He's definitely fitting the cliché of "STEM graduate who thinks they have all the answers to social problems without reading any previous works on the subject". E.g. he thinks Japan's cultural problems are a bigger issue than its birth rate itself (correct) but thinks part of the solution involves banning conveyer belt sushi bars because they enforce social isolation by having machines instead of workers (incorrect). He clearly takes inspiration from the Unabomber Manifesto but seems to focus on the primitivism instead of trying to understand the underlying social dynamics and power structures (which you might expect if he were a "leftist" as many initially assumed).
You can take a person out of his ivy league STEM background but you can't take the ivy league STEM background out of a person, or something.
> but thinks part of the solution involves banning conveyer belt sushi bars because they enforce social isolation by having machines instead of workers (incorrect)
Why are you thinking he's incorrect? I mean, a debate can be had if bans are the correct tool, but there is a massive trend in hospitality in general (both restaurants and lodging) to de-personalize the entire experience, to take the human service out of the loop and make it invisible where it still needs to take place:
- hotel booking? no travel agents, no phone calls, anyone can just do that themselves with bookingdotcom and other aggregator service.
- hotel on-site service? no check-in at the reception, you go to a terminal, enter your booking id, get a keycard and that's it. when you check out, you close the door, dispose of the key card, and you haven't seen or interacted with any human during the entirety of your stay.
- food ordering? you sit alone at home, scroll through a list of restaurants that might not even exist ("ghost kitchens"), a computer orders a human to make the food, said anonymous person (and maybe some colleagues) makes your food, another anonymous person gets ordered by a computer to deliver it to your doorstep, and if you specify a non-contact delivery you didn't have to interact with a single human for anything. And I think it won't take long for the cooks to be replaced by machines as well, delivery robots are already a thing.
- on site food eating: you don't order at a server any more, you order at a terminal, a tablet or even your own phone, the computer dispatches cooks and servers, some even don't have human servers any more but only robots or running-sushi-style conveyor belts, and in the end you pay at a machine.
So yes, "running sushi" is definitely a good example how human to human interactions are outright eliminated from our lives.
Fwiw, the conveyor belt sushi place I last went to did not feel any less personal than a typical restaurant, and did not seem to have fewer interactions with people than any place below a relatively fancy date spot
That was my point. It's an evocative image if you don't think about it too long but if you've ever seen one it's no different from any other fast food place. Unless you're a frequent customer, you're probably not going to develop any meaningful relationships with service workers - this is especially true for chain/franchise establishments and the rare exceptions I can think of are "mom and pop" style places which have all but vanished. You go to a places operated by service workers to socialize with other patrons (especially if they accompany you there, like on a date or group event), not the staff. In many cases the staff are literally required not to have genuine human interactions with you because they're being paid to be nice to you.
An Ivy League STEM background is not capable of educating him on the issues he's grappling with. Now an Ivy League Arts background might.
Unfortunately there's just not enough time in the day to really dig into the issues he's grappling with when there's an overwelming course load of databases and physics etc.
I hope he's not right about Japan because since covid I talk to even less people. Restaurants have automated not just ordering, but reservations and payment too now.
Of course he's right. The influence of conveyor belt sushi specifically seems very dubious (isn't it just an unusual novelty?) but any social trend that has people meeting and talking to others less frequently will have people meeting potential partners less frequently. What is the advice always given to people looking for a partner? Go out and meet people. Meet as many people as you can to increase your odds. Any aspect of Japanese society that reinforces or facilitates social isolation has a share of the blame for their demographic problem.
Well, this is the defining trend of our technological progress. People getting what they want makes them unhappy in the long, multigenerational term.
We innovate because we like being comfortable. We don’t want to tend to a fire constantly to be warm. We don’t want to depend on the randomness of hunting/foraging to have a full belly. We don’t want to take days and days of travel to go a few towns over. We don’t want to have to deal with people we don’t know because that’s anxiety inducing.
So we invent all those things that means many modern humans can just stay comfy, warm and fed at home with all their basic needs met without having to go through all this discomfort.
The problem now is that we’re all unhealthy, lonely, feel purposeless
(and to top it all the planet is on fire).
> The problem now is that we’re all unhealthy, lonely, feel purposeless (and to top it all the planet is on fire).
None of that is true. You're projecting what some people struggle with onto everyone, when the data indicates people are better off today. And mental health issues aren't unique to the industrialized world. Also, the planet is warming, but it's not on fire. Total exaggeration.
But some billionaire did a TED talk where he said that the global poverty rate has been constantly declining, which is true, even if it is not meaningful if you remove it from the real-world context of purchasing power, social safety nets, support networks and shared commons, and only a positive if you think sweatshops are good because they create job opportunities.
> And what "purpose" are people looking forward to?
What, you don't find increasing shareholder value compelling?
> It's not literally burning, so it's fine?
Presumably they think the climage catastrophe is not a big deal. "On fire" is clearly hyperbole but the point is that we're on a fast track to total global economic collapse (to say nothing about the death and destruction itself) as long as the answer is to carefully do some ineffective reductions and give more money to the industry to spend on "carbon capture" technology that creates more emissions in the process of being built, maintained and operated than it could ever hope to capture, but I digress.
It's not just about exposure to other people. It's also about facilitating genuine human connections. Japan's work culture is detrimental to life outside the workplace but the cultural problems extend far beyond that. It shouldn't need saying but Japanese culture is also extremely sexist and literally patriarchic in ways that should be obvious even to those claiming "Western culture" (which as a European is a ridiculous notion given the vast differences in attitude across the continent - or even within individual countries - alone) isn't at all.
On the one hand you have overblown expectations of success and commitment to work for men, on the other you have an expectation of submissiveness, docility and youthful purity for women, but in reality most men can't be high earners, most women need to work the same grueling hours to make a living and it all just ends up making everyone unhappy and lonely because nobody can live up to the expectations both instilled in them from a young age and placed on them by their peers and failure is not an option. Not to mention that the concept of dedication to your employer has become completely detached from the previously implied reward of the company's loyalty to their lifelong committed workers, too.
The situation in "the West" (let's say the US) is comparable in some ways, certainly, but the gendered expectations are much less intense and there are at least some options to socialize outside the work environment and as bad as labor protections are, people don't literally die at work.
You can take a person out of his ivy league STEM background but you can't take the ivy league STEM background out of a person, or something.