3 ms·

Lived in Japan. I think world will come to realize that Japan's past is also the world's future.

jbm 2y ago
Came to say the same thing. The supposed backwards parts are seeming charming the longer I live in Canada. Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today.
- jperras 2y ago
  Québecois here. We've been trying to tell the rest of Canada this for _decades_.
  - jbm 2y ago
    I mostly agree. Still, being a minority from Montreal who left and found life in Japan significantly less alienating, I hesitate to agree wholeheartedly.
    - jperras 2y ago
      Very fair. The line between conscientious preservation and alienation can be (and often is) an easy one to cross.
- ben_w 2y ago
  > Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today. それは、翻訳行為が高価である限りにおいてのみ機能します。 (That 'free' is also 'mediocre quality' does not help when the problem is 'brain rot': viral memes still be viral)
  - 4bpp 2y ago
    Well, for what it's worth, your machine-translated sentence is basically incomprehensible in Japanese, let alone in a position to go viral (except in the capacity in which exquisite gibberish sometimes does). I could only infer what I think you intended to say ("This only works as long as translation is expensive"...?) by translating it back literally coupled with guesswork about what English text could have given rise to this "translation". Not that your point isn't actually a good one - we do now often see the worst of US-made culture war toxoplasma (in all stages of its lifecycle) being imported wholesale into European cultures where it is barely relevant to local circumstances, which I would squarely blame on sufficient English skills and superior production value of anglophone politics.
    - ben_w 2y ago
      > Well, for what it's worth, your machine-translated sentence is basically incomprehensible in Japanese, let alone in a position to go viral (except in the capacity in which exquisite gibberish sometimes does). I kinda assumed so — I kept changing the English until the English-Japanese-English round trip translation wasn't wildly wrong, but the fact I had to says how far Google Translate has to go before it's actually good.
- cbsmith 2y ago
  If having one is good, having two must be better!
doctorpangloss 2y ago
This plays out in every community, at every scale. What communities are other communities' futures and never pasts? California & San Francisco: All of their problems are foreshadowing what is going to happen in other parts of the US; all of their strengths are also coming to other places. Even within San Francisco, is Valencia St the future or past of tony Chestnut St? When you think about bad shit happening, and then how we only seem capable of reactive, rather than proactive politics, seems obvious. Problems have to become catastrophic before anyone deals with them, and all the problems left are the ones are small, but growing.
moandcompany 2y ago
Agreed. Japan's "lost decade" started 10-20 years before the rest of many Western (e.g. United States) and non-Western nations (e.g. People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea, etc).
- alephnerd 2y ago
  The US had a lost decade similar to Japan in the 90s during the 1970s-80s with similar convos of a rapidly aging and backwards society (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/us/rise-of-elderly-population-in-70-s-portends-vast-changes-in-nation.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/us/rise-of-elderly-popula... // "malaise forever" - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=czfKPaypNsU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=czfKPaypNsU) The biggest difference was the US was able to leverage white collar immigration to develop a substantial lead in the computing industry by the mid-90s. SK is probably going to hit a similar bust like Japan's soon (they're basically following the same cycle as Japan except with a 25-30 years lag)
  - oezi 2y ago
    What mattered more white collar or illegal immigration? Every country can chart its own way. South Korea is both more healthy innovation wise and less healthy demographically, right?
armchairhacker 2y ago
As someone who hasn't lived in Japan, what do you mean by this?
- sgu999 2y ago
  Likely referring to urbanism, public transports, collective mindset of the average Japanese, cleanliness, safety, maybe some of their spirituality. As a tourist, everything seems at its place in Japan. Yes, you come across a lot of CRT monitors even in Tokyo, but who gives a damn really when your train is on time to the nearest second and you can sleep in it without being worried for your belongings.
- labster 2y ago
  As economies fully industrialize and embrace computerization, they’ll face the same problems as Japan: long lifetimes and low birth rates upend demographics, meaning economies can’t rely on population for growth. Large swathes of rural areas are abandoned as urbanization increases and agriculture centralizes and mechanizes. Women in the out-of-home workforce means child care is hard to secure. The rest of the world is already facing these problems, just not yet at the scale Japan does. Yet.
deleted 2y ago
[deleted]

jbm 2y ago

Came to say the same thing. The supposed backwards parts are seeming charming the longer I live in Canada. Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today.

jperras 2y ago
Québecois here. We've been trying to tell the rest of Canada this for _decades_.
- jbm 2y ago
  I mostly agree. Still, being a minority from Montreal who left and found life in Japan significantly less alienating, I hesitate to agree wholeheartedly.
  - jperras 2y ago
    Very fair. The line between conscientious preservation and alienation can be (and often is) an easy one to cross.
ben_w 2y ago
> Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today. それは、翻訳行為が高価である限りにおいてのみ機能します。 (That 'free' is also 'mediocre quality' does not help when the problem is 'brain rot': viral memes still be viral)
- 4bpp 2y ago
  Well, for what it's worth, your machine-translated sentence is basically incomprehensible in Japanese, let alone in a position to go viral (except in the capacity in which exquisite gibberish sometimes does). I could only infer what I think you intended to say ("This only works as long as translation is expensive"...?) by translating it back literally coupled with guesswork about what English text could have given rise to this "translation". Not that your point isn't actually a good one - we do now often see the worst of US-made culture war toxoplasma (in all stages of its lifecycle) being imported wholesale into European cultures where it is barely relevant to local circumstances, which I would squarely blame on sufficient English skills and superior production value of anglophone politics.
  - ben_w 2y ago
    > Well, for what it's worth, your machine-translated sentence is basically incomprehensible in Japanese, let alone in a position to go viral (except in the capacity in which exquisite gibberish sometimes does). I kinda assumed so — I kept changing the English until the English-Japanese-English round trip translation wasn't wildly wrong, but the fact I had to says how far Google Translate has to go before it's actually good.
cbsmith 2y ago
If having one is good, having two must be better!

doctorpangloss 2y ago

This plays out in every community, at every scale. What communities are other communities' futures and never pasts? California & San Francisco: All of their problems are foreshadowing what is going to happen in other parts of the US; all of their strengths are also coming to other places. Even within San Francisco, is Valencia St the future or past of tony Chestnut St? When you think about bad shit happening, and then how we only seem capable of reactive, rather than proactive politics, seems obvious. Problems have to become catastrophic before anyone deals with them, and all the problems left are the ones are small, but growing.

moandcompany 2y ago

Agreed. Japan's "lost decade" started 10-20 years before the rest of many Western (e.g. United States) and non-Western nations (e.g. People's Republic of China, Republic of Korea, etc).

alephnerd 2y ago
The US had a lost decade similar to Japan in the 90s during the 1970s-80s with similar convos of a rapidly aging and backwards society (https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/us/rise-of-elderly-population-in-70-s-portends-vast-changes-in-nation.html https://www.nytimes.com/1981/05/24/us/rise-of-elderly-popula... // "malaise forever" - https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=czfKPaypNsU https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=czfKPaypNsU) The biggest difference was the US was able to leverage white collar immigration to develop a substantial lead in the computing industry by the mid-90s. SK is probably going to hit a similar bust like Japan's soon (they're basically following the same cycle as Japan except with a 25-30 years lag)
- oezi 2y ago
  What mattered more white collar or illegal immigration? Every country can chart its own way. South Korea is both more healthy innovation wise and less healthy demographically, right?

armchairhacker 2y ago

As someone who hasn't lived in Japan, what do you mean by this?

sgu999 2y ago
Likely referring to urbanism, public transports, collective mindset of the average Japanese, cleanliness, safety, maybe some of their spirituality. As a tourist, everything seems at its place in Japan. Yes, you come across a lot of CRT monitors even in Tokyo, but who gives a damn really when your train is on time to the nearest second and you can sleep in it without being worried for your belongings.
labster 2y ago
As economies fully industrialize and embrace computerization, they’ll face the same problems as Japan: long lifetimes and low birth rates upend demographics, meaning economies can’t rely on population for growth. Large swathes of rural areas are abandoned as urbanization increases and agriculture centralizes and mechanizes. Women in the out-of-home workforce means child care is hard to secure. The rest of the world is already facing these problems, just not yet at the scale Japan does. Yet.

deleted 2y ago

[deleted]