that think like you will eventually die off and be replaced by people who don't mind people living forever.
Since, only people who believe that living forever is ok will be around... But seriously people change their mind and what if we still had great minds around today. You are thinking that society improves just by people dying off. Well that is not the case... Society improves by medical, scientific, and technological advancements, not by social doctrines.
No one had to die for Newton, Shakespeare, (and I would have to say that after Cromwell and the puritans took over after the Elizabethans died off that literature and art pretty much died in England for a time), Mozart, Beethoven, and Einstein to come along.
It was pure social and economic reasons and not because a turnover in society. People change their mind given enough stimulus and information.
Hell... Wouldn't it be better if those people were around today? I'm still sure Newton would have loved to have all the tools our scientists have today.
"I am the king of the Romans, and am superior to rules of grammar!"
-Sigismund, Holy Roman Emperor (1368-1437)
From a few Japanese Americans I have spoken too this is not exactly correct. Some Japanese women are not getting married or are getting married to non-Japanese men because they are EXPECTED to stay home and care for their husbands elderly parents. This not wanting to be a burden thing just doesn't seem to hold much water.
I wouldn't dismiss the racism part of it so quickly. From what I have experienced many Japanese are still very racist.
See my blog http://ilovecookes.blogspot.com/ for light hearted technical information.
Japan building robots to take care of the elderly just means less jobs for their youth, which means less incentive to have kids in the first place.
If Japan is going fully into a robotic society, how exactly is this good in the long term? In the short term sure it seems like it could help the economy but in the long term its just less jobs and a slower economy for Japan. So they could either pay people to take care of the elderly, or build robots. If Japan builds robots, then there will be less service jobs for Japanese workers and more jobs for factory workers in China.
I think we have to look into the economic risks associated with these decisions, and I don't think Japan is doing a good job improving their economy.
I don't think Japan knows it yet, but the only reason the American economy is doing so well is because we actually do have a service economy. Japan is basically going to become a robot society, where everyone has a robot to do all the service jobs, so what exactly will Japanese people do? Expect 20%+ unemployement for the youth if there is any youth, and without massive immigration, their population will continue to decline.
I honestly don't understand the logic of Japan's economic decisions, I do not understand why the Japanese economists believe it is good to promote robotic technology when their economy is suffering as it is. I don't understand why Japan thinks that promoting robotics will be good for Japan when China will most likely be building these robots. So in general, this looks to be bad for Japan.
I'm not Japanese, so I guess it does not matter if Japan wants to give up one of it's most profitable industries to robots, but hey, if Japan is aging and not having kids, and eventually robots replace their kids by doing all the neccessary service jobs, then that is ultimately Japan's choice.
I think in America, while we should have robotics, I wouldnt want a robot to take care of me when I can hire a person. If I'm an old man, unmarried, I'd rather hire a young lady to take care of me than a robot, and if I'm a married man, I'd rather hire the youth in my community to do the job.
If the goal is to create a new industry that is less profitable than the old industry, its basically a stupid idea. Yes robots can be used to help humans take care of the elderly, but in this case they are trying to mass produce andriods to do it. This in my opinion is BAD for the economy, because its basically telling the youth that
"Hey kids, sons, daughters, we are going to replace you with these andriods"
I think it's a ridiculously stupid message to send the youth. It's going to drive the youth out of Japan even further, during a time when Japan's population is in decline. It will not create new jobs, and while it may create new money, creating new money or saving money for the elderly is kinda pointless if the money isnt passed down to the youth.
I may be completely wrong, I'm not an economist, but I think suicide rates in Japan are high enough as it is, and moves like this only encourage it further.
Are there eight different kinds of feces?
What exactly, are the aging Japanese population going to do? Let robots replace the youth in their society? I just don't get it.
I understand that perhaps we have an over populated world, but I don't see how building robots actually solves the problem. The more robots you build, the less jobs you have in your community unless your community builds the robots, and I highly doubt that people will buy expensive robots build in Japan when they can buy robots made in China.
I think sure it's a new industry, but it won't be good for the youth in Japan, and maybe this is fueled by Xenophobia. Maybe Japan decided that instead of inviting immigration, that it is better to just build robots, but if this is the case, that is Japan's option. If Japan wanted youth to take care of the elderly they could open their borders, plenty of Americans would flood into Japan and do the job for less money than a Japanese worker would do it, and plenty of people from China and other places would also do these jobs.
America has a stronger economy because we use technology to support and improve our economy. We have super computers calculating for us on industry growth and projections. We have it down to a science, and we have mastered economics. Japan has not mastered the economic fundamentals. Japan's economy right now is not as fast because they don't have immigrants. America has an illegal immigration problem, but in general immigration is neccessary to keep an economy strong.
I also think that in America, we arent building machines to do work which humans can do better. Robots? How exactly are robots going to replace nurses, and if robots replace nurses, how is it a good thing exactly to replace people with machines? This is a debate America is having. American's therefore are focusing on business and economics to try and figure out the best way to use these machines. In Japan they build the machines and robots first and then deal with the damages to their economy later.
Robots are good for certain things, but I would not want a robot for a wife/companion. I would not prefer a virtual girlfriend over a real girlfriend. I do not want to play a dating sim over real dating. I think there is a place for the virtual economy and I think the virtual economy will be huge someday, but I don't think the virtual economy should completely replace the traditional economy.
The only way these robots and this virtual economy will be good, is if people actually as families own patents. Even if people as families own patents, you'll still need to have population growth and immigration just so your money can be worth something. Your money is only worth something if theres many people with less money. If the population doesnt grow at all eventually the economy begins to slow down and stop, as young people won't exist anymore to continue and move the economy forward. I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to be the lead consumer of Japan, and I don't think you can expect an 80 year old to fuel the economy in the future. I also don't expect an 80 year old to buy all the music, movies and so on.
I think old people have an important function in the economy,but young people have a function too. Young people are the consumers, and old people are the ones who sell the products, over time the young people can take care of the old people and sell services back. This works in the USA, where young people do almost all the retail and service work and old people hold all the positions of power and status. So young college kids will serve you your coffee, and deliver your pizza. In Japan robots will be doing this, so what will young people do?
This will become a major problem, I'd think Japan could see what is happening in France now, but I guess Japan wants to build robots? Can someone please explain the economic logic in this and please explain how this makes Japans aging society stronger? Otherwise if this is the direction Japan plans to take to their society, you can expect China to start building robots and you can expect America to start creating the AI software along with India. Cheap robots for Japan if that is what Japan wants.
I actually submitted this article on Friday...I guess my write in sucked.
All of us have to think about what other people feel about what we say. They say these things as if language were a recent invention and that people in Japan have not mastered it or something? Seriously, I know not everyone has social skills, I'm not a social genius myself, but is it really that difficult to take care of grandpa or grandma? Is it really difficult to have compassion for the elderly?
Even if you have no compassion and no heart at all, is it really that difficult to accept their money? Why give up enough free jobs to give every student and young person in Japan not only work but a possible mentor, to give it to a robot? This makes the old person in Japan somewhat useless because they have no one to pass their wisdom to. This also makes the young person useless. So you'll have an old person slowly dying in front of a robot who they can't teach anything to, and you'll have young people with no connection to the previous generation. And the reasoning for this is because in Japan people are afraid to hurt each others feelings? They are going to pass up billions of dollars and hundreds of million of jobs over that?
Meanwhile suicide rates in Japan are among the highest in the world.
What kind of society is a society in which the elderly and the youth are completely disconnected? I mean how exactly is knowledge going to pass down from generation to generation?
Racism, as far as racism, this is religion. Racism is simply a religion. It's outdated, because soon we will have the technology to allow mothers to choose the race of their baby. Race is defined by only a few genes, so in the future I expect all of us to be one race.
It's really simple, if you want to solve racism, then let's decide what the official dominant race should be, if we decide it is to be the aryan race, then the government can decide to either let parents choose the race of their child, or if simply make it illegal to be any race but the dominant race. Suddenly racism is solved.
I think the issue with robots on the other hand is the next problem of the future, because race does not really matter, its changeable, skin color, hair texture, these are genes which can be shut off. Once robots take over society, there won't be enough jobs anymore for the youth and the old will basically die out.
Aging has existed since society has existed. How do you deal with an aging society? The youth should get paid to take care of the elderly. Does it really make sense for the youth to create robots to replace themselves?
If you are really from Japan and involved in this, can you please explain the logic to me on how this benefits the old or the young?
I think that America has racism too, but America cares more about the economy than religion. If you look at our religious beliefs, all of these beliefs are ignored if its bad for the economy.
Race is a religious belief, it's not supported by science, it's a religion. The science basically has found the cure for race, and that cure is stem cell research and genetic engineering. So the arguement that race is preventing Japan from solving it's economic problems, well, if Japan solved it's economic problems the racial problems would solve themselves. It's simple, if you are a Japanese female and pregnant by someone of a different race and you want your child to be Japanese, you simply tell the genes to express the Japanese side and the child will be Japanese. This is what the science says. The religion believe in purity of race, but in reality there is no such thing as pure anything. All races have genes from other races which means anyone from any race can select their race. So Japan's solution would be to simply create the racial engineering industry, in which genetic engineering solves the racial problem. If you want your kid to be Japanese you can select the Japanese genes and activate them. If you want your kid to not have asthma you can shut those genes off, along with disease genes of other sorts, but its somewhat foolish to not reproduce at all in fear of some religious racial impurity. A baby has both sets of genes, the mother and the father, if the mother is Japanese or the father is Japanese, the doctor can tell the genes to choose Japanese expression and the child will be Japanese.
This also means that if two Japanese people mate, and they decide to design their baby to be aryan, if they have just a few people in their genetic line who were from Europe, this will be possible as well. So the times are changing quickly, and I think racism is a problem which will be solved by the medical and healthcare industry, not by robots. I see robots are making the problem worse, and I see robots as choosing pride over solutions. When pride becomes the problem, it can slow the economy.
It is basically fact that there is Xenophobia in Japan. There is Xenophobia in America as well.
I think Xenophobia is not the same thing as racism. A person can be Xenophobic in that they may not trust or like how someone else looks, but racism is a religious belief system. Xenophobia can be removed over time as a person learns more about other people, and this happens when immigration occurs and people are around and have with with many different people. Racism on the other hand never ends because it is a religious belief. No science, no math, no evidence will ever sway a true racist from believing in their beliefs. The science can prove that there is no such thing as race and if someone is a true racist they'll ignore the science and follow what their bible tells them. I think the science says that our racial problems are temporary, and in 100 years we will all be one race. I think basically through science and technology, people will be able to choose the race of their children and in the future the racial problems we have now will be solved through technology. Simple, if someone is born the wrong race in the future, it will be because their parents choose that race. Today, people don't get to choose their race, and that is the difference.
The same applies to sexuality, if we find out that there is a homosexual gene, and parents decide to give that gene to their child thats the parents fault. The parent would have had the choice in this case to give the child the straight gene. This also applies to diseases, if a parent chooses to, they will be able to shut off genes which cause diseases. This is the future, and it will be here in less than a decade. In 10 years, the racial issues will start to solve themselves as people basically treat race as a medical problem.
If Japan actually were more accepting of immigrants, they'd have higher birth rates, and they'd have people to take care of their elderly. The only reason this couldnt work is if the elderly were completely racist and were going to insult the immigrant workers. In that case the robots would be the only option. Under any situation, this looks bad for Japan's national image.
If everything will be done by robots, why do we need people, and what should a young Japanese person reading this think?
I mean, if robots will replace all young people in Japan, this explain the high suicide rates of young people in Japan, its not a good message to send.
Accidentally 'kill' a pensioner are given an Uzi by the U.S. Armed Forces and 're-educated' in the ways of personal care. War-Cry: 'Uzi nine millimetre, ass-holiez!'
Yeah you can blame problem 2 on problem 1, but problem 2 is still problem 2. You arent solving problem 1 by blaiming it on something else. If there arent enouh youth in Japan you arent encouraging more youth to want to live in Japan when you replace them with robots. I mean what kind of economy can function like this where old people just lay in bed all day while robots take care of them? I mean really, this is just doomed to fail.
Bubblegum Crisis comes to mind!!!
Boomers are bad! (and I don't mean baby boomers although they have their own set of problems.)
In Soviet Russia, you take care of the robots?
(Sorry to ask, I'm new in these "Soviet Russia" jokes)
So say we all
>> Hell... Wouldn't it be better if those people were around today? I'm still sure Newton would have loved to have all the tools our scientists have today.
Newton probably would have used his clout to condemn Einsteins theory that exposed flaws in his own. That is, if he dragged himself away from searching for bible codes, which is what he spent the last part of his life on.
A great collection of articles on Social Change in Japan on japanfocus.org.
Some articles relevant to the present discussion:
Shark jumps YOU!!
It's not offtopic, dumbass. It's orthogonal.
Death has always varied through different tribes, families and societies. Some societies always had low death rates because they didnt have disease, wars, or the kinds of problems that Europe went through during the dark ages. I think that life expectancy changes every generation. I think there could have been times in the past where Japan had an aging population as well, but they were culturally equiped to handle this. Now that they have tried to westernize, they adopted our system but missed out on some of our strengths.
America likes immigration, always has. Japan dislikes immigration. I look at America and I don't see just one race or just one group, I see people from every country in the world, I look at Japan and I see like a much higher percentage of Japanese. There is also less inter-racial marriages in Japan while in the USA everyone marries everyone, even gays are getting married now. I look at Japan and a lot of aspects of their culture are modern, and then a lot of aspects of their culture just never modernized. The vanity and pride from the traditional periods never went away, so old people feel ashamed at being old and useless and young people feel suicidal if they are unable to get a job. In America it isnt this way, as American's have a very different history, filled with conflict. It's not that Japan is aging too much, nothing wrong with an aging population. The problem is Japan does not fully Americanize. If you are in Japan, by the time you are 80 years old you should have the money to pay someone to take care of you. If the money isnt there, this isnt because the population is too old to take care of itself, this is because culturally Japan never adapted.
America has this problem too, along with many other problems, but in America we built up nursing homes specifically for the purpose of allowing old people to be taken care of. Also culturally, it is the childrens responsibility to take care of their parents, as most children either pay for the nursing home or let their parents stay in either their home or in a home they pay for. In Japan young people due to culture are so focused on career success that they arent keeping a strong family structure. America has this problem too, but because we've had this problem for a longer period of time we've found some solutions to it.
Ultimately Japan has to solve this problem, and I don't think robots will work.
(more kids around today is more workers around 15 years from now, meaning either more taxes or more nurses or both)
This is another difference between USA and Japan. USA does not support social services. We are not a socialist system. We believe in small efficient government with low taxes. So in our case even if our population increases through the roof we won't raise taxes. Instead we will cut taxes to reward the successful and punish the unsuccessful. I think if Japan were to cut all social programs, the elderly would be able to take care of themselves if they invest. Young people will be able to create jobs for themselves as well as long as these robots don't take over, but I can guarentee you that if Japan builds lots of robots and raises taxes that in the future the economy will be even slower, and the youth will be in a situation very much like the situation in France.
So ultimately the point I'm making is I think the robot idea has no chance of working and will actually make the problem worse, and the only way to fix this problem is to encourage the elderly to work longer. Elderly can be investors, and the youth can take over.
Is on Anime on Demand right now if anyone is interested :-) (and has comcast's on demand service)....
We seldom regret saying too little but often regret saying too much.
What on earth happened to all the jokes about elderly South Koreans and their robot friends ?
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
Huh ?
How many beans make five, anyhow ?
A research idea just occured to me to grow an expandable exoskeleton for piglets to adult pigs, much like we wear clothes. The difference is that this exoskeleton provides the pig with human skills and household duties. When the pig is ready to have its body digested it is swapped for a direct brain connection. In this way eventual human uploading suits can be developed without the ethical research problems of calling the direct creation of an ekhuman today, what it really is, which is murder.
Argumentum ad Probabilitum