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I find it endearing, fascinating but ultimately tedious that the Japanese put SO much effort into both seemingly mundane AND intricate objects. I realize that

I find it endearing, fascinating but ultimately tedious that the Japanese put SO much effort into both seemingly mundane AND intricate objects. I realize that it's more a combination of tradition and their self imposed ~exile~ (isolationism, corrected) from the world for a long time. But there must be a reason why they excel, I mean really excel at anything they put their minds to. Their population also tolerates this! These businesses stay in business! Just to name a few things they're still unbeatable at: 1. Pens (This is a rabbit hole, buyer beware) 2. Paper (Midori! oh Midori) 3. Architecture (a function of their location, but none-the-less) 4. Art (manga, cartoons, all invaluable part of the pop culture even today) 5. I don't partake as much, but their food is unbelievable. There's just something about their tenacity that we can take a morsel of. edit: Corrected from exile, to isolationism. Also, I did forget about photography! (Nikon!) and chalk! All credits to people(ai?) in the comments below for these edits.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago
Yes because they understand the point of life. It is the creating and the making that makes things worth living. That is why chat gpt and similar tech is going to make our lives more meaningless. Writing and struggling and completing the poem is itself more than half of what makes a poem worthy. The final artifact which chatgpt provides is meaningless without that effort.
- ratg13 3y ago
  All countries have things they excel at and things they could be better in. Japan’s work culture, staying late for no reason, sleeping at the office as a sign of dedication.. these things still argue against “understanding the point of life”
- zamadatix 3y ago
  The output you create with tools doesn't have to be any less rewarding that the output you create without them. A good game isn't inherently meaningless to your life because you used existing tools far beyond your capacity to construct alone (a computer, a compiler, a game engine) and a bad game isn't inherently meaningful to you just because you made it out of a tree with your bare hands. How you wield the tools (innate or external) is much more relevant to creating something meaningful to you and should extend well past when we have tools "bettet" at doing something than we are ourselves.
  - chefandy 3y ago
    Not a popular opinion around here, but generative AI has little overlap with the processes common to creating all sorts of art, but lots in common with commissioning creative work. When you commission art, you have a discussion with the artist— however long it needs to be to get your point across. That can be quite lengthy and involve many sketches, mood boards, etc for important pieces, or a couple of sentences for others— and there are usually iterations where things get modified based on your input. When I do visual design work, I build those two things into every contract I put together. Using generative AI uses almost exactly the same process as commissioning art — you're just commissioning it from a computer that will give you an amalgam of other people's art much more quickly than humans can produce it. That's fundamentally philosophically different than using a tool that will make it easier to put elements that you made into a piece exactly as you want them. Someone compositing with photoshop or doing layout with indesign or whatnot can't call themselves a paste-up person or a dark room photo editor, but they are still deliberately placing elements they made to look exactly like they want, from their own minds, into a piece that they create. They are creating art. I've seen few people using generative AI in my particular disciplines that even vaguely understand how many decisions that algorithm is making for them in that process. They just don't understand it enough to know what they don't know. That's the point, right? Nothing wrong with that, but it's distinct from creating art. It's not even bumper bowling— it's directing an amalgam of all bowlers and taking credit when it gets a strike. If you commissioned work from an artist, you wouldn't simply cross out that artist's name and add your own, would you? Art directors and editors who exercise precise control over their artist's output don't remove the artists name and add their own, do they? If there was an AI system that could competently perform surgery, no matter how much massaging that prompt needed, I wouldn't call myself a surgeon for using it, and it would a fundamentally philosophically different activity than a surgeon performing laproscopic survey, evergreen though they're assisted by a modern tool.
    - zamadatix 3y ago
      I agree if you just say "make me a painting" you're not an artist, "write me a program that" and you're not suddenly a programmer, and "operate on the patient" you're not a magically a surgeon. At the same time, if, without AI for a second, you just drag the color pencil across some paper a few times, write int main(){return 0}, or chop the guys pinky off with an scalpel to fix a wart you've not demonstrating being an artist, programmer, or surgeon just because you used the tools artists, programmers, and surgeons are known to use. There are ways to use AI, or any tool we've yet made, like you're saying some people use e.g. photoshop. I'd be surprised if you've seen most people who own a copy of photoshop learn how the masking, convoluting, and effect layers work algorithmically as their path to learn how to create art with it. Most learn by seeing what can be done with it, mimicking that until they understand how to use it to do what they have in mind, then applying that process. Just as you can deliberately work with traditional tools to piece together and grow an image, you can do the same with generative and diffusion tools as well - their usage goes far beyond "make me painting" in the same way the usage of a brush goes far beyond being able to make the canvas brown instead of white. I don't need to know how the magic wand makes feathered selections of pixels to understand I can make it select sections of an image for me and I don't need to understand how an AI model knows what part of the image was the cats head to have it modify it. I'd also say the vast majority of people with a paintbrush or copy of photoshop have a clue how to make art like a professional artist would, that says nothing about whether one can do so with said tools. It is indeed much easier to create something that used to take a lot of effort, but that's not the right measures for whether something can be used in creation or whether something is good art rather a measure of whether something had any real thought or effort put into it. I'm not quite sure what you mean about crossing names out, unless you mean what I described above where you say "make me painting" and act like you're a great artist because your tool made something appear instead of you creating something with it. If there is another meaning to what you mean hear it'd be interesting to hear precisely what you mean. That is to say, there is more to whether doing meaningful creation is still possible than rushing to see whether a similar seeming end result can be created with the same tools in a less meaningful way as well. You wouldn't say Van Gogh's paintings were all meaningless fake art creations because an AI tool can output something which seems like them by simply asking it to so why is it this is the evidence there is no way to use an AI tool to truly "create" any kind of art at all?
- kianlocke 3y ago
  I don't think that struggling to write poetry makes the poem worthy. The final result, and its impact on the performer/reader/listener does (and I say this as a poet). Many of my most profoundly impactful (to myself and others) works birthed themselves painlessly in thirty minutes or less. Several ones that mean the most to me in less than five minutes.
  - packetlost 3y ago
    I can't speak for you, but I find it hard to believe meaningful compositions would be meaningful without the words naturally flowing out of the emotions that birthed them. You'll find no such meaning behind the statistically average gunk spit out by generative models.
    - kianlocke 3y ago
      I've personally made generative models produce poetry that brought tears to my eyes. Granted, they always require as a template other poetry that I already find meaningful, but this did not diminish the results in any respect, in my eyes. On the other hand, asking GPT to write poetry from scratch? Just awful.
    - laborcontract 3y ago
      This is nice, in sentiment, but a lot harder to reconcile when you realize that many if not most of the musicians we treasure have written their music in detached emotional states when they wrote their music, either high on LSD, amphetamines, heroin, or cocaine.
  - noufalibrahim 3y ago
    I believe you're right but what about the effect of the creative process on you the creator as opposed to your listeners? Surely, that's an important aspect of this for you as a person and for us as a society. That, is what I feel is lost with AI generated content.
- oldpersonintx 3y ago
  [dead]
- the__alchemist 3y ago
  People have made this class of prediction in reference to oncoming technologies of many forms. Perhaps we've lost something valuable each time. Perhaps it has been worth it; perhaps not. Or, perhaps the predictions have been incorrect, partially or fully.
  - xanderlewis 3y ago
    I think they’ve been largely wrong so far, but not entirely. Some valuable things have been lost, but there is a clear (and huge) net benefit anyway so we needn’t worry. But to think that AI (whether generative or some sort of AGI in the future) is just another technology seems to me to be an obvious mistake. To take one example, there’s a huge difference between using a set of sophisticated and complex software tools to produce a piece of electronic music over a period of tens of hours, and spending ten seconds typing a prompt into one of these new genAI tools and selecting one of the several audio clips it throws back. But I suppose as these technologies mature and gradually become embedded into our ecosystems we’ll find that there’s still just as much work to be done. It definitely feels like a fundamentally different class of tool to anything we’ve ever had before, though.
- laborcontract 3y ago
  > Yes because they understand the point of life. It is the creating and the making that makes things worth living. Surely one of the lowest birthrates in the world and highest suicide rates would contend with that.
  - krapp 3y ago
    Yeah... the anime and video game industries alone are notorious for being abattoirs that exploit their employees with brutal hours, low wages, and authoritarian business culture that drives people to mental breakdowns and suicide. But hey the sakuga's amazing.
  - pseudosaid 3y ago
    because those rates have been the case since Japan’s inception. Lol, you cant be genuinely that confined in your thinking.
    - laborcontract 3y ago
      1. that may be true for suicide rates, but not TFR 2. even if suicide rates have remained uniformly at the same level - how does does that disqualify my statement, which is that those numbers seem to contradict the parent, who appeared to assert that Japanese people produced these types of goods because they innately understood the point of life? I find the assertion with no evidence absurd insofar that it doesn't even need a formal rebuttal. Moreover, I think there are more compelling reasons that explain Japanese cultural proclivities like, as the parent of parent mentioned, an extended isolation from land traffic, minimal wartime damage to the country as a whole which has allowed these types of companies to exist (did multi-generational companies cease to exist in invaded countries because they lacked proper appreciation for life?), and no zero colonial dilution Parent made a sweeping generalization about Japanese society based on nothing. I made a sweeping generalization about Japanese society based on two demographic points. Perhaps my perspective is confined, but surely not the most confined perspective in this thread.
  - xanderlewis 3y ago
    Some (myself included) would rather live a depressing yet productive existence than a carefree but ultimately meaningless one. Working hard is what life is about. I’m not claiming that explains what’s going on in this case; just that what you point out isn’t necessarily as much of a contradiction as it might initially seem.
sickofparadox 3y ago
Manga's complete and total dominance over western comics has certainly been something to see, it's not even a competition anymore! A single issue of 'lower selling' manga can dwarf the entire run of a 'popular comic'. All this happening during what may be the peak superhero popularity (not today but past ~decade).
- chrisco255 3y ago
  That is interesting, but all sorts of printed media have seen a decline in the U.S. at least. A lot of magazines have gone under or are going entirely digital. While books seem to be doing okay in printed form, I'm certain they've seen a decline too. Western comics were usually sold at newsstands and magazine racks. Newspapers are almost completely gone and magazine racks have been downsized everywhere from when I was a kid.
- skydhash 3y ago
  I think it’s mostly because mangas (and related creative work) narrates a more complex story than the hero/vilain showdown. The best comics I’ve read were East of West, The Sixth Gun, Descender,… I struggled to find one Pixar/Disney animated movie that is not a moral and preachy story.
  - nazka 3y ago
    Definitely their skills at storytelling. Look at what is considered the top 5 comics of Batman for instance. Their stories are meh at best to forgettable and so far from what mangas offer. I think they work because the art is very good. I can’t wait to have someone who draws comics to coop with someone who does storytelling in mangas.
ghaff 3y ago
To me, Japan is just this weird combination of utter refinement (which, yes, leads to prices for some things that seem beyond remotely rational) and complete kitsch. I like traveling to Japan now and then then but it seems a bit both alien and difficult in a way most countries aren't.
lovemenot 3y ago
I feel it's essentially similar to stories such as the Imperial Japanese soldier still fighting WWII into the 1970s on a remote Philippine island. Once started down a path, never stop, never change course. 我慢して!
bluepizza 3y ago
Isolation lasted only 260 years, and ended more than 150 years ago. Explaining luxury combs because of sakoku is a bit absurd. It's akin to explaining luxury handbags due to the vikings invasions.
- Terr_ 3y ago
  The handbag comparison came to mind for me too: We don't usually look for a big ethnic/culture explanations for European designer handbag manufacturers. Though perhaps watchmaking is an exception.
- reallymental 3y ago
  I think you're underestimating the effect of "only 260" years of isolationism. They must have learnt to be self sufficient in many ways, not only in commerce.
jonahhorowitz 3y ago
I've always felt that Japan takes things the rest of the world is known for and does it better. Some examples to add on to yours above. - Better denim than America - Better coffee than Italy/France/etc - Better French pastries than France
- marak830 3y ago
  Strong disagree with he coffee. I've lived here for 10 years, and coffee here is quite generic.
  - hilux 3y ago
    Hmmm. I had better coffee in a Lawson in Shin-Osaka (made by robot machine) than in any Bay Area cafe. Which is unfortunate, since I live in the Bay Area, and not in Osaka.
    - marak830 3y ago
      I've been thinking more about this. I'll agree the base level coffee is higher than Australia.
- guessmyname 3y ago
  I agree, in spirit, but there are many bad coffee shops and restaurants through out Japan too. They are, obviously, not depicted in the media. The things that I can praise are mostly things that don’t usually exist outside of Japan, either because foreigners don’t like them or because it’s difficult to make them, some examples include: - “smart” toilets -- https://jp.toto.com/products/toilet/ https://jp.toto.com/products/toilet/ - (fresh) もち -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi - 卵かけご飯 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamago_kake_gohan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamago_kake_gohan - あんこ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_paste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_paste - variety of 漬物 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukemono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukemono - (cheap! fresh and delicious) sushi (the one we find in American restaurants is… well, Americanized, e.g. cucumber, avocado, bunch of sauce, etc.; you may as well buy californian rolls and call it a day). Good sushi in American restaurants is expensive, that’s why I put emphasis in the word “cheap”. - 神戸ビーフ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_beef https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_beef which you can easily buy in America too, but somehow the quality is not the same, I am not sure why, maybe the pastures or the way they treat the cows. I have no idea. - kitchen knives -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_kitchen_knife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_kitchen_knife , for example, e.g. Santoku (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku), Yanagi-ba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_ba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_ba), Nakiri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakiri_bōchō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakiri_bōchō), Deba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deba_bōchō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deba_bōchō), among others. That said, Japan also produces a lot of silly stuff: - U$200 (square-shaped) watermelons -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_watermelon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_watermelon - U$50 (Egg of the Sun) mangos -- https://www.m-tokusan.or.jp/en/main-products/mango/ https://www.m-tokusan.or.jp/en/main-products/mango/ - U$200 (Yubari King) melons -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King - 95 ft² apartments -- https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2022/10/09/general/japan-microapartments-youth/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2022/10/09/general/japan-m... —and— https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/tiny-apartments-tokyo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/tiny-apartments-...
dontupvoteme 3y ago
Isolationism isn't Exile. [also you're missing Photography gear :) ]
resonious 3y ago
I remember watching a thing about a Japanese geologist. It had to do with figuring out what kind of rock is in the earth's mantle. The way they do this is apparently by just squishing regular rocks (very tiny ones) with machines to simulate the mantle's pressure. Apparently this changes the color and other properties of the rock, effectively making a new rock. They said these machines are hard to manufacture after a certain point because if the precision is off by even less than a mm, it'd destroy itself while applying pressure. The geologist hired a Japanese craftsman to hand-assemble a new machine, and it worked well enough to break the record and basically discover a new rock we hadn't seen before. Wish I remembered the names! Anyway, I thought that's a cool example of the intense craftsman culture "paying off" beyond just receiving admiration for impressive combs.
nvy 3y ago
>I realize that it's more a combination of tradition and their self imposed exile from the world for a long time. Surely it's more to do with population density? It's not like every Japanese person has one of these combs. It's much more likely that these niche businesses can exist where population is highly concentrated.
- chrisco255 3y ago
  Maybe? Even where population isn't highly concentrated, niche businesses can exist via mail order or ecommerce (to gain access to global audience).
zomglings 3y ago
And chalk. There is a brand of Japanese chalk which is very popular among people who frequently use chalk. It is called Hagoromo. See: - Why mathematicians are hoarding this special type of Japanese chalk: https://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-special-type-of-ja-1711008881 https://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-spe... - Apparently that company was purchased from its previous owner and continues to operate: https://hagoromo.shop/ https://hagoromo.shop/
rpearl 3y ago
Pens (pencils too!) and paper make sense because of the fine detail/relatively high stroke count required to write even some common kanji legibly
gosub100 3y ago
Nobody has mentioned swords yet? That's the neet starter-pack first item.
deleted 3y ago
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gerdesj 3y ago
Japan is also often cited, along with Argentina as having a rather odd economomy (1) I personally rather enjoy origami. I've been doing it for around 45 years (on and off) and am a bit crap. It is quite fun throwing a frog or crane at someone to show how exciting a meeting is 8) If you need to be really unsubtle - a "water bomb" (cube) does the job. I love the really complicated stuff but I have to follow instructions - box pleating can get hairy, very quickly. 1-5 - perhaps. Do recall that other exemplars exist. Wherever you are from, your country or culture will almost certainly be expert, the best or whatever at something. The important thing is to notice these things and to embrace them. There used to be a notion, hereabouts, of the "Renaissance Man" - someone erudite in all pursuits of endeavour. Obviously we would like to broaden the scope to "Person" nowadays but the notion still seems a good one to aspire towards. Just looking at your 4 - Art ... you would be unlikely to see something like "Footrot Flats" as a Japanese cartoon. Cards on the table - I'm a Brit and Footrot Flats is a long running series of cartoons by a bloke called Murray Ball from NZ (2) I personally find the shenanigans of Wal, Cooch and co the best cartoons I've ever read and I am a massive fan of Asterix (mostly French) too. Oh and Tintin (Belgium). Look outwards as well as inwards, otherwise you may end up with an economy that is held up as being a counter example to the rest of the world. On the other hand: does it really matter. Economics is barely a science, let alone a craft. Perhaps we need some better measures, when doing crass comparisons. Vive la différance. (1) https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/28/how-argentina-and-japan-continue-to-confound-macroeconomists https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/28/h... (2) https://footrotflats.com/ https://footrotflats.com/
xanderlewis 3y ago
Why tedious?
KennyBlanken 3y ago
A level of trade protectionism second only to North Korea has done a handy job of protecting all these various cottage industries...and I really don't see the difference between this and any of the other bespoke high-end goods made throughout western history? Tenacity? Their tenacity for genocide, torture, and chemical/biological warfare is probably something we could do without. This is still topical because for decades the powers that be in Japan have been openly pushing "we did nothing wrong / were the victims in WW2" historical revisionism that would make a Texas Board of Education member blush, and they've been increasingly running roughshod over the restrictions on military buildup. Then there's the horrific criminal justice system. Oh, and there's also the rampant xenophobia and racism. You spoke of high praise for their manga; google "terraformars." A manga that started in 2011, gained an anime adaptation, and is still wildly popular. White/asian space settlers land on mars and battle native "bugs" that look exactly like extreme caricatures of black people, right down to their hair and hairstyling.
jbarham 3y ago
Re: architecture in Japan the typical lifespan of a house is less than 30 years: https://robbreport.com/shelter/home-design/japanese-homes-are-ephemeral-facing-demolition-just-22-years-in-heres-why-1234608438/ https://robbreport.com/shelter/home-design/japanese-homes-ar... I'd recommend the book Jutaku by Naomi Pollock to get a sense of how uniquely innovative Japanese housing architecture is. Ironically a major reason is tax depreciation rules for houses which encourage homeowners to demolish and rebuild rather than renovate.
VoodooJuJu 3y ago
They absolutely do some nice crafts, but so does everyone else. Aside from personal tastes, the primary reason Japan holds a special place in certain people's hearts is because of a fairly mature and extremely successful ongoing marketing campaign, Cool Japan [1]. This meme quite aptly illustrates the phenomenon: https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/mw20up/this_site_is_very_guilty_of_this/ https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/mw20up/this_site_is_... They have nice pens? So does Pelikan and Visconti They have nice paper? So does Smythson and G. Lalo They have nice architecture? Beautiful, unique, inspiring? So does every other country (except of course for modern architecture) They have nice pop art? There's some really nice anime out there, just like our comics, though anime is generally more soulful than the capeshit stuff, for sure Food? As tasty and unique as any other country's I'd say, though you'll leave the restaurant with an empty stomach I think Japan has done a better job than most countries at preserving the economic viability of arts and crafts, deliberately via protectionism and accidentally via cultural elements. I wish my own culture valued cultural tradition and quality over absolute economic efficiency, as they once did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan
- vharuck 3y ago
  >I think Japan has done a better job than most countries at preserving the economic viability of arts and crafts, deliberately via protectionism and accidentally via cultural elements. This is probably the secret sauce. I'm only a neophyte Japanophile, but respect for masters of crafts seems a big part of their culture[0]. But experts can't make a living off vague cultural values. So the Japanese government, in their fervent desire to preserve their ethnic and national identity, pours a lot of money and attention on craftsmen associated with their cultural heritage[1]. And now the cultural values are important, because Japanese voters have a more positive view of this spending than citizens of other countries might. [0]Yes, all cultures respect experts. But what matters is how much respect relative to other figures. For example, in the United States, business leaders enjoy more respect than master craftsmen. [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20110813130933/http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkazai/pamphlet/pdf/pamphlet_en_03_ver03.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20110813130933/http://www.bunka....
hilux 3y ago
I love the food in Japan. I recently asked a Japanese-American person, who has lived in Japan, how the quality of the food (and everything else) is so high in Japan, so much higher than in the US. He said that the Japanese have high expectations for quality, but more than that, every person is supposed to contribute to the overall high quality of everything. This is enforced through deep social pressure that governs your entire life. Needless to say, this is quite unlike the US.

ilrwbwrkhv 3y ago

Yes because they understand the point of life. It is the creating and the making that makes things worth living. That is why chat gpt and similar tech is going to make our lives more meaningless. Writing and struggling and completing the poem is itself more than half of what makes a poem worthy. The final artifact which chatgpt provides is meaningless without that effort.

ratg13 3y ago
All countries have things they excel at and things they could be better in. Japan’s work culture, staying late for no reason, sleeping at the office as a sign of dedication.. these things still argue against “understanding the point of life”
zamadatix 3y ago
The output you create with tools doesn't have to be any less rewarding that the output you create without them. A good game isn't inherently meaningless to your life because you used existing tools far beyond your capacity to construct alone (a computer, a compiler, a game engine) and a bad game isn't inherently meaningful to you just because you made it out of a tree with your bare hands. How you wield the tools (innate or external) is much more relevant to creating something meaningful to you and should extend well past when we have tools "bettet" at doing something than we are ourselves.
- chefandy 3y ago
  Not a popular opinion around here, but generative AI has little overlap with the processes common to creating all sorts of art, but lots in common with commissioning creative work. When you commission art, you have a discussion with the artist— however long it needs to be to get your point across. That can be quite lengthy and involve many sketches, mood boards, etc for important pieces, or a couple of sentences for others— and there are usually iterations where things get modified based on your input. When I do visual design work, I build those two things into every contract I put together. Using generative AI uses almost exactly the same process as commissioning art — you're just commissioning it from a computer that will give you an amalgam of other people's art much more quickly than humans can produce it. That's fundamentally philosophically different than using a tool that will make it easier to put elements that you made into a piece exactly as you want them. Someone compositing with photoshop or doing layout with indesign or whatnot can't call themselves a paste-up person or a dark room photo editor, but they are still deliberately placing elements they made to look exactly like they want, from their own minds, into a piece that they create. They are creating art. I've seen few people using generative AI in my particular disciplines that even vaguely understand how many decisions that algorithm is making for them in that process. They just don't understand it enough to know what they don't know. That's the point, right? Nothing wrong with that, but it's distinct from creating art. It's not even bumper bowling— it's directing an amalgam of all bowlers and taking credit when it gets a strike. If you commissioned work from an artist, you wouldn't simply cross out that artist's name and add your own, would you? Art directors and editors who exercise precise control over their artist's output don't remove the artists name and add their own, do they? If there was an AI system that could competently perform surgery, no matter how much massaging that prompt needed, I wouldn't call myself a surgeon for using it, and it would a fundamentally philosophically different activity than a surgeon performing laproscopic survey, evergreen though they're assisted by a modern tool.
  - zamadatix 3y ago
    I agree if you just say "make me a painting" you're not an artist, "write me a program that" and you're not suddenly a programmer, and "operate on the patient" you're not a magically a surgeon. At the same time, if, without AI for a second, you just drag the color pencil across some paper a few times, write int main(){return 0}, or chop the guys pinky off with an scalpel to fix a wart you've not demonstrating being an artist, programmer, or surgeon just because you used the tools artists, programmers, and surgeons are known to use. There are ways to use AI, or any tool we've yet made, like you're saying some people use e.g. photoshop. I'd be surprised if you've seen most people who own a copy of photoshop learn how the masking, convoluting, and effect layers work algorithmically as their path to learn how to create art with it. Most learn by seeing what can be done with it, mimicking that until they understand how to use it to do what they have in mind, then applying that process. Just as you can deliberately work with traditional tools to piece together and grow an image, you can do the same with generative and diffusion tools as well - their usage goes far beyond "make me painting" in the same way the usage of a brush goes far beyond being able to make the canvas brown instead of white. I don't need to know how the magic wand makes feathered selections of pixels to understand I can make it select sections of an image for me and I don't need to understand how an AI model knows what part of the image was the cats head to have it modify it. I'd also say the vast majority of people with a paintbrush or copy of photoshop have a clue how to make art like a professional artist would, that says nothing about whether one can do so with said tools. It is indeed much easier to create something that used to take a lot of effort, but that's not the right measures for whether something can be used in creation or whether something is good art rather a measure of whether something had any real thought or effort put into it. I'm not quite sure what you mean about crossing names out, unless you mean what I described above where you say "make me painting" and act like you're a great artist because your tool made something appear instead of you creating something with it. If there is another meaning to what you mean hear it'd be interesting to hear precisely what you mean. That is to say, there is more to whether doing meaningful creation is still possible than rushing to see whether a similar seeming end result can be created with the same tools in a less meaningful way as well. You wouldn't say Van Gogh's paintings were all meaningless fake art creations because an AI tool can output something which seems like them by simply asking it to so why is it this is the evidence there is no way to use an AI tool to truly "create" any kind of art at all?
kianlocke 3y ago
I don't think that struggling to write poetry makes the poem worthy. The final result, and its impact on the performer/reader/listener does (and I say this as a poet). Many of my most profoundly impactful (to myself and others) works birthed themselves painlessly in thirty minutes or less. Several ones that mean the most to me in less than five minutes.
- packetlost 3y ago
  I can't speak for you, but I find it hard to believe meaningful compositions would be meaningful without the words naturally flowing out of the emotions that birthed them. You'll find no such meaning behind the statistically average gunk spit out by generative models.
  - kianlocke 3y ago
    I've personally made generative models produce poetry that brought tears to my eyes. Granted, they always require as a template other poetry that I already find meaningful, but this did not diminish the results in any respect, in my eyes. On the other hand, asking GPT to write poetry from scratch? Just awful.
  - laborcontract 3y ago
    This is nice, in sentiment, but a lot harder to reconcile when you realize that many if not most of the musicians we treasure have written their music in detached emotional states when they wrote their music, either high on LSD, amphetamines, heroin, or cocaine.
- noufalibrahim 3y ago
  I believe you're right but what about the effect of the creative process on you the creator as opposed to your listeners? Surely, that's an important aspect of this for you as a person and for us as a society. That, is what I feel is lost with AI generated content.
oldpersonintx 3y ago
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the__alchemist 3y ago
People have made this class of prediction in reference to oncoming technologies of many forms. Perhaps we've lost something valuable each time. Perhaps it has been worth it; perhaps not. Or, perhaps the predictions have been incorrect, partially or fully.
- xanderlewis 3y ago
  I think they’ve been largely wrong so far, but not entirely. Some valuable things have been lost, but there is a clear (and huge) net benefit anyway so we needn’t worry. But to think that AI (whether generative or some sort of AGI in the future) is just another technology seems to me to be an obvious mistake. To take one example, there’s a huge difference between using a set of sophisticated and complex software tools to produce a piece of electronic music over a period of tens of hours, and spending ten seconds typing a prompt into one of these new genAI tools and selecting one of the several audio clips it throws back. But I suppose as these technologies mature and gradually become embedded into our ecosystems we’ll find that there’s still just as much work to be done. It definitely feels like a fundamentally different class of tool to anything we’ve ever had before, though.
laborcontract 3y ago
> Yes because they understand the point of life. It is the creating and the making that makes things worth living. Surely one of the lowest birthrates in the world and highest suicide rates would contend with that.
- krapp 3y ago
  Yeah... the anime and video game industries alone are notorious for being abattoirs that exploit their employees with brutal hours, low wages, and authoritarian business culture that drives people to mental breakdowns and suicide. But hey the sakuga's amazing.
- pseudosaid 3y ago
  because those rates have been the case since Japan’s inception. Lol, you cant be genuinely that confined in your thinking.
  - laborcontract 3y ago
    1. that may be true for suicide rates, but not TFR 2. even if suicide rates have remained uniformly at the same level - how does does that disqualify my statement, which is that those numbers seem to contradict the parent, who appeared to assert that Japanese people produced these types of goods because they innately understood the point of life? I find the assertion with no evidence absurd insofar that it doesn't even need a formal rebuttal. Moreover, I think there are more compelling reasons that explain Japanese cultural proclivities like, as the parent of parent mentioned, an extended isolation from land traffic, minimal wartime damage to the country as a whole which has allowed these types of companies to exist (did multi-generational companies cease to exist in invaded countries because they lacked proper appreciation for life?), and no zero colonial dilution Parent made a sweeping generalization about Japanese society based on nothing. I made a sweeping generalization about Japanese society based on two demographic points. Perhaps my perspective is confined, but surely not the most confined perspective in this thread.
- xanderlewis 3y ago
  Some (myself included) would rather live a depressing yet productive existence than a carefree but ultimately meaningless one. Working hard is what life is about. I’m not claiming that explains what’s going on in this case; just that what you point out isn’t necessarily as much of a contradiction as it might initially seem.

sickofparadox 3y ago

Manga's complete and total dominance over western comics has certainly been something to see, it's not even a competition anymore! A single issue of 'lower selling' manga can dwarf the entire run of a 'popular comic'. All this happening during what may be the peak superhero popularity (not today but past ~decade).

chrisco255 3y ago
That is interesting, but all sorts of printed media have seen a decline in the U.S. at least. A lot of magazines have gone under or are going entirely digital. While books seem to be doing okay in printed form, I'm certain they've seen a decline too. Western comics were usually sold at newsstands and magazine racks. Newspapers are almost completely gone and magazine racks have been downsized everywhere from when I was a kid.
skydhash 3y ago
I think it’s mostly because mangas (and related creative work) narrates a more complex story than the hero/vilain showdown. The best comics I’ve read were East of West, The Sixth Gun, Descender,… I struggled to find one Pixar/Disney animated movie that is not a moral and preachy story.
- nazka 3y ago
  Definitely their skills at storytelling. Look at what is considered the top 5 comics of Batman for instance. Their stories are meh at best to forgettable and so far from what mangas offer. I think they work because the art is very good. I can’t wait to have someone who draws comics to coop with someone who does storytelling in mangas.

ghaff 3y ago

To me, Japan is just this weird combination of utter refinement (which, yes, leads to prices for some things that seem beyond remotely rational) and complete kitsch. I like traveling to Japan now and then then but it seems a bit both alien and difficult in a way most countries aren't.

lovemenot 3y ago

I feel it's essentially similar to stories such as the Imperial Japanese soldier still fighting WWII into the 1970s on a remote Philippine island. Once started down a path, never stop, never change course. 我慢して!

bluepizza 3y ago

Isolation lasted only 260 years, and ended more than 150 years ago. Explaining luxury combs because of sakoku is a bit absurd. It's akin to explaining luxury handbags due to the vikings invasions.

Terr_ 3y ago
The handbag comparison came to mind for me too: We don't usually look for a big ethnic/culture explanations for European designer handbag manufacturers. Though perhaps watchmaking is an exception.
reallymental 3y ago
I think you're underestimating the effect of "only 260" years of isolationism. They must have learnt to be self sufficient in many ways, not only in commerce.

jonahhorowitz 3y ago

I've always felt that Japan takes things the rest of the world is known for and does it better. Some examples to add on to yours above. - Better denim than America - Better coffee than Italy/France/etc - Better French pastries than France

marak830 3y ago
Strong disagree with he coffee. I've lived here for 10 years, and coffee here is quite generic.
- hilux 3y ago
  Hmmm. I had better coffee in a Lawson in Shin-Osaka (made by robot machine) than in any Bay Area cafe. Which is unfortunate, since I live in the Bay Area, and not in Osaka.
  - marak830 3y ago
    I've been thinking more about this. I'll agree the base level coffee is higher than Australia.
guessmyname 3y ago
I agree, in spirit, but there are many bad coffee shops and restaurants through out Japan too. They are, obviously, not depicted in the media. The things that I can praise are mostly things that don’t usually exist outside of Japan, either because foreigners don’t like them or because it’s difficult to make them, some examples include: - “smart” toilets -- https://jp.toto.com/products/toilet/ https://jp.toto.com/products/toilet/ - (fresh) もち -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mochi - 卵かけご飯 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamago_kake_gohan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tamago_kake_gohan - あんこ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_paste https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Red_bean_paste - variety of 漬物 -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukemono https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tsukemono - (cheap! fresh and delicious) sushi (the one we find in American restaurants is… well, Americanized, e.g. cucumber, avocado, bunch of sauce, etc.; you may as well buy californian rolls and call it a day). Good sushi in American restaurants is expensive, that’s why I put emphasis in the word “cheap”. - 神戸ビーフ -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_beef https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kobe_beef which you can easily buy in America too, but somehow the quality is not the same, I am not sure why, maybe the pastures or the way they treat the cows. I have no idea. - kitchen knives -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_kitchen_knife https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_kitchen_knife , for example, e.g. Santoku (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Santoku), Yanagi-ba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_ba https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yanagi_ba), Nakiri (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakiri_bōchō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nakiri_bōchō), Deba (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deba_bōchō https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Deba_bōchō), among others. That said, Japan also produces a lot of silly stuff: - U$200 (square-shaped) watermelons -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_watermelon https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Square_watermelon - U$50 (Egg of the Sun) mangos -- https://www.m-tokusan.or.jp/en/main-products/mango/ https://www.m-tokusan.or.jp/en/main-products/mango/ - U$200 (Yubari King) melons -- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yubari_King - 95 ft² apartments -- https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2022/10/09/general/japan-microapartments-youth/ https://www.japantimes.co.jp/life/2022/10/09/general/japan-m... —and— https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/tiny-apartments-tokyo.html https://www.nytimes.com/2022/10/03/business/tiny-apartments-...

dontupvoteme 3y ago

Isolationism isn't Exile. [also you're missing Photography gear :) ]

resonious 3y ago

I remember watching a thing about a Japanese geologist. It had to do with figuring out what kind of rock is in the earth's mantle. The way they do this is apparently by just squishing regular rocks (very tiny ones) with machines to simulate the mantle's pressure. Apparently this changes the color and other properties of the rock, effectively making a new rock. They said these machines are hard to manufacture after a certain point because if the precision is off by even less than a mm, it'd destroy itself while applying pressure. The geologist hired a Japanese craftsman to hand-assemble a new machine, and it worked well enough to break the record and basically discover a new rock we hadn't seen before. Wish I remembered the names! Anyway, I thought that's a cool example of the intense craftsman culture "paying off" beyond just receiving admiration for impressive combs.

nvy 3y ago

>I realize that it's more a combination of tradition and their self imposed exile from the world for a long time. Surely it's more to do with population density? It's not like every Japanese person has one of these combs. It's much more likely that these niche businesses can exist where population is highly concentrated.

chrisco255 3y ago
Maybe? Even where population isn't highly concentrated, niche businesses can exist via mail order or ecommerce (to gain access to global audience).

zomglings 3y ago

And chalk. There is a brand of Japanese chalk which is very popular among people who frequently use chalk. It is called Hagoromo. See: - Why mathematicians are hoarding this special type of Japanese chalk: https://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-special-type-of-ja-1711008881 https://gizmodo.com/why-mathematicians-are-hoarding-this-spe... - Apparently that company was purchased from its previous owner and continues to operate: https://hagoromo.shop/ https://hagoromo.shop/

rpearl 3y ago

Pens (pencils too!) and paper make sense because of the fine detail/relatively high stroke count required to write even some common kanji legibly

gosub100 3y ago

Nobody has mentioned swords yet? That's the neet starter-pack first item.

deleted 3y ago

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gerdesj 3y ago

Japan is also often cited, along with Argentina as having a rather odd economomy (1) I personally rather enjoy origami. I've been doing it for around 45 years (on and off) and am a bit crap. It is quite fun throwing a frog or crane at someone to show how exciting a meeting is 8) If you need to be really unsubtle - a "water bomb" (cube) does the job. I love the really complicated stuff but I have to follow instructions - box pleating can get hairy, very quickly. 1-5 - perhaps. Do recall that other exemplars exist. Wherever you are from, your country or culture will almost certainly be expert, the best or whatever at something. The important thing is to notice these things and to embrace them. There used to be a notion, hereabouts, of the "Renaissance Man" - someone erudite in all pursuits of endeavour. Obviously we would like to broaden the scope to "Person" nowadays but the notion still seems a good one to aspire towards. Just looking at your 4 - Art ... you would be unlikely to see something like "Footrot Flats" as a Japanese cartoon. Cards on the table - I'm a Brit and Footrot Flats is a long running series of cartoons by a bloke called Murray Ball from NZ (2) I personally find the shenanigans of Wal, Cooch and co the best cartoons I've ever read and I am a massive fan of Asterix (mostly French) too. Oh and Tintin (Belgium). Look outwards as well as inwards, otherwise you may end up with an economy that is held up as being a counter example to the rest of the world. On the other hand: does it really matter. Economics is barely a science, let alone a craft. Perhaps we need some better measures, when doing crass comparisons. Vive la différance. (1) https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/28/how-argentina-and-japan-continue-to-confound-macroeconomists https://www.economist.com/finance-and-economics/2019/03/28/h... (2) https://footrotflats.com/ https://footrotflats.com/

xanderlewis 3y ago

Why tedious?

KennyBlanken 3y ago

A level of trade protectionism second only to North Korea has done a handy job of protecting all these various cottage industries...and I really don't see the difference between this and any of the other bespoke high-end goods made throughout western history? Tenacity? Their tenacity for genocide, torture, and chemical/biological warfare is probably something we could do without. This is still topical because for decades the powers that be in Japan have been openly pushing "we did nothing wrong / were the victims in WW2" historical revisionism that would make a Texas Board of Education member blush, and they've been increasingly running roughshod over the restrictions on military buildup. Then there's the horrific criminal justice system. Oh, and there's also the rampant xenophobia and racism. You spoke of high praise for their manga; google "terraformars." A manga that started in 2011, gained an anime adaptation, and is still wildly popular. White/asian space settlers land on mars and battle native "bugs" that look exactly like extreme caricatures of black people, right down to their hair and hairstyling.

jbarham 3y ago

Re: architecture in Japan the typical lifespan of a house is less than 30 years: https://robbreport.com/shelter/home-design/japanese-homes-are-ephemeral-facing-demolition-just-22-years-in-heres-why-1234608438/ https://robbreport.com/shelter/home-design/japanese-homes-ar... I'd recommend the book Jutaku by Naomi Pollock to get a sense of how uniquely innovative Japanese housing architecture is. Ironically a major reason is tax depreciation rules for houses which encourage homeowners to demolish and rebuild rather than renovate.

VoodooJuJu 3y ago

They absolutely do some nice crafts, but so does everyone else. Aside from personal tastes, the primary reason Japan holds a special place in certain people's hearts is because of a fairly mature and extremely successful ongoing marketing campaign, Cool Japan [1]. This meme quite aptly illustrates the phenomenon: https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/mw20up/this_site_is_very_guilty_of_this/ https://old.reddit.com/r/memes/comments/mw20up/this_site_is_... They have nice pens? So does Pelikan and Visconti They have nice paper? So does Smythson and G. Lalo They have nice architecture? Beautiful, unique, inspiring? So does every other country (except of course for modern architecture) They have nice pop art? There's some really nice anime out there, just like our comics, though anime is generally more soulful than the capeshit stuff, for sure Food? As tasty and unique as any other country's I'd say, though you'll leave the restaurant with an empty stomach I think Japan has done a better job than most countries at preserving the economic viability of arts and crafts, deliberately via protectionism and accidentally via cultural elements. I wish my own culture valued cultural tradition and quality over absolute economic efficiency, as they once did. [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cool_Japan

vharuck 3y ago
>I think Japan has done a better job than most countries at preserving the economic viability of arts and crafts, deliberately via protectionism and accidentally via cultural elements. This is probably the secret sauce. I'm only a neophyte Japanophile, but respect for masters of crafts seems a big part of their culture[0]. But experts can't make a living off vague cultural values. So the Japanese government, in their fervent desire to preserve their ethnic and national identity, pours a lot of money and attention on craftsmen associated with their cultural heritage[1]. And now the cultural values are important, because Japanese voters have a more positive view of this spending than citizens of other countries might. [0]Yes, all cultures respect experts. But what matters is how much respect relative to other figures. For example, in the United States, business leaders enjoy more respect than master craftsmen. [1]https://web.archive.org/web/20110813130933/http://www.bunka.go.jp/bunkazai/pamphlet/pdf/pamphlet_en_03_ver03.pdf https://web.archive.org/web/20110813130933/http://www.bunka....

hilux 3y ago

I love the food in Japan. I recently asked a Japanese-American person, who has lived in Japan, how the quality of the food (and everything else) is so high in Japan, so much higher than in the US. He said that the Japanese have high expectations for quality, but more than that, every person is supposed to contribute to the overall high quality of everything. This is enforced through deep social pressure that governs your entire life. Needless to say, this is quite unlike the US.