Famed Ghibli director Hayao Miyazaki’s hatred of technology has lately taken on a distinctly survivalist tone – now he is fulminating about how modern technology is robbing the poor children of such crucial life skills such as fire-making and flint-knapping.
He yields the following pearls of wisdom in a recent interview:
The environment children are now in, including our animation, is all virtual. TV, games, email and mobile phones, and even manga, everything we do in other words, they’re all robbing children of power.
[…]
Before they learn their letters, we must teach children the essentials, as we have done from the stone age.
How to start a fire, keep it burning, put it out, the nature of water, how to climb trees, how to wind rope, use a needle and thread, use a knife. I think the state must teach the children these things before they teach them to write.
In response, some have pointed out it seems rather more likely that what is robbing the youth of Japan of power is that the nation is now run by and for the sake of a class of old people possessing views almost as outmoded as those of Miyazaki.
I greatly respect Miyazaki’s works, to the point where I won’t insult him for his other beliefs. Though they are very questionable…
So, basically, what he’s saying is “Participation in Japan’s equivalent of the Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts ought to be mandatory.”
That might not be so bad.
He’s a crazy old man. Very common in Japan.
Something’s telling me he doesn’t mean any of it literally.
“The environment children are now in, including our animation, is all virtual. TV, games, email and mobile phones, and even manga, everything we do in other words, they’re all robbing children of power”
Here he’s probably saying: “kids sit on their ass all day, every day, watching TV and playing games as they rot”
“Before they learn their letters, we must teach children the essentials, as we have done from the stone age.”
Here he’s saying we should teach kids how to live and survive in society; how NOT to be dead weight.
Seriously, Miyazaki has said many intelligent things in the past. I wouldn’t be quick to judge him on such a statement, which I would assume he didn’t mean literally.
So… according to him, the world should return to the stone age?!
Well, today’s technology is based on those skills.
Besides, we can’t rely blindly on today’s tech, we must be able to live without technology.
He’s not saying “oh, the last few things we’ve learned in the past 3000 years? forget them, they’re totally useless, really” …He just thinks kids should learn the basics too, not the basics only..there’s a difference.
Some kids don’t even know how a damn chicken looks like, they think KFC is how chicken are…really.
Or think that cows produce milk, and hamburgers just magically appear out of nowhere, ready for them to eat.
Try reading Kazuo Umezu’s “The Drifting Classroom”. That’s from the 60s or 70s. Imagine what kids of today would do if the world were to end tomorrow, and no adults were there to do things for them.
I don’t know how to start a fire, but i can tell what things are edible, i’d know how to make stakes and hunt small animals, or how to grow some vegetables. And other things that are really instinct-related. Japanese kids of today probably know how to finish a 10-hours videogame in just half that time, and how to make instant ramen, but for that they don’t even use fire anymore, they just put the cup with water in a microwave ._.
When i went to highschool i never watched the weather forecast for the day; i just woke up early in the morning, sticked my arm out of my window to sense the temperature, looked at the sky, and knew if it was going to be a hot, cold or rainy day ( i did it so i would know how to dress accordingly for the rest of the day, or if i should take an umbrella). I got it right most of the times.
( Climate change makes it harder now xD)
That the first comments on this article are about fapfapfap truly shows that the only thing that remains in the stone-age -and earlier than that even- is some people’s brains.
If you don’t understand what he meant, and have seen some or most of his movies, then watch again because you missed the message. I’m no tree-hugger, but i do know that its thanks to trees we get the air we breath and can’t live with (just an example). That is something they might teach to kids in school, but do they teach them they can survive on some trees’ bark for sometime if necessary?
Progress and technology in exagerated levels are not a good thing, seriously.
This kind of “articles” are useless in a place where most people fap to their own shadows while fapping, and think 2D is better than 3D.
( and before you ask why i’m here in the first place, is because of the bizarre, the lulz and the OMGWTF i find here)
I like Miyazaki. But he can be a bit insane about some things.
Nobody’s perfect, I suppose.
“How to start a fire, keep it burning, put it out, the nature of water, how to climb trees, how to wind rope, use a needle and thread, use a knife.”
Isn’t that what joining the scouts is for? Or even school camp trips?
When it comes to the very young that Miyazaki is on about, some boy-scout lessons will be character building and life-affirming. You don’t expect to have pre-teens analyzing Shakespeare. Then again, this is what we have reading ages for.
At the same time, too many adults even in the Western world have reading ages below their actual age. Pretty sad.
Who knows. Maybe he is underestimating the how big a problem illiteracy can be since its now very uncommon in the developed world. Learning to red later in life can be a motherfucker I’m sure.
Gotta hate these kinds of old elitist fucks…
i’m able able to make fire, find food in the wild, repair most low tech stuff, sew (as probably any cosplayer) and always have a very useful knife.
However, i can classify as an otaku, I own a pocket PC, a tablet laptop and a pc, I create stuff with these (plus a dozen of consoles). That makes me a paradox, a time traveller or an Miyazakist ? -_-.
I understand your fear of a possible idiocracy, but ,please, mr Miyazaki, don’t make an ass of yourself like Hirano aya ; most people live in urban areas where those skills are useless and their use may be at least subject to questions from the police (“erm.., kid ? what do you intend to do with this rope and a knife up there in that tree?”). Trust me, most of the people (i.e.non-specialist) who need survival skills more than literacy wish they don’t have to…
More seriously, the oh-so-useless Literacy made faster and higher education possible, as well as “US Army Survival Field Manual FM 21 76”, which make “stone age” skills accessible to most.
(fm21-76 is very useful and instructive reading, I have this in both paper and digital version, on all my mobile devices, including psp. Read it, you’ll be able to laugh even more at “survival” shows^^)
Ah the skill of clubbing, since its been outlawed and we can’t practice it any more its hard to get any leg any more. The art of Clubbing was finding your mate for the month with a stick called club, not the one between your legs and keeping them until they came back to there senses and went home (pregnant).
But after 2,000 BC, we can’t practice it any more. He may be right….
The art of Clubbing still exists in a different form as such:
1) Go to a Club and pick up chicks
2) Get them drunk
3) ????
4) PROFIT!!!
“the nation is now run by and for the sake of a class of old people possessing views almost as outmoded as those of Shintaro Ishihara”
Yup.. someone’s going down the toilet…
It’s nice to know those skills, assuming another dark age arrives…
The dark ages are just around the corner with Ishihara and the other shitheads running the show.
Yes let’s forget modern technology and medicine. Saved billions of lives.
Respect the old, seek the new.
Is that dude even serious?
Why does everyone have this perception that civilization and technology as we know it are going to be destroyed within our lifetimes? I suppose it’s common, though. Every generation has thought that theirs would be the last.
For people living in 1st world nations today, these survival skills are next to useless. It’d be better to learn a trade that helps better society. And even if only 1% of people in the world know how to survive and fend for themselves, that’s enough. We are capable of talking and teaching one another… The skills are rather basic and easy to pass on when the time comes.
Besides, fuck surviving like you sissies. I’ll go Road Warrior if shit really does hit the fan.
Man, another example of someone who should be locked up in a room and made to do creative work but never be allowed to speak publicly.
That’s just his oldness talking. Besides, if you learn how to read, it is easier to learn how to do these things, which really aren’t needed in this age anyway, much less performed by children.
He’s completely right. Only thing is that I think their brains should develop to the point where they can comprehend their own action and the possible consequences that may follow. Teaching a 2 year old how to use a knife and start fires doesn’t seem like a good course of action. My cousin is 2 and she thinks you’re playing even when she’s being punished. Plus she hits a lot. She’s only 2 so she’s not strong but it doesn’t take an Olympian to use knife.
why’s he using a mike? and clothes? and glasses?
I have to say Miyazaki Sensei is right, without survival skills, what are they gonna do when they have no tech to help them. I find the stuff I learned as a scout to be more valuable than learning computer coding. Granted I want to do comics but not all manga or comics are bad what is bad is letting all this modern stuff rule your life.
AFAIK people who are likely to need such knowledge still actively seek to learn them. Even then they’d still use the most efficient way at hand to do it i.e. with whatever technological advancement available to them.
The Irony is that even his films such as Spirit Away used lots of CG assistance.
I was pretty sure watching TV and driving cars were part of the Flintstones’ stone age skills. Whatever could Miyazaki be talking about?
There is one stone-aged technique that all still practice even till today.
The technique of FAPPING!!
Even monkeys can fap ^_^
Miyazaki films show nature reclaiming the world. He’s just looking out for the future when we have to face giant bugs and poison forests.
I kinda catch what he said with the statement he made about Ipads, but this one went a bit too far.
Well, I’m not sure. Maybe we have grown too dependent on technology, and so we would be fucked up if we somehow lost it all. We just must find a way to disconect ourselves at least a little of this technology, tough Miyazaki’s statement was a bit too desperate.
Okay, he has a logical stand point. Lets say some how all the electronics are wiped out on the entire planet?
that can easily happen. Example, a Solar flare can disable all electricity, EMP a.k.a. electromagnetic Pulse can also do the same thing, nukes do that very well. lets say any of those happen on a large scale, could quite easily happen, act of terrorism, failed experiment or natural disaster can cause these things to happen. We would all be thrown back in to the stone ages once again. So the education of survival on your own is not a bad idea. There is nothing wrong with manga or anime or use of technology. Teach our kids survival and the would would do just fine without electricity. There’s a saying, “Give a man a fish feed him for a day. Teach a man how to fish, feed him for a life time.” Survival is a bare essential that everyone should be educated in. So in a way Hayao is correct. Agree or disagree with me its your choice.
Well you do get a Tax Credit for Child fitness
I agree Lets get them to exercise so we can save money 😛
Hey, he’s like Izumi Curtis — throw kids on an island to fend for themselves for a month.
stone age skill = humping skill
maybe hes rite!
Who’s going to be the whiny bitches dropping dead all stacked up in some stadium somewhere, waiting for disaster relief that never comes… and who’s going to be out there taking care of themselves?
You think life can’t turn on a dime? Ask the good people of New Orleans. That was just in 2005, you ignorant morons. In America. Forget about that already?
Get off your fat lazy asses and stop depending on everybody else for everything you’ve got.
Hurricanes, tornadoes, tsunamis, earthquakes… terrorist attacks, war… you name it… life can change in an instant. Just because it hasn’t yet to you doesn’t mean it can’t or won’t. OPEN YOUR FUCKING EYES.
Become a responsible human being and make yourself a person who can handle whatever this crazy life might throw your way.
Kids definitely should know how to defend themselves with a knife. It’s clearly more useful than knowing how to use fire, since heat is not something that’s hard to find in Japan.
He has a vision.
Post-apocalyptic one.
He’s not really wrong. The number of “intelligent peoples” who are not able to do ANYTHING with their two hands is quite frightening.
“Intelligent peoples” as you put it do things with their minds.
Its called the Cub Scouts. And you see, the way the Japanese school structure is, with its short vacations, after school clubs, and ridiculous expectations, these kids don’t have time to learn anything else!
Hayao Miyazaki is fukken RIGHT.
Children, spoiled fuckers who’d fuck for money need some railroads under them!
Ah Miyazaki. Like Walt Disney, a brilliant animation master, but about as lucid as Murdoch of his meds.
This guy is absolutely right, whole fucking depressing money hungry society exists because of this. If we were taught the skills to build our own cottage middle of no where, hunt food, and keep yourself warm..
We would not need this fucking shitty life as it is now.
I don’t care either way because his movies kick ass.
Here, take my childrens. oh wait…
well u can learn these survival skills thru the internet….
I see.
This explains why Ghibli is pretty much worthless nowadays and why he and his fellows don’t say anything against Ishihara. They are all senile.
At this point, I am convinced this man is nothing more than a very elaborate troll.
I am pretty sure Literacy is a higher end skill than Stone Age in Civilizatin 5. I guess Miyazaki doesn’t play computer games.
Civ starts at 4000BC, while the stone age ends some 6000BC (save for some now extinct slowpokes), meaning it’s not even covered in the game. Never the less, writing is indeed a bronze age tech in civ. Not that you can’t beeline writing first, but those barbarian axemen are not going to be very impressed by your warriors armed with wooden clubs and poetry.
I wholeheartedly agree with Miyazaki. My children will all have to beat at least fifteen games before being weaned.
ohwait
I too agree those basic skills are way more valuable than people give them credit for. and as someone already said, with the weather changes we are suffering and the extreme, and unexpected conditions you can face anytime, you don’t know when you can be needing them.
He’s right. Kid have no notion of life without technology. A good example of this is my cousin… He’s only 10 years old and yet he has a cellphone!! Why does he need to have a cellphone at that age?
My wife’s daughter is 8, and has a cellphone, Nintendo DS, a Wii and a laptop.
Beat that…
I don’t entirely disagree with him, but I don’t think it’s the right thing to totally denounce other media and traditional education outright. They can actually co-exist you know. I took voluntary wildlife training and camping and sewing classes but I suppose it won’t hurt for it to be a basic skill for everyone at least the way gym and art can be in schools.
Yeah, if he needs to contact his parents, he should learn to use smoke signals! Kids these days…
So he can contact his mother if an emergency happens? It’s quite useful for young kids to have cellphones.
Better to instill common sense in him so he knows what to do if he loses the cellphone or the battery is dead. Thats all Miyazakisama is saying.
and then got kidnapped and ended up at some underground chamber
Asking the wrong person could make you a photo on a milk carton. Common sense will help the kid know who to ask.
In the middle of the city? The kid can just ask a random person to use their phone.
Yeah, an emergency, like saying that he will sleep at Kevin’s home tonight?
Actually, it is less usefull than having a good sense of direction or anything else.
My little brother has a cell phone too. My parents work, I work, and my other brother stays at school until late so our schedules are pretty mixed up and we cant always pick him up at school but this way if something happens he has a way of contacting us. We can also call him to tell him if we will be picking him up or if special instructions are necessary (neighbor picking him up, etc.)
Technology is an aid, not a detriment to the world. If you cant accept such a simple fact you should look into getting some real estate under a rock in the desert.
He can have a cellphone, PSP, 3DS, Facebook account, and participate in Scouts where you can learn all proper fire-starter skills.
Or better yet maybe his parents can take, him..say camping and help teach him.
Oh wait, his parents probably can’t start a fire either.
Having a good sense of direction would fall under survival skills, yes…
Literacy = increased common knowledge of all peoples, made the masses aware of social and political change, widened views on science and technology, furthered the arts, allowed for better record keeping and historical documentation (i.e. we write down law, and people can actually READ it), allowed civilizations to read their religious texts and decide for themselves if it was or was not bs and; to this day, allows the common folk to know what crimes the governments of the world are committing with their tax dollars.
“Stone Age”. . . does he mean paleolithic or neolithic? forget it. = While these were the foundations, they are in no way more important than people being able to learn on a wider level. Yes, people made fire, built homes and caught food without reading; but once people could read, they could learn how to cook said foods, or which trade groups could be profitable to do business with. Hell, he might as well have said; “nothing is more important than the foundation of the house”. Sure, it’s needed, but if that’s all your going to focus on, you might as well live in a hut.
What’s better then knowing how to live in a post apocalyptic world knowing how to rebuild civilization.
I think more kids should be taught technical skills as too many people are clueless about how the technology they use works.
Knowing how to use tools, perform basic repairs ,make simple machines, understand logic gates and what a transistor is should be a requirement.
Now now, transistors and logic gates are all good, but I think you should start from simple electricity. Sure, making a human or wind powered generator is easy, but how many people know how to make a dynamo? And how many know how to actually make a battery and efficiently store electricity?
While we are on the basics, you should start with simple mechanisms are much more useful compared to electronics. Those tools are not going to craft themselves and metal casting is far from trivial. Leave electronics for when you have proper manufacturing up and running.
How to start a fire: Use a lighter.
Keep it burning: Pour some gasoline on it.
Put it out: Leave that to the firefighters.
Miyazaki is Santa.
He’ll teach them kids to make fried chicken. Mmmm…
The man got a point people! learning how to deal with suvival is important! in the event of disaster such skills will improve your change of survirval.
But but then again, learning how to do such without the abillty to actual read could also prove a problem.
Miyazakis views are not outmoded. He is a naturalist. We all will be naturalists after a few more natural disasters and another world war.
The last thing we need to be doing is giving kids here the knives and teaching them how to start a fire. Its bad enough when they have matches, never mind teaching them to start a fire without them.
he just looking for someone to play Cave Explorer with.
They call that Boy Scouts here.
Our magnetic shield changes regular as clockwork eh. You can see it in the rocks, it’s not some cock and bull story.
The next time it happens, and it could happen in your lifetime as easily as 100 years from now, you bloody well better know how to live without your fucking technology.
Fortunately I’m old enough to have lived before most of it.
yes, in the chaos that is looting and violence everywhere you sure will survive for long enough to be one of the very few survivors so that when supplies run out after several years you have a somewhat higher chance at survival
That is assuming your ridiculous idea that the magnetic field will just flip all at once is correct oji-san. 😛
And I suppose by “clockwork” you mean “totally random from the point of view of geologists”? All we know is that they happen, but the intervals are very unpredictable.
The biggest threat for electronics during a magnetic field shift are coronal mass ejections and the resulting cosmic radiation, and while capable of frying electronic equipment, they are hardly the apocalyptic force you make them to be.
Besides, magnetic fields don’t change overnight and even if it did, significant coronal ejections don’t exactly happen every day.
It won’t destroy the technology the field change takes several hundred years and the magnetic field never is gone it doesn’t just flip.
Many poles form until it stabilizes.
During the flip the power grid may need beefing up.
I can’t see many events including a nuclear war pushing technology back any farther then the late 1800s as scrap metal to rebuild civilization would be very common.
Of course the above is if enough people know the basic of technology such as how to use a lathe etc.
People like these would be invaluable in a post apocalyptic world.
Guy who makes vacuum tubes
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gl-QMuUQhVM
This chick made a transistor.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-Qph8BNrnLY
Home built steam engine
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lujsr9pAJeQ
Wood gas generator
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kG8iR5DRLpw
Basically, it’s really hard to destroy all tech. But even if you were to succeed at that, you’d still have to destroy all books and brainwash us all into cavemen, because otherwise within a day there will be telegraph again, the first trains will be running within weeks and a few months later we’ll have restored some form of internet connectivity.
“A human being should be able to change a diaper, plan an invasion, butcher a hog, conn a ship, design a building, write a sonnet, balance accounts, build a wall, set a bone, comfort the dying, take orders, give orders, cooperate, act alone, solve equations, analyze a new problem, pitch manure, program a computer, cook a tasty meal, fight efficiently, die gallantly. Specialization is for insects.” — Robert Heinlein
Should probably toss in there: grow a garden, build a fire, set a snare, and bait a hook. Really, there is no real excuse to not know the basics.
Not everyone can be Jamie Hyneman. Cruel world, I know.
They also should know how to use tools including a welder,perform basic diagnostics and repair on their vehicles,read an electrical schematic, wire up electrical circuits,repair appliances,how to make fuel from common items such as waste oil or scrap wood,how all common engines operate, how to connect plumbing and basic carpentry.
BTW I happen to know all these things.
And those who can’t should just die
*is going to kill himself, as he can’t do half the things, and doesn’t plan to lern*
Almost every task can be accomplished with either duct tape or WD-40, in fact you should stockpile a few crates of the stuff in the event of the zombie apocalypse…
@ The Red Comet
M-Mcguyver?!
The most important thing is making money, all the shit comes along with it!
I’m not as good as him but I did once fix my car’s ignition system with a transistor ripped from a dead UPS and another time rigged my furnace with an extension cord to my RV’s generator when the power went out so my house did not freeze.
Also made a generator from a spare alternator and a lawn mower motor.
Once made a solar heater out of an old radiator,some wood, a storm door, a pump, and a heater core.
Oh and I do know a few ways to make fire with out matches such as with battery and steel wool, once did it with a broken head lamp and the sun ,I probably could use the bow like Les Stroud but never tried it.
I do know the wood must be dry and you need a notch in the block.
Extreme specialisation is the only reason science fiction writers exist in the first place, so he is on rather shaky ground there.
Heinlein was also an Annapolis graduate and was a naval officer until discharged because of tuberculosis in 1934. He was also involved in politics,silver mining and his hobby was stonemasonry! I’d say he was pretty diverse.
You forgot that he wrote lots of militaristic sci-fi, but also he could wrote the opposite: Stranger in a Strange Land. That’s diversity!
I swear that pic makes Miyazaki look like Colonel Sanders, the KFC founder/mascot character
I think he is right. Come on, there are many children who think that milk comes from purple cows, or that the chicken nuggets from mc donalds are real meat.
Maybe not in such an extreme way, but the social skills you gain by “surviving” in the nature, like you are thaught at the boy scouts, do definitely differ from those you learn in this creepy surrounding called school. Because you learn the value of hard work on a playful way. But you get to understand how important it is to get water for the whole group, care for the fire etc.
And i dont want to know how many children learned some moral issues from animes like DragonBall, actual inazuma eleven, and not from their parents or with the exposure to living people ?
Kudos to him to actual speaking the truth.
i actually agree with him though not to the extreme
kids should be taught those skills they should know what its like to work. to give them that power to work and make fire and survive of the land and such
its important to know the hardships life can throw at you so they better appreciate what they have and so if disaster hits they know how to endeavour through it
but i think literacy and writing are as important as those skills
Actually this guy has many valid points. I live in NYC now and NO ONE knows how to handle this snow.
I lived and grew up in the Adirondack Mountains and my dad forced me to learn to do deal with harsh weather conditions. I’ve now become the buildings unofficial “Do everything for everyone guy” as everyone is fucking scared to leave their apartments.
Basic skills are essential even in today’s world.
Oh, that is absolutely amazing how all the “civilized” nations are populated with nothing but weaklings. Just a little snow – and its a total collapse of infrastructure and a national disaster. In Russia – people just go to work on time at -35C. Man you USians are pussies. Not to mention that Katrina thing, was funny as hell, nobody knew to boil the water first, got diarrhea and died in pain ? Hahaha, that was a riot to watch the reports.
Strangely I agree with him. A lot of people today have no idea of the nature of the things around them. But when a SHTF moment does happen are these soft intellectuals going to make the cut as well? They can’t buy others to do it for them as their money will be worthless.
I swear that pic reminds me of Colonel Sanders from KFC
I am actually disturbed that the head picture’s title is “Cheeky Hayao Miyazaki”
I learn Parkour, so I probably can survive in the urban jungle when i grope a kid and run from the FBI. Survival!
this guy…. may be a little older than we may have thought…
He knew Yukari Yakumo when she actually was 17.
As much as I love technology, people who think like him will likely survive the longest in an apocalypse.
Man’s technology is also potentially his greatest weakness. We are totally capable of wrapping a cocoon of technology around ourselves for so long that we forget both how to maintain the cocoon and how to survive outside it that when it collapses we are threatened.
This happens in two stages.
1. It lets “Inferior” traits survive and add up and multiply.
2. We forget the connection to nature, the universe, the natural world. We forget life, ritual, etc.
Its unlikely that people will forget how to operate their technology or how it works like in science fiction. Technology requires constant tuning and maintenance and that in turn requires a lot of knowledge. We wont end up being techno-barbarians like in Warhammer 40k or something.
That’s life.
If you want our current standard of living, we will need people to specialize, and in doing so they will be incapable of doing certain things and have to rely on others.
Our current “Standard of Living” is under constant threat, in no small part because of people’s non-connection to the world itself…
I’ll be sure to buy the spoons and forks you make in your shed then, at an attractive price adjusted of course.
I kind of understand what he’s trying to say, He doesn’t want the youth to be too hooked on various forms of technology/media in present time, and go outside and do plenty of other hobbies and activities that doesn’t have anything to do with TV, computers, and etc.
I mean, that’s what I think. And if I got it wrong then oh well.
They used needle and thread in the stone age? Wow, you really do learn something new everyday! *rolleyes*
he can say anything he wants he’s miyazaki for goodness sake.
While I agree that it should be important for a child to have a connection with nature, I would rather have them read first.
Old people just don’t want technology to advance to the stage that we can live forever because we’ll reach this once they are dead and they can’t stand it.
What does wanting kids to be able to do basic things that previous generations took for granted have to do with fear of mortality?
It seems to me to be a perfectly valid point. There’s this trend of people just coasting through existence relying on others for pretty much everything.
Don’t know how to fix a stopped-up sink? Call the plumber. Cabinet/drawer broken? Call a carpenter. The electricity goes out and it’s like the end of the world for them.
What he’s saying may be an oversimplification, but the general idea is, that kids need to learn more than how to read the text messages on their phone.
If there’s any argument against his sentiment, it’s that we’re hardly making them literate, either. (And don’t even get me started on math…)
I’m quite sure you’d have to go back a fair few centuries to get to “previous generations” who had these kinds of skillsets.
no it’s not. specialization equals wealth
Well, like I said, he’s likely exaggerating/oversimplifying. But the sentiment behind it is sound.
“hey boy, back when I was yo’ age we had to climb’ them trees to get to them fruits, they weren’t served nicely in those supe’mahkets where you can juhst walk in and pick ’em. When we wanna have fun we step outside and open them fire hydrants, we don’t have no game boy to play those pokee mans you kids got these days”
I agree, they should also teach them where to find good sources of protein and how to drink their own piss.
I’d rather follow Les Stroud’s and Ray Mears’ survival examples then Bear Gryls.
Drinking piss directly is bad it’ll only make you thirstier now it can be distilled with a sheet of plastic and a container.
Les Stroud did this once while explaining yes it’s mostly water but the other 5 to 10% is salts and and urea and you could go into shock if those toxins get reintroduced while you’re dehydrated.
Also any water found in a river or such should be boiled before drinking or you’ll be very sorry a few hours later.
Bear Grylls isn’t for real, I guess most people would have figured that out by now…
He’s basically telling young men to try stone age flirting techniques since everything else has failed.
Genius.
Japanese kids need some Evangelion plus Ritsuko’s anus.
How does he think we watch his creations, as puppet shows?
If he lives in the stone age, he most likely loath fires and the wheel..
well… he has a point there…
at least we must learn all about the basic first…
walk before run…
Old fashioned view, but he makes good anime, so I’ll let this pass.
His beard does remind me of Big Boss. Maybe he had been parachuted before into a South American rainforest with only a pistol, survival knife, and a Calorie Mate back in the 1970’s.
Miyazaki probably expects a zombie apocalypse coming… I’m actually surprised he didn’t list the ability to purify water as a life skill…
Voted up for the metal gear reference.
Time to start practicing my stone-age skills…
*knapknapknapknapknapknap*
Everyone! Let’s burn all our PC’s, TV’s and cellphones, destroy all our cars and skyscrapers, annihilate all our technology. Then we can live just like our medievil predecessors did: Do agriculture for food, kill your neighbours for territory, and then just fuck and eat all day. No need to clutter up your head with quantum physics and programming languages. Why bother when we can take it easy?
That’s a skill older than stone dude: aliens have done it before…
For some reason I read it as, “*kidnapkidnapkidnapkidnapkidnapkidnap*” Oh, well…
i read it aa fapfapfapfapfap…. very stoneage…god what is wrong with me -.-
Na Go with Surviorman not Bear Since Les Stroud was legit Bears just created them up
But Mac wins over all
>”So all kids must be like MacGuyver?”
A noble goal indeed!
No, all kids must be like Bear Grylls.
So all kids must be like MacGuyver?
That was also probably a useful stone-age “skill”.
I’m pretty sure that’s the stone age equivalent of marriage. It has been a simpler time.
Well,learning those things does promote creativity at young mind’s.
Most of the people with a lot of creative skills and good imagination,didn’t have everything served on a plate just like we today have.And learning how something is hard to create gives us more sense of respect towards things in life.And that is much better than being boring ignorant idiots…
So I say Miyazaki has a point there
Actually he has a good point. Essentially the Boyscouts here in america teach those things.
I agree with that.
I learned how to light fire with a match!
..
..
eh?
He has some good points, survivals might save your life in a desperate situation, however, he got it wrong
in this time and era, learning how to write is more important than learning how to use a knife, besides, at wich age do you learn how to write? 6-7 years? c’mon, lets be realistic, no kids under (or even slightly above) that should be walking down the street with a knife in his pocket, lets not even talk about learning how to put on a fire
I’m guessing that his point was more general, like why are we teaching kids useless things like complex mathematics and physics which are only useful to a small percentage who go into careers that require those things while we don’t teach things like basic survival and first aid.
basic survival? what do you mean?
How often are you going to be stuck in a forest with no form of lighting equipment? Seriously.
Creating fire isn’t rocket science anyway.
It isn’t rocket science until you have to do it. Then you separate the men from the boys.
I’m not going to go into the woods. Therefore I will never have to make a fire.
To be fair, such skills, perhaps not essential to modern daily life, have powerful educational value, not because of Zombie Apocalypse but because it teaches kids to be makers, to be active, to see they can create stuff that works, and learn that mistakes can hurt but are never the end of the life. Kids with those expeciences would have a much lower risks of becoming 2ch failures, herbivores and seiyuu stalkers.
And they should learn all this before they learn how to properly write? I understand what you guys are saying and I agree, but you should reread what he is saying. I love his movies, I just don’t like the guy personally since he thinks all technology is bad.
I wonder if he can survive in an apocalyptic era
He won’t survive the apocalypse, because he would be dead before it happened. But we will be joining him soon enough!
I learned most of my life skills from TV. Like Man Vs Wild…
I now know I can skin a fish and war it as a shirt, or drink my own piss, or how do build a shelter, or drink my own piss, or use vines to make rope, or drink my own piss, or learn how to collect rain water after I drink my own piss.
Japanese children don’t need to know how to survive in the wilderness if they never leave their house.
They need to know what to do in case the automated toilet goes out! 🙂
That’s why they don’t leave the house because they don’t know what’s out there,and through learning they might get out of the house more often…
@madaraluka93
Because knowing how to light a fire will make them go out?
Yes, because they will light their house on fire in the process, forcing them to STAY out.
Japanese children that knew how to survive in the wilderness would never stay at their houses all the time in the first place.
It would be beneficial to teach them to scavenge for food in a pile of old instant ramen though.
You made it sound like they’re fate is to be homeless.
Better throw that at “How to Survive on the Streets: Japan” issue for good measure.
I will buy one of these issues.
I take it they don’t have boy/girl scouts in Japan yes?
If they did I expect it would be banned for being too militaristic.
German Scouting actually became the Hitler Youth, so any attempt at introducing scouting to Japan could become cradles of Japanese ultra-nationlist terrorists…
You’re kidding right? ಠ_ಠ
I think something like the boyscouts might go a long way in helping the hikikomori problem as far as future generations falling to it.
Better send them kids on an outdoor adventure camp with this man.
YES I WILL WHERE DO I SIGN, come one buco Miyazaki will make you manry
Perhaps one of the reasons why his own son is hating him. Throwing his son in middle of nowhere and see if he would survive?
He spent no time with him.
i c wut u did there
The Title + the picture = win 😀
@ DFC
I won’t lie
I’d actually [b]enjoy[/b] camping with Miyazaki himself lol :3
You could sit there waiting for Totoro to show up! 🙂
Mmm, I also believe you should cherish the tradiitonal skills. I don’t know most of the survivals skills, but I still know how useful they are.
Also I can’t climb a tree. 🙁
Look at what’s happening in the big cities with all these snow storms. Look at all the helpless people who wouldn’t be in that position if they went to boyscouts/girlscouts and learned to properly deal with harsh weather.
Yes survival skills are very helpful and will continue to be long into the future.
I’m on the tech side, but there’s been plenty of wars knocking cities out with refugees not taken care of.
Agreed. If we were to leave the city, 90% of us would die because we don’t know fuck all about what we can eat and what we can’t, how to start fires, how to keep warm, etc.
The other 10% would stay alive just cos they were lucky enough that the first thing they ate didn’t kill them.
I believe the issues with snowstorms are more down to ineffective or underfunded local services not bothering to clear or grit the roads and so on. Knowing how to build an igloo or shoot and dress an elk is hardly going to alleviate a traffic jam caused by bad weather.
@Eddyak
There has been no recent (100 years) precedent where people have been forced to abandon a city en masse without being provided adequate basic neccessities for survival. Do tell us, just what kind of situation would require such skills from common people?
@3:31
I fail to see how a snow storm inside a city would require survival skills from it’s citizens. Since there doesn’t seem to be any precedents. Maybe you would care to give some links or model it for us?
old man certaibly has a point
however his point has 2 flaws: division of labour and its the bloody 21st century
it would be awesome if everyone was at least half as good as bear grylls, but probably less than 1% of us will ever need really these skills
making them compulsory is a waste of time and effort
Even worse, most people couldn’t survive even with stoneage skills. I mean what are they going to hunt? cars?
If survival skills are a waste of time and effort because they MAY NOT BE USED than why do kids learn about bloody chemistry and biology topics, which will MOST DEFINITELY NEVER BE USED by 95% of them?
Ray Mears would be a far better example the Bear Grylls.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GvRR5MTBBQI
in all seriousness, I do hope I learnt some survival skill, modern age really can dull a man into a potato in no time
Knowledgeable indeed, yet so many could have their car break down in the sticks, get lost in the woods, and die of exposure or thirst while surrounded by enough abundance to even live comfortably if they just had basic skills.
Compared to what? I’m pretty sure the current human society is the most knowledgeable human society history remembers.
Stupid people will always exist, but at least today, they have basic writing and math skills.
How could anyone not trust a man with a smile like that with their children?
Lol, if he CAN do it, i will gladly follow, too bad these intelligent man is just all talk, well, worse than children sitting at home and reading manga.
I dare him to start a fire using stoneage skill, lol.
Oh no we created pyromaniacs
@7:50
[quote]You may invest in response teams but outsourcing ALL those basic skills to trained professionals is very damaging to the children.[/quote]
The polite thing to do when you make a claim is to give some kind justification. How does it damage me that I cannot start a fire with a bunch of sticks and stones, or whatever other survival skill you would have me master?
Kids are taught how to react to common dangers in the city (criminals, fires in buildings, etc…). You can’t ready them for every possible situations nor should you. Some people are going to die because they never knew something, but that’s acceptable compared to stirring social progress to a halt just to teach kids how to live as cavement.
[quote]The survival skills do not only come in handy in case of global apocalypse, just in case that’s the impression you may have.[/quote]
Don’t put words in my mouth. I never said anything that remotely hints at the possibility.
[quote]By the way, why do children at school learn about higher math and chemistry but not how to save a person with first aid?[/quote]
You call school level math “higher”?
But on the point, they learn it because math is the foundation of pretty much any science course they would ever take in university. As for chemistry, it’s taught because it’s one of the fundamental sciences and it’s very basics should be common knowledge. School is supposed to arm you with a wide assortment of fundamental knowledge in different areas, not teach you practical stuff. Weather you agree with this mindset is another matter.
[quote]Why do they now how to root an Android mobile but not how to make a fire?[/quote]
Too much free time. Go complain to their parents, it’s their problem. And, that doesn’t justify why they should be learning survival skills in school. You are introducing a completely unrelated issue.
@anon at 7:50
Because those math, chemistry, and Android-rooting skills are actually useful in our advanced civilization. Knowing how to start a fire without the use of a $1 cigarette lighter isnt.
He does have a point and is in fact right.
@Anon 6:31
You may invest in response teams but outsourcing ALL those basic skills to trained professionals is very damaging to the children. The survival skills do not only come in handy in case of global apocalypse, just in case that’s the impression you may have.
By the way, why do children at school learn about higher math and chemistry but not how to save a person with first aid?
Why do they now how to root an Android mobile but not how to make a fire?
I suppose that’s the message Miyazaki was trying to convey.
Well, he does have a point. In this age, anything can happen in a blink of an eye. It’s definitely necessary to have a set of basic survival skills at hand. Even I can do all that except climbing trees.
However, denying technology and calling it the reason for the kids’ loss of power is just childish. In fact, I believe that technology has given children more power than before… or that children never had much power to begin with. Hell, most people don’t have power as well.
Also, what a hypocrite.
Send this guy to an isolated island and see if he can survive for a month alone.
@ HouseLife
When I was in scouts, they made it pretty clear it was more about learning to be a responsible American than survival or an “expanding perspective on nature.”
@HouseLife
I disagree. If you have the time to teach children survival skills, then why not just invest it in improving your local emergency response service? Surely qualified rescue personal would be much more useful than someone who learned how to start a fire in the event of emergency which, let’s be honest, is the only situation that would require survival skills from city dwellers.
Now if you are the adventurous type, you should be educating yourself about survival before taking up risky travels. But in the end, it’s nobody’s fault if a healthy thinking adults kill themselves out of recklessness, and it’s the parent’s fault if children do so. By no stretch of imagination is it a social issue.
Either way, teaching everyone basic survival has very low time investment to potential benefit ratio. Better tech these children something useful, like science or something actually beneficial like PE.
The sad part is his point is a great one, just said with the eloquence and purpose of a fool.
The concept of the Cub Scouts and such was to teach more than just survival, but also about expanding perspective on nature and increase understanding of the world around them. Unfortunately the focus became about dumbass badges due to the reward system built around American children, but they still learned. I wouldn’t say that it’s at all necessary to do it before learning to read or write, because the progress of our civilization makes that fundamentally unnecessary, but I agree that giving fundamental respect to the elements we take for granted is a good idea.
Unless of course Miyazaki-sama understands something about the zombie apocalypse that we do not. And by the nature of that shit-eating grin up there, I think I should brush up on my knife fighting skills…
FUCK YEAH!! FIRE!!
I can make a fire… I looked it up on google
i dare you to do it
All I need to know how to do, I can find of tutorial video of it on Youtube.
no,you tube doesn’t teach you to socialize
He said YouTube can teach him all he NEEDS to know. Anon doesn’t need to socialize.
Somehow, I believe that during disasters, internet access is usually not the easiest thing to come by.
It’s nice that all the info is on the internet, but that doesn’t ruin his point, which is based around the fact that most people are largely ignorant of survival skills.
That aside, actual experience with these skills is invaluable when you really need them. Knowing is one thing, being able to do it is another.
Those who stay indoor is consider as disposal as he pointed out in his book.
Obviously the skills will be important in situations were they are needed, ie.in a disaster or far away from civilisation.
However, it is equally obvious that those situations were those skills would be of use will probably never occur for most people.
Being able to write and read on the contrary, that is a skill most people will find themselves in need of on a daily basis to survive in our modern civilisation.
Because the survival skills he mentioned are important to know in the urban jungle, yes? Knowing how to use GPS, making a phone call for help, is still a better option than making a signal smoke when you’re lost in the middle of a city. A signal smoke does get the police attention though.
Survival skills are useful but hardly necessary when you’re not the outdoors type.
That’s cheating.
I bet I know a lot more survival skills than that guy lol. Guess where I learnt them all? The internet!
That was his plan all along. Genius!
His secret plan genius indeed
Oh Miyazaki.. every time i see his face.. he reminds me [B]K[/B]entucky [B]F[/B]ried [B]C[/B]hiken.
I’m sure as hell not going camping with that face.
My god people, you are so harsh! I never ever saw Miyazaki as a potential child rapist who lures kids into the forest to abuse them… you just killed my chilhood =(
He kinda looks like Robinson Crusoe with short hair.
He really looks like the Colonel…
I hear ya, he has his rape face on.
Hatred for technology? survivalist tone? Fulminating against?
who wrote this tendentious rubbish?
Anyway, I do agree that Miyazaki’s claims are ridiculous, who needs to light a fire nowadays? does miyazaki need to light a fire himself? when was the last time that he did it? He should put his money where his mouth is and teach kids how to survive…er, the wild landscape of Tokyo.
Mr. Miyazaki; do a new anime or retire…enough with the lectures.
Apparently in Japan, the old men can say anything they want and the rest will bend their collective asses and take the fucking, even when it’s obvious that they’re senile and themselves out of touch with reality.
News like this only serves to make me hate Japan even more than before. On the outside, they seem to have changed from their pre-Hiroshima mentality, but NO! That’s not the case. Those who run the country have been pounded outdated principals by their forefathers and are now continuing the obsolete policies used in the administration.
And they still wonder why their local economy has been in a slump for 20 years now….
Says a man in his age who’d have been long dead if we were still living in the stone age.
the “skills” he talks about are all but completely useless nowdays.
I dare you to start a fire in your garden and you’ll se what will happen…
and I bet he doesn’t even know what he’s talking about. I dare him to make a video in which he shows us his “grand skills” in starting fires and putting it on youtube.
besides, telling people what is wrong and right, what they should do and what they shouldn’t… is the epitome of wrongness.
I started a fire in my backyard and nothing happened.
This dude just went full retard.
Nature sucks. Anyone that says otherwise hasn’t had to live off the land for any amount of time. I don’t understand the climbing trees bit. How much do you need to learn there? Seriously. You grab a thick branch, put your foot on another, step up. Look for next branch…repeat. Unless he means trees that have no low branches that you have to snake your way up. Otherwise, trees are just like freaking ladders.
Nature sucks. Tech rules. Virutal space rocks.
I take it you haven’t been in an actual forest. You won’t be climbing a 30m tree by the branches unless you are 10m tall yourself. And the snake method only works if you are very strong proportional to your body weight. A slightly overweight US city dweller who can’t even benchpress his own bodyweight can’t do it.
I agree with your assessment on nature through. She’s a whore.
The man is a god, can say whatever the fuck he likes.
we have technology so we dont have to learn that crap. dudes gone senile.
We’re at the top of the food chain on Earth. Technology made it possible. In fact, without it, sir, you wouldn’t have lived to be your age.
And wouldn’t have been able to do his films, which is his only achievement.
You know if you hate technology so much, why did you ever embrace it, with Princess Mononoke all the work from your studio has gone steadly down at the same time that movie featured alot of computer graphics, if you really hate it that much just ditch CG or at least just keep the 2D style for the entire film, not adding a mesh up castle like Howls.
If stupid old people who have no impact on the life of others, like this one, say stupid things, well, no big problem. It’s instead a big problem when stupid old people have political influence, like Ishihara. We all know what kind of disasters they’re capable of, so stop voting those retards!
useless knowledge is useless at lest for me. i never leave my city so i don’t need to know how to start a fire and stuff.
I actually used some of those fire starting techniques off survivor man because I forgot a lighter while fishing or hunting and I wanted a fire.
But then nature is not some scary foreign thing to me it’s just what you find in outside on the outskirts of town between the farms and by the river.
It’s also where I go to play with my 4×4.
That’s nice. Now go back to bed, grandpa.
Artefact, your readers have more sense than you do. You aren’t 1/10th of the man Miyazaki is, so you should STFU and pay attention when Miyazaki shares his wisdom.
Not to mention that he doesn’t really make good movies.
He just sounds like any other grumpy old man. Just cuz he makes good movies dosen’t mean he is any better
I bet you his kids/grandkids didn’t become NEETS or useless people in society like 65% of japan.
Bad enough you can’t make your women happy, your insulting a guy who’s willing to pass on some knowledge to teach you 2d is paper and that is meant to whipe your ass with and say “THIS IS my money” my country says I have earned.
Not, this is my girlfriend… this man is a GOD in Japan. He is Al Bundy minus the Shoesales man part.
would it make you feel differently if i informed you that =
A) his son, Goro, is an anime director as well.
and
B) his son publicly borderline hates his father’s guts.
according to Miyazaki’s son, Miyazaki is a brilliant artist; but an utter piece of crap as a father or a family man.
– Hayao made his wife quit any career of her own and be a good little housewife.
– neglected his son when he was growing up.
– and outright publicly bashed his own son when his son was working on his first film.
– he’s great at telling other people what a good life should be, yet he couldn’t even create his own loving family life.
is he trying to pass on some words of wisdom about life? yes.
but before you claim he knows the secrets to a happy 3D life instead of all us dreamers living in 2D, be aware this is a man whose happy life exists only in the 2D fantasies he created.
his own personal life was dysfunctional.
you can worship him blindly as an infallible god if you want.
but before you tell others to appreciate the real world around us, maybe you should learn to different your fantasies of a man from the realities of a man.
his own son says sheep like you don’t have a clue.
Why am I arguing with myself..?
Another Ishihara, though less annoying since he not pounding on anime
yeah he will complain about anime when he himself made them :rolleyes: