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- cnot3, on 06/18/2009, -5/+121What happened? People realized the future might not include used underwear vending machines and hello kitty backpacks.
- pstroll, on 06/19/2009, -2/+61When Did Britain Stop Being The Future? 1919
When Did America Stop Being The Future? 1969
When Did Japan Stop Being The Future? 1989
When Did China Stop Being The Future? 20?9 - avataros, on 06/19/2009, -3/+60Pfft. As if the Americans will EVER catch up to the Japanese Robotech armor.
- Zippo, on 06/19/2009, -5/+53I dunno, Japan is still pretty futuristic. I mean, they just ***** built a life-size Gundam in Odaiba.
All their gadgets are still years ahead of ours, as well as their telecommunications network.
When I was in Japan last spring, I rented a mobile phone so I could call my friend (who's living there) when I needed to. The thing was likely pre-owned and about five years old. And, at the time, it put my RAZR to ***** shame. - kazamx, on 06/19/2009, -1/+30So your saying after 15 years of recession they are 'still' second, God dam.
- Bloodwine, on 06/19/2009, -2/+30I really wouldn't call China the future. They might be one day, but they aren't there yet.
- andrewcool, on 06/18/2009, -3/+31Whats Japan's current economy overall ? Its still 2, right?
- askjeffro, on 06/19/2009, -1/+2615+ years of recession has a way of taking the sheen off.
- fandyllic, on 06/19/2009, -7/+31Apparently the author put his head in the sand. If Japan isn't the future why, why is the Prius the best selling hybrid, Honda has the Insight and only Ford has managed to ship any real hybrids of the American companies. European car companies have no hybrids. The Chevy Volt is still a dream.
What is really happening is that the future was never purely Japanese and the world is starting to see the future is actually all of Asia; China, India, Japan, South Korea, etc. - AmyVernon, on 06/18/2009, -1/+25you might have a point there.
- NCmatt, on 06/19/2009, -8/+31Japan stopped being the future sometime during the past decade of a poor economy. They call it the lost decade.
- wolfing, on 06/19/2009, -1/+24When Did Earth Stop Being the Future? 21?9
- MWeather, on 06/19/2009, -1/+21So in the future, China will be the future?
- Haoie, on 06/19/2009, -1/+20How many talking toilets have you seen lately?
- DatoeDakari, on 06/19/2009, -1/+19Thank you for restating something FTA
- RudeTurnip, on 06/19/2009, -2/+20What are you talking about? They make the best stuff!
- RonPauls, on 06/19/2009, -7/+24Keynesian economics happened.
- HaSatan, on 06/19/2009, -10/+25Actually they call it the Rost Decade.
- inactive, on 06/19/2009, -1/+14The article is confusing, poorly written, makes no sense, and it should not be on the first page.
- skratakh, on 06/19/2009, -6/+18European companies don't produce them because the environmental damage caused during the production of hybrid cars is greater than that caused by traditional cars and their use over a few decades. they're not currently a viable alternative.
- jsffive, on 06/19/2009, -0/+11I think that, in the 1980's, when Japan had a thriving economy and was kicking the American auto makers asses in quality, it was probably a lot easier for "futurists" to imagine a future where Japan was a dominant force.
More importantly, with the American economy tanking, how many science fiction books in the near future will be written about us? - Frost9999, on 06/19/2009, -0/+10I think the point was the imagery of Bladerunner was influenced by the aesthetic of Tokyo.
- digitalArtform, on 06/19/2009, -0/+10Gibson was shocked at how similar Scott's vision was to his own? Maybe they both read the 1976 Dan O'Bannon / Moebius Heavy Metal comic, 'The Long Tomorrow,' that actually originated the look. That could account for the similarity.
http://www.sci-fi-o-rama.com/2008/09/30/mobieus-th ... - aegis9975, on 06/19/2009, -0/+10... by that logic the future doesn't bode well for Americans now does it. An economic crisis caused by a housing bubble, failure of banks, government bailouts, sounds exactly like Japan a decade ago.
- inactive, on 06/19/2009, -1/+11if the future doesnt have used underwear vending machines, then I dont wnat to live.
- gnorb, on 06/19/2009, -1/+11It's a matter of perception. Whenever your sci-fi future starts becoming reality, it's no longer sci-fi; it loses its magic. There are now dancing robots, and war machines that could take on mechas, and some level of AI, and a world wide communications framework, and a million other things. That's sort of what defined Japan as "the future." Now that we're in it, we're all sort of disappointed. It's like when America stopped being the future in the early 70's, after space cowboy sci-fi became real and we started to realize not everyone would be in space.
- guyinjapan, on 06/19/2009, -0/+9They also invested a ton in their tech sector in the 70s and 80s - a sector they were already comparatively advantaged in. Such investment only triggered export-biased growth and served to shoot themselves in the foot, as it brought down the price of Japanese tech exports, made it harder for their tech companies to make money, and reduced their overall terms of trade. It's better to invest in things you're disadvantaged at, to help level the playing field and make you more competitive overall, across all international markets. Never makes sense to invest in what you're already good at. I'm not sure if this is fully responsible for the declining influence of the Japanese tech market (versus, say, Taiwan) over the past few years, but it certainly didn't help.
- Vandango, on 06/19/2009, -1/+10Just because io9 says it, doesn't mean it's true. Last time I checked, they're still kings of electronics, urbanization, and robotics.
- dsmx, on 06/19/2009, -3/+12Don't know why your getting dugg down skratakh, your right hybrids do much more damage to the environment in the long term. Since the EU is fixated on the environment they have done studies into it and the damage done to the environment by the construction of a prius is greater over the lifetime of the car than that of a land rover discovery.
- synapz, on 06/19/2009, -6/+14When their central bank inflated their money supply, just as ours is now.
End the Fed. - Kitakaze, on 06/19/2009, -4/+12The used underwear vending machine was a promotional stunt by a kinky sex shop that immediately got shut down. Brand new underwear on the other hand, you CAN buy — just like you can buy pretty much anything from vending machines in Japan. They're not THAT weird; they're just practical, and also they have something else — discipline, person responsibility, or just conformism, if you like — that allows them to place unguarded vending machines on the street filled with tobacco, beer and hard liquor, and kids don't use them. There's something admirable (albeit weird) about that. Give the Japanese a break.
- MiDri, on 06/19/2009, -3/+10@wolfing - WHAT?! Speed and horsepower are prized most amongst the people that have the Opal? Right....
- DiscoUnderpants, on 06/19/2009, -2/+9Stop that!
This is digg where all economic problems are the fault of simple cartoon like ideas being applied... usually by the posters political opponents. Next you'll start talking about the Japanese banking system and the problems there and we'll have an intelligent conversation on our hands. - wimbor, on 06/19/2009, -0/+7@techdever: Raw horsepower has nothing to do with it. Only the performance/luxury European brands are known in the US/Canada. We have lots of smaller engines as well.
Europe simply doesn't need hybrids because it has diesel cars. And currently the Prius Hybrid burns in real life situations far more fuel than diesel cars burn diesel. In addition: regular gas is 1,5 times more expensive than diesel in my country. Hybrids are simply not economical.
In general Europeans like high torque (swifter handling, overtaking) than pure raw horsepower cars. Part of this can be explained by the roads (more curves, higher highway speeds), but also by the very high taxes on high output engines. - Df@ce, on 06/19/2009, -0/+6I have been living in Japan for the last 3 years and it still feels pretty futuristic to me... I am reminded every time I use my toilet which need a flight control manual... Now excuse me while I continue surfing the net on my 100Mbps fiber optic connection... Suckers !
- richlw, on 06/19/2009, -0/+6It's Brazillian
//don't ask me how I know that - TimtheTaxMan, on 06/19/2009, -3/+9Don’t forget that their population is declining too. Nothing says cool like a nation of 60 year olds.
I love the Japanese though, very cool culture and people. - jakeh0, on 06/19/2009, -0/+6great scott...
- anillop, on 06/19/2009, -0/+6You wrong because they have alcohol and bacon in the future thats why.
- inactive, on 06/19/2009, -1/+7lol, I dont think india belongs on that list.
- asgardshill, on 06/19/2009, -12/+18No wonder this circuit failed. It says "Made in Japan".
- Mujokan, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Blade Runner starts out with a Japanese noodle-vendor ("futatsu juubun desu yo!") and a geisha on a billboard. Neuromancer starts out in Tokyo harbor (Chiba prefecture to be precise).
The point would be that Japanese imagery was more important to science fiction in the last couple of decades than it is now. Many reasons for that... I mean Blade Runner is full of the modernist art-deco look of the 1980s, which has also disappeared. Fashions come and go. But I would say that thanks to the amazing popularity of manga and anime, Japan has as more direct influence now than it did indirectly back then. - ZeroCubed, on 06/19/2009, -1/+6No, no no. The conspiracy theorists say that it's 2012.
- heytomkat, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Dubai is nothing like japan. Dubai is tourist attraction painted over a repressed state that ***** on its poor. I don't know much about Japan, but Dubai is not the future.
- cplusplus, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Tiny apartments, eating weird seafood because there is nothing else, bullet train. I can see everyone else going there.
- BitKid, on 06/19/2009, -2/+7...or just exterminate more of the population.
- ImyK, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Might I remind you that the Japanese are building GODDAMN GUNDAMS.
It never stopped being the future. - tsotha, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Meh. Japan stopped being the future when it's own finance bubble burst in 1989. The Nikkei *still* isn't where it was back then, and the Japanese economy has been alternating between moribund growth and recession ever since.
People thought Japan would be the future because if you extrapolated out the bubble years you could draw a graph with the Japanese people owning the world. But they had an export-based economy, just like China does today, and when you reach a certain relative wealth level you can't have an export-based economy - your customers can build things more cheaply than you can and no longer have a reason to buy from you.
People forget the reason you bought Japanese products in the '70s was they were cheap, not because they were high quality. The Japanese government, through MITI, managed to raise the quality of the country's exports in an effort to counteract rising labor prices, but eventually they just couldn't compete with cheap labor in countries like China, Vietnam, Indonesia, and the Philippines. - Ex1tPlanetDust, on 06/19/2009, -0/+5Dubai is an economic wasteland. They tried building it up, now watch it fall. Dont forget it isnt America and you dont have the same freedoms at all there.
- MWeather, on 06/19/2009, -1/+5Got any black jokes?
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