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>Anyone who espouses cultural purity is simply ignorant of culture. There's a difference between gradual assimilation of cultural elements over hundreds of yea

>Anyone who espouses cultural purity is simply ignorant of culture. There's a difference between gradual assimilation of cultural elements over hundreds of years, and flooding a country with change on the scale of a generation. It's perfectly reasonable to want to preserve what amounts to a cultural identity by limiting cultural influx. >Anyone who espouses cultural purity is simply ignorant of culture Nonsense. The fact that a given culture contains elements from others does not mean that it is not itself pure. Culture is simply information - in the form of practices, foods, clothing, ideals - and while there may be a great deal of overlap among the basis vectors that could be combined to represent the world's cultures, purity could be approximately gauged by a principle component analysis, which would most certainly show distinct, tight groupings for more homogenous, isolated cultures like that of Japan, and a more diffuse, homogenized cluster among westernized cultures.

Apocryphon 7y ago
The ancestral post of this thread is bemoaning supposed cultural deracination in Japan because of changes to immigration policy. It is hysterical to presume that the Japanese are about to flood their country "with change on the scale of a generation". > does not mean that it is not itself pure By what metric is a culture pure? How can information be pure? How far back in the timeline do you want to gauge purity? And at what point is it relevant to policy?
- wallace_f 7y ago
  Japan is an extroardinarily unique place. Even Australia, NZ, the UK and America have not just lot in common when you compare them to Japan, but a surprisingly lot. Japan really does have its own culture and identity. The Japanese have always wanted to protect their culture, identity, and economy, going back to where n Perry shot off a cannon to get them to open up the West's plans. As a foreigner who loves Japan, I think there is a stretch between letting particularly interested individuals enjoy to the country--which is already possible--and opening itself up economic migration--which is what Western countries now experience. Look at Singapore. It's such a god damn hell compared to Japan even though on paper they should be doing better. There is really no other place like Japan on earth, it will be sad to see it homogenize with the rest of it.
  - Apocryphon 7y ago
    Again, it seems highly dubious that opening up to economic migration means the same set of policies used everywhere, and the same results everywhere.
    - wallace_f 7y ago
      I know you keep wanting to broadcast that opinion, but it is obviously not clear to be true. For reasons you can see in my comment, and also see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988198
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        So either Japanese culture is "extraordinarily unique" and has a strong sense of identity, allowing its people to pursue immigration policies with different results from other nations, or its culture is already no better or worse or different than those aforementioned nations- and immigration will lead to the same conclusions. So which is it?
    - Nadya 7y ago
      We've seen the same results in every country that has attempted it, so why would one more country be any different? How many repeating occurrences of something occurring do you need before you can look at the data and go "There's a strong correlation there." without being called or implied to be a racist?
      - Apocryphon 7y ago
        Because if cultures are real, then it stands to reason that an immigration policy set by Japanese people would be different from one set by Western Europeans.
        Nadya 7y ago
        There are only so many ways to make cheese and most of the process is going to remain the same. Being a different or unique culture doesn't fundamentally change how cheese is manufactured. I fail to see your point. There are only so many ways to do set immigration policy and currently Japanese policy is different from ones used by Western countries. Much to the chagrin of the Western countries criticizing it as their own policies are breaking down and giving rise to nationalism and increasing social and racial tensions.
- fromthestart 7y ago
  >By what metric is a culture pure? By the degree to which it has uniquely evolved in relative isolation. >How can information be pure? By the degree to which the combination of information that defines a particular culture is unique. Again, if we model culture as a linear combination of cultural traits, purity may be measured as, for example, euclidean distance between clusters, reflecting unique developments that occur as a function of isolation. As an extreme case, compare an undiscovered tribe in the Amazon, or the Amish, to a cosmopolitan population like residents of New York City.

Apocryphon 7y ago

The ancestral post of this thread is bemoaning supposed cultural deracination in Japan because of changes to immigration policy. It is hysterical to presume that the Japanese are about to flood their country "with change on the scale of a generation". > does not mean that it is not itself pure By what metric is a culture pure? How can information be pure? How far back in the timeline do you want to gauge purity? And at what point is it relevant to policy?

wallace_f 7y ago
Japan is an extroardinarily unique place. Even Australia, NZ, the UK and America have not just lot in common when you compare them to Japan, but a surprisingly lot. Japan really does have its own culture and identity. The Japanese have always wanted to protect their culture, identity, and economy, going back to where n Perry shot off a cannon to get them to open up the West's plans. As a foreigner who loves Japan, I think there is a stretch between letting particularly interested individuals enjoy to the country--which is already possible--and opening itself up economic migration--which is what Western countries now experience. Look at Singapore. It's such a god damn hell compared to Japan even though on paper they should be doing better. There is really no other place like Japan on earth, it will be sad to see it homogenize with the rest of it.
- Apocryphon 7y ago
  Again, it seems highly dubious that opening up to economic migration means the same set of policies used everywhere, and the same results everywhere.
  - wallace_f 7y ago
    I know you keep wanting to broadcast that opinion, but it is obviously not clear to be true. For reasons you can see in my comment, and also see this comment: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988198 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=19988198
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      So either Japanese culture is "extraordinarily unique" and has a strong sense of identity, allowing its people to pursue immigration policies with different results from other nations, or its culture is already no better or worse or different than those aforementioned nations- and immigration will lead to the same conclusions. So which is it?
  - Nadya 7y ago
    We've seen the same results in every country that has attempted it, so why would one more country be any different? How many repeating occurrences of something occurring do you need before you can look at the data and go "There's a strong correlation there." without being called or implied to be a racist?
    - Apocryphon 7y ago
      Because if cultures are real, then it stands to reason that an immigration policy set by Japanese people would be different from one set by Western Europeans.
      - Nadya 7y ago
        There are only so many ways to make cheese and most of the process is going to remain the same. Being a different or unique culture doesn't fundamentally change how cheese is manufactured. I fail to see your point. There are only so many ways to do set immigration policy and currently Japanese policy is different from ones used by Western countries. Much to the chagrin of the Western countries criticizing it as their own policies are breaking down and giving rise to nationalism and increasing social and racial tensions.
fromthestart 7y ago
>By what metric is a culture pure? By the degree to which it has uniquely evolved in relative isolation. >How can information be pure? By the degree to which the combination of information that defines a particular culture is unique. Again, if we model culture as a linear combination of cultural traits, purity may be measured as, for example, euclidean distance between clusters, reflecting unique developments that occur as a function of isolation. As an extreme case, compare an undiscovered tribe in the Amazon, or the Amish, to a cosmopolitan population like residents of New York City.