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Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

japantimes.co.jp

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Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#151

Post by beat »

asdff wrote: post #140
beat wrote: post #103

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's rather an oversimplification to say that five years of reconstruction of a totally shattered Japan caused the Korean War. Or to take any lessons from the immediate postwar period and use them to explain the state of Japan 75 years later.

At least as far as development goes, the United States supercharged the postwar economy in Japan which directly lead to where it is today. If, say Indiana got the same investment, it too would look like Japan today with high speed maglev rail criss crossing like a fisherman's net and be a dominant position in high tech manufacturing.

And if we bombed Indiana to the brink of collapse and burned Indianapolis to the ground and nuked Terre Haute, maybe we'd do that.

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#152

Post by xyzzyz »

elgenie wrote: post #104
xyzzyz wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

US has been pretty open to immigration at some points, and relatively closed at others. For the most of last 250 years, it has been mostly closed to non-white immigration, for example. With the exception of black Americans, the current racial and ethnic diversity in the US is a rather recent phenomenon.

The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882. The national origin quota system didn't exist at all until the 1920s. Ethnic diversity has been part of the fabric of the US since before it was a country. Per census figures, the percentage of the population that wasn't born in the US was higher in 1910 that in it today. And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them =…

> The US had no laws restricting immigration, period, until 1882.

Yes, but it had Naturalization Act of 1790 that restricted naturalization only to white people. It wasn’t an immigration restriction, to be sure, but very few non-whites immigrated to US anyway (other than the forced immigration of black slaves), rendering the issue moot.

> And, of course, the very concept of "immigrant from Europe or descended from them => white" is a lot more recent than 250 years ago. The Irish weren't considered "white" when they arrived en masse after 1820. Italians, Greeks, and various Slavs also weren't considered "white" when they arrived in the early 20th century.

This is very much false and ahistorical. Many of them weren’t liked by then-locals, and in fact we’re often discriminated against, but at no point they were seriously considered non-white. There have been some activists recently claiming otherwise, but it has been based on very weak historical grounds. Consider, for example, that after the Ozawa case, at no point the question of Irish or Slavs’ whiteness ever came up on a court docket, while it did for Arabs, Syrians, Filipinos, and many others: https://academic.udayton.edu/race/01race/White05.htm

> Suspicion of divided loyalties for a Catholic president was a big issue in the 1960 elections (JFK vs Nixon).

There was, but, as it turns out, Catholicism is not a race.

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#153

Post by masklinn »

mariuolo wrote: post #16
masklinn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Japan really want foreign entrepreneurs? It's always been very conservative My understanding is they're also very financially conservative, I think it was pinboard who was talking about his experience as an independent entrepreneur?

I also remember this guy's perspective: https://www.kalzumeus.com/2014/11/07/doing-business-in-japan

Ah yes, that's who I was thinking about, I confused patio11 and pinboard (sorry to both).

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#154

Post by masklinn »

techstrategist wrote: post #45
masklinn wrote: post #10

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Does Japan really want foreign entrepreneurs? It's always been very conservative My understanding is they're also very financially conservative, I think it was pinboard who was talking about his experience as an independent entrepreneur?

Patrick (Patio11) wrote (still writes occasionally) extensively about his experience running his business from Japan.

Indeed, that's who I was thinking about rather than pinboard, sorry 'bout that.

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#155

Post by magnusdeus123 »

echelon wrote: post #49

Well damn, this is exactly what I wanted. I've been studying Japanese for years (taking the JLPT again in December). I want to start a computational filmmaking startup, and Japan has some of the best writers and media exports the world has to offer. I really need to stop worrying and pursue this...

You totally should.

It's been a dream of mine to go spend time in Japan since I was quite young. The dream has morphed; I have a serious relationship now, a good career and a place to call home that I don't want to leave permanently. But the dream lives on and we're planning to go there for six months in a couple of years to learn the language intensively.

Don't let your dreams stay dreams.

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#156

Post by magduf »

myrandomcomment wrote: post #142
magduf wrote: post #88

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Switzerland is really the only example I can think of that's an exception to the OP's claim. Do you have any others at all?

Singapore has 4 languages and associated faiths and works pretty well.

Singapore had to import Nepalese Gurkhas to keep the peace, both because they're extremely militarily effective and also because they were seen as impartial by the different ethnic groups.

Re: Japan wants foreign entrepreneurs, but what's missing?

#157

Post by magduf »

debatem1 wrote: post #143
magduf wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>you feel like we should fear becoming Lisbon because if you were in their shoes you would fear this outcome. Who's "we", and where did I say "we" should fear this? I just pointed out the people of Portugal might not like this, nor might people in other places that might be having similar issues. If you're talking about the US, then no, that's not a well-founded fear at all. >But at a glance Lisbon seems to be doing…

I think you're inferring a lot of things I didn't say (and an unhealthy number I don't agree with). "We" in this case is shorthand for you and I. It seems you resent that association, so I apologize for extending it. Regarding economics, I didn't say economic harm. I was simply asking what the actual harm is. Setting aside the question of whether something that can't be measured exists, let's try for an easier bar: c…

>I was simply asking what the actual harm is. Setting aside the question of whether something that can't be measured exists, let's try for an easier bar: can a harm that can't even be articulated exist?

It seems that for many people, loss of local culture and language is something they perceive as "harm", and they're resisting it. You can't objectively say whether this is harm or not, because most cultural things are purely subjective, so it's all a matter of perspective.

So if people in Portugal are worried their local culture and language are going to be bulldozed by outsiders, when a bunch of non-Portuguese speakers are moving in and restaurants are only operating in English as a result, I can't say they're wrong to feel that way. Personally, I think it's better to have more cosmopolitanism, but then again as an American I do know what it's like to live on a continent where there's a single dominant language and a huge amount of uniformity to everything, and it's really not that great. You can wander around in Florida, Maine, and Arizona, and everyone still speaks the same language, has basically the same culture, and all the stores and restaurants are mostly the same too, even owned by the same companies. Walmart isn't different between Oregon and Tennessee; it's pretty horrible in any state. The same fast-food chains serve the same garbage food wherever you go.

>On the topic of telling the Portuguese to start speaking English-- if you think that was where I was heading here you're way off the mark and I don't think that's my fault.

It's the natural end-state of the trend that you're asking about the harm of. If tons of English speakers move to Portugal, and all the service businesses eventually switch over to using English and not Portuguese, then it's exactly like I said: you're effectively telling the Portuguese to start speaking English, because they're not going to be able to survive in their own country any more if they don't, if things were to go that way.

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