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What does it mean to be "10 years behind the western world" ? Are they behind in technology, values, policy? Can you give some examples? I'm not disagreeing wit

What does it mean to be "10 years behind the western world" ? Are they behind in technology, values, policy? Can you give some examples? I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious for more info. (I don't know much about Japan myself.)

jhanschoo 6y ago
A partial answer: Googling 'japan fax' would give you many articles attesting that faxes are still a stable for communication in offices. e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-fax-machine-online-hanko-a9501906.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-ja... > Japan’s health ministry has said it will allow health centres to report new coronavirus cases online, instead of by handwritten faxes, after a doctor lambasted the legal requirement. Another very externally visible example is that the Japanese have taken a long time to transition from SHIFT_JIS to Unicode on the web, and on Windows.
- kiliancs 6y ago
  I appreciate this is a partial answer, but by those standards the US is also similarly behind. For example, still commonly use checks and they are nowhere near transitioning to the metric system.
  - deleted 6y ago
    [deleted]
  - T-R 6y ago
    While I don't think Japan should be judged solely on its fax machines (they're ahead in some places and behind in others), there is a difference with fax machine usage in Japan vs the US - they're a trailing indicator of another bottleneck. Fax machines are so widespread in Japan largely because they ease the process of physically stamping documents with a registered stamp (a hanko), which is used instead of a signature. So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. One of the goals of the new prime minister is to finally start phasing them out.
    - com2kid 6y ago
      > So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...
flintomalley 6y ago
I've been working in the computer graphics field for 25-years, the last 10 of which (and currently) have been in Japan. Before I got here 10-years ago, I had visions of Japanese studios having cutting-edge tools, all built in-house, created to automate tasks, making production efficient. I was extremely disappointed. I understand that Japan has a reputation of being at the forefront of technology and, while the manufacturing sector may have had extreme advances in the 80's and 90's, those advances have fallen, with nothing really of note since. No longer is Sony the leader in electronic hardware. Toyota is no longer the leader of car manufacturing efficiency. When was the last time you've heard or read about anything innovative coming out of Japan? There's nothing "disruptive" coming out of here. They are riding on their long-past reputation of being fore-runners of tech. In my opinion, it's not so much a lack of intellectual availability here, but rather, deep-rooted cultural phenomena that has been holding this place hostage for so long. Disclaimer: my experience is in computer graphics, so is limited to that industry. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. But when I was jumping around different studios back home, before moving to Japan, there was always a dedicated technology team present, from small 10-person outfits, to huge 400-people studios. CG companies know that using software just out-of-the-box was not enough to produce animation profitably, so they invested in tech teams to create tools and production pipelines that would make the production process faster, reduce human error, and ultimately, make the company more money. I was blown away that this mindset was not present in most of the studios here. Most of the studios do not want to invest money into a tech team, as the benefits of technology are not exactly tangible or visible right away to the executives. There is also a deeper issue with taking pride in "doing it by hand". There are more issues, but both of the ones described above point to a pretty "old school" way of thinking. Of course, not every person I have worked with agrees with any of the above, but the mindset is present enough to stifle innovation in my field. Where there IS innovation, it is created by non-Japanese folks. Much of this technology is quickly forgotten after being used briefly. I live here, so I guess it can't be that bad. But I have to say that there is a particular naievety present. Even when proposed with new ideas that make sense, there is almost always push-back. Holy cow, I could write a lot more, but I'll just leave it at this: Japan is absolutely not the technology utopia one may think it is.
- stuxnet79 6y ago

jhanschoo 6y ago

A partial answer: Googling 'japan fax' would give you many articles attesting that faxes are still a stable for communication in offices. e.g. https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-japan-fax-machine-online-hanko-a9501906.html https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-ja... > Japan’s health ministry has said it will allow health centres to report new coronavirus cases online, instead of by handwritten faxes, after a doctor lambasted the legal requirement. Another very externally visible example is that the Japanese have taken a long time to transition from SHIFT_JIS to Unicode on the web, and on Windows.

kiliancs 6y ago
I appreciate this is a partial answer, but by those standards the US is also similarly behind. For example, still commonly use checks and they are nowhere near transitioning to the metric system.
- deleted 6y ago
  [deleted]
- T-R 6y ago
  While I don't think Japan should be judged solely on its fax machines (they're ahead in some places and behind in others), there is a difference with fax machine usage in Japan vs the US - they're a trailing indicator of another bottleneck. Fax machines are so widespread in Japan largely because they ease the process of physically stamping documents with a registered stamp (a hanko), which is used instead of a signature. So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. One of the goals of the new prime minister is to finally start phasing them out.
  - com2kid 6y ago
    > So far they've failed to digitize them, and it's often cited as a huge cause of bureaucratic slowdown, especially in the pandemic. Compare this to the US where Bill Clinton signed the Electronic Signatures Act[1] back in 2000. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Global_and_National_Commerce_Act https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electronic_Signatures_in_Globa...

flintomalley 6y ago

I've been working in the computer graphics field for 25-years, the last 10 of which (and currently) have been in Japan. Before I got here 10-years ago, I had visions of Japanese studios having cutting-edge tools, all built in-house, created to automate tasks, making production efficient. I was extremely disappointed. I understand that Japan has a reputation of being at the forefront of technology and, while the manufacturing sector may have had extreme advances in the 80's and 90's, those advances have fallen, with nothing really of note since. No longer is Sony the leader in electronic hardware. Toyota is no longer the leader of car manufacturing efficiency. When was the last time you've heard or read about anything innovative coming out of Japan? There's nothing "disruptive" coming out of here. They are riding on their long-past reputation of being fore-runners of tech. In my opinion, it's not so much a lack of intellectual availability here, but rather, deep-rooted cultural phenomena that has been holding this place hostage for so long. Disclaimer: my experience is in computer graphics, so is limited to that industry. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. But when I was jumping around different studios back home, before moving to Japan, there was always a dedicated technology team present, from small 10-person outfits, to huge 400-people studios. CG companies know that using software just out-of-the-box was not enough to produce animation profitably, so they invested in tech teams to create tools and production pipelines that would make the production process faster, reduce human error, and ultimately, make the company more money. I was blown away that this mindset was not present in most of the studios here. Most of the studios do not want to invest money into a tech team, as the benefits of technology are not exactly tangible or visible right away to the executives. There is also a deeper issue with taking pride in "doing it by hand". There are more issues, but both of the ones described above point to a pretty "old school" way of thinking. Of course, not every person I have worked with agrees with any of the above, but the mindset is present enough to stifle innovation in my field. Where there IS innovation, it is created by non-Japanese folks. Much of this technology is quickly forgotten after being used briefly. I live here, so I guess it can't be that bad. But I have to say that there is a particular naievety present. Even when proposed with new ideas that make sense, there is almost always push-back. Holy cow, I could write a lot more, but I'll just leave it at this: Japan is absolutely not the technology utopia one may think it is.

stuxnet79 6y ago