Readit News> An American problem created in the US
Comment already starts off pointing flameward, but ok, it could go either way.
> In almost any other country,
A grand and shallow generalization, consistent with flamebait, but ok, still not dispositive.
> The incessant fads and hysteria
This swerve into pejorative language, given the frame already set, is definitely starting to look like nationalistic flamebait.
> a society that is totally dysfunctional
Ok, now there's no question about it.
Comments like this, which combine denunciatory rhetoric with a very low information/indignation ratio, are not what Hacker News is for. This was not a borderline call!
In every single developed country leaving a child like that would cause everyone there to be prosecuted by law. I didnt hear any other country where trying to help a kid to find his mother by asking around people in a park could be considered child molestation and force someone who is helping to leave the child just like that. Feel free to provide a counter argument.
> This swerve into pejorative language
Are you contesting that there are incessant fads and hysteria in the US? We are living in a time when US is waging two wars on two different fronts and creating propaganda hysteria for the third war. American payment processors are being pressured to cut service to those who certain American groups dont see compliant with their views. The list of fads and hysterias are so long that it requires an entire topic to list.
> a society that is totally dysfunctional > Ok, now there's no question about it.
A society where people work two jobs and yet live in their car where 99% of people will will never buy a house....
https://www.cbsnews.com/news/homes-for-sale-affordable-housi...
...where people die if they cant pay the hospital, and cant feed their children even while working two jobs...
https://www.cnbc.com/2016/12/13/americas-dirty-little-secret...
...to the extent that the solution they find is escaping from the country...
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-dream-leave-most-us-...
...and you are saying that is not a dysfunctional society and pointing out all of these are 'nationalistic'.
> Comments like this, which combine denunciatory rhetoric with a very low information/indignation ratio, are not what Hacker News is for
Tech and tech economy are not exempt from a social collapse. You could make an argument that the collapse has not reached a point at which we should talk about it in every thread, maybe. But you were the one challenged the 'dysfunctional' argument. Delirious hysteria like the one the initial commenter posted is a good sign of collapsing societies. The US is one.
This is one of the hysterias and fads that visibly come out of the US frequently as the US public opinion and even the political landscape change.
Dead Comment
First thing I noticed when I arrived: they are using Google for emails, sharing documents, drives, meetings, research projects, etc. The loss of sovereignty that this represents AND the major risk for leaks/theft is MAD.
It was a research lab entirely focused on tech/CS/computational science So it's not like they don't know stuff about technology.
Years prior to this, I'm in Finland in a tiny lab in Turku/Åbo (the city has two names, one in Finnish the other in Swedish.
I remember there was a dude doing his master's trying to integrate a bunch of devices (phone, desktop, laptop, cloud, etc.) so that basically your AI assistant can automatically handle stuff. This implied A LOT of constant (or almost constant) data collection.
During one of the meeting, I think I'm the one who asked: "But wait, isn't this a massive issue in terms of privacy?" The big boss of the lab, replied: "Oh I know you're from France, and you guyz care a lot about this. But here we simply do not"
Conclusion:
I haven't looked at sociological studies trying to build an historical overview of the Nordic people and their relation to electronic privacy. But my experience goes so much against the idea I had about Nordic "culture" (this word means nothing here: Finnish and Norwegian are VERY different societies, but bear with me).
I really believed that in those countries I'd find some high priority, super secured, home made, safe solutions for handling messaging, data, research -> it is REALLY NOT THE CASE, I haven't seen ANY OF THAT; they're all using USA made cloud-(AI)-tech.
As for the "colonial" aspect, Japan is not exactly a poor country. It is, in fact, a rather expensive destination (a bit less now because the Yen is cheap) and you will certainly not be seen as an aristocratic elite. You will be respected as a guest because that's how Japan works, but there is a line and it will become very clear if you ever attempt to cross it.
I think that "colonial style" tourism is on the decline, simply because the world is developing and what used to be poor countries now do very well by themselves. They will still accept your money though.
Except that is still a ~20% minority at the top. And worse, they can only trot by gentrifying cheaper locations - they can't trot in central London, Ottawa, or Japan, bar a few who are much richer.
> As for the "colonial" aspect, Japan is not exactly a poor country
This new colonization phenomenon doesnt have much to do with those. Foreigners who earn more than their peers of equivalent level come into a country and they eventually push those, even including the white collars, out of their own cities by gentrifying them through long term or short term rentals, and especially through buying properties to live in or for 'investment' (speculation, really). This happened in Lisbon, Barcelona, Madrid, and is now happening in Valencia. It will inevitably happen in Japan. The only reason it has not happened yet is that Japan's digital nomad visa is just 6 months. If it starts giving out a year or more, you will see how fast the colonization will happen. It took only 2 years for Spain. Japan would likely be a more popular destination, so it could happen faster.
If you gave me a $basicIncome raise I’d keep working; but I’d appreciate the cash.
If you guaranteed $basicIncome for life I’d restructure my life around that, and likely FIRE.
People are burned out. They are overworked. Over-stressed. Most of them were just hurled into careers by the system without much choice because they had to make a living. Most of them didnt even have time to think about their choices. A majority has spent decades struggling for survival amidst financial insecurity. When universal income starts for the first time, all of these people will stop for a while and start revising their lives. Something which they needed to do way before, but were not allowed by the system. Its natural.
When they get over the burnout and do their reflection, they will go active again. We see this in the case of the privileged minority who are able to retire early or take sabbaticals. They rest and do random stuff for a while, then they go back to doing something they want to do. Especially in tech, that has been the case.
People dont like staying idle for long.
I don't know what can be done about it though. Japan's economy is in trouble, and the tourist money helps and hurts at the same time. It creates tax revenue, yet inflates prices for locals. Japan's stumbling economy is a factor in itself of the tourism influx due to the weak yen.
In the next few decades I fear Japan is going to go through a difficult period of cultural erosion. It needs foreign workers and at the rate they'll be entering, they won't integrate to the level that the Japanese people want.
I'd like to think I'm one of the "15%" that the article describes - I go to great lengths to integrate despite not speaking a lot of Japanese. But deep down I know that I don't belong here, and that Japan would prefer to be a homogenous society without expats like me. And I hold no hard feelings toward them for that.
I lived in a successful major tourist region from its inception to maturity. You are incorrect in saying that it creates tax revenue: The Tourism sector generally gets tax breaks and subsidies, so it ends up eating up tax revenue to enrich whatever oligarchic structure or family dominates the landscape. Moreover, in any mild temporary crisi,s it risks collapsing and forces the government to bail it out by spending enormous amounts of money.
Tourism is like a tick that sucks away the productive forces and resources of a country - it diverts both budget (tax breaks, subsidies) and educated manpower away from actual goods and services production, provides sh*t jobs to those employed in tourism, causes inflation and CoL rise across regions and even the entire country. If you want to cripple a country's industrial and technological power, the best thing to do is to push tourism on it.
Also:
Step 1: Build mass surveillance to prevent the 'bad guys' from coming into political power (its ok, we're the good guys).
Step 2: Your political opponents capitalize on your genuinely horrific overreach, and legitimize themselves in the eyes of the public as fighting against tyranny (unfortunately for you they do have a point). They promise to dismantle the system if coming to power.
Step 3: They get elected.
Step 4: They don't dismantle the system, now the people you planned to use the system against are using it against you.
Sounds brilliant, lets do this.
Frank Zappa explained that long ago:
“The illusion of freedom will continue as long as it's profitable to continue the illusion. At the point where the illusion becomes too expensive to maintain, they will just take down the scenery, they will pull back the curtains, they will move the tables and chairs out of the way and you will see the brick wall at the back of the theater.”