Well its finally happened: I saw the news reports about the little Japanese robot being sent to the space station, thought "I should blog about how stereotypically Japanese that is, then thought "that sounds familiar.". I looked it up and sure enough, six months ago when the robot was first announced, I made a post just like that.
So this time I'll take a different angle. Since this robot looks like Robo-sapien crossed with Astro Boy, it's clear there is some pop-cultural influence here. I've heard that point before: Japan's tech-positive anime is in contrast to western movies where the machine is often the enemy, and that translates to their greater enthusiasm for robots. Really, it's hard to see the direction of causality here: are the Japanese robo-positive because their fictitious heroes drive giant robots, or does anime/manga freely use tech because that's what their public wants?
But I would like to think that culture can affect the progression of technology. It seems that most often, our culture is shaped by the things we invent, and what we invent is just a result of a slow succession of one invention after another. In our world, we see China as a potential successor to the U.S., but for all the talk of their mystery and tradition, they seem to be building a modern world just like the one they're eclypsing. Meet the new superpower, same as the old superpower.
So I hope Japan is showing us that we can chose the nature of our future. For one thing, I hope the future really will be as cute as they will try to make it. But it also gives me some solace that I may have seen a preview of the future through our imaginings of it. I may not live to travel the stars, but at least I helped sow the cultural seeds that guarantee who ever does travel the stars will do so using something they'll call, "warp drive."
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