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Japan has 33k businesses at least a century old

bbc.com

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

#51

Post by zo1 »

AbrahamParangi wrote: post #41
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…

What you're really describing is the stasis of the last 60 years.

You could argue that the world has gotten into some sort of "stagnant" period, despite the technological advances.

E.g. We're no where closer to having a utopian-level of control over our government. Something that the rise of ubiquitous tech should have solved. On some level, we're all very averse to the notion as well, almost as if our attitudes to it have not changed and we have not worked on making tech good enough for us to be comfortable with it.

Or: Government structures have not changed at all. As a libertarian, I struggle to even conceive how people in the government can even change the structure and ordering of government at this point. We got to our current structures somehow in the past, but we seemed to have stopped the evolution and have almost doubled-down.

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

#52

Post by RandallBrown »

droithomme wrote: post #26
Danieru wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Indeed, the business would continue. The issue is that in the west business owners would not see the merit in just giving a business away for the sake of the age ticking up. In the west the business would get sold and merged. Only in Japan does the adoption make it a family or lineage thing.

> Only in Japan does the adoption make it a family or lineage thing. No. Every culture worldwide accepts adoption. A child, grandchild, nephew, etc, continuing a business keeps the business in the family. Whether the child is adopted or not, and regardless of the age of adoption.

> regardless of the age of adoption

Are adult adoptions common at all?

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

#53

Post by [deleted] »

jdavis703 wrote: post #36
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 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…

[deleted]

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

#54

Post by WoahNoun »

msiyer wrote: post #47
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…

This thought experiment is neither just a thought nor an experiment. This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. Essentially, talking about the physical body, we are not what we were a few months ago. EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few…

You think every brain cell is replaced every few months? Please delete this comment and read a biology textbook.

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

#55

Post by TheSpiceIsLife »

Barrin92 wrote: post #20
TheSpiceIsLife wrote: post #14

Earlier quoted context omitted.

But you might still say "family run for a thousand years"

more as ad advertisement slogan though. I've never seen someone in the west adopt another adult just to authentically continue a legacy (outside of European monarchies maybe). There is a sense of tradition to these Japanese companies that one doesn't see so often outside of Japan.

Thoroughly agree.

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

#56

Post by egypturnash »

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 was born in the seventies, and have looked at a lot of cartoons from the 1920s over the course of my life, what with ending up being in the animation industry for a while. Read a lot of comics from around then too as part of surveying the history of that medium, To me the 1920s always felt like the Remote Past.

I wonder what someone born now will feel about the 1920s once they are old enough to communicate their opinions.

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

#57

Post by shreyansj »

WoahNoun wrote: post #54
msiyer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thought experiment is neither just a thought nor an experiment. This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. Essentially, talking about the physical body, we are not what we were a few months ago. EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few…

You think every brain cell is replaced every few months? Please delete this comment and read a biology textbook.

Are you saying that a brain cell is immortal through one’s life?

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

#58

Post by momentbruh »

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…

> Oh, there is this new computer & internet thing but that's it.

This sentence is doing an unbelievable amount of work. I don't think you realize how strange it is that we have instant-speed trans-Atlantic communication that can transmit massive amounts of data. Computers are practically foreign objects to plenty of people born in the 60s, who grew up as they were invented. You don't think someone from 1920, with no prior exposure to them, would think that a smartphone is just a standard part of everyday life?

Not to mention all the other massive changes to society that you ignored. Commercial flights started in the 1920s and are now commonplace in everyday life. Digital audio; televisions; massive changes to cars; ATMs and credit cards. Can you imagine someone from the 1920s trying to operate a Dyson AirBlade?

This is before accounting for the crazy rate of cultural change that would shock someone from 100 years ago. Half the words used in daily conversation wouldn't even make sense to someone from 1920.

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

#59

Post by nojvek »

hn_throwaway_99 wrote: post #50
msiyer wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This thought experiment is neither just a thought nor an experiment. This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. Essentially, talking about the physical body, we are not what we were a few months ago. EDIT: Agreed, a few types of brain cells do not get replaced, but everything else does. My point still stands. Physically, we are not what we were a few…

> This is the reality of life - every single cell in the body of a plant or animal is replaced every few months. This is laughably false.

Do you have a source for your claim?

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

#60

Post by hajimuz »

irq11 wrote: post #30
droithomme wrote: post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Only in Japan does the adoption make it a family or lineage thing. No. Every culture worldwide accepts adoption. A child, grandchild, nephew, etc, continuing a business keeps the business in the family. Whether the child is adopted or not, and regardless of the age of adoption.

You’re not understanding the difference: in most of the world, businesses are carried on because there’s some financial value derived from it, not for the thing itself. Family businesses do exist, and do get passed down, but if the owners of the business don’t have any natural heirs, they’ll wrap it up or sell it. That’s normal. In Japan, the longevity of the thing has a value of its own, so much so that they’ve inve…

Ancient China also had this kind of tradition.
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