The U.S. and Japan have vastly different roots, cultures, and presences.  No great people in the world, not even the English, has been as insular as the Japanese and as a result over the centuries they have built up an isolation from the ways of foreigners that has bred a particular strain of xenophobic antibodies no other successful society has been able to sustain into the
21st century. In contrast, just as they took over Chinese calligraphy flipping it 90 degrees, there is nothing in their culture that prevents them from adopting the most advanced science, technology, and learning from other societies while turning them into uniquely Japanese institutions.

The US, in contrast, has from its very beginnings, been a meeting place of cultures, modeled first on a mainly Protestant and European enlightenment blueprint but one, created and erected by African, Southern and Eastern European, and Asian labor and ingenuity. Just one hundred years ago, European science, art and technology dominated the world. At that moment, few would have predicted the devastating wars and unprecedented barbarianisms that dominated the life of that continent in the following halfcentury.

Today, as the scientific and technological mantle has moved to the United States and Japan, now the first and second largest economies. much is being made of the aging of populations in the leading countries of the industrialized world. 

The great baby boom population wave of the postwar years is moving towards retirement and contemporary birth rates have not kept pace.  In fact, in most of these countries birth rates have either stabilized or have continued to drop well below replacement levels. Without doubt, the aging of the industrialized world's population is a major phenomenon but it is important to understand that in reality it has almost nothing to do with the kind of political nonsense that is being made the currency of the present debate on Social Security. Politicians who couldn't care less about anything but getting re-elected in the next two years suddenly have moved their gaze into the distant future as if they have license to clomp about where most futurologists fear to tread.  As if on cue, they wring their hands and exclaim from their talking points sheet, "in 2052 there will be only 3 workers for every retiree" as if this fact alone has any real meaning in thedebate.

The industrialized societies have, of course, become the dominant countries mainly because of their ability to greatly increase something the economists call "productivity": what that means in plain terms is that by using ever more sophisticated tools more gets done by fewer workers; this goes from producing food on a farm to turning out widgets in a factory. Second, and equally absurd, this population calculation also assumes a hermetically sealed  US that will not absorb all those immigrants who would readily come here to fill any job openings that go untaken. Third, it misses the very present point no politician wants to face: we have already gone much further than people would have believed possible in the outsourcing of labor to other continents where the supply of cheap, young. trained and able workers is largely untapped. Finally, it doesn't even consider the kinds of advances that might occur through breakthroughs like molecular nanotechnology

And this leads us back to Japan --which coincidentally is hosting this week in Aichi the 2005 Robotics World Expo-- a nation that already has an older population than any other developed country and will not, without great dislocations, be able to absorb a large immigrant population to fill the void. No coincidence that Japan has become the country most focused on the development of advanced robotic devices. Whether they will be able to advance the technology as fast as they need to or whether they will have to have a mix of immigrants, outsourcing of their production capacity and robotics to meet their economic growth needs, is, of course, still an open question.From an economic standpoint, productivity gains, whether through outsourcing or automation get reflected in corporate profits.  During the latest economic recovery cycle that began in 2002, the US economy has managed gains of 3 to 4 percent a year, despite the fact that fewer and fewer new jobs have been created. In fact, this recovery (mainly stimulated by massive debt and devaluation, though that's another story) has mainly been a recovery in corporate profits accompanied by a real estate bubble..

What we can safely defy anyone to argue against is that in 2052 or 2042 for that matter, that 3 workers will not be turning out the equivalent of what it took 12 workers to turn out in 1955. If robotics advance as fast as we think they will, it's much more likely that 3 live, breathing 2055 workers will be turning out the equivalent of 120 1955 workers.  Pushed by their own particular brand of necessity, the Japanese will go first in this area but the US and Europe will not lag that far behind.  In this country, the driving force will probablybe the military; a recent look at DARPA's --the DOD agency that funds advanced research-- grants shows how their focus has shifted to robotics. The Air Force recently placed a major order for unmanned flying drones.  These robot planes are sometimes piloted by humans sitting in front of terminals but it is only a matter of time before more and more of the "decision" power is shifted to the onboard computers.  Meanwhile US Ground forces have been forced into a role of occupation; a posture in which robots are useful for any number of mainly defensive but highly vulnerable roles like defusing bombs and carrying out screenings for suicide bombers. The Social Security debate like so many of the other prevalent debates these day, can result in making us all a little stupider.  Sure, there will be fewer workers per retiree and older humans will need more health care.  But if we insist on trying to tax only the human payroll factor in the economic equation because that worked in 1935, or worse, try to convince ourselves that we somehow deserve less because machines are doing more of the job, we are totally missing the point.

Put the Social Security on the same shelf as the debate over Darwinism vs. Creationism, or civil liberties vs. terrorism for that matter; they're all mainly a smokescreen nicely designed to cover what has become a brazen political and economic land grab. 

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