7 ms·

Homogenous, nationalistic, small country with high IQ, good education system, high GDP, low levels of immigration, and a culture that emphasizes community. Oh,

Homogenous, nationalistic, small country with high IQ, good education system, high GDP, low levels of immigration, and a culture that emphasizes community. Oh, and lower levels of inequality, relatively, and a more aligned politics/media system that doesn’t foment distrust.

jessriedel 7y ago
I mostly agree, but note that Japan has 126M people, so it's quite large.
- JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
  Yeah, but when you compare 126m to 1.3b I feel like you'd expect to see drift between the results. That's 10x the amount of people. If only 1 in every 10 people in each country is willing to break the social norms and ignores social pressures, then China will have 10x the amount of these infractions compared to Japan. But yes, Japan is not a small country even if it is a relatively small landmass.
  - CydeWeys 7y ago
    The infractions are per capita. If a country has ten times the population and the same percentage of honest people, then it will have ten times the number of people breaking the social norms.
  - wisty 7y ago
    China is rapidly developing. A lot of Chinese people would LOVE to see a move towards a lot of what Japan has, they just haven't been able to implement it yet (because of historical reasons that left the country screwed up).
omegaworks 7y ago
Immigration has been steadily increasing in Japan.[1] That homogeneity presupposes trust is a right-wing stereotype used to devalue immigrants in a society and justify harsh enforcement. You can find people of every ethnicity in Tokyo, including many half and full Brazilian people that you could mistake for latinos here in the US[2]. 1. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/japan-sees-record-high-number-foreign-residents-justice-ministry/#.Xh9wNVNKiuV https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/japan-... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan#Migration_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan#Migration_...
- nwienert 7y ago
  Go to Japan. Immigration is absolutely nothing like European or American countries.
  - omegaworks 7y ago
    I have. I've been to Tokyo. When I said you can find people of every ethnicity, I meant I encountered people of every ethnicity. 1 in 10 residents of Tokyo are foreign nationals[1]. https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO32872510R10C18A7EA2000/ https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO32872510R10C18A7EA2000/
    - yorwba 7y ago
      > 東京都では20歳代の10人に1人が外国人だった。 1 in 10 people in their twenties. (Still more than I expected.)
    - m4rtink 7y ago
      The situation is very very different outside of a few big cities. We spent a few days in Izumo and in the area around it and we hardly saw any non Japanese at the turrist spots, let alone any locals.
- swebs 7y ago
  >Ethnic groups: Japanese 98.1%, Chinese 0.5%, Korean 0.4%, other 1% (includes Filipino, Vietnamese, and Brazilian) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
  - SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
    It's true that Japan has a lot more ethnic homogenity than most countries, but this is is a misleading statistic. The Japanese census considers all people with Japanese citizenship to be simply "Japanese" regardless of their race.
    - 7y ago
claudeganon 7y ago
> a more aligned politics/media system that doesn’t foment distrust. Japan is essentially a right-wing, one-party “democracy” put in place by US intelligence services, postwar. The current prime minister is literally the grandson of a CIA-backed war criminal, who was famously known as the “Devil of the Showa Period”: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi Freedom of the press is absolutely abysmal in Japan and has been further on the downslide since Abe came to power: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-... I speak Japanese, have spent a lot of time in the country, and have a great admiration for its people, but about the last thing I’d express any admiration for are its politics and media. And speaking anecdotally, very few people there seem to put much trust in them either.
- nwienert 7y ago
  I didn’t express admiration, I just pointed out the reasons the people have such high trust and cooperation.
- magduf 7y ago
  >I speak Japanese, have spent a lot of time in the country, and have a great admiration for its people, but about the last thing I’d express any admiration for are its politics and media. While the media might not be great, at least the politicians, right-wing as they may be, actually seem to be trying to do things to improve the country, and even pushing some relatively progressive ideas (for instance, they're pushing for more women in corporate leadership positions, something Japan is woefully behind on). I just can't say the same for America these days; our national government (and especially the executive branch) is moving things backwards and making things worse.
  - claudeganon 7y ago
    Abe has a good PR team pushing this narrative abroad, but it doesn’t map to the material reality of most women. While female labor force participation rates are up, most women are locked into lower-level positions with bad wages and little hope of advancement. Likewise, women still face a level of misogyny in Japan that is truly unimaginable to most Americans. This has been led in no small part by Abe and the LDP, who insist on the enforcement of absolutely regressive social mores. Most recently, they vehemently opposed women being allowed to keep their own last names upon marriage.
NalNezumi 7y ago
>Homogenous, nationalistic, small country with high IQ, good education system, high GDP, low levels of immigration, and a culture that emphasizes community. I've lived in a Scandinavian country with similar quantities most of my life (well except low levels of immigration) but I can't recall a single time lost property came back, even at a local small town bakery. The experience is very different from my life living in Tokyo. >Oh, and lower levels of inequality, relatively, and a more aligned politics/media system that doesn’t foment distrust. Considering my homecountry having almost the lowest level of inequality in the world, and a highly aligned political/media system I don't think this is a factor either.
- deleted 7y ago
  [deleted]
- matsemann 7y ago
  > I've lived in a Scandinavian country with similar quantities most of my life but I can't recall a single time lost property came back But my experience is the opposite: Managed to leave my backpack on a bench in the busiest part of Oslo S when taking the train with too much skis and stuff so I forgot it in the struggle. Anyone could have just snatched it walking by, but instead someone saw it was unattended and delivered it at some lost&found so I got it back a week later. Also in Oslo, I forgot my laptop at the table on an outside cafe. When I came back to fetch it a few hours later it was still where I left it. So while there probably can be differences between countries, I also think it's too easy to extract too much from one's own experiences, which may not be typical.

jessriedel 7y ago

I mostly agree, but note that Japan has 126M people, so it's quite large.

JakeTheAndroid 7y ago
Yeah, but when you compare 126m to 1.3b I feel like you'd expect to see drift between the results. That's 10x the amount of people. If only 1 in every 10 people in each country is willing to break the social norms and ignores social pressures, then China will have 10x the amount of these infractions compared to Japan. But yes, Japan is not a small country even if it is a relatively small landmass.
- CydeWeys 7y ago
  The infractions are per capita. If a country has ten times the population and the same percentage of honest people, then it will have ten times the number of people breaking the social norms.
- wisty 7y ago
  China is rapidly developing. A lot of Chinese people would LOVE to see a move towards a lot of what Japan has, they just haven't been able to implement it yet (because of historical reasons that left the country screwed up).

omegaworks 7y ago

Immigration has been steadily increasing in Japan.[1] That homogeneity presupposes trust is a right-wing stereotype used to devalue immigrants in a society and justify harsh enforcement. You can find people of every ethnicity in Tokyo, including many half and full Brazilian people that you could mistake for latinos here in the US[2]. 1. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/japan-sees-record-high-number-foreign-residents-justice-ministry/#.Xh9wNVNKiuV https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/03/11/national/japan-... 2. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan#Migration_history https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Brazilians_in_Japan#Migration_...

nwienert 7y ago
Go to Japan. Immigration is absolutely nothing like European or American countries.
- omegaworks 7y ago
  I have. I've been to Tokyo. When I said you can find people of every ethnicity, I meant I encountered people of every ethnicity. 1 in 10 residents of Tokyo are foreign nationals[1]. https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO32872510R10C18A7EA2000/ https://www.nikkei.com/article/DGXMZO32872510R10C18A7EA2000/
  - yorwba 7y ago
    > 東京都では20歳代の10人に1人が外国人だった。 1 in 10 people in their twenties. (Still more than I expected.)
  - m4rtink 7y ago
    The situation is very very different outside of a few big cities. We spent a few days in Izumo and in the area around it and we hardly saw any non Japanese at the turrist spots, let alone any locals.
swebs 7y ago
>Ethnic groups: Japanese 98.1%, Chinese 0.5%, Korean 0.4%, other 1% (includes Filipino, Vietnamese, and Brazilian) https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/geos/ja.html https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/...
- SpicyLemonZest 7y ago
  It's true that Japan has a lot more ethnic homogenity than most countries, but this is is a misleading statistic. The Japanese census considers all people with Japanese citizenship to be simply "Japanese" regardless of their race.
  - 7y ago

claudeganon 7y ago

> a more aligned politics/media system that doesn’t foment distrust. Japan is essentially a right-wing, one-party “democracy” put in place by US intelligence services, postwar. The current prime minister is literally the grandson of a CIA-backed war criminal, who was famously known as the “Devil of the Showa Period”: https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-to-support-japanese-right-in-50-s-and-60-s.html https://www.nytimes.com/1994/10/09/world/cia-spent-millions-... https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nobusuke_Kishi Freedom of the press is absolutely abysmal in Japan and has been further on the downslide since Abe came to power: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-of-eroding-press-freedom-by-un-special-rapporteur https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/jun/13/japan-accused-... I speak Japanese, have spent a lot of time in the country, and have a great admiration for its people, but about the last thing I’d express any admiration for are its politics and media. And speaking anecdotally, very few people there seem to put much trust in them either.

nwienert 7y ago
I didn’t express admiration, I just pointed out the reasons the people have such high trust and cooperation.
magduf 7y ago
>I speak Japanese, have spent a lot of time in the country, and have a great admiration for its people, but about the last thing I’d express any admiration for are its politics and media. While the media might not be great, at least the politicians, right-wing as they may be, actually seem to be trying to do things to improve the country, and even pushing some relatively progressive ideas (for instance, they're pushing for more women in corporate leadership positions, something Japan is woefully behind on). I just can't say the same for America these days; our national government (and especially the executive branch) is moving things backwards and making things worse.
- claudeganon 7y ago
  Abe has a good PR team pushing this narrative abroad, but it doesn’t map to the material reality of most women. While female labor force participation rates are up, most women are locked into lower-level positions with bad wages and little hope of advancement. Likewise, women still face a level of misogyny in Japan that is truly unimaginable to most Americans. This has been led in no small part by Abe and the LDP, who insist on the enforcement of absolutely regressive social mores. Most recently, they vehemently opposed women being allowed to keep their own last names upon marriage.

NalNezumi 7y ago

>Homogenous, nationalistic, small country with high IQ, good education system, high GDP, low levels of immigration, and a culture that emphasizes community. I've lived in a Scandinavian country with similar quantities most of my life (well except low levels of immigration) but I can't recall a single time lost property came back, even at a local small town bakery. The experience is very different from my life living in Tokyo. >Oh, and lower levels of inequality, relatively, and a more aligned politics/media system that doesn’t foment distrust. Considering my homecountry having almost the lowest level of inequality in the world, and a highly aligned political/media system I don't think this is a factor either.

deleted 7y ago
[deleted]
matsemann 7y ago
> I've lived in a Scandinavian country with similar quantities most of my life but I can't recall a single time lost property came back But my experience is the opposite: Managed to leave my backpack on a bench in the busiest part of Oslo S when taking the train with too much skis and stuff so I forgot it in the struggle. Anyone could have just snatched it walking by, but instead someone saw it was unattended and delivered it at some lost&found so I got it back a week later. Also in Oslo, I forgot my laptop at the table on an outside cafe. When I came back to fetch it a few hours later it was still where I left it. So while there probably can be differences between countries, I also think it's too easy to extract too much from one's own experiences, which may not be typical.