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The rest of the ageing world would do well to learn some lessons from Japan. For example, providing ready access to clean public toilets ? Tick. But also in

The rest of the ageing world would do well to learn some lessons from Japan. For example, providing ready access to clean public toilets ? Tick. But also in terms of transport being prepared for the elderly. The Shinkanzen famously only makes brief stops at intermediate stations, sometimes as short as 60 seconds. And yet on multiple occasions now, I've witnessed elderly people in wheelchairs being efficiently onloaded/offloaded from the train well within that 60 second limit. I'm sure, like all countries, Japan is not perfect. But right now, I think I'm fairly safe in saying they are ahead of the game in elderly care.

dvh 3y ago
You cannot make any deductions from Japan. It is it's own thing. The things that works there may not work elsewhere.
- ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
  We should find out what it is about Japan that makes certain things work there.
  - supertofu 3y ago
    An incredibly homogenous society, for one.
    - BobaFloutist 3y ago
      But the homogeneity of race is a social construct. Sure, there's cultural differences, but there's no hard biological obstacle to a high-trust multicultural society, just ingrained ideological opposition. If we can consciously shuck this counterproductive flailing against integration, maybe we can actually get somewhere.
      - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
        Either you have a multicultural society or you have a high trust society, you can't have both. Why? Because people have an instinctual distrust of people dissimilar to them.
        princeb 3y ago
        Japan is not a high trust society. Japanese people are highly suspicious of other people, including Japanese. Japanese people are extremely concerned about how they are viewed and judged by others; the conformity is a desire to be accepted in society, and such trust and acceptance is not freely given but instead quickly taken away. Among my friends from Japan who have left the country, this is by far the most oppressive social more that they feel compelled to follow. And among those who have moved to Japan, many feel that learning the social rules and earning that trust was a significant accomplishment, and a handful want to preserve that exclusion because of how much effort it took to make themselves part of society. Japanese social groups are extremely exclusive- on the broadest level, foreigners are excluded from some establishments, banking and housing services are sometimes inaccessible to foreigners. And on a smaller level, there are also establishments that do not accept new customers without an introduction, local or not. Such exclusions are an integral part of the culture - the language itself is a shibboleth, you know your place and standing in the world by the language other people use when they speak to you.
      - N0b8ez 3y ago
        I feel like it's one of those social constructs like the value of money, which is socially constructed, but which gets amplified by human instincts like greed. It would be great if we could shuck the counterproductive belief of money having value, but in practice, people are going to be led by instincts.
  - traceroute66 3y ago
    > We should find out what it is about Japan that makes certain things work there. Even more so because many Western countries are at high risk of being in Japan's position within the next 20–30 years. Japan reached peak population growth roughly five years ago. Japan was informally understood to be an ageing population before that but now they are statistically formally so. Hence the West would do well to watch and learn from how Japan prepared and how Japan continues to manage an ageing population.
- wetpaws 3y ago
  [dead]
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > You cannot make any deductions from Japan. It is it's own thing. The things that works there may not work elsewhere. People said exactly the same about Japan during COVID ... "oh no, you can't possibly make deductions from Japan" they said. What happened ? Let's take the UK as an example. Japan, a country with: - Double the population of the UK - Living and working in significantly higher density than the UK Japan 78,000 total deaths (602 per million) vs UK total 232,000 deaths (3,400 per million) Japan 270,000 cumulative cases per million, UK 368,000 cumulative cases per million Why do I cite the UK in particular ? Because the government was well documented to be operating on a basis of British exceptionalism, i.e. the same mindset as you have, "what can we possibly learn from other countries, it won't work here because we're better/different/$insert_word_of_your_choice than them"
fakedang 3y ago
Homogeneity helps.
- zarathustreal 3y ago
  This is unfortunately the biggest part of building a high trust human society, we’re wired to see patterns in everything
  - N0b8ez 3y ago
    I don't think it's the biggest part of building a high trust society. Rule of law and effective law-enforcement is always going to be number one. El Salvador and Ecuador are more homogeneous than the USA, but the USA is far more high trust.
chgs 3y ago
Sounds labour intensive. Putting more and more resources into a single generation - a generation that has benefitted their entire lives and pulled up the ladder behind them - is no way to have social harmony.
- magnetowasright 3y ago
  The wealthy ones who gleefully pulled the ladder up will be fine; they can pay for their care. Everyone else? Not so much.
- toomuchtodo 3y ago
  The important work is labor intensive.
  - diskevich 3y ago
    [dead]
  - chgs 3y ago
    In which case we should see a massive transfer of wealth from the wealthiest generation to the workers. I.E wages increasing far more than things like shares and assets. Ultimatly if two millionaires and one person capable of looking after them are on an island, that worker can charge a million for the work. All the equity in the world won’t wipe your drool in a nursing home. Thanks to democracy though we’ll continue to see workers subsidising the wealthy across the western world.
rjh29 3y ago
*shinkansen
- mayormcmatt 3y ago
  Normally, yes, you would be correct. But in the case of the Shinkanzen, it rolls to a stop, carefully opens it doors and allows the elderly to depart, gazes at the natural beauty of Japan all around it, and ponders on the question of whether the elderly passengers really exist at all. It decides they do and, as soon as the conductors are back aboard, closes its doors and departs the station at a deliberate speed. It moves towards the next station on this line and on the wheel of dharma.

dvh 3y ago

You cannot make any deductions from Japan. It is it's own thing. The things that works there may not work elsewhere.

ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
We should find out what it is about Japan that makes certain things work there.
- supertofu 3y ago
  An incredibly homogenous society, for one.
  - BobaFloutist 3y ago
    But the homogeneity of race is a social construct. Sure, there's cultural differences, but there's no hard biological obstacle to a high-trust multicultural society, just ingrained ideological opposition. If we can consciously shuck this counterproductive flailing against integration, maybe we can actually get somewhere.
    - ThrowawayTestr 3y ago
      Either you have a multicultural society or you have a high trust society, you can't have both. Why? Because people have an instinctual distrust of people dissimilar to them.
      - princeb 3y ago
        Japan is not a high trust society. Japanese people are highly suspicious of other people, including Japanese. Japanese people are extremely concerned about how they are viewed and judged by others; the conformity is a desire to be accepted in society, and such trust and acceptance is not freely given but instead quickly taken away. Among my friends from Japan who have left the country, this is by far the most oppressive social more that they feel compelled to follow. And among those who have moved to Japan, many feel that learning the social rules and earning that trust was a significant accomplishment, and a handful want to preserve that exclusion because of how much effort it took to make themselves part of society. Japanese social groups are extremely exclusive- on the broadest level, foreigners are excluded from some establishments, banking and housing services are sometimes inaccessible to foreigners. And on a smaller level, there are also establishments that do not accept new customers without an introduction, local or not. Such exclusions are an integral part of the culture - the language itself is a shibboleth, you know your place and standing in the world by the language other people use when they speak to you.
    - N0b8ez 3y ago
      I feel like it's one of those social constructs like the value of money, which is socially constructed, but which gets amplified by human instincts like greed. It would be great if we could shuck the counterproductive belief of money having value, but in practice, people are going to be led by instincts.
- traceroute66 3y ago
  > We should find out what it is about Japan that makes certain things work there. Even more so because many Western countries are at high risk of being in Japan's position within the next 20–30 years. Japan reached peak population growth roughly five years ago. Japan was informally understood to be an ageing population before that but now they are statistically formally so. Hence the West would do well to watch and learn from how Japan prepared and how Japan continues to manage an ageing population.
wetpaws 3y ago
[dead]
traceroute66 3y ago
> You cannot make any deductions from Japan. It is it's own thing. The things that works there may not work elsewhere. People said exactly the same about Japan during COVID ... "oh no, you can't possibly make deductions from Japan" they said. What happened ? Let's take the UK as an example. Japan, a country with: - Double the population of the UK - Living and working in significantly higher density than the UK Japan 78,000 total deaths (602 per million) vs UK total 232,000 deaths (3,400 per million) Japan 270,000 cumulative cases per million, UK 368,000 cumulative cases per million Why do I cite the UK in particular ? Because the government was well documented to be operating on a basis of British exceptionalism, i.e. the same mindset as you have, "what can we possibly learn from other countries, it won't work here because we're better/different/$insert_word_of_your_choice than them"

fakedang 3y ago

Homogeneity helps.

zarathustreal 3y ago
This is unfortunately the biggest part of building a high trust human society, we’re wired to see patterns in everything
- N0b8ez 3y ago
  I don't think it's the biggest part of building a high trust society. Rule of law and effective law-enforcement is always going to be number one. El Salvador and Ecuador are more homogeneous than the USA, but the USA is far more high trust.

chgs 3y ago

Sounds labour intensive. Putting more and more resources into a single generation - a generation that has benefitted their entire lives and pulled up the ladder behind them - is no way to have social harmony.

magnetowasright 3y ago
The wealthy ones who gleefully pulled the ladder up will be fine; they can pay for their care. Everyone else? Not so much.
toomuchtodo 3y ago
The important work is labor intensive.
- diskevich 3y ago
  [dead]
- chgs 3y ago
  In which case we should see a massive transfer of wealth from the wealthiest generation to the workers. I.E wages increasing far more than things like shares and assets. Ultimatly if two millionaires and one person capable of looking after them are on an island, that worker can charge a million for the work. All the equity in the world won’t wipe your drool in a nursing home. Thanks to democracy though we’ll continue to see workers subsidising the wealthy across the western world.

rjh29 3y ago

*shinkansen

mayormcmatt 3y ago
Normally, yes, you would be correct. But in the case of the Shinkanzen, it rolls to a stop, carefully opens it doors and allows the elderly to depart, gazes at the natural beauty of Japan all around it, and ponders on the question of whether the elderly passengers really exist at all. It decides they do and, as soon as the conductors are back aboard, closes its doors and departs the station at a deliberate speed. It moves towards the next station on this line and on the wheel of dharma.