Why Yokai watch is popular - Concepts of Agency Detector / Generation "Digital Native"

From Generalist Professions to Specialist Professions to Intelligent Digital Systems

I sometimes focus closely what our current world has to offer to the young generation that live in our present world. The present of our world is very vast and different than it used to be in the past. There is more and more the shift of people not requiring the mental effort to use problem solving skills and instead more relying on authority figures. This shift is linear and progressive. To illustrate, at first there were different professions that were generalist on a specific domain. So if we had a problem that we need to solve, we could have gone to that figure of authority. Society became more complex and wanted to make the well being of each individual much better. For that reason, professions became more specialized and each individual had a very specific domain he had knowledge of. But if that wasn't enough, we went in these days to go to the next step, to provide accuracy based on a collective set of knowledge and experience only a professional with extensive experience could provide, that an individual itself could not have come to these same conclusions or follow the best practices no matter how much effort he has set on his lifetime. However, we encounter two problems on this facet: one, it is too ideal for each professional to fit on that role very competitively and two, there is not enough resources of such amount of professionals to cater that need to the current demand. So for those reasons: we transcend the authority of those figures from the physical to the meta-physical: intelligent digital systems that harbor some or most of the elements a professional could achieve. These are the systems that a generation of "digital native" will term alike or even better than the current physical people of professionals that cater our needs. It is the next billion venture thing that will rule in our next generation and it is scary to what implications this will turn out to be.

This all ties together to the concept of the "Agency Detector". Let me elaborate what the agency detector does by looking at the show "Yokai Watch". But before looking at Yokai watch, lets see why Pokemon is totally different from Yokai Watch, because although many people they think they are alike, we all know that there is something different, but can't articulate in details what this different thing is, which I am going to venture you on it for now.

What is the concept of Pokemon that is different from Yokai Watch

Pokemon is totally different from Yokai watch. The reason Pokemon is different from Yokai watch is the perspective it looks at what a "fictional paranormal animal" represents to me. First of all, unlike yokai watch, pokemons are something that everyone can see. They are not separated into a different realm. Secondly, the aim of pokemon may be the same as yokai watch to capture as much mythical creatures as possibles, but the goal is different in here, as it is to be the best trainer of all. In other words, the point is how to use the existing creatures to your advantage in order to be the winner. It is no different than big companies trying to hire the best combination of people or the best set of companies to out-beat other big companies to still retain the status of being the king. We see elements of pokemon as using the assets of mythical creatures as like being an executive to win others who compete in the same world with the same assets. The last point is that in pokemon, the key to progress the story is paying a lot to the external physical environment: the landscape, the skills and traits of the pokemon, and the skills and the traits of the other pokemon. Although yokai watch has those elements too, pokemon although has different laws than our natural world, it predominantly focuses on the external environment. The reason pokemon is a success is because the creativity and the content of the world was executed well. If the 900 pokemon was like your typical real world animal zoo, it would not be so exciting to see. Its novelty that propels and also the ability to ignore animal cruelty for the sake of enabling our cognitive mind to play the executive mindset on how we can be the champions of the world. Because admittedly, if pokemon used exactly the real animals we have in our animal kingdom, we would have thought that this show is as cruel as grand theft auto. It is the same concept as replacing humans with zombies, because it feels more rightfully to us to eradicate a zombie or a mythical creature that we don't know or can relate in real life than something that it actually exists. Regardless, besides the implications of what pokemon is or not, it was a success due to those key points it brought to the show and many tried to create re-iterations of the same thing with a different style, such as i.e. Digimon.

Why is Yokai Watch completely different thing from Pokemon: Agency Detector

Yokai watch is a completely different beast. In fact, there may be later clones of Yokai watch because it introduces something that was never introduced before in a show so explicitly as this: Agency Detectors. What is an agency detector you say? If you understand what a yokai means based on the context of the show (no, not its literal meaning),  then you know all what an agency detector means. It really perplexed me and I am kind of convinced that the show really linked the "agency detector" from the "cognitive science of religion" as its main message in a subliminal way. What is an agency detector then? Okay, so this not entirely something new, but it tries to find the reason why in the past and why currently people still believe in God. It does not go to much in the context of religion as much as the reason why people believe in religion and they put the culprit to our "agency detector", a component of our mind which does the following: If there is an event that we cannot describe or understand ourselves, then we need to put responsibility of that event to some sense of variable. The mind in most cases does not like to set an undefined variable, it usually in most cases prefer to set it on "something". In the past and in certain cultures, when a big earthquake or tsunami erupts out of nature, we put the blame to god (an authority physical figure) or to some higher entity. This is much better illustrated within Lorin Friesen two concepts of agency detectors: one that is formulated out of an authority and another formulated out of a theory. If you have watched the show, does it sound all familiar? It is, because when an event is happening and it is strange and we can't know why it is happening, the main character says the same phrase again and again "It must be a yokai". It is what it is, we activate our agency detector on those triggers when something unexplained happens to us. For most adults this sounds ridiculous, but in childhood development, that is the world we all start from before learning the actual truths from elementary and high school. If you believed in santa claus, then that is what an agency detector or a yokai is all about. You believed you had to be a good kid and not naughty because there is an entity up there that watches you to determine whether he should put christmas gifts on your christmas tree or not. As the story of yokai illustrates, yokai are what yokai are and they do not have a concept of cause and effect. You blurted out much that you didn't know why you said it? It must be Tattletell. You are eating more than you should actually be eating? It must be Hungramps. It only focuses on the effect and not the cause of it. In a sense it is an authority figure instead of a theory and we cannot explain or understand it because it lives in a different realm. This is something hard to forget as only people who have the yokai watch can see them.

But why an authoritative figure to put a blame on it? Because like I said previously, the mind cannot set it to an undefined variable. It wants to place things into categories. To map which effect correspond to what variable and then up to the individual whether to allow that effect to be set within an authoritative figure or to some cause and effect theory. At that stage the kid is developed, he may not be able to grasp the cause effect until later in school, the only thing that needs at this moment to survive within the laws of nature and be a fit member within the society, is to map each unexplained event with an agency detector of authority and bridge the gap later to something more sensible to that with normal thought. What is normal thought? Normal thought as opposed to technical thought is something that you learn from common sense through the concrete variables of the world instead of the abstract variables in the world where you learn in school through philosophy and math. It is an element that we will see later yokai watch bridges the gap to some extent on that. In conclusion, unlike pokemon, yokai watch enables the mentality of children to be more ready, fit, and act appropriate to society, as opposed to have an executive mindset to be the best trainer in the world. We can see that the main story-line is to resolve social tension of inexplicable events children face often each day, a tension we adults rarely experience it except if we go to different countries and have symptoms of culture shock. Unlike the adult mind which is mentally prepared to tackle any unexplained event, the childhood mind at its primitive form is not so ready to tackle the same challenges as an adult would do easily.

What are the benefits of this show? The benefits of this show is that it saves a lot of time from parents to kids questions on inexplicable events. The parents will usually tie those inexplicable events with something down to earth (normal thought) kids would understand or some form of deity or religion that we should abide of. Yokai watch is something that is not offensive at all to any individual as it ties all those unexplained events to the childhood individual in relative terms where everyone can accept, not affiliated with any religion or theory. Furthermore, we can see that the show also tries to tie in some normal thought behind those mythical creatures deities. For instance, tattletell may be seen as a "bad" or "evil" category at first that the main character had to confront because there was an incident where it possessed an individual to blurt out something inappropriate. However, at other times, Tattletell was used by the main character because blurting out something made sense when an individual tried to hide the bad high school grades from her mom. In here, we can see that each yokai is like a piece of foundation in our life and we see a lot of elements where the main character has to decide when it is appropriate and when it is not appropriate. The way this is done is by the main protagonist always having the third perspective of things, something that other secondary individuals that are possessed do not have a clue or are blind that they act in inappropriate ways. However, unlike blaming the cause of the individual for its wrong doing, it is usually the cause of the yokai. This is kind of perplexing, as I understand that the main story is to alleviate the tension for kids of something unexplained to the secondary character and instead putting the blame on a yokai instead, but maybe it goes too far. There is one episode on the show where an individual was eating more than average due to a yokai called Hungramps. Usually, an individual that eats more is usually due to a substitute of satisfaction for our own experience or to alleviate depression. In some countries that are very small, the limited space limits us to gain satisfaction from exploration, as there is little novelty in a small space. In such countries, that novelty of space can be substituted with novelty of food. Just to not side track a lot, the problem was solved by confronting Hungramps. Hungramps was actually having the normal symptoms of hunger for good reasons: He was depressed cause he didn't see her grand-daughter for a long time. However, it makes us assume that his cause (depression) and effect (hunger) is possessed to an individual that was never hungry in the first place. The show is calling it as "possessing" a spirit. In other words, it brings agency detectors called yokai in an indirect way with the form of possessing to normal individuals and our goal is to purify them. For that reason, I expect the story to not have a very main strong story plot as it approaches things in an indirect way while its message is more for kids to learn the different varieties of what is appropriate as parents teach to children in novel ways. We can also see that this show main campaign targets children as its ending has an exercise drill for children to dance with it.

The show is very entertaining and amusing in the way it does things. We can also conclude that society in some terms has already accepted that agency detectors really exist in our mind and it is one of the starting stages for the development of a child. Later, the child has to bridge those agency detectors to a more solid foundation of a bridge. Besides normal thought, to incorporate technical thought through the means of education.

However, the behavior for our current generation to be more obedient or conform to an agency detector is not something that we should be stuck with, at least for some stuff in life, we should not black box things. For that reason, we should incorporate technical thought into it. But will it be more easier or harder for us to do that incorporation? My assumption is that there may become more obstacles than facilitation to do this, as we are starting to have the emergence of the new generation that is called digital natives.

Digital Natives: Our agency detector as an intelligent digital system

Okay, so now we come to make a stand to the future. Let us admit that we use less common sense in our daily life. Not because we want to, but we don't have the time to. You let others do your job for you. You don't need to cook, buy groceries and create a mess in the kitchen. You can eat at a restaurant instead. Even in a matter of a fact, now you don't even need to go outside to order the food and you can do it by the phone. Or maybe you have very poor communication skills to articulate what you want to an individual or its too much effort for you to do that. Instead, you tap with a few thumbs from your hand on your mobile device what you want to eat through their official mobile app. Oh wait, you don't need to even have to care what food you want to eat. The app has a recommendation engine that knows what is best fit for you to eat and you just click that recommended item they told you without giving it a second thought because you have other more important matters to think of. That last part may be too exaggerated, but it is actually not an exaggeration for our new generation called digital natives. We are more and more driven to let others do the decision for us so we can be more efficient and productive to actually do what we are specialized, but that skill of specialization, is it actually good for the lack of having a general inter-disciplinary view of how things work?

What happens here is we lose our individuality and set whatever the collective mindset of the intelligent system is appropriate, but is it actually appropriate for you? Let us take the examples of people blaming doctors for something going wrong. We expect professionals are the ones that will solve the problem in and out from A to Z. But in actuality, they are no more there than being the best supporters and advisers to your problems, not being the full liability of your tasks that you need in help. We have to set our own individuality into proposition, because it may not always fit with the collective answer that exists. In other words, let agency detectors be there as they be as they be, but we should not be succumbed at them, but influence them. That requires a society that practices revolutionary feedback that does not punish people but instead evolve people within their journey on aligning ourselves and them on the correct path. However, this cannot be done if we look things as an authoritative figure and approach it in an indirect way. Instead, we should be seeing the mechanisms through cause and effect and approach it directly where we transform our problems into solutions in order to become better individuals to society than we were before. This in practice requires the bridging of the existing normal thought we practiced with technical thought. This requires these type of communication channels to accept feedback and give feedback back to others. Some details are okay to black box to ourselves and ignore where we don't find it useful in our own context of our life, such as how to manufacture a semiconductor. However, not to the point where we black box everything, such as leadership skills, communicating and managing personal problems within society, and making a world a better place. These leaps for people to dive in may be harder for them when everything is around their shoulder. Especially with cheap entertainment these days as a main motivation for many individuals, it is much easier these types of skills to be lost in our next generation, the main skills that drive the main engine that drive our world today, like pulling a train to do the next iterative step to make our society embodied with a strong purpose.

The point is, I am pretty sure that digital natives will become a trend soon and big data and intelligent systems that live within our context of our life will be the next multi billion dollar thing. However, most who are old and are not digital natives understand that these systems are there to support us and not be the agency detector we should call for help that will solve our problems or blame them if they did something wrong. No, we are adults and we have created already that bridge to transition those agency detectors to a theory, to a cause and effect, with the help of bridging our previous normal thought with some technical thought. But for digital natives, that may not be the case. They will treat those systems like some of our present individuals who treat doctors as being their full liability if they screwed something up (which in some cases it makes sense, but not in all cases, when the patient is mostly passive to his own health). However, all this can be changed if digital natives have a direction and purpose in their life, that they at least not let some components of their thought be directed or swayed, to place the most important matters in their life with common sense and technical thought instead of just leaving it all up to an authoritative figure.