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It’s not surprising. They have a strong cultural identity and their whole country is far nicer and cleaner than any country I’ve been to. Most immigrants here

It’s not surprising. They have a strong cultural identity and their whole country is far nicer and cleaner than any country I’ve been to. Most immigrants here (I live in SF) are to be completely honest, not from very strong cultural identities. I’m an immigrant too, and my own people aren’t that strong with their cultural identities. After all, we GTFO’d the moment we or our parents could. Whenever I’ve been back I hated the filth and pollution everywhere, and the lack of care considering the litter and trash everywhere. It’s gross and sad. Japanese people are happy with their culture on a broader level. I’m sure they have their problems too. Everyone does. When I visited Japan I was so blown away by how proper and organized people were. It inspired me to live a more organized life. I went all over in both cities and rural areas, never saw trash. People were kind even with the language barrier. Even their homeless (they only have like 20k total) were polite and organized.

golemiprague 1y ago
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ok_dad 1y ago
In a collective culture like Japan, you take care of your responsibilities yourself to improve the collective good. It’s basically the opposite of the tragedy of the commons in individualistic cultures, IMO. The nail that sticks out gets hammered not because of a requirement that you conform, but because you’re not doing your responsibilities, so someone else has to do it. America is much more conformist than Japan, it’s just than in Japan you’ll work a mediocre job and enjoy it because that’s your role and you appreciate that you’re a part of a whole. Whereas in America you might be able to theoretically do “better”, but there’s no safety.
- latentsea 1y ago
  > The nail that sticks out gets hammered not because of a requirement that you conform, but because you’re not doing your responsibilities, so someone else has to do it. Unfortunately, in practice it's ingrained by a tonne of instances of getting told off for minor infractions of seemingly very arbitrary rules, to the point where it's so ingrained that you just stop questioning it because it's not worth the energy to do so anymore.
  - ok_dad 1y ago
    Yea, it's not perfect, and for some it is probably very bad to be in a collective culture where they can't stretch their boundaries or do something too differently than is socially acceptable. Personally: I have mostly lived in a super-individualistic culture which, perhaps weirdly, feels more oppressive to me than a fully collective culture might. I now live in a place that straddles the two, and it works well for me so far. I think that it would be a dream if everyone could move to the place that feels most at-home for them, but until the world learns to share and support each other more, that is just a dream.

golemiprague 1y ago

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ok_dad 1y ago

In a collective culture like Japan, you take care of your responsibilities yourself to improve the collective good. It’s basically the opposite of the tragedy of the commons in individualistic cultures, IMO. The nail that sticks out gets hammered not because of a requirement that you conform, but because you’re not doing your responsibilities, so someone else has to do it. America is much more conformist than Japan, it’s just than in Japan you’ll work a mediocre job and enjoy it because that’s your role and you appreciate that you’re a part of a whole. Whereas in America you might be able to theoretically do “better”, but there’s no safety.

latentsea 1y ago
> The nail that sticks out gets hammered not because of a requirement that you conform, but because you’re not doing your responsibilities, so someone else has to do it. Unfortunately, in practice it's ingrained by a tonne of instances of getting told off for minor infractions of seemingly very arbitrary rules, to the point where it's so ingrained that you just stop questioning it because it's not worth the energy to do so anymore.
- ok_dad 1y ago
  Yea, it's not perfect, and for some it is probably very bad to be in a collective culture where they can't stretch their boundaries or do something too differently than is socially acceptable. Personally: I have mostly lived in a super-individualistic culture which, perhaps weirdly, feels more oppressive to me than a fully collective culture might. I now live in a place that straddles the two, and it works well for me so far. I think that it would be a dream if everyone could move to the place that feels most at-home for them, but until the world learns to share and support each other more, that is just a dream.