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Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

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Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#151

Post by ajb »

hedgehog wrote: post #101
kriro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

Wikipedia has a list (of course), it's pretty interesting to read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

Most of the oldest UK ones are pubs, which perhaps says something about British culture.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#153

Post by dehrmann »

eloff wrote: post #103
kriro wrote: post #85

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a few in Germany. The most famous one is probably Merck (1668). There's a couple of really old banks (Berenberg Bank in Hamburg, 1590) and the industry with the most old companies is probably the glas industry. There's a couple of companies from the 15xx and 16xx. If you're into hiking, you probably heard about Meindl shoes (1683). There's also a lot of breweries, especially small ones in Frankonia. And…

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

> A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country.

To be fair, Anheuser-Busch is older than several iterations of Germany.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#154

Post by neither_color »

brigandish wrote: post #62
ggm wrote: post #20

Coppicing, Hedge laying, Bocage, drystone walling, wattle-and-daub are all domestic comparable ancient crafts of Europe. The point being that probably only drystone walling is valued in a way comparable to the Japanese version of Coppicing, which really has been transformed into an artform. European coppices are cut close to the rootstock and cut down far younger for use as poles, for wood turning, for hedge laying.…

It’s worth remembering that adoption is much different to how we’d conceive of it in Europe. If a business wasn’t going to be continued by the offspring then a new business owner could be adopted, as an adult. That’s why there seems to be so many Japanese concerns with incredibly long lineage, but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088

We Americans have had "nepotism" drilled into our heads so much that we apply it to any small family-run business craft and encourage young people to move far away and try to "make it on their own" in cities they have no ties to in industries they don't belong in to avoid the shame of "having everything handed to you." Young Americans in general abhor the idea of doing the same thing their parents did. The problem is this is drilled into middle class kids who think that taking over the family shop/bakery/restaurant is the same as some politician or CEOs son getting easy admissions to harvard and a big 4 internship. The result is a wasted opportunity to build generational wealth, skill transfer, and artisanal mastery as your best decade is wasted trying to get to the same level your parents got to in 20.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#155

Post by ska »

jimmaswell wrote: post #123
vanderZwan wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Perhaps you are in the forestry business, in which case, fine, but otherwise I would advise against speaking with the unearned confidence of a physicist looking at a different field and declaring it trivial[0]. Most of the time things aren't as simple/easy as they appear on the surface. [0] https://xkcd.com/793/

Funny, but I do feel like there's not much you couldn't throw a team of programming physicists at, if not just for their widened perspective and the fact that they have such a good springboard to study anything else - wouldn't work if they had the attitude of the guy in the xkcd comic of course.

The latter point is why you can often do well with physics dropouts (e.g. ABD ph.d students,disillusioned post-docs); good problem solving skills but less hubris.

Of course physicists are not the only example of this effect.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#156

Post by hedgehog »

ajb wrote: post #151
hedgehog wrote: post #101

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wikipedia has a list (of course), it's pretty interesting to read: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_oldest_companies

Most of the oldest UK ones are pubs, which perhaps says something about British culture.

Or the durability of the value proposition and ability to keep a sufficient number of people interested in keeping the establishment open. Maybe something about the economics of commercial real estate and tax policy in England help survival during downturns.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#157

Post by ALittleLight »

dehrmann wrote: post #153
eloff wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. The depth of history and culture in Europe never ceased to amaze me while I was travelling there, especially in Greece and Italy. I grew up on the prairies in Canada, there was pretty much nothing there 120 years ago.

> A German friend phrased it this way for Americans: We have beers older than your country. To be fair, Anheuser-Busch is older than several iterations of Germany.

We have citizens older than the Federal Republic of Germany.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#158

Post by vkou »

neither_color wrote: post #154
brigandish wrote: post #62

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It’s worth remembering that adoption is much different to how we’d conceive of it in Europe. If a business wasn’t going to be continued by the offspring then a new business owner could be adopted, as an adult. That’s why there seems to be so many Japanese concerns with incredibly long lineage, but like so much else in Japan to a westerner’s eyes, it’s appearance only. https://www.bbc.com/news/magazine-19505088

We Americans have had "nepotism" drilled into our heads so much that we apply it to any small family-run business craft and encourage young people to move far away and try to "make it on their own" in cities they have no ties to in industries they don't belong in to avoid the shame of "having everything handed to you." Young Americans in general abhor the idea of doing the same thing their parents did. The problem is…

The mom and pop shop only works when you have family members putting in all their time to keep it afloat for no pay.

That's why the kids aren't interested in taking it over. It's not a route to generational wealth for anyone who has regular middle-class opportunities, as much as it's a route to being busy all the time, and having nothing to show for it at the end of the day.

Businesses that actually have real prospects frequently get taken over by the kids. The family shop/bakery/restaurant is rarely one that has them. You don't want to be doing all the work in a line of business where the prevailing pay is minimum wage.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#159

Post by eloff »

stryan wrote: post #127
slashdev wrote: post #124

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000. Even Uruk in ancient Mesopatmia, was more than twice that size over 5000 years ago. Presumably you're referring to Tenochtitlan where Mexico City is today, which is neither in the US, nor was it larger than European cities at the time (although it was up there with Paris and Naples!)

> That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000 FYI, Cahokia was thought to have had a population up to 40,000 around the (IIRC) 11th century in Illinois.

That's the city I was referring to. The estimates I saw said 20k, so it depends what estimates you look at. It's still very small compared to other major cities of the time.

Re: Japanese have been producing wood for 700 years without cutting down trees

#160

Post by [deleted] »

eloff wrote: post #159
stryan wrote: post #127

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> That's just factually incorrect. The largest pre-colonization city in the US was a piddling 20,000 FYI, Cahokia was thought to have had a population up to 40,000 around the (IIRC) 11th century in Illinois.

That's the city I was referring to. The estimates I saw said 20k, so it depends what estimates you look at. It's still very small compared to other major cities of the time.

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