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The myth of Japan's failure

nytimes.com

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Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#91

Post by learc83 »

Cushman wrote: post #77
learc83 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also completely controlled by where you live. There are a few places on Earth naturally abundant enough(and with climate friendly enough) to support a population with less than 40 hours per week per person, but I'd bet most of the planet doesn't fall into that category.

We can do it more or less anywhere, it's just a question of population density. A tribe that needs a few hundred square miles of tundra could live as well off of a few dozen acres of tropical forest. Here's a bit of trivia for you-- the most "abundant" place on the planet, the place once home to the highest density of exclusively foraging peoples, is the area now known as Northern California.

>We can do it more or less anywhere, it's just a question of population density. A tribe that needs a few hundred square miles of tundra could live as well off of a few dozen acres of tropical forest.

Yes, it's definitely doable--I'm not arguing with history. I'm arguing with this

>they didn't work anywhere close to 40 hours a week, and spent most of the day chatting and making music

A tribe that lives in the tundra is going to have to devote a substantial portion of their time to preparing for winter. Which isn't going to allow them the vast leisure time enjoyed by African bushmen living close to the equator.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#92

Post by philwelch »

learc83 wrote: post #71
philwelch wrote: post #65

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bushmen were some of the last people on earth to live as hunter-gatherers, in largely the same way that all humans did before we fucked everything up with civilization and technology. They lived very communal lives, but they didn't work anywhere close to 40 hours a week, and spent most of the day chatting and making music. They seemed pretty happy until the civilizations around them came in and ruined their cultu…

That's also completely controlled by where you live. There are a few places on Earth naturally abundant enough(and with climate friendly enough) to support a population with less than 40 hours per week per person, but I'd bet most of the planet doesn't fall into that category.

Absolutely--some humans were forced into civilization by the poverty of their surrounding environment. Instead of adapting to suit their environment, they had to adapt their environment to suit them. But in almost every measurable sense, life in civilization was far more impoverished than the lives of hunter-gatherers. The only reason it won out is because it led to an immense consolidation of power--but it was centuries if not millennia until the typical member of a civilization had a quality of life comparable to that of a bushman, and even then it's an open question who's really happier.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#93

Post by philwelch »

nikatwork wrote: post #86
learc83 wrote: post #71

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's also completely controlled by where you live. There are a few places on Earth naturally abundant enough(and with climate friendly enough) to support a population with less than 40 hours per week per person, but I'd bet most of the planet doesn't fall into that category.

The Bushmen live in Africa. I would hardly call that environment abundant with a friendly climate.

Africa is a huge continent. It has almost every climate and environment available on earth.

The other thing Africa has is a collection of populations who have lived in their respective parts of Africa for millennia. So while the environment the Bushmen lived in may have been relatively friendly to them, it wouldn't be so friendly to a Kenyan or Egyptian, or a Serb, or a Cherokee.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#94

Post by wisty »

dev_jim wrote: post #63

There's a lot to admin about Japan, but this article is hackery at best and deceptive at worst. The article is almost solely focused on Tokyo. Yes, Tokyo is still doing well. It's still one of the richest cities in the world. But Tokyo cannot be held up as "Japan", just as New York cannot be used as representative of the entire U.S. Life expectancy in the U.S. has gone up by 4.43 years since 1980. All rich-world coun…

It also has wonderful quotes like: "The Japanese are dressed better than Americans. They have the latest cars, including Porsches, Audis, Mercedes-Benzes and all the finest models. I have never seen so many spoiled pets."

Americans do the same crazy stuff, but they do it in a way that looks unremarkable to other Americans.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#95

Post by philwelch »

rdtsc wrote: post #82
philwelch wrote: post #66

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm just saying that it's one of many factors, and I'm skeptical about overstating its importance because topical political issues are almost always overstated in importance. If we didn't spend a good chunk of the last four years, as a country, angrily arguing about socialized medicine, then socialized medicine would likely not be the first thing to pop in your mind as the most important factor. It's probably just as…

Not for me. Medicine has been in my mind ever since I made the mistake of going to the emergency room with a terrible cold when I was here as a student. I ended up paying $400 for 1 pill of codeine, waiting 2 hours and be seen by some intern. $400 in 1995 for a student who makes $6.50 in a university library part time -- is fucked up. I don't care how it is justified and explained. And that is just my experience. The…

The fact that you personally had that kind of experience makes it even more likely that you're overstating the effect of the US health care system.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#96

Post by lancewiggs »

gwern wrote: post #67
surrealize wrote: post #25

The overall point of the editorial might be right, but some of the metrics that it mentions are random or problematic. The number of high-rise buildings constructed? That says more about how little buildable land Japan has than it says about the strength of the Japanese economy. The article also mentions electricity "output" (a.k.a. consumption), which has grown faster in Japan than in the US. The article spins it as…

> And some of it is just strange. Michelin ratings as a measure of the strength of an economy? Cultural factors matter as much as economic strength, there. I was in a theater on the 4th to watch _Nausicaa_, and one of the previews was for a documentary about some sushi chef. Breathlessly it mentioned that he was the first Japanese restaurant to receive 3 Michelin stars. I was a little astonished. 'Yes, I know 3 Miche…

The movie is called Jiro Dreams of Sushi. My recollection is that Jiro's tiny restaurant was the first Sushi restaurant to receive 3 stars, and it received them in the first year it was visited by reviewers. The movie itself is a stunning testament to the power of doing something narrow and deep extraordinarily well. I cannot recommend it enough.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#97

Post by nandemo »

abracat1 wrote: post #53
nandemo wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There's quite a bit of disinformation in your comment. * that people live with their parents is only "shocking" if you happen to come from a country where that is considered taboo. In many countries it's not considered shameful to live with your parents while you're single. It didn't start after the bubble, it started like 1000 years ago. Yeah, there's a downside to it, but then there's also a downside to getting int…

> In many countries it's not considered shameful to live with your parents while you're single. I can completely understand that you want to live with your parents when you are studing (or a young working adult). But 28years+ is becoming a bit ridiculous. Maybe it is because a lot of people are not getting married anymore. But the point is that many people (and some of my friends) can not afford a really expensive ap…

> Anyways, the point I wanted to make is the Article's comment about the clothes young people wear - it is quite deceptive to use such a metric.

I agree with that.

Also with unemployment: in Japan, unemployment benefits and welfare in general isn't as nearly as extensive as in the US (let alone Western Europe), women drop out of the workforce earlier, etc, so it's not appropriate to compare the unemployment rate in isolation.

> PS: The goal of my post is not for Japan bashing but trying to give an unromanticized balanced view

Well, you have to admit that "Japanese health care is a joke" does sound like bashing. ;-)

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#98

Post by nikatwork »

learc83 wrote: post #90
nikatwork wrote: post #86

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The Bushmen live in Africa. I would hardly call that environment abundant with a friendly climate.

It is very abundant and has a very friendly climate relative to a great deal of the planet. By friendly climate, I don't mean pleasant 72 degrees year round. I mean you don't have to spend all summer chopping wood, and preserving food so you can survive through the winter, which is a vast swath of the planet.

Wikipedia suggests the Bushmen need to store nuts for the winter, and during early spring the only available food is game (all the plants are dead). But great point about not having to deal with snow.

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#99

Post by Tsagadai »

white_devil wrote: post #64
bane wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It reminds me of my first time visiting South Korea. While there I observed people who's job it was to wear a cute uniform and bow to cars entering the parking garage at the local department store, people hired by companies to stand in the aisles at the local supermarket holding packs of coffee or shampoo or whatever and dance to loud techno music (usually young women in short skirts and thigh high boots, bizarre to…

I've heard of the ridiculously low wages in South-Korea. For example 7-elevens etc are staffed by students doing part-time work for a pittance. It's unfortunate, but what can you do. In Japan, you'll see retirement-age men working silly pretend-jobs, like guarding a hole in the sidewalk and telling passersby to avoid it, as if the fence wasn't enough.

It's actually worse than that. Most students don't get part time work (most people I know here never worked before finishing their post-grad university). When you see someone young in a 7-11 they are probably stuck there. Education has such a huge social force behind it and every job is very competitive so you get people with masters degrees working sales jobs. For the folk who never did well enough to get into university they are often stuck in minimum wage jobs for life. No safety net means most people rely on their children to retire, if you were infertile or your children died you are probably going to be sorting garbage when you are 80 in -10°C temperatures. I stopped to talk to this old woman on the street yesterday, she's one of millions in her situation.

South Korea takes capitalism pretty seriously. Competition is real here and failure is ultimate. Japan still has a fairly decent safety net with their pension schemes. South Korea, however, does not and relies on children to deliver for their parents. When children don't (because they are poor, they died, they abandon their parents) it all falls apart and the government doesn't step in (which provides a pretty strong incentive to succeed).

Re: The myth of Japan's failure

#100

Post by Tsagadai »

nandemo wrote: post #35
abracat1 wrote: post #30

It is easy and popular for westerners to romantacize Japan - but it has serious and structural problems. When analyzed on its own (instead of comparing it to the USA) it becomes readily apparent. I will just say a few observations which show that the picture the article paints is not quite accurate. Firstly, yes there are many people with fancy clothes. What the author does not say is that a lot of those people live…

There's quite a bit of disinformation in your comment. * that people live with their parents is only "shocking" if you happen to come from a country where that is considered taboo. In many countries it's not considered shameful to live with your parents while you're single. It didn't start after the bubble, it started like 1000 years ago. Yeah, there's a downside to it, but then there's also a downside to getting int…

  * Internet banking has been around for years. ATMs are open 24/7 in convenience stores.
Except on public holidays when said ATMs magically cannot process credit card transactions. Japanese banks are most certainly a joke. I know of one large Japanese bank that completed all transactions on paper (they would process it electronically then print it out and hand verify the details) until a few years ago. Think of a vast network of vacuum tubes launching paper around a building storing billions of records. That was their head office.
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