NATURAL ENERGY THAT SUPPORTS CONVENIENCE - CONVENIENCE STORES OPEN EVERY DAY OF THE YEAR
Snow kept for air conditioning in the storage unit behind the store. (Photo courtesy of Lawson,Inc.)
On the streets of Japan, there are convenience stores everywhere stocked with various foods, magazines and daily necessities. Many of them are open 24 hours a day, seven days a week, supporting convenient lifestyles with locations where you can even shop in the middle of the night. On the other hand, these stores lit brightly at night and the refrigerator cases that keep beverages cold at all times use up a lot of electricity. As a result, electricity costs account for a large portion of the stores’ operating expenses. Convenience store companies are now working to make low-cost stores while reducing their impact on the environment by utilizing natural energy.
Cooling the Summer with 100 Tons of Snow
The floor area of the storage unit is about 33 square meters and the height from floor to ceiling is about three meters. Snow is piled up completely to the ceiling using a snow blower. (Photo courtesy of Lawson,Inc.)
Heat pipes installed within the double-paned windows. (Photo courtesy of Lawson,Inc.)
In Akita Prefecture where it is covered in deep snow during the winter, a store was opened in November 2013 that saves snow until summer to be used for air conditioning. One hundred tons of snow can be put into a storage unit on the premises. The outer walls of the unit contain insulation so that there are no electricity costs to keep the snow. In the summer, cold water from the melted snow is circulated through a heat exchanger and then the cooled air is used to air-condition the store. Water from the melted snow that could not be used up is then sprayed onto outdoor equipment for the refrigeration cases inside the store. By cooling the outdoor equipment that is out in the summer heat, it can also reduce electricity costs for the refrigeration equipment.
The double-paned windows that increase the efficiency of heating and cooling also have “heat pipes” installed in them that make hot water by using the solar heat between the two panes. This hot water is used for floor heating at the counters used by the store clerks, saving electricity costs in the winter. There are solar panels on the roof and a system has been installed that automatically regulates heating and cooling by working in conjunction with outdoor temperature sensors.
This store was built by a major convenience store chain in order to study the effect of the latest energy saving equipment. It is expected that the amount of electricity used each year will become about half when compared to the stores up until now. Once the effectiveness of summer cooling has been verified, it will be considered whether or not to put the same equipment in other stores as well.
Reusable Paper Display Shelves
The square box outside of the building is the heat pump. It is connected by pipes to the underground heat exchanger; and from there to the air vents inside the store, cold water at temperatures between 7 and 10 degrees Celsius in the summer, or warm water at temperatures between 35 and 50 degrees Celsius in the winter is sent for heating and cooling. (Photo courtesy of FamilyMart Co.,Ltd.)
At another store just outside of Tokyo, a hole 100 meters deep has been dug on the premises, and a heat exchanger for air-conditioning has been embedded into the ground. Groundwater temperatures remain stable throughout the year at around 17 degrees Celsius making it usable for cooling in the summer and heating in the winter. This could reduce the amount of energy used for air conditioning by about 30 percent. Standard air conditioners are said to contribute to the “heat island effect,” which raises temperatures in urban areas due to the exhaustion of heat as it passes through the outdoor units during cooling. The new equipment can minimize its effect on the surrounding environment by sending the heat generated during summer cooling, into the ground.
Left:The light ducts capture sunlight from a transparent dome-shaped lighting device installed on the roof and directs it inside of the store using a special tube. The inner part of the tube is processed to reflect almost 100 percent of the sunlight.
Right:Light ducts that brightly light up the restrooms inside the store. (Photo courtesy of FamilyMart Co.,Ltd.)
Display shelves made from hard paper. (Photo courtesy of FamilyMart Co.,Ltd.)
In order to reduce electricity used for lighting during the daytime, the major chain operating this store has also adopted the use of “light ducts,” which deliver sunlight using a special tube to light certain areas in the store, such as restrooms where it is often difficult for outdoor light to reach. In addition to that, they have also developed display shelves using 100 percent reusable hard paper. Up to 15 kilograms of merchandise can be displayed on each shelf. While they maintain the same strength as the conventional steel types, carbon dioxide emissions during the manufacturing and transportation of them can be reduced by 70 percent.
As a Lifeline During Disasters
Solar panels installed on the roof of the store. In the front you can see the glass of the skylights. (Photo courtesy of Seven & i Holdings Co., Ltd.)
Natural light shining brightly into the store through the skylights. (Photo courtesy of Seven & i Holdings Co., Ltd.)
by:benita grace S (9i/6)
The advancements of convenience store companies toward using natural energy are also meant to serve as a lifeline to supply food and daily necessities to surrounding residents after the large-scale disaster occurred.
The largest chain, with 16,000 stores open throughout Japan, began demonstration tests by storing electricity into storage batteries during the night when power consumption is low and the price is comparatively cheap, and using it during the daytime when power usage is at its peak. Use of these storage batteries can cover enough power necessary for operations not only to avoid power shortages during the summer when power demands increase all over Japan, but also during power outages for a certain amount of time. Even when there are power outages during the night, as long as part of the store is lit up, residents will have some peace of mind.
This chain is also actively introducing solar panels for power and has already installed them at 6,600 locations. Equipment that reduces daytime lighting is also being introduced, capturing sunlight directly into the store through skylights on the roof.
Convenience stores have become an essential part of Japanese society. Future initiatives will continue to expand in order to accommodate convenient lifestyles and respond to global warming.
Japan’s science and technology (S&T) infrastructure faces many challenges. The nation’s population is declining, which will likely reduce economic growth and therefore probably decrease both the amount of investment in S&T and the number of people working in the field. Additionally, the rise of the BRIC countries (Brazil, Russia, India, and China) in S&T, especially China, has been remarkable over the last several years. It is almost inevitable that Japan’s relative strength in science will erode in this globalized world.
Against this backdrop, there has been increased interest in science and technology diplomacy in Japan. For policy makers and scientists, one of the primary objectives of S&T diplomacy is to tap into the growing science base beyond a nation’s borders including research facilities and human resources. International mobility of human resources for science is sometimes referred to as the “brain circulation” that drives today’s global science. Japan cannot allow itself to fall outside of the research network created by this brain circulation. Thus, another important objective for Japan’s S&T diplomacy is to remain one of the critical points in this global network. However, Japan is opening itself up to the rest of the world too slowly in relation to other “catching up” nations, such as South Korea. By utilizing science and technology diplomacy, Japan can expand its volume of international research collaborations with dynamic nations around the world and can revitalize its innovation system.
The electoral comeback of Japan’s Liberal Democratic Party last December ended three years of rule by Japan’s Democratic Party. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe, who leads the new government, has emphasized the need to rebuild Japan’s diplomacy in the face of unsolved critical issues in several important areas that affect relationships with the United States, China, and South Korea, among others. If the Abe government is able to establish a new and effective institutional framework to link science and foreign policy, Japan can use science for diplomacy in reconstructing its foreign relations with strategically important countries and regions.
Japan's History with Science and Technology Diplomacy
On August 19, 2011, the Japanese government issued the 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan, a five-year national strategy on science, technology, and innovation with the outlook for the coming decade. This is a notable step as it was the first basic plan that designated S&T diplomacy as an issue of national importance.
Japanese Science Diplomacy before 2008
Executive members of the Cabinet Office’s Council for Science and Technology Policy (CSTP) issued a proposal in 2007 with the hope that the nation would become aware of the increasing importance of collaboration between S&T and diplomacy, and Japan would increase its presence in the world. Of course, before the CSTP issued the proposal, Japanese universities and research and development (R&D) institutions already conducted international joint research projects and exchanges of scientists with foreign institutions in various areas of S&T.
In the first decade of the twenty-first century, Japan held policy dialogues with ministers and senior officials in charge of S&T, especially with Asian countries. From the perspective of diplomacy, S&T contributed to building good relations with other countries. For example, Japan concluded twenty-four agreements on scientific and technological cooperation with thirty-four countries by 2000. (At present, there are thirty-two agreements with forty-six countries and the European Commission.) The oldest one was concluded in 1973 with the former Soviet Union and the agreements concluded in the 1970s are with Central and Eastern Europe countries and newly independent states (i.e., parts of the former Soviet Union).
From the perspective of diplomacy, S&T contributed to building good relations with other countries.
It is no exaggeration to say that S&T, a borderless field for the pursuit of the truth, plays an important role in promoting trust among nations. Moreover, S&T has been an effective means for establishing a trusting relationship with developing countries. Since the mid-1950s, Japan contributed to the improvement of social development and the welfare of people in developing countries through Official Development Assistance (ODA), and many Japanese S&T researchers were dispatched to the developing countries.
Thus, international activities in the field of S&T, whether they originated out of scientific or diplomatic interests, have steadily contributed to maintaining Japan’s strong presence in both S&T and the diplomatic world. However, people in the S&T sphere gave little consideration to diplomacy when they collaborated on international projects. Likewise, Japanese diplomats did not often think about using Japan’s S&T as a diplomatic tool. In other words, S&T and diplomacy were not strategically linked to each other.
The Emergence of Science and Technology Diplomacy in Japan
In 2008, the concept of science and technology diplomacy became public with the CSTP report “Toward the Reinforcement of Science and Technology Diplomacy,”1 which was based on the discussions at a CSTP working group from July 2007 to April 2008. It defines science and technology diplomacy as any steps taken “to link S&T with foreign policy so as to achieve their mutual development” and “to utilize diplomacy for the further development of S&T and promote efforts to utilize S&T for diplomatic purpose.” It also describes the basic policies for promoting science and technology diplomacy:
establishing systems in which Japan and its counterparts can enjoy mutual benefits,
generating synergy between S&T and diplomacy for resolving the global issues facing mankind,
developing “human resources” that sustain S&T diplomacy, and
increasing Japan’s international presence.
It also insists that Japan’s science diplomacy place importance on strengthening 1) S&T cooperation with developing countries for resolving global issues, 2) S&T cooperation using Japan’s advanced S&T, and 3) the basis for promoting S&T diplomacy.
Why did the concept of science and technology diplomacy come to public attention at that time? One trigger behind its emergence was the necessity of demonstrating leadership in a series of important international gatherings that were held in 2008. Japan hosted the G8 summit, G8 related ministerial-level meetings (including the G8 S&T Ministers’ Meeting), and the Tokyo International Conference on African Development IV. In the midst of the accelerating growth of emerging economies, it was time for Japan to make the most of S&T as a “soft power.”
However, the aim of science and technology diplomacy was not only to meet diplomatic needs. The other trigger was the need to open up Japan’s science community to the world and end the inward-looking propensity of Japanese researchers. The CSTP working group report was unique in that it encouraged S&T cooperation with developing countries as well as developed countries. Cooperating with developing countries is helpful to solving global issues, but at the same time the working group considered that it is also valuable to the revitalization of Japan’s science community. The working group thought that foreign researchers in dynamic nations could stimulate Japanese researchers and be a positive influence on Japan’s R&D system as it was in the era of catching up during the last century.
Developing the Concept of Science and Technology Diplomacy
The idea of science and technology diplomacy gradually spread among the S&T and diplomatic communities in Japan. At the same time, however, as the “catching up” nations rapidly increased their presence, it became difficult for Japan to maintain a leading position in the field of S&T. For example, China and South Korea’s share of research papers in twenty-two S&T fields cited in Thomson Reuters’ Web of Science has been increasing since around 2000, while that of Japan has been declining over the same period. The growth of Chinese and South Korean articles in the share of the top 10 percent of research papers in these twenty-two fields is also remarkable. Furthermore, in recent years, Japan has been facing the stagnation of R&D expenditures both in government and in the private sector. Taking these situations seriously, the executive members of the CSTP made a proposal to further strengthen Japan’s science and technology diplomacy in June 2009.
Following this proposal, the CSTP created a task force to identify concrete measures to strengthen Japan’s role in the world while considering how the world will change by 2020. The forecast shows that the erosion of Japan’s relative strength in science is likely inevitable. For example, it is estimated that the population from age twenty to thirty-nine in Japan will reduce to almost three quarters by 2020 (compared to 2005).2 This will likely also lead to a decline in the number of researchers and scientists who lead Japanese S&T.
Taking this vision of the future into account, the task force compiled a tough-minded report in February 2010. Unlike the 2008 report, the 2010 report points out that some developing countries are no longer just the recipients of technology but are on an equal footing and, therefore, Japan should integrate its R&D system with R&D resources in the rest of the world including developing nations. Another point worth making is the shift in the perception of “diplomacy.” The task force suggested that “diplomacy” shouldn’t just be establishing good relationships with other nations, but should also be achieving the realization of national interests and strengthening the industry's international competitiveness. Thus science and technology diplomacy came to be seen as a more strategic aspect in the revitalization of Japan.
The 4th Science and Technology Basic Plan of August 2011 embraces the key points made in the task force report. The plan recommends that Japan strategically develop its international S&T activities together with dynamic nations. Based on that idea and being aware of the energy of growing Asian nations, the plan proposes that the Japanese government promote the East Asia Science & Innovation Area initiative: an idea of open regional cooperation under which the nations collaborate in promoting cross-border flows of people, goods, and capital to enhance R&D efforts and collaborative research to address common issues in Asia. The task force proposed the initiative in the expectation that science, technology, and innovation would help build a more integrated East Asian community, a diplomatic initiative that was proposed by then prime minister Yukio Hatoyama and is new in that S&T is clearly positioned as a soft power of diplomacy.
Now Japan’s science and technology diplomacy enters a new phase, advancing from just transferring technologies or R&D results overseas to strategically using S&T for diplomacy and leveraging diplomacy to help strengthen Japan’s S&T infrastructure.
Representative Measures Taken under the Science and Technology Diplomacy Initiative
Since formalizing the science and technology diplomacy concepts from 2008 to 2010, Japan has taken several important measures to strengthen S&T cooperation with dynamic nations around the world. These measures are related in an attempt to promote 1) joint research with developing countries in order to resolve global issues as well as provide capacity building in those countries, 2) research cooperation in the field of cutting-edge technology with technologically advanced countries, and 3) cooperation based on an equal partnership with East Asian countries in the context of the East Asia Science & Innovation Area.
Research Cooperation with the Developing Countries
In accordance with the 2008 CSTP report, which emphasizes S&T cooperation with developing countries, the Ministry of Education, Culture, Sports, Science and Technology (MEXT) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs (MOFA) launched Science and Technology Cooperation on Global Issues in 2008. This new program has two subprograms: the Dispatch of Science and Technology Researchers program and the Science and Technology Research Partnership for Sustainable Development (SATREPS) program.
The Dispatch of S&T Researchers program has been jointly operated by the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) under the umbrella of MOFA and the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS) under the supervision of MEXT. In this program, according to the needs of the partner countries, the most suitable researchers in Japan are dispatched to developing countries as JICA experts to engage in joint research that MEXT and JSPS select. This program aims to make significant international contributions through joint research that is expected to develop new technologies and to enhance the research capacity of Japan and its counterpart countries.
SATREPS is another promising program for promoting joint research with developing countries. In SATREPS, the Japan Science and Technology Agency (JST) and JICA collaborate to promote international joint research that targets global issues—such as limited bio-resources, natural disaster prevention, and infectious disease control—that are based on the needs of developing countries. It also aims to promote international joint research that includes a plan for future social implementation by collaborating with ODA in order to acquire new knowledge that will lead to solutions to global issues and advance the level of scientific and technological capacity in developing countries.
SATREPS projects are selected each year from project proposals submitted by Japanese research institutions. JST uses research contracts to support research costs incurred in Japan. JICA provides support through its technical cooperation project framework to cover costs in the developing country. The overall R&D management of the international joint research is handled jointly by JST and JICA. JST has the expertise in funding research projects at research institutions in Japan, and JICA brings experience in technical cooperation in developing countries. Since it began in April 2008, a total of sixty-eight SATREPS projects have commenced in thirty-five countries.
This type of collaboration between funding agencies and foreign development agencies has also been seen in the United States where the U.S. Agency for International Development and the National Science Foundation have recently launched Partnerships for Enhanced Engagement in Research (PEER).
Thus, Japan has been increasing its willingness to open up its scientific programs to foreign partners and to sponsor genuinely collaborative partnerships with developing countries.
Research Cooperation in the Field of Cutting-Edge Technology with Technologically Advanced Countries
For Japan to achieve a world-class S&T capability in such an intense economic and technologically competitive environment, the Japanese government has been aware that it is more important than ever for the government to manage international joint research in a strategic manner. This means MEXT must designate countries and research fields of cooperation in a top-down manner on a basis of having intergovernmental agreements in place. In line with this government policy, JST has been implementing a research exchange program known as the Strategic International Cooperative Program (SICP) since 2003. This program provides intensive support to mostly advanced countries with relatively small international research projects. Aiming at further developing science and technology, JST has supported three hundred and thirty-five research projects in twenty-two countries and one region (as of June 2012).
In addition to SICP, JST also started a new program for funding relatively large international joint research projects. Since 2009 this Strategic International Collaborative Research Program (SICORP) has had its budget increase substantially and has supported fourteen ongoing projects in three countries and one region. The CSTP task force report in 2010—which focused on integrating domestic R&D resources with those in technologically dynamic nations in order to maintain the relative strength in Japan’s S&T capacity—supported SICORP, which intends to promote international research cooperation with technologically advanced countries.
Cooperation Based on Equal Partnerships with Asian Countries
As has already been mentioned, one of the policy goals in Japan’s science and technology diplomacy is to strengthen the domestic R&D system by integrating foreign R&D resources. The Japanese government’s initiative to build an East Asia Science & Innovation Area, which is aimed at raising the capability of R&D and addressing common problems in the region, is one of those attempts, and the e-ASIA Joint Research Program (e-ASIA JRP) represents the main part of the initiative.
The e-ASIA JRP is Japan’s proposal for developing and supporting joint research projects in East Asia on a multilateral basis. Prospective members of the program are public funding agencies including governmental bodies of countries participating in the annual East Asia Summit (EAS). The multinational research collaboration is designed to be managed by a “matching fund system,” in which support from each ministry or agency will go to national universities or research institutes in each country.
This multinational research collaboration program is multipurpose. The promotion of multilateral joint research in fields such as life sciences, green technology, and disaster prevention is intended to contribute to the resolution of shared regional challenges. The improvement of scientific and technological capabilities is expected to have a positive effect on the further development of the region, which is at the center of global economic growth. From a diplomatic point of view, Japan can expect to play an active role in strengthening mutual trust and benefits among countries in the region.
At the sixth EAS meeting held in November 2011 in Bali, Indonesia, the chair’s summary stated: “We welcome Japan’s initiative for implementing the e-ASIA JRP/multilateral joint research program under the concept of East Asia Science & Innovation Area.” The e-ASIA JRP was formally inaugurated at the first board meeting held in Singapore in June 2012. The founding members included the S&T related ministries from eight countries: Indonesia, Japan, Laos, Malaysia, Myanmar, the Philippines, Thailand, and Vietnam.
Most Japanese political leaders do not perceive S&T as a useful instrument for foreign policy.
However, the initiative has just begun and there remain many challenges that need to be addressed. The most obvious one is that it needs to include more countries with ties to the region, especially China, South Korea, Singapore, and the United States. Without the involvement of the most dynamic countries with robust R&D resources, the e-ASIA initiative will not be able to live up to its potential. Also, it may need to harmonize existing programs, such as the ASEAN Committee on Science and Technology (COST) and the Asia Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) forum’s Industrial Science and Technology Working Group. Whether this S&T initiative will succeed or not depends on Japan’s capability to coordinate national interests among countries, that is, diplomacy.
Challenges and Opportunities
In this way, the Japanese government has developed a program that directly links to its diplomatic strategy and could lead to the integration of Japan’s R&D system with other countries in the growing science base. However, Japan’s science and technology diplomacy still has some issues. There is still a lack of connectedness between S&T policy and foreign policy. Even though many programs like SATREPS and e-ASIA JRP help to bridge that disconnect, they have not been fully exploited as solutions to diplomatic issues, such as economic diplomacy or resource security. Likewise, people on the S&T side fall short in using diplomacy to strengthen Japan’s research and development system. Japan’s science and technology diplomacy has not produced a synergistic effect in both sides yet.
Another challenge is that most Japanese political leaders do not perceive S&T as a useful instrument for foreign policy. Even if they do, they rarely mention it in international fora. In these circumstances, CSTP is considering setting up a meeting on science and technology diplomacy where members from industry, academia, and government can discuss international S&T activities. The meeting would help members deepen their understanding of each other’s overseas and diplomatic strategies and help them develop a strategy for top-level diplomacy.
It is the time for Japan to reaffirm its global significance. To save Japan’s science from its relative decline in this rapidly changing world, the new Abe administration should think hard about how to more firmly incorporate science and technology into Japan’s foreign policy.
The American public anticipates that the coming half-century will be a period of profound scientific change, as inventions that were once confined to the realm of science fiction come into common usage. This is among the main findings of a new national survey by the Pew Research Center and Smithsonian magazine, which asked Americans about a wide range of potential scientific developments—from near-term advances like robotics and bioengineering, to more “futuristic” possibilities like teleportation or space colonization. In addition to asking them for their predictions about the long-term future of scientific advancement, we also asked them to share their own feelings and attitudes toward some new developments that might become common features of American life in the relatively near future.
Overall, most Americans anticipate that the technological developments of the coming half-century will have a net positive impact on society. Some 59% are optimistic that coming technological and scientific changes will make life in the future better, while 30% think these changes will lead to a future in which people are worse off than they are today.
Many Americans pair their long-term optimism with high expectations for the inventions of the next half century. Fully eight in ten (81%) expect that within the next 50 years people needing new organs will have them custom grown in a lab, and half (51%) expect that computers will be able to create art that is indistinguishable from that produced by humans. On the other hand, the public does see limits to what science can attain in the next 50 years. Fewer than half of Americans—39%—expect that scientists will have developed the technology to teleport objects, and one in three (33%) expect that humans will have colonized planets other than Earth. Certain terrestrial challenges are viewed as even more daunting, as just 19% of Americans expect that humans will be able to control the weather in the foreseeable future.
But at the same time that many expect science to produce great breakthroughs in the coming decades, there are widespread concerns about some controversial technological developments that might occur on a shorter time horizon:
66% think it would be a change for the worse if prospective parents could alter the DNA of their children to produce smarter, healthier, or more athletic offspring.
65% think it would be a change for the worse if lifelike robots become the primary caregivers for the elderly and people in poor health.
63% think it would be a change for the worse if personal and commercial drones are given permission to fly through most U.S. airspace.
53% of Americans think it would be a change for the worse if most people wear implants or other devices that constantly show them information about the world around them. Women are especially wary of a future in which these devices are widespread.
Many Americans are also inclined to let others take the first step when it comes to trying out some potential new technologies that might emerge relatively soon. The public is evenly divided on whether or not they would like to ride in a driverless car: 48% would be interested, while 50% would not. But significant majorities say that they are not interestedin getting a brain implant to improve their memory or mental capacity (26% would, 72% would not) or in eating meat that was grown in a lab (just 20% would like to do this).
Asked to describe in their own words the futuristic inventions they themselves would like to own, the public offered three common themes: 1) travel improvements like flying cars and bikes, or even personal space crafts; 2) time travel; and 3) health improvements that extend human longevity or cure major diseases.
At the same time, many Americans seem to feel happy with the technological inventions available to them in the here and now—11% answered this question by saying that there are no futuristic inventions that they would like to own, or that they are “not interested in futuristic inventions.” And 28% weren’t sure what sort of futuristic invention they might like to own.
These are among the findings of a new survey of Americans’ attitudes and expectations about the future of technological and scientific advancements, conducted by the Pew Research Center in partnership with Smithsonianmagazine. The survey, conducted February 13–18, 2014 by landline and cell phones among 1,001 adults, examined a number of potential future developments in the field of science and technology—some just over the horizon, others more speculative in nature. The survey was conducted in English and Spanish and has a margin of error of plus or minus 3.6 percentage points.
Among the detailed findings of this survey:
A majority of Americans envision a future made better by advancements in technology
When asked for their general views on technology’s long-term impact on life in the future, technological optimists outnumber pessimists by two-to-one. Six in ten Americans (59%) feel that technological advancements will lead to a future in which people’s lives are mostly better, while 30% believe that life will be mostly worse.
Demographically, these technological optimists are more likely to be men than women, and more likely to be college graduates than to have not completed college. Indeed, men with a college degree have an especially sunny outlook: 79% of this group expects that technology will have a mostly positive impact on life in the future, while just 14% expects that impact to be mostly negative. Despite having much different rates of technology use and ownership, younger and older Americans are equally positive about the long-term impact of technological change on life in the future.
Predictions for the future: eight in ten Americans think that custom organ transplants will be a reality in the next 50 years, but just one in five think that humans will control the weather
Americans envision a range of probable outcomes when asked for their own predictions about whether or not some “futuristic” inventions might become reality in the next half-century. Eight in ten believe that people needing organ transplants will have new organs custom-built for them in a laboratory, but an equal number believe that control of the weather will remain outside the reach of science. And on other issues—for example, the ability of computers to create art rivaling that produced by humans—the public is much more evenly split.
A substantial majority of Americans (81%) believe that within the next 50 years people needing an organ transplant will have new organs custom made for them in a lab. Belief that this development will occur is especially high among men (86% of whom believe this will happen), those under age 50 (86%), those who have attended college (85%), and those with relatively high household incomes. But although expectations for this development are especially high within these groups, three-quarters or more of every major demographic group feels that custom organs are likely to become a reality in the next half-century.
The public is more evenly split on whether computers will soon match humans when it comes to creating music, novels, paintings, or other important works of art: 51% think that this will happen in the next 50 years, while 45% think that it will not. In contrast to their expectations for custom-built organs, college graduates and those with high incomes are comparatively unlikely to expect that computers will advance to this level of development. Some 59% of college graduates and 57% of Americans earning $75,000 or more per year feel that computers will not be able to produce works of art that are on par with those produced by humans within the next 50 years.
Compared with custom organs and computer produced art, the public has less confidence that the two common science fiction tropes of teleportation andcolonization of other planets will come to pass. Two in five Americans (39%) think that teleportation will be possible within the next 50 years, while slightly fewer—33%—expect to live in a world in which humans have long-term colonies on other planets. Young adults are especially likely to view space colonization as a long-term eventuality: 43% of 18-29 year olds see this happening in the next half-century, compared with about a quarter of those over age 50. On the other hand, high-income Americans are pessimistic about the prospects of space colonization: just 20% of those with an annual household income of $75,000 or more think this is a realistic prediction.
From a list of futuristic inventions that includes space colonies and teleportation, Americans actually have the least confidence in the prediction that humans of the future will be able to control the weather: just 19% of the public thinks that this will probably happen. Older adults are especially pessimistic about this development, as just 11% of Americans ages 65 and older think that controlling the weather is likely to happen over the next 50 years. But even among the most “optimistic” demographic groups, the expectation that humans will control the weather in the next half-century is a decidedly minority viewpoint.
Despite their general optimism about the long-term impact of scientific advancement, many Americans are wary of some controversial changes that may be on the near-term horizon
Advancements such as teleportation or space colonization will likely require massive leaps in scientific knowledge and effort before they can become a reality, but the widespread adoption of other “futuristic” developments is potentially much nearer at hand. With the recent introduction of Google Glass and other wearable computing devices, for example, it may be only a matter of time before most people walk around being directly fed a constant stream of digital information about their surroundings. And the widespread use of personal and commercial drones may depend as heavily on regulatory decisions as on advances in engineering.
Despite their general optimism about the long-term impact of technological change, Americans express significant reservations about some of these potentially short-term developments. We asked about four potential—and in many cases controversial—technological advancements that might become common in near future, and for each one a majority of Americans feel that it would be a change for the worse if those technologies become commonly used.
Of the four potential developments we measured, public attitudes towardsubiquitous wearable or implanted computing devices are the most positive, or more accurately, the least negative. Although 53% of Americans think it would be a bad thing if “most people wear implants or other devices that constantly show them information about the world around them,” just over one third (37%) think this would be a change for the better.
Men and women have largely similar attitudes toward most of these potential societal changes, but diverge substantially in their attitudes toward ubiquitous wearable or implantable computing devices. Men are evenly split on whether this would be a good thing: 44% feel that it would be a change for the better and 46% a change for the worse. But women overwhelmingly feel (by a 59%–29% margin) that the widespread use of these devices would be a negative
The legal and regulatory framework for operating non-military drones is currently thesubject of much debate, but the public is largely unenthusiastic: 63% of Americans think it would be a change for the worse if “personal and commercial drones are given permission to fly through most U.S. airspace,” while 22% think it would be a change for the better. Men and younger adults are a bit more excited about this prospect than are women and older adults. Some 27% of men (vs. 18% of women), and 30% of 18–29 year olds (vs. 16% of those 65 and older) think this would be a change for the better. But even among these groups, substantial majorities (60% of men and 61% of 18-29 year olds) think it would be a bad thing if commercial and personal drones become much more prevalent in future years.
Countries such as Japan are already experimenting with the use of robot caregivers to help care for a rapidly aging population, but Americans are generally wary. Some 65% think it would be a change for the worse if robots become the primary caregivers to the elderly and people in poor health. Interestingly, opinions on this question are nearly identical across the entire age spectrum: young, middle aged, and older Americans are equally united in the assertion that widespread use of robot caregivers would generally be a negative development.
Americans have similar apprehensions toward the issue of designer babies: 66% feel that it will be a change for the worse if “prospective parents can alter the DNA of their children to produce smarter, healthier, or more athletic offspring,” while 26% say it would be a good thing if this happens. Lower-income Americans have slightly more positive views on this subject than those in higher income brackets: 31% of those earning less than $30,000 per year think this would be a change for the better, while just 18% of those earning $50,000 or more per year agree.
Those Americans who are optimistic about the future of scientific advancement in a general sense tend to be more open—up to a point—toward the benefits of some of these more controversial developments. These long-term optimists (that is, those who agree with the statement that “technological changes will lead to a future in which people’s lives are mostly better”) are roughly twice as likely as long-term pessimists to say that it will be a change for the better if personal drones become widespread (28% vs. 14%) and if many people wear devices or implants that feed them digital information about their surroundings (46% vs. 23%). They are also receptive toward robot caregivers (33% think these would be a change for the better, while 21% of pessimists feel this way) and toward designer babies (31% vs. 19%). But notably, even within this “optimist” group, a substantial majority feel that most of these developments would be a bad thing overall.
Americans are somewhat apprehensive about trying some potential new inventions themselves; driverless cars garner the most widespread interest
Most new inventions appeal at first to a relatively small group of adventuresome early adopters, with the bulk of consumers following along only after they have had a chance to see for themselves what the fuss is about. And indeed, many Americans have a pronounced skepticism toward some new inventions that they might be able to use or purchase in the relatively near future.
Of the three inventions we asked them about, Americans are most interested inriding in a driverless car: 48% would like to do this if given the opportunity, while 50% say this is something they would not want to do. College graduates are particularly interested in giving driverless cars a try: 59% of them would do so, while 62% of those with a high school diploma or less would not. There is also a geographical split on this issue: Half of urban (52%) and suburban (51%) residents are interested in driverless cars, but just 36% of rural residents say this is something they’d find appealing.
Other potential inventions appeal to a much smaller proportion of the public. One quarter of Americans (26%) say they would get a brain implant to improve their memory or mental capacity if it were possible to do so, while 72% would not. College graduates are the main demographic group that stands out on this issue: 37% of them would be willing to get a performance-enhancing brain implant if given the chance.
Similarly, just one in five Americans (20%) would be willing to eat meat that was grown in a lab. Men express a greater willingness to do so than women (27% of men and 14% of women say they would give lab grown meat a try), and college graduates are around three times as likely as those who have not attended college to say this is something they’d attempt (30% vs. 11%).
New modes of travel, improved health and longevity, and the ability to travel through time top the list of futuristic inventions Americans would like to own
In addition to capturing the public’s attitudes toward specific inventions or future outcomes, we also offered them the opportunity to tell us—in their own words—which futuristic invention they themselves would want to own.
Based on their responses, many Americans are looking forward to a future in which getting from place to place is easier, more comfortable, or more adventuresome than it is today. A total of 19% of Americans would like to own a travel-related invention of some kind, including: a flying car or flying bike (6%), a personal space craft (4%), a self-driving car (3%), a teleportation device (3%), a jet pack (1%), or a hover car or hover board (1%).
Time travel and health-related inventions also rank highly. One in ten Americans (9%) list the ability to travel through time as the futuristic invention they would like to have, and an identical 9% would want something that improved their health, increased their lifespan, or cured major diseases. At the same time, many Americans seem to feel happy with the technological inventions available to them in the here and now—11% answered this question by saying that there are no futuristic inventions that they would like to own, or that they are “not interested in futuristic inventions.” And just over one quarter of them (28%) weren’t sure what type of futuristic invention they would like to own.
Younger adults are especially excited at the prospect of new travel options in the future. Some 31% of 18–29 year olds mentioned some sort of travel-related invention as the future technology they would like to own, significantly higher than any other age group. Meanwhile, some middle aged Americans just want some help around the house—8% of those ages 30–49 said they would want a personal robot or robot servant. And although interest in time travel is fairly consistent across age groups, it holds little appeal to older adults—just 3% of seniors mentioned time travel or a time machine as their future invention of choice. Indeed, many older Americans seem unexcited about futuristic inventions of any kind, as 15% say there is no particular invention they would like to own, and 41% are unsure what type of invention they would enjoy.
If America’s ongoing experiment in democracy and economic freedom is to endure, we will need to think again about cultivating the necessary habits of the heart and resisting the allure of the ideology of technology.
Why are Americans addicted to technology? The question has a distinctly contemporary ring, and we might be tempted to think it could only have been articulated within the last decade or two. Could we, after all, have known anything about technology addiction before the advent of the Blackberry? Well, as it turns out, Americans have a longstanding fascination and facility with technology, and the question of technology addiction was one of the many Alexis de Tocqueville thought to answer in his classic study of antebellum American society, Democracy in America.
To be precise, Tocqueville titled the tenth chapter of volume two, “Why The Americans Are More Addicted To Practical Than To Theoretical Science.” In Tocqueville’s day, the word technology did not yet carry the expansive and inclusive sense it does today. Instead, quaint sounding phrases like “the mechanical arts,” “the useful arts,” or sometimes merely “invention” did together the semantic work that we assign to the single word technology.1 “Practical science” was one more such phrase available to writers, and, as in Tocqueville’s case, “practical science” was often opposed to “theoretical science.” The two phrases captured the distinction we have in mind when we speak separately of science and technology.
To answer his question on technology addiction, Tocqueville looked at the political and economic characteristics of American society and what he took to be the attitude toward technology they encouraged. As we’ll see, much of what Tocqueville had to say over 150 years ago resonates still, and it is the compelling nature of his diagnosis that invites us to reverse the direction of the inquiry—to ask what effect the enduring American fascination with technology might have on American political and economic culture. But first, why were Americans, as early as the 1830s, addicted to technology?
We buy our books to give shape to our thinking, but it never occurs to us that the manner in which we make our purchases may have a more lasting influence on our character than the contents of the book.
Tocqueville’s rough and ready quasi-sociological approach led him to conclude that Americans preferred technology to pure science for both political and economic reasons. “Nothing is more necessary to the culture of the higher sciences, or of the more elevated departments of science, than meditation,” Tocqueville explained, “and nothing is less suited to meditation than the structure of democratic society.”2Theoretical science in his view required aristocratic repose and leisure, and nothing of the sort existed in America. Instead, Americans were promiscuously active. The citizens of democratic nations, according to Tocqueville, “are always dissatisfied with the position which they occupy, and are always free to leave it, they think of nothing but the means of changing their fortune, or of increasing it.”3 Tocqueville, himself an aristocrat, did not think this restless, entrepreneurial climate the ideal habitat of sustained theoretical reflection.
Tocqueville understood what impressed Americans and it was not intellectually demanding and gratifying grand theory. It was rather “every new method which leads by a shorter road to wealth, every machine which spares labor, every instrument which diminishes the cost of production, every discovery which facilitates pleasures or augments them.”4 This was how democratic societies measured the value of science and America was no exception. Science was prized only insofar as it was immediately applicable to some practical and economic aim. Americans were in this sense good Baconians, they believed knowledge was power and science was valuable to the degree that it could be usefully applied.
“It is chiefly from these motives that a democratic people addicts itself to scientific pursuits,” Tocqueville concluded. “You may be sure,” he added, “that the more a nation is democratic, enlightened, and free, the greater will be the number of these interested promoters of scientific genius, and the more will discoveries immediately applicable to productive industry confer gain, fame, and even power on their authors.”5
Technologies not only allow us to act in certain ways that may or may not be ethical, their use also shapes the user and this too may have ethical consequences.
We could summarize Tocqueville’s observations by saying that American society was more likely to produce and admire a Thomas Edison than an Albert Einstein. As a generalization, this seems about right still. The inventor-entrepreneur remains the preferred American icon; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the objects of our veneration. This was already evident in the 1830s and Tocqueville eloquently described the distinct blend of technology and economics that we might label America’s techno-start-up culture. But if Tocqueville was right in attributing American attitudes about technology to political and economic circumstances, we should go one step further to ask what might be the political and economic consequences of this enthusiastic embrace of technology.
When we ask questions about technology we often ask about matters such as safety and efficiency or costs and benefits. We don’t often ask, “What sort of person will the use of this or that technology make of me?” Or, more to the present point, “What sort of citizen will the use of this or that technology make of me?” We don’t often ask these sorts of questions because we tend to tacitly endorse a theory about the neutrality of technology, a theory we could call the NRA approach to technology. “Guns don’t kill people, people kill people.” This slogan nicely encapsulates the view that technologies are ethically neutral and ethical implications attach only to the use to which a technology may be put by individuals.
This notion enjoys a certain commonsensical plausibility, and, as far as it goes, it is true enough. A hammer could be used to build a home or it could be used to injure a person. Nuclear energy could power a city or flatten it. But it is not quite all that can be said on the matter. A fuller account of technology’s ethical ramifications would take into consideration how the use of a technology may inculcate certain habits and engender certain assumptions. In others words, technologies not only allow us to act in certain ways that may or may not be ethical, their use also shapes the user and this too may have ethical consequences. Winston Churchill’s observation about buildings captures this dynamic nicely. “We shape our buildings,” Churchill said, “and afterwards our buildings shape us.”6 He might also have said, we shape our technologies and afterwards our technologies shape us.
Technologies collapse the distance between a desire and its fulfillment by reducing either the time or the effort involved.
Our technologies, of course, are immensely varied and the uses to which they are put even more so. This alone should warn us away from attempting to offer anything like a neat and tidy account of technology’s impact on American society. That said, it may nonetheless be possible to draw some tentative and modest conclusions about general tendencies. One such general tendency might be located in the logic underlying so many of our everyday tools: the often successful effort to collapse the distance between desire and fulfillment.
Technologies collapse the distance between a desire and its fulfillment by reducing either the time or the effort involved. This has long been the point on which new technologies have been marketed, and digital technologies have only augmented a longstanding trend. But they have done so to such a degree that the change may be qualitative. Consider the ease with which we may now locate, purchase, and receive commodities that just a few years ago would have taken us considerably more time and trouble to acquire. The content of a book is only one of a multitude of possible examples, but it illustrates the point remarkably well. Consider what it would have taken to find a relatively rare or out of print work in 1990. What would it have taken to find the book? How much might it have cost to purchase? How long would it have taken to actually have the book in hand? Now consider the same scenario in 2012. The Internet and Amazon together have radically collapsed the time and effort, and most likely the cost. If the book were available electronically, what could have easily taken weeks would now take seconds. This pattern is replicated across the whole spectrum of lived experience. Take a look at the technologies that surround you. You’ll find that many of them similarly collapse the distance between some desire, trivial or otherwise, and its fulfillment.
Theoretical science in his view required aristocratic repose and leisure, and nothing of the sort existed in America. Instead, Americans were promiscuously active.
All of this is marvelous and fascinating and helpful, but cranks, and I’m not always above being a crank, might point out that making something effortless and instant simultaneously renders it ephemeral and trivial. If you eliminate the effort and time involved in realizing a desire, you also diminish the satisfaction and joy that attends the fulfillment. Beyond this, however, there is also the matter of habits and assumptions and how these in turn shape individuals who together comprise the political and economic culture of the nation. What sorts of habits, then, are inculcated by a technological environment ordered around this general tendency?
Certainly not the kind of habits that sit well with the venerable notion of delayed gratification. Nor, it would seem, would these habits leave one well suited for the demands of citizenship. The framers of our political order knew that its success would hang on what they understood as classical republican virtues—thrift, hard work, a measure of austerity, moderation, self-sufficiency, and self-government. It is easy to imagine how different our current political and economic circumstance might be if these virtues were in greater supply—perhaps too easy and facile as well.
For one thing, economic and political forces have themselves been complicit in the erosion of civic virtue. For another, it would be misleading to suggest that our use of certain technologies alone shapes our character or drives economic and political history. But the technological factor should not be underestimated. Technology is a pervasive and ubiquitous dimension of lived experience. It would be foolish to imagine that it plays no part in making us the sort of people we become over time. Unfortunately, we are idealists when it comes to moral formation. We imagine that we are shaped mostly by the ideas we believe. It is true, of course, that ideas have consequences. It is also true, however, that we are shaped by habitual patterns of behavior. We buy our books to give shape to our thinking, but it never occurs to us that the manner in which we make our purchases may have a more lasting influence on our character than the contents of the book.
Tocqueville gave us a wonderful phrase when he described what sustained the American experiment in democracy. Alongside public-spiritedness and religious practice, Tocqueville pointed to what he called “habits of the heart.” Media scholar Quentin Schultze riffed on Tocqueville by speaking of “the habits of the high-tech heart.”7 This latter set of habits threatens to undermine the classic set of civic virtues long associated with the practice of both economic and political liberty.
Americans were in this sense good Baconians, they believed knowledge was power and science was valuable to the degree that it could be usefully applied.
But it is not only through the shaping of our habits that technology affects our political and economic culture. When Tocqueville came to America he may very well have witnessed cases of what historians have called the American technological sublime. Perry Miller was the first to note in passing the almost religious veneration that sometimes attended the experience of new technologies in the early republic. He found that in the early 19th century “technological majesty” had found a place alongside the “starry heavens above and the moral law within to form a peculiarly American trinity of the Sublime.”8 Technology’s cultural ascendancy, he suggested, was abetted by an aspect of awe and wonder bordering on religious reverence.
David Nye followed up on Miller’s observation with a book-length treatment of the technological sublime in America.9 He wove together a series of case studies illustrating the wonder, awe, and trepidation that attended the appearance of technological artifacts including the railroads, the Brooklyn Bridge, the Hoover Dam, skyscrapers, the electrified cityscape, and the atomic bomb. In each case Americans responded to these technologies, either because of their scale or their dynamism, in a manner that can best be described as a nearly religious experience of the sublime. This experience, when wedded to the notion of inevitable progress, came to function as a distinctly American ideology of technology.
Belief in inevitable progress is usually associated with the Enlightenment and is assumed to have characterized European and American assumptions about history until the outbreak of World War One. During that time, however, the idea experienced a subtle but significant evolution. Earlier proponents viewed technological advance as a necessary but not sufficient cause of progress, and progress was understood to include moral and political considerations. By the late 19th century, technology had come to be seen as the leading cause of progress and technological advance overshadowed its political and moral corollaries. Progress came to be understood as the advance of technology for technology’s sake.
The inventor-entrepreneur remains the preferred American icon; Steve Jobs and Bill Gates are the objects of our veneration.
Two 19th-century paintings wonderfully illustrate these developments: John Gast’s “American Progress” from 1872 and Christian Schussele’s “Men of Progress” from 1863. Gast was commissioned by publicist George Crofutt, who tasked Gast with painting a “beautiful and charming female … floating westward through the air, bearing on her forehead the ‘Star of Empire.’”10 The beautiful female was to carry a book in her right hand symbolizing the “common school—the emblem of education” while with her left she “unfolds and stretches the slender wires of the telegraph, that are to flash intelligence throughout the land.”
John Gast’s “American Progress”
Gast’s painting allegorically captures the ethos of the emerging ideology of technology. The goddess Liberty has become Progress, and progress has been exclusively identified with the advance of technology. A similar narrative emerges when we compare John Trumbull’s famous (if not quite accurate) painting of the signing of the Declaration of Independence with Schussele’s “Men of Progress.”
Christian Schussele’s “Men of Progress”
The two paintings are linked by the image of Benjamin Franklin who, in Trumbull’s painting, is positioned prominently before the Declaration of Independence by the side of John Hancock. In Schussele’s work, he appears in the top left corner of the scene watching approvingly over the 19th-century men of progress, including Samuel Colt, Cyrus McCormick, Charles Goodyear, Elias Howe, and Samuel Morse. We might safely call this the American Pantheon, and may not be too far off the mark to conclude that the reverence paid the Founders had been, by the middle of the 19th century, transferred to these men of progress.
John Trumbull’s “Declaration of Independence”
Russell Kirk famously suggested that “conservatism is the negation of ideology,” but the ideology of technology is one that has garnered bi-partisan support. It may be one of the few unspoken assumptions shared by most Americans regardless of political affiliation. The problem with such ideologies, as Kirk well knew, is that they threaten to blind us to important dimensions of reality, a danger inherent in the ideology of technology no less than any other. In this case, it may be that we have been blinded to the irreducible necessity of public virtue. We speak of technological innovation as if it alone could cure our economic and political ills. We forget that our economic and political culture is finally composed of individuals whose actions are driven by character, and character is in large measure the product of habitual patterns of action. It would be one of history’s great ironies if under the cover of the ideology of technology, we allowed our use of technology to erode the habits of the heart essential to the health of our society.
In the middle of the turbulent 1930s, with Nazism, Fascism, and Stalinism flourishing, T. S. Eliot wrote of men who dreamed “of systems so perfect that no one will need to be good.”11 The ideology of technology tempts us in a similar manner. In the end we always find that such dreams yield nightmares that are all too real. If America’s ongoing experiment in democracy and economic freedom is to endure, we will need to think again about cultivating the necessary habits of the heart and resisting the allure of the ideology of technology.
It also insists that Japan’s science diplomacy place importance on strengthening 1) S&T cooperation with developing countries for resolving global issues, 2) S&T cooperation using Japan’s advanced S&T, and 3) the basis for promoting S&T diplomacy.
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