41–50 of 91 posts
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Came to say the same thing. The supposed backwards parts are seeming charming the longer I live in Canada. Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today.
Québecois here. We've been trying to tell the rest of Canada this for _decades_.
It's interesting to consider that these "Japan is backwards" takes might persist in part simply because it hasn't melded with the global first world culture. I can go to various countries and very similar experiences at an electronics store, a hotel and a gas station. In Japan all of those (and many others) are distinctively Japanese. I've read travelogues from the 17th-19th centuries, and in a lot of them, all of th…
I mean, it's basically inevitable, isn't it? Cultural heterogeneity is born out of isolation. If two groups of people are in constant contact, they'll never ever stop speaking the same language and having the same traditions. Conversely, if two originally distinct cultures start to interact regularly (even more so if closely) they'll eventually merge into one. People are more willing to give up on traditions and cult…
What level of "isolation" forms that threshold though? We're nowhere near a single worldwide religion, for example, which is odd because it's the most existential of cultural beliefs.
Total aside. In Neal Stephenson book Seveneves the technology of a future is in a few small ways described as weirdly un-advanced compared to the present. I wouldn't describe it as the focus of the book but it still seemed particularly implausible to me but ... I hadn't really thought about Japan. I've never been but I've read that in a few ways technology (fax machines were (are?) still popular just a few years ago)…
And yep, I like to think of Seveneves as 3 books in a big trench coat where the first 2 are fantastic and I wholeheartedly recommend to anyone that likes some solid sci-fi.
The Japanese central bank doomed their economy to 20+ years of stagnation. Instead of allowing prices of assets to crash after the big bubble they locked interest rates at 0 and prevented a recession and repricing of assets but at the cost of future
"How to destroy innovation and ensure monopolies take over your economy."
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Québecois here. We've been trying to tell the rest of Canada this for _decades_.
I mostly agree. Still, being a minority from Montreal who left and found life in Japan significantly less alienating, I hesitate to agree wholeheartedly.
Economic stagnation is preferable (and has better solutions anyway), the only ones to gain from immigration are foreigners that hate you, your way of life, and some fat cats that hate you ten times more
The demographic "leveling off" is inevitable. Until that point is reached, however, favorable demographics can partially offset pyramidization. The US population is still growing (largely through immigration) so it has not reached the endgame stage like Japan and parts of Europe have.
The pyramidization game works by artificially restricting urban housing supply more and more over time. If everyone reacted by buying instead of renting, the game would always end in a 2008-style crash, when the pyramid's bottom-most layer finds itself under water with no further buyers to push it up.
Instead, with renters in the picture, housing prices rise until rents equal the maximum amount of income that can be extracted from renters. This keeps the bottom-most pyramid layer just afloat.
At the equilibrium point, economic growth is stunted. The "working segment" of the population is trapped by rents and mortgages, and cannot take chances. The "housing baron segment" tends to underfund productive investments like the stock market, with real estate looming large on their books. The government has to allocate a lot of resources to the budget effects and stabilization requirements caused by the real estate system, including indirectly via the banking system.
It's interesting to consider that these "Japan is backwards" takes might persist in part simply because it hasn't melded with the global first world culture. I can go to various countries and very similar experiences at an electronics store, a hotel and a gas station. In Japan all of those (and many others) are distinctively Japanese. I've read travelogues from the 17th-19th centuries, and in a lot of them, all of th…
I mean, it's basically inevitable, isn't it? Cultural heterogeneity is born out of isolation. If two groups of people are in constant contact, they'll never ever stop speaking the same language and having the same traditions. Conversely, if two originally distinct cultures start to interact regularly (even more so if closely) they'll eventually merge into one. People are more willing to give up on traditions and cult…
When thinking about this cynically, I feel like this has some depressing ramifications. Cultural differences (and isolation) are often born from financial disparities as well. Does this mean that the path to global cultural homogeneity is basically just gentrification on a massive scale where economic -> cultural minorities get more and more ostracized?
It's interesting to consider that these "Japan is backwards" takes might persist in part simply because it hasn't melded with the global first world culture. I can go to various countries and very similar experiences at an electronics store, a hotel and a gas station. In Japan all of those (and many others) are distinctively Japanese. I've read travelogues from the 17th-19th centuries, and in a lot of them, all of th…
I mean, it's basically inevitable, isn't it? Cultural heterogeneity is born out of isolation. If two groups of people are in constant contact, they'll never ever stop speaking the same language and having the same traditions. Conversely, if two originally distinct cultures start to interact regularly (even more so if closely) they'll eventually merge into one. People are more willing to give up on traditions and cult…
Toshi would tear down his local shrine and import the third world because it's better than having some Judeo-Christian reporters call them names?
The cultural and ethnic shifts happening are happening because banks, governments, and CEOs see it as being in their own interest. More working hands, more mouths to feed, more votes for their party. None of it has ever been natural and none of it is to our benefit
Lived in Japan. I think world will come to realize that Japan's past is also the world's future.
As someone who hasn't lived in Japan, what do you mean by this?