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I was excited for this until I read it's from Japan. Before you downvote me or call me names, let me explain. Japan is known for having an enormously toxic wo

I was excited for this until I read it's from Japan. Before you downvote me or call me names, let me explain. Japan is known for having an enormously toxic work culture -- I think we've all heard about the people having to sit 16 hours in the office just so they seem like they are working hard, or how they nap in the toilet, and many other such horrors. So Japan inventing a very quickly working anti-depressant seem more like paving the way to a nightmare cyberpunk dystopia to me... imagine an operator going through the cameras and an AI warns them: "Employee T-4214 looks to be emotionally distressed or apathetic. Administer countermeasures immediately". And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. But hey, if the rest of us who are not slaves and genuinely need some help sometimes can benefit, I am still all for it. I just question the motives of this particular team. Hopefully I am wrong! In the end it's all circling back to the guns argument: guns can be used for doing evil, and guns can be used for doing good. It's all on us the humans, not on the implement itself.

tdeck 5y ago
> And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. A gram is better than a damn.
Kaze404 5y ago
> the rest of us who are not slaves I think you're massively underestimating the lengths of work-related cruelty that happens here (everywhere except Japan). Obviously there are varying types of cruelty, but an Amazon warehouse worker who is not allowed to go to the restroom past their time limit or an office worker who puts in ridiculous overtime to fulfill the expectations their boss "subtly" gaslighted into them are subject to the exact same situation you're describing. I don't think this has anything to do with Japan, their work culture just shows what capitalism does to everyone more explicitly. They say the quiet part out loud.
- pdimitar 5y ago
  I agree completely. Sorry that I didn't include other prominent examples. It's true what you say: we're witnessing the endgame of capitalism. What was a cyberpunk dystopia before and was meet with laughter -- "crazy fantasy, man" -- is now the reality of tens or hundreds of millions of people. --- My post was mostly just expressing skepticism about the seemingly benevolent nature of this research. People who are as strongly set in their ways as the elderly Japanese wealth-holders are, will IMO first launch a nuclear strike before they give their employees better working conditions. So putting my tinfoil hat on, I'd theorize this research has been funded by Japanese big business owners.
dang 5y ago
"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html

tdeck 5y ago

> And then the person gets a serotonin / dopamine boost and starts working their meaningless awful job with a creepily wide smile on their face. A gram is better than a damn.

Kaze404 5y ago

> the rest of us who are not slaves I think you're massively underestimating the lengths of work-related cruelty that happens here (everywhere except Japan). Obviously there are varying types of cruelty, but an Amazon warehouse worker who is not allowed to go to the restroom past their time limit or an office worker who puts in ridiculous overtime to fulfill the expectations their boss "subtly" gaslighted into them are subject to the exact same situation you're describing. I don't think this has anything to do with Japan, their work culture just shows what capitalism does to everyone more explicitly. They say the quiet part out loud.

pdimitar 5y ago
I agree completely. Sorry that I didn't include other prominent examples. It's true what you say: we're witnessing the endgame of capitalism. What was a cyberpunk dystopia before and was meet with laughter -- "crazy fantasy, man" -- is now the reality of tens or hundreds of millions of people. --- My post was mostly just expressing skepticism about the seemingly benevolent nature of this research. People who are as strongly set in their ways as the elderly Japanese wealth-holders are, will IMO first launch a nuclear strike before they give their employees better working conditions. So putting my tinfoil hat on, I'd theorize this research has been funded by Japanese big business owners.

dang 5y ago

"Eschew flamebait. Avoid unrelated controversies and generic tangents." https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html