No generation in the history of mankind is more reviled than that of the baby boomers, who grew up during the age of mass media. Raised on TV and glossy magazines, they connected to a world their parents knew almost nothing about, and with that experience turned from youthful explorers of expanded possibilities into self-centered jerks who plundered and exploited everything that had been created for their benefit. At least, that's the historical perspective held by subsequent generations who now have to contend with the economic, political and environmental ruin they left behind. But the worst may be yet to come.

In the summer, the health ministry released the results of a survey that claimed 4.62 million Japanese people over the age of 65 suffered from serious cognitive dysfunction, and that if you factored in seniors who had "mild" dementia, meaning they were more than usually forgetful but could fend for themselves, the number exceeded 8 million. The ministry included these milder cases with the serious ones because senility is considered a progressive condition. Once you start on that downward slope you never hike back up. That's why people with functional dementia are referred to as yobigun, or "reserves." They are standing by to join the army of the eternally confused.

The media has spent six months absorbing this shocking statistic, and recently there has been a flurry of reports on the dire consequences, not only for those who will soon be going, not so gently, into that good night, but for society as a whole, since Japan seems to be at the vanguard of what is shaping up to be a planetary march. This dubious distinction is demographic in nature. The baby-boom cohort in Japan represents a brief window of time in which a huge number of humans were born, between 1947 and 1949, after which the Japanese government, overwhelmed by the need to feed and shelter an entire population left hungry and homeless by war, did everything in its power to stifle reproduction. The dankai no sedai (mass generation) barrelled through their youthful rebellious phase en masse, provided a huge market for Japan's innovative consumer culture, served as cannon fodder for the country's corporate juggernaut and brought forth the bubble economy of the late '80s with their appetites.