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Analog Still Big In Japan (bbc.com)

Posted by Soulskill on from the fax-me-a-map-and-then-sit-in-my-car-and-read-directions-to-me dept.

An anonymous reader writes: BBC News reports that Japan, the island nation famous for robotics, 4G phones, bullet trains and corporate tech giants, is actually run by fax machines, human traffic lights, and 4.2 million small to medium-sized companies. Wary of connecting to networks for fear of data theft and hacking, Japanese office workers average just half the productivity of their American counterparts. Whether this conservativism in IT can prevent automation and robots from replacing people remains to be seen. However, the use of cassette tape recorders, hand-written data disk mailers, and 1997-era e-mail systems with near zero storage definitely hurts competitiveness in the global market.

9 of 360 comments (clear)

  1. discretized? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Insightful

    Discretized? DISCRETIZED?! What the hell does that mean?

  2. Re:Productivity of office workers? by radish · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Well a lot of their biggest companies are in real trouble (ex Sony). They also have an extremely high suicide rate (double the US). I have no idea if any of this is related, but the comments I've read about people doing menial jobs which could be automated simply to keep employment up sounds like a recipe for depression, and I doubt it's sustainable. People know when their job is actually useful and feeling like you're not doing anything worth while is incredibly demotivating.

    --

    ---- Den ene knappen er powerknapp, den andre er Bender voice knapp "Bite My Shiny Metal Ass"

  3. Lost Decade (now going on 3rd decade) by trout007 · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Funny how the economy became frozen in time when they stopped becoming more productive.

    --
    I love Jesus, except for his foreign policy.
    1. Re:Lost Decade (now going on 3rd decade) by trenien · · Score: 3, Insightful
      Without being as aggressive fakekuck39, I do think you're losing sight of the "slight" problem Japan has : overworking.

      The reality is that, except when there are hard laws that prevent it (such as for people working in factories), the average Japanese worker does something like 4-7 hours overwork per day (and quite often they'll have to come on weekends too, if they have any kind of management position). At the heart of that is a combination of conservatism (let's keep this way of checking up for mistakes, never mind the fact it's been obsolete for at least 20 years and there are another two in use at the same time, one of which is also obsolete, albeit not quite as much), social pressure (you better be there to work late, and if you finish early, find someone who hasn't to give them a hand, don't ever think of going home because you're actually know how to do your job within a reasonable amount of time) and sheer inability of knowing what to do with yourself if have free time. About that last, from primary school onward, everything is done so that people do not learn to have and enjoy long amount of free time.

      The end result ? Japan is the first wealthy country to see its population numbers go down (it started in 2007, if I'm not mistaken). It's come to the point where the utra-conservative, very pro-business Prime Minister Abe urges people to stop with the long hours and go home (because sex : after 15 hour days going on forever, you do tend to lose interest in favor of a simple pillow).

  4. Re:The land of ATMs on holiday by SvnLyrBrto · · Score: 4, Insightful

    To be fair, though, in Japan your chances of getting mugged and your cash stolen are about as near to zero as is statistically possible. And, should you lose your wallet full of cash, the chances are about 99% that it will be turned into the police (Who operate some truly astoundingly massive lost & found warehouses.) with the cash left untouched.

    Given that the country, unlike the US, generates remarkably few thieving bastards; the motivation to adopt cash replacements is somewhat lower.

    --
    Imagine all the people...
  5. Re:illogical summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    "The purpose of a business to generate profits for the owners. A beneficial side effect is the creation of goods an services. "Keeping people busy" is neither a purpose nor a benefit."

    No, that is the capitalist purpose of a business. It's possible that other people have different definitions as to the purpose of a business.

  6. Re:illogical summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    You sound like a Stalinist. The purpose of an association of people is whatever they damn please, not your quasi-religious goal of "profit".

    As for the rest of your argument, a perceived inefficiency because nobody knows how to increase efficiency is practically equivalent to one deliberately introduced. As long as Japan is happy with its system, and doesn't require it to compete where relevant with external systems, there is no reason for it to change.

    It's like wandering into 1850 with a digital computer and pointing out how so many people are suddenly a burden on society. Nope - they're exactly where they were two minutes ago, contributing to society. Maybe your computer gives them a version of society they prefer, or maybe not.

  7. Re:How is a fax machine analog? by sound+vision · · Score: 3, Insightful

    802.11g travels through analog air. It's still digital.

  8. Re: illogical summary by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 1, Insightful

    Have you ever used a fax machine?

    Yes and we unplugged the POS when it become so overwhelmed with advertisement spam that legitimate business communications were being delayed far too long. Perhaps Japan has a regulatory environment that precludes FAX spam but the deregulated phone industry of the USA offers no such safe haven.