Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#131

Post by asjw » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:26 AM UTC

fapjacks wrote: post #92

jdavis703 wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I lived in an old, converted GE lightbulb factory. I doubt the management around back in 1912 would recognize the company today. Imagine explaining that GE would make a thing called a “jet” engine that would let people fly between continents in a few hours. Or that they’d be building power plants that worked by splitting atoms. And then tell all the workers that all light bulbs they’re making will be made in China in…

Well, in 1912, jet-engine-powered aircraft and atomic energy would not seem like far-fetched ideas. Certainly not to educated research engineers at GE, anyway. People routinely underestimate how technologically advanced the world was prior to WW1. Aerospace was advancing rapidly, and chemistry was quite well understood in 1912. A jet engine requires precision manufacturing but otherwise is not a complex idea. Radiati…

Now imagine being a worker at Kongō Gumi Co., Ltd and 14 centuries ago you told them that in the 21st century they would build skyscrapers...

Oh, and that the 21st century is a way of counting centuries of the west, that was just being invented around that time, that would be implemented in Japan about 4 centuries later

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#132

Post by asjw » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:31 AM UTC

netrus wrote: post #129

PinguTS wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as a new building. That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building. In Europe…

Interesting examples I have seen are The Frauenkirche in Dresden ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dresden_Frauenkirche ) and The Bratislava Castle ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bratislava_Castle ), both complete rebuilds (and both were ruins for a long time before they were rebuild). I have an uneasy relationship with these buildings. On the one hand, I understand the appeal of old buildings, and that people want th…

> Notre Dame as new building? I would not think so. What about Sagrada Familia? They are still not finished with the building. What about the Cologne dom?

The last two are very modern buildings

Notre dame was rebuilt a few times, but never completely

We do "conservation of cultural heritage" in the west and we have been doing it for centuries

The "Veneranda Fabbrica del Duomo di Milano" Is

> a 600-year-old organization that was established to supervise the construction of the Cathedral of Milan (the "Duomo"). The organization is still active and involved with the maintenance, preservation, and restoration of the cathedral.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#133

Post by timonoko » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:34 AM UTC

kinkora wrote: post #42

bane wrote: post #18

It's interesting about growing older. I don't know if this is a function of aging or a change in how humanity recons time. When I was younger, a century seemed like forever. Now it's just 1920 and we have film, music, audio, books and so on from that time period readily available. In many ways 1920 doesn't really seem all that far away to me while 1860, 1870, 1880 (a century from when I was a child) seemed to be fore…

I can't remember where i heard this from (it was a podcast) but it was on an economic theory that, if you exclude the internet & computer revolution, humans has not progressed that much in the past 100 years and that we may have entered a period of stagnant growth that may extend a century. Again, internet & computer revolution aside, realistically saying the last "human leap" was the invention of the combustion engi…

My father born in Russian Grand Duchy of Finland in 1912, saw a car first time in 1925. It was little scary, but he realized it was basically "a small locomotive on rubber wheels". So it goes, you just rationalize, nothing is ever really amazing.

And yes. When I first time a programmed a real computer in 1972, I was truly amazed, because I tought the "programs" were just a way represents algorithms and the "computer" was just an theoretical machine. At first I thought there was another human at the other end of Teletype-line, but the bloody "computer" was just too fast.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#134

Post by paganel » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:35 AM UTC

PinguTS wrote: post #120

Danieru wrote: post #6

Do you remember Ship of Theseus? The thought experiment about if a ship which has been fully rebuilt bit by bit is it still the same thing? Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as…

> Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as a new building. That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building. In Europe…

If Notre Dame had been raised to the ground by the fire and then rebuilt then the answer is yes, that would have been considered a new building. Downtown Warsaw and the “old” Dresden are also comprised of new buildings which have been made to look the same as those that were demolished during WW2.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#135

Post by Xelbair » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:39 AM UTC

erikpukinskis wrote: post #82

Danieru wrote: post #6

Do you remember Ship of Theseus? The thought experiment about if a ship which has been fully rebuilt bit by bit is it still the same thing? Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as…

One of my favorite YouTube channels, Sampson Boat Co, is doing just that: a young shipwright is rebuilding the classic sailing yacht Tally Ho piece by piece, in a modest workshop by the sea up in Oregon. It will be all new by the time he’s done, minus some hardware, but he has never lost continuity with the original hull. This is just how wooden boats are, whether you do it bit by bit, or as a big project, eventually…

>This is just how wooden boats are, whether you do it bit by bit, or as a big project, eventually you replace just about all of it every 100 years or so.

If you replace one specific part of the shit(Keel), it is by law a new ship. It needs to be accredited again if it is to be used commercially.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#136

Post by PinguTS » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:47 AM UTC

paganel wrote: post #134

PinguTS wrote: post #120

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as a new building. That is a wrong example/comparison. Even in the west rebuilding an heritage is not considered as a new building. In Europe…

If Notre Dame had been raised to the ground by the fire and then rebuilt then the answer is yes, that would have been considered a new building. Downtown Warsaw and the “old” Dresden are also comprised of new buildings which have been made to look the same as those that were demolished during WW2.

I cannot say anything about Warsaw. I was never there.

I can add to Dresden and Nuremberg. Both of them where nearly destroyed and rebuild. But the rebuild is not an exact rebuild. It is new and modern buildings.

But there are exceptions like the Frauenkirche in Dresden and alike buildings here in Nuremberg. They are almost exactly rebuild in the name of conserving heritage. Yes, they are also rebuild or even retrofitted with new things like electric and plumbing. But that doesn't mean they are new buildings.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#137

Post by mrleiter » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:48 AM UTC

bump64 wrote: post #128

Another point I want to mention is that Japan was never invaded on its own territory by a foreign power and it wasn't ruled or politically influenced by outsiders for many centuries. This helps a lot to build and preserve a business. On the contrary if you take the Balkans in Europe every few centuries the ruling power changed. First was the Roman Empire, then the Byzantine Empire, Bulgarian Empire, many other nation…

It was hit by two atomic bombs.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#138

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

kinkora wrote: post #42

bane wrote: post #18

It's interesting about growing older. I don't know if this is a function of aging or a change in how humanity recons time. When I was younger, a century seemed like forever. Now it's just 1920 and we have film, music, audio, books and so on from that time period readily available. In many ways 1920 doesn't really seem all that far away to me while 1860, 1870, 1880 (a century from when I was a child) seemed to be fore…

I can't remember where i heard this from (it was a podcast) but it was on an economic theory that, if you exclude the internet & computer revolution, humans has not progressed that much in the past 100 years and that we may have entered a period of stagnant growth that may extend a century. Again, internet & computer revolution aside, realistically saying the last "human leap" was the invention of the combustion engi…

The future is not evenly distributed. That might work with 1920s New Yorkers, but for many other places round the world the change has been huge, dramatic, and somewhat traumatic. Heck, even if you take someone who isn't a white guy from 1920s New York, you'll find the world looks very different to them.

1920 was at the beginning of the wave of post-1914 turmoil of the end of empires. Europe had been swept by war and revolution, and nobody would have known how that was going to turn out. Poland was still about 10% Jewish. China was still in the "warlord era" before the rise and fall of the KMT. India (and much of the rest of the world) was still British.

For a sense of the quasi-feudal pre-war Europe, I will always reccomend A Time Of Gifts, Patrick Fermor's walk across Germany and Eastern Europe in the 1930s.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#139

Post by pjc50 » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:53 AM UTC

OJFord wrote: post #118

swampthing wrote: post #11

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But in the West, even if you just gave your business away to another person who continued to run it, we would still consider that the same business.

Not always though, sometimes we say they've 'sold out' or are 'not the same'. E.g. Fuller's (London brewer) now owned by Japanese conglomerate, Church (Northampton shoes, was still in the family) bought by Prada.

Only because the new owner tends not to have a sense of continuity or respect, and it usually is different.

Re: Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

#140

Post by bryanrasmussen » Fri, Feb 14, 2020, 9:58 AM UTC

Danieru wrote: post #6

Do you remember Ship of Theseus? The thought experiment about if a ship which has been fully rebuilt bit by bit is it still the same thing? Japan appears consistent in saying, yes, rebuilding or swapping out components keeps the identity. You see this attitude in "Japan's oldest temple, burned to the ground and rebuilt every 20 years". In the west we might argue that burning a building and rebuilding, would count as…

I think in the west we would argue that burning down and rebuilding a building constitutes a new building but burning down and rebuilding a named location keeps it still the same location, example: Notre Dame.