Bank ATMs in Japan stop working between 6-9PM, and on weekends.
My debit card got de-magnetized ( like a flaky hotel room key ) and stopped working at the official bank ATM. It doesn't work at most third party ATMs, but I've found the 7-11 ATMs are quite robust and is actually able to transact. Seems like a weird security mechanism if the official bank ATM can't authenticate the card, but somehow 7-11 ATMs can bypass this and allow me to withdraw money.
The bank's website also has a very strange username / password rules. They can only contain numbers and letters, case insensitively. Also, you can't have more than 2 consecutive numbers or letters. For example, 'foo2bar' would not be valid, nor would 'fo911baz'. 'fo23ba23' works.
One of my friends in Japan is a doctor from Belarus, one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe. She came to Japan thinking it was technologically advanced, and was shocked to find that in some aspects Belarus is more technologically modern.
I have a very cynical theory about why technology is seemingly archaic here. I think the state of digital technology is due to structural / hierarchical social reasons that these initiatives don't really address. Not directly related to the hierarchical constructs, but examples of traditional practices include:
- resumes must be hand-written
- the stack of paperwork you need to sign for an apartment is about 1 inches thick. If you're purchasing a property, you'll probably need a couple binders.
- you need to create Hanko ( personal seal stamp ) as your official signature for some paperwork
The major US company I worked for 6-7 years ago had a global presence, but were all sort of independent. We started to merge into 1 formal company, and started reviewing IT processes.
The Japan location still had people walking through the data center with a sheet of paper and a pen, going through and manually checking servers off a list in the data center. It blew everyone's mind
>> with a sheet of paper and a pen, going through and manually checking servers off a list
Military here. We still do that. Classified systems have to be mustered (counted) regularly. Electronic records can be hacked/altered/spoofed remotely. In many situations that clipboard on a hook remains a perfectly valid security device, especially for systems/weapons/things that are not powered up 24/7.
In a similar vein, in some countries they just went back to paper voting after trying electronic machines (e.g. Netherlands). It's not perfect, but it electronic solution also doesn't seem to be, and overall it seems to work well enough.
There's this perception that "digital = better", but that's not always how it works. Actually, in quite a few cases the analogue solution was quite a bit better (analogue buttons, for example, but also just having some things on paper was a lot easier IMHO, like bus tickets and whatnot).
Completely understand where you are both coming from with ideas about security and "good enough" technique. But these were incredibly simple tasks which any simple automated system would suffice. Things that could be analyzed with a graph and 5 minutes of time to review it were taking days.
I also should have specified this was in an e-commerce company, so no state secrets or anything like that.
>> simple tasks which any simple automated system would suffice.
Show me a machine that can go from room to room, from vehicle to vehicle, counting rifles without error. In the dark. In the mud. When all the vehicles are parked in different places every day. Or another regular task at my unit: itemizing first aid kits. Good luck telling a robot to count the number of tourniquets in a locker without making a mess of things.
>>and "good enough" technique.
These aren't good enough things. The human being counting things and signing a piece of paper is better than the automated/online system. A human's positive control cannot be hacked remotely. Go to a hospital and see if the surgeons are ok with their tools being cleaned and counted by machines, without human backup. Will never happen.
Other response to this was correct in their assumption. Those comments were additional to my initial. I was agreeing with you there is still a perfectly good time and place for this to occur, this was not one of those. Nice, safe, clean DC, with plenty of light, we're talking "how much space is left on the system drive?"
To be fair, Classified systems are an odd man out and all our other systems have been transitioning to electronic tracking, even most of our high side stuff have digital tracking inside of high side or without Classified information.
So can we defund the NSA then? If their conclusion is “lol just don’t use computers for anything important” why pay them hundreds of billions of dollars to “secure” them?
NSA's encryption trickery means little when the "secured" system isn't actually turned on. You still need to count things even when they are not in use, especially when they are in long term storage.
I sometimes wonder if Japan's work culture that demands long hours from workers disincentivizes time-saving "automation": In the US, where the expectation is closer to 40 hours, you don't have the luxury of always assuming employees will be cool putting in 10-12 hour days.
> Japan's work culture that demands long hours from workers disincentivizes time-saving "automation"
I reckon it's more that initiative is not expected, or even discouraged. You will work on what the direct superior tells you, end of story. And the more people the boss can lord on, the bigger his empire looks like; so there is little incentive for middle-managers to pursue efficiency.
The long hours are largely for saving face in front of the team. Nobody leaves before the boss leaves, with full trickle down effect. So if the director is working until 9pm that means his managers are there until 9pm and then the staff is sitting at their desks looking busy-ish until 9pm, regardless of utility. Anybody who leaves early is not "giving their best" to the success of the team.
It's interesting that these things don't seem to matter that much. Japan isn't some basket case, it is a developed and wealthy country. This is all the more remarkable when you consider the demographic circumstances it faces.
I was an english teacher in Japan for 2 years at a junior high school.
The rep from a textbook company would go to the teacher's lounge every semester, bow to each of the teacher's one at a time in front of their desks, and ask them what they wanted to order from the catalog. The teacher's could've easily put in an order online or over the phone and I imagine the salesman had to go to each school in person.
The average Japanese employee works less hours per year than the average American, on what comes down to having an additional two weeks off per year (1713 vs 1783 hours worked annually [1]).
Of course, with statistics like these one has to consider the fact that second-income earners working part-time jobs make the statistic skew low, which means that in countries where wages are high enough to feed a family with only one parent working, the numbers will skew higher despite less actual hours worked. I am note sure to what degree the statistics address this issue.
This uses the official numbers for average hours worked in Japan, which are definitely not accurate as a lot of overtime is unreported (and unpaid), especially at particularly bad companies.
Employee is now a loaded word. Does this statistic include contractors or just hired "employees"? A great many workers in the US, from delivery drivers to doctors, are no longer actual employees. Do their hours count?
Not every company gives summer and winter breaks. These companies also have awful leave policies (on average less than 10 days for companies with breaks). None of them provide sick leave (you must use your standard leave for sick days).
Overtime, until very recently, went uncounted and was unpaid. So the statistics you quote are almost certainly very wrong.
Recently the government has been cracking down on overtime (and especially on unpaid overtime), and requires companies to track overtime. It's only considered excessive overtime if it's more than 45 hours extra hours a month, to give you an understanding of just how much people are working.
Recently at the same time, gov also enforces every employee must take at least 5 leave days in a year. What's happened in smaller companies is that they removed holidays at summer (exact: Obon) and at the end of year, and enforces employee to take leave days at the removed holidays exactly. Awful.
Japan also doesn't report its work hours fully. The notorious 12 hour work days in Japan are not commonly reported as such. American workers by contrast are (properly) penny counters when it comes to overtime, shift differential, et al. Every hour they work over is going to get counted and credited. The US has stricter labor laws at this point than Japan does.
Having worked in a data center. The "walk around with the clipboard" kinda still happens. Except its a tablet that syncs up with an actual database instead of lots of useless paperwork. Easy enough to look just as busy with the tablet.
>I sometimes wonder if Japan's work culture that demands long hours from workers
Japan is placed somewhere in the upper middle among OECD countries when it comes to average working hours per year and the percentage of workers working more than 60 hours per week.
Using that same example, you could consider American statistics misleading. US studies show that wage theft by corporations is a multi billion dollar a year industry. Things like that lead to underreporting of actual hours worked, hence, skewing statistics.
You might be onto something. I read in a book about the world's economic history and why the industrial revolution started in the UK that one of the likely reasons was the rising expense of labour which forced businesses to then find more efficient ways to work which lead to machines and industrialization. So basically In any setting with a surplus of cheap labour this incentive simply isn't there.
I'm not sure if I buy that logic. The U.S. is also on the high side, in terms of average annual hours worked.
If we tried to extrapolate that hypothesis, shouldn't it imply that countries with considerably lower averages (e.g.: Germany, France, Sweden) ought to be considerably further ahead in automation than they currently are?
Having built out infra in Japan - it was a really strange experience, esp WRT dealing with Data Centers...
There was this one data center in Tokyo that we needed to put stuff into - and we needed a GPS antenna on the roof of the DC piped down to our cage...
The DC itself was the most aesthetically beautiful DC I have been to; Bamboo forest and waterfall in the lobby, black granite everywhere, the receptionists were two beautiful women... The place was pristine in look and super super clean.
We met with the execs that ran it and they agreed to all our requests - to pull lines from the roof to our cage, etc...
But in the end, they said yes to everything, but didnt actually do anything that was requested.
It was a waste of a trip (aside from the fun we had while not doing work), but it was stunning how much work was turned down based on them saying yes, but not actually doing any of the work requested...
This might be a cultural/linguistic barrier you went up against. It might also not be related to what happened to you, but it feels like it is.
Japanese use a lot of back-channel chatter when they talk to indicate that they are actively listening (Auzuchi). This includes saying "Yes" to indicate "Yes, I understand what you are saying" instead of "Yes, I agree that we should do as you are suggesting". They may not always indicate disagreement by saying "No" either, but simply by not committing to your suggestion when its their turn to talk (or some other, subtler expression than "No", such as a head tilt and an intake of breath)
This active listening behavior has apparently led to similar misunderstandings before.
Of course, if you made sure you actually came to a clear agreement with the execs, it's an entirely different story.
True. Cliche almost. More cultural than linguistic. Plenty of (usually different) contexts in America or the UK where "Mhm", "sure", and "we are looking forward to moving ahead with that" means nuh-uh.
I've seen a similar situation, I went to visit a Japanese supplier in the UK with a mutual customer. The customer went with a long list of demands which were all agreed to.
After the meeting the customer was very upbeat but in the end the supplier never did anything they had promised.
It was interesting to observe this as a somewhat independent outsider. I came away with the impression that the people at the supplier had some disdain for their customer.
>I think the state of digital technology is due to structural / hierarchical social reasons that these initiatives don't really address.
Maybe a trite / cliche saying now, but the quote about Japan being the most futuristic society you could imagine in the 1990s just rung so true after visiting.
I suspect I hit the sweet spot when I lived in Japan from 1993-1995 if I interpret your comment correctly. I remember being impressed by the tech. For example: ATMs into which one inserted not only a card, but also a transaction book which would be mechanically updated (versus spitting out a slip). I still have mine. We're talking about Japan so, naturally, my bank book features Snoopy prominently on its cover.
I also lived in Japan in the mid 90's. I was a kid so of course my memory is probably pretty skewed and I have no idea about grownup things like ATMs, but I remember the tech being absolutely amazing. All the game consoles were Japanese (nintendo, sega, playstation) and often got releases first before the US. The arcades were incredible, I remember playing arcade versions of essentially DDR and guitar hero/rockband like 5 years before they caught on in the US. Cell phones also seemed to be a few years ahead of the US (back when flip phones were the rage and smaller was better). Complex vending machines were pretty common, e.g. making things like multi-step hot coffee drinks, I think it was probably a full 15 years later that I first saw one of these in the US.
It's fascinating and also kind of sad to me how much less relevant Japan today seems to be as far as consumer tech goes.
Looking back, I also think a big part of it was Tokyo as a city just being on a totally different scale than anything else I had experienced. In the 90's I don't think there was anywhere in the US remotely similar to a place like Shinjuku. Now days I think parts of midtown Manhattan or perhaps in other ways the Vegas strip might have a little bit of a similar energy, but I had never been to either of those as a child, and back then they were much different than they are today anyway.
The ease of getting around by fast, reliable trains (and especially bullet trains) also seemed super futuristic to me back then. Of course that part is still pretty far ahead of the US to this day.
That might not be a Japan thing: in the late 1990s / 2000s the US was behind Europe (as well as many bits of first-world Asia I guess) with respect to cell phones and consumer banking. For example, free SMS messages came late to the USA. And the USA still doesn't really understand debit cards (think about all the times in the US that you hand over a debit card with a Visa symbol and the cashier says "debit or credit?"; all they do in the rest of the world is scan the fucking card and let the system figure out where the money comes from.)
I haven't been asked that question in a long long time in the US. The cashier just swipes it.
Then again, I don't know anyone that uses a debit card after high school. Not using a credit card kinda implies that they're financially irresponsible right now (leaving cash back/points on the table) or were in the past and ruined their credit.
FWIW, this is not even remotely true in Europe.
People use debit cards day to day, more likely to use a credit card if they don't have enough in the bank I suspect.
At least where I am, there isn't much to be had in terms of points or whatever.
In the US every merchant factors in an extra 3-4 cents on every dollar for credit card transaction costs on all of their prices. If you pay with cash or debit card you eat that cost yourself, if you pay with a credit card you can make back like 2 - 4 cents of that amount depending on the purchase category, and it can really add up over time.
It's a very bizarre system, and incredibly regressive, and would actually probably be pretty simple to get rid of with federal legislation. I actually can't believe none of our current wave of progressive politicians have thought to come after it yet.
That's reversed in Europe. Using credit is what implies financial responsibility. On that subject I've seen American financial devices, such as cashback and so on, slowly sip in on this side of the Atlantic and I find it worrying.
My pet theory as to why is the 90s is when japan was at its peak productive (late 20s, early 40s) population demographics, and now with the county having more seniors than children, they are stuck in the past, since the dominant age group still wields all the political and business power. The olds see no reason to change, as olds are prone to do.
You see it in the USA today too with their aging boomer ruling class, but since its not as bad as japan, they’re not staying as stuck in the past.
I'm afraid Building Societies in Britain had transaction books that would be updated by a printer back in the 1980s. Quite useful actually, I'm rather sad we no longer have them :-(
An alternate history world where technology grew without centralized cloud services and privacy is still a thing.
Their systems are often inferior on a pure ease-of-use aspect, but it's not "strictly worse". I found a lot of it to be just different compromises. It's still possible to live comfortably there without a smartphone. Not so much in other "smart cities" around the world.
I've noticed this kind of thing happens a lot, especially with banks. The institution or counties that "went digital" earliest are now hampered by the tech debt and infrastructure from the early days. And slower institutions/counties can leap frog them.
Hotel wi-fi is my go-to example of this. The fancy downtown hotels full of business travelers all signed contracts with digitization providers who charge $20/night for flakey and slow service. The Motel Six by the interstate has free and faster connections. For the hotels, there is the added complication that expensive hotels often have people other than the guest paying for the expenses while cheap hotels have travelers comparing on price.
Yeah I think this is why the US is so behind the curve on paying for things with phones. We went all in early on credit cards, and those are still mostly good enough for most cases, so there's not a lot of incentive to upgrade.
Is it? I have found there can be massive PoS differences between the coast. For example everywhere on the west coast it seems restaurants bring the CC scanner to your table and use a fancy digital checkout/pay system in restaurants. On the East coast we still hand credit cards to wait staff who give us paper receipts that then disappear to god knows where to run it.
I dont even think Apple Pay is common at all around here in Boston/Cambridge.
I think that's just true about everything. You spend a ton of money deploying something, you're not going to rush to spend a ton of money deploying every incremental change.
I worked in a national Japanese Lab for a year. For me, the illusion of tech advancement was shattered when I was told I needed to fill-out a form by hand to get access to a high-performance computing facility. I got my login and pass info about 5 business days after I mailed my application form by post.
When I went to register my apartment in Musashino, a woman went and found a physical folder, thumped what looked to be 10+ pounds of paper onto the desk between us, and then proceeded to find my apartment. It was found 10+ minutes later.
I was both amazed at the organization and horrified at the inefficiency.
Real estate industry for individuals is really behind and bad for everything. They must be replace but won't because there are huge information gap. Is there good tool to fill information gap? IT! So that's why they still sucks for IT.
> There are plenty of photo booths, not unlike the popular purikura, that specialize in taking photos just the right size for resumes… The booths can be found on the streets of business districts or at most major train and subway stations. In fact, many machines let you pay with your train pass.
> Unlike most western resumes, you don’t need to elaborate on the duties and requirements of all your previous jobs or try to explain how it is useful for the job you are seeking.
> you should write any accomplishments that you have achieved over the years such as licenses or certificates. This even includes a driver’s license. In a city like Tokyo many people do not drive, however, some “paper drivers” get a license anyway just to appear more impressive on their resume.
> The final major section is for desires, hopes, and dreams which obviously will include for you to talk about the kind of salary that you want.
In Japan it’s common to require a “resume” (履歴書) and “C.V” (職務経歴書).
It’s on your CV that you detail your job history and highlights. A “resume” is more like a cover sheet and follows a very specific format.
If you’re changing jobs mid-career you’ll usually need both. If you’re applying as a new grad you’ll probably only need a resume.
When I was in Japan new grads were generally expected to hand write their resume. I think this was mostly a way of filtering applicants.
It’s hard to spam job applications when you have to attend a (group) explanation meeting (説明会) and send a hand written “resume” with a picture of yourself in a suit pasted on.
The expectations were much more flexible for mid-career job changes.
This is also quite dependent on which part of Japan we're discussing.
As an example, while my daughter's record of birth in Tokyo is a printout of a digital record, my son's record of birth in Kyoto is hand-written, and other than the handwriting, looks identical to my wife's from the 1970s.
If Robert Sapolsky was in this thread, he would have probably elaborately explained why island cultures cling to tradition more strongly than the continental ones.
There's also a phenomenon where migrants are more likely to cling to their prototypical tradition than people who stay.
For example, the Taiwanese use traditional Chinese whereas Mainland China use simplified Chinese. Or the orthodox Jewish communities in Brooklyn. The Vietnamese diaspora.
That's what they say in anthropology, and there is truth to it, but I think you could find better examples. Israel is a new country that was populated by immigrants by and large. Hasids sought others out and settled like places because they wanted that culture, on the other hand secular jews in nyc are indistinguishable from anyone else (and they too are immigrants). China adopted simplified logograms to combat illiteracy. Honk Kong was not an immigrant city and it retained traditional characters. Cities in Vietnam exhibit some cracks in traditional culture, but go to the provinces and it's still traditional.
I did some business with Singapore which is pretty cutting edge with tech and has a nifty Singpass app that pulls everything a resident might need with regards to the gov’t - taxes, property, license, medical records, etc.
But then I learned that they passed the electronic signature act in 2010 and it only applies to some signatures - purchase orders, but not property leases, letters of intent but not company founding documents. Everything else needs to be on paper and often needs a company stamp.
The US, which I wouldn’t have considered that cutting edge, passed an electronic signature act 10 years earlier and it applies to pretty much everything.
It’s just one example, and yes, many Asian countries can’t let go of their paper copies and wet signatures, but still leave the US in the dust in other ways, but I thought it was fascinating where countries have challenges moving to more efficient processes.
I did an internship in Singapore once. One of the most backward things I remember about my time there is needing an "MC" (medical certificate from a doctor) when I wasn't feeling well one day.
Like goddamn, it was just a minor cold, nothing serious, I just needed to stay at home and rest, not trek out to a doctor and infect other people on public transit on my way to the doctor. There wasn't anything the doctor could do anyway other than just tell me to take some Panadol for the low grade fever, which I was doing anyway.
If it had happened again I would probably have just gone to work sick because of the silly system. I should decide if and when I need to see a doctor, not my employer. Considering how well-educated people were at the company I was at, there's no reason to not trust people when they say they need rest.
When I lived in Australia I had to present MC if I too time off on Monday or Friday. So I used to show up to work sick and get sent home because it was cheaper than seeing a doctor for a sniffle.
In Singapore we have the MC requirement but I’ve been with the company 9 years so I just tell my boss when I’m sick. Don’t bother seeing doctor. Unless I’m sick for a few days with no feeling of getting better than I go and take time off work at that point.
Damn. Even in Australia? Yeah, I mean, the employee should decide if they need medical help. The company should trust the employee if they say they are sick. Staying at home in bed is a valid way to deal with minor sickness and minor injury. Not all health issues need a doctor. The body is wonderfully good at recovering from minor issues by NOT trekking out when you don't need to. That fact should be recognized.
I generally didn't understand at all the bureaucratic trust issues in such a well-educated place where most people were trustworthy to start with.
Australia is super common for people to take sickies on fridays or mondays to get long weekends hence the request for mc. While tuesday-Thursday usually not required. Depends on the company tho. Singapore is more strict tho.
I assume PTO is personal time off? In Australia its called AL, or Annual Leave.
The problem is that people will have a huge party weekend then be hungover on Monday, or want to spend Friday getting the party started. And they decide this at the last minute, so they take a sickie instead of planning in advance. Often you cannot take AL ~1-2 weeks, you need to plan it out in advance.
I don't mind that Australia has 6 weeks of PTO (4 weeks holiday, 2 weeks sick), but I wish it was a little easier to combine the two. Some companies are very strict with sick leave not going into negative, so may get anstsy if you use too much. It would be nice if we had 6 weeks pooled. I also don't like that emplyoers can mandate the 1 week shut down over christmas too, which eats into your own leave.
> very strict with sick leave not going into negative
Why? Do they at least allow unpaid negative sick leave? Some surgeries and heart operations and things need a month to recover.
Pooling it IMO isn't always the best result. The problem is that the people who get sick a lot are the ones who also get a lot of work stress, the work stress compounds into more sickness due to lost sleep / lost vitamin D / etc., and they are actually the ones who need the holiday time the most. People who have zero health issues probably have good work life balance already, at least enough to get exercise, eat healthy, and sleep well, and although they too deserve holiday, they need it less than the people who are already exhibiting the symptoms of overworking (lots of body issues).
Especially in the US where many only have 2 weeks of paid leave, or in many cases, 0 weeks.
You can take leave its just not paid. IIrc you can take abscences of up to 12 months due to illness or inury unpaid, before they may be justified in letting you go.
Most jobs have at least:
4 weeks paid leave (annual)
2 weeks sick leave (which may require a note depending on company policy)
12 months parental leave for new/adoptive parents
6 weeks of Long service leave after 7 years, growing at the rate of roughly one week per year thereafter
In addition to this we have 13 days of public holiday
Coming from London, I find Singapore rather backwards in many areas - especially where tech has to intersect with culture or other industries. Compared to Japan and Germany they're ahead, of course, but everything in Singapore seems to involve a ton of paperwork and calling people. The country overall is _extremely_ bureaucratic.
Lots of things that in London would be buy online, same/next day delivery were, in Singapore, have an in person, shake some hands, sign a bunch of contracts and then wait two months for delivery. On the other hand, they have things like Sim Lim Square, which initially seemed like an anachronism to me (like Tottenham Court Road in the 90s), but then when contrasted to ecommerce situation there, I kind of understood it.
Paying for things was confusing, most shops had 3 or so readers for different payment systems, and sometimes things that were supposed to work didn't (e.g. Google Pay or NFC). The details are long and confusing and involve lots of acronyms like NETS, ENETS, EFTPOS, etc. but overall I wasn't impressed.
In fintech specifically (my area), their regulators have a bunch of rules that basically force you to do things the old fashioned way.
>Bank ATMs in Japan stop working between 6-9PM, and on weekends.
That's really not the case. It will of course vary by bank and by location.
Counter Example showing 4-24 hours availablity 7 days a week in Japanese:
http://map.bk.mufg.jp/b/bk_mufg/info/BA590467/
7-11's ATM is exceptionally well made ATM in Japan (in other words, others sucks). They correctly investigated UX, so they won't beep annoying sound and have Topre's numpad. Try it if you visit.
Yah. Well. The ATMs in Germany are often inacessible during the night. Because of vandalism, or something. So you have to search for one that is outside, and not in some closed self-service center. Even in large cities, or especially there, because potentially more vandalism.
edit: Or use some gas/fuel station, which would be the equivalent to 7-11, I guess. Which doesn't work with every station, btw. (I mean, getting cash.)
The broader "this" seems at the root of a lot of Japanese IT anachronisms.
Incredibly conservative culture (especially with regards to business hierarchy) + early social digitization = huge number of antiquated systems
The typical way things would finally get replaced in most companies ("If you're not migrated by X date, we're cutting it off, and your stuff will stop working") seems pretty anathema to Japanese corporate political expectations ("Don't make someone else look bad").
Or maybe some weird TRON thing? I know that Japan has some interesting and widespread-yet-exotic-for-us embedded things, some of which are bound to end up in their ATMs.
It sounds to me like a measure of conformity, because surely you now have to choose from a set of recommended handwriting styles that are considered "acceptable". By straying out of the standards, you're risking the subjective appreciation of the interviewer.
Do they test you on your handwriting during the interview to make sure that you wrote your resume? If they do, then it implies that they truly think that they can see something in how someone writes. If they don't then why not let the machine do it?
And France, believe it or not. Somehow the notion that penmanship, under professional scrutiny, can reveal enough about a person to influence a job interview or mental health wormed its way into French (probably a few other countries as well) culture and never apparently left. Despite having no or little scientific backing.
Then again, Americans seem to love personality tests like the Myers-Briggs in a similar way despite equally strong criticism of their utility.
I dunno i think its kinda cool. its not necessarily a bad thing to hold people to higher standards and have expectations of excellence in everything you do. that is part of the reason japan is such a nice place.
This sounds awful. I have terrible handwriting, and handwriting skills are entirely non-essential in my line of work. People would be tossing my resume because it's hard to read, even though it has no bearing on my ability to do the work I'm applying for.
Reminds me of Japan’s “Fifth Generation” initiative/boondoggle back in the 80s.
Apart from the sheer technical limitations of the age, it fell prey to structural limitations. For example I remember when visiting I talked with some programmers. Even there, the developers sat in rows of desks with the manager perpendicular at the end. I asked one why it was like working there and he said “It’s good, I only have to share my terminal with one person” (The terminals of course connected to a KL-20, so they had almost the state of the art equipment). So different from my office in the US where I had a lispm.
10 years later SCEI and Nintendo had a more relaxed, “US style” office, but the rest of the industry hadn’t caught up.
Today though Japan has a demographic need for a big move forward. I wonder if they will pull it off?
Japan could make it easier and more social acceptable for married women to work, but I know of no country that has been able to get its citizens to have more children, once they have been reduced (on the contrary, it seems the world over women are having fewer children in just about every country, as the economy of that country becomes more prosperous).
And of course any child not born, is also a child that does not grow up to have children.
> on the contrary, it seems the world over women are having fewer children in just about every country, as the economy of that country becomes more prosperous
An aspect that is missing from the Wikipedia article however is being able to afford moving out or having children - a problem that is really prevalent in the poorer EU countries (see e.g. https://www.handelszeitung.ch/panorama/hotel-mama-warum-jung...). When lots of young people are unemployed/underemployed and rents astronomical, they have to stay at their parents' home for very long time (in Croatia, average is 32 years). Hard to procreate when you don't have your own space and privacy to have sex in, and even harder to raise children in such conditions.
Many Western countries seem to have adopted immigration as a band-aid fix against employment vacancy (Germany recruits its healthcare staff from countries as far away as the Philippines ffs), but exploiting migrants isn't sustainable in the long term - the "brain drain" kills the origin countries slowly (good luck finding a nurse on the Balkans).
The real fix would be to improve on the conditions that parents need to have children: build affordable housing, (US specific) increase employment security by killing off "at will employment", raise minimum wages to a level where a single worker can feed a family on their wage, and provide assistance to parents.
> The real fix would be to improve on the conditions that parents need to have children
I hear this a lot, but have difficulty squaring that with observational evidence:
France for instance great employment security but is hovering at similar fertility with the US and UK (1.88 births/woman vs 1.73 US and 1.68 UK). The nordic countries are around the same (1.76 Sweden, 1.41 Finland). Singapore has gone through great lengths to try to raise fertility, having affordable housing and various social programs and government cheerleading, and it's at 1.14.
Maybe each of these cases have other factors, and maybe observational evidence is not right way to look at this. Is there other evidence of this path leading to more fertility?
A Japaneses salaryman has about the highest job security ever. Japan has not produced above 2 children per woman since the early 1970's[0].
I don't disagree with you that we need rent and housing to come down, but people who live in section 8 housing in the US are not known for having few children and if you raise the minimum wage too much, you are going to increase the number of people who are unemployed.
> Reminds me of Japan’s “Fifth Generation” initiative/boondoggle back in the 80s.
Same here, though for a somewhat different reason. The Japanese government has a penchant for buzzword-driven policy initiatives, where a particular term—such as Fifth Generation, globalization, or this Society 5.0–represents some policy focus and organizations seeking government funding make that buzzword prominent in their funding applications and publicity. SDGs (sustainable development goals) seems to be the biggest government-driven buzzword in Japan right now—even elementary school children are being taught about them. I wonder how long that will last.
In the USA: WPA, Atomic bomb, Moon landing, and most successfully development of the Military Industrial Complex, exultation of the military (integration into Hollywood, professional sports etc) coupled with the forever war system to channel taxpayer funds to friends in a way that cannot be unwound. It's hard to understand the public attitude towards the US military 1780s-1960s if you only know the 180° position from the mid 1980s onward.
Great Leap Forward? Electrification of the Soviet Union? Elimination of the smallpox virus?
Arguably the Cultural Revolution and, to a lesser extent the restructuring of German culture in the 1930s were extremely "successful" in that they accomplished their putative goals, and also had led to long term changes in those societies, though fortunately not the long term changes intended by their instigators.
No one thinks deeply about the meaning of stories. They just like including pop cultural references.
When the U.S. military creates an advanced android soldier there is a 100% chance it will unironically be called "Project Terminator" at some point in its development.
That’s all well and good but IMO this isn’t inspiring any confidence. Japanese companies make some incredible tech that never finds its way off the showroom floor. And worse, There’s little interest in marketing their technologies to foreign firms.
I wish there was more in this plan to attract foreign talent, and offer easier access to investment for individual entrepreneurs.
Agreed. From my perspective, the Japanese are so hostile to foreigners/immigrants that it's borderline xenophobia. I'm not seeing a way forward for them as a technological power again until they first address some of their social issues. It's like someone wanting to become a marathon runner while refusing to quit smoking cigarettes.
> I'm not seeing a way forward for them as a technological power again until they first address some of their social issues
Japan closed its borders for a period of 214 years known as Sakoku 鎖国.
The collapse of the Shogunate was because Samurais lived off tax revenue on farmers, while the wealthy merchants ( who were the the lowest in the class system) were not directly taxed because commerce was viewed as an immoral activity.
After World War II, Japan became insular and focused on improving domestically, and almost became the superpower.
I don't think they care about being the financial superpower if it means having to give up the very thing which makes them great ( tradition ). It's a very American ideal / virtue to treat financial wealth as the ultimate goal ( ironically not necessarily the highest standard of living ). Modern China on the hand is more willing to import ideas. That said, during the Meiji restoration where Japan rapidly industrialized, one of the mottos was 'western technology, Japanese spirit'. Covid-19 has barred out foreigners which means less tourist revenue, but my impression is that tourist revenue was a 'nice to have' since they're here anyways. Only a small minority of business owners in Kyoto have indicated to me they actively want tourists back.
Japan's preservation of its tradition and culture is two faceted. Unfortunately, you can't pick and choose the things you think is backwards about Japan while admiring their tradition. It's a bundle.
It's important to note that part of what contributed to Sakoku was overzealous missionaries destabilizing Japanese society. Makes you wonder if there is a modern equivalent overzealous belief system in the west that has caused country after country to to fall into revolution and disarray.
Christianity and the two colonial powers it was most strongly associated with were seen as genuine threats by the Tokugawa bakuf... Religious challenges to central authority were taken seriously by the bakufu as ecclesiastical challenges by armed Buddhist monks were common during the sengoku period. The Empress Meishō (1624–96) also had grave doubts when she heard about how the Spanish and Portuguese were settling in the New World, and thought that Japan would soon become one of the many countries in their possession.
Protestant English and Dutch traders reinforced this perception by accusing the Spanish and Portuguese missionaries of spreading the religion systematically, as part of a claimed policy of culturally dominating and colonizing Asian countries. The Dutch and English were generally seen by the Japanese to be able to separate religion and trade, while their Iberian counterparts were looked upon with much suspicion. The Dutch, eager to take over trade from the Spanish and Portuguese, had no problems reinforcing this view. The number of Christians in Japan had been steadily rising due to the efforts of missionaries, such as Francis Xavier and daimyō converts. The direct trigger which is said to have spurred the imposition of sakoku was the Shimabara Rebellion of 1637–38, an uprising of 40,000 mostly Christian peasants.
> Makes you wonder if there is a modern equivalent overzealous belief system in the west that has caused country after country to to fall into revolution and disarray.
> Makes you wonder if there is a modern equivalent overzealous belief system in the west that has caused country after country to to fall into revolution and disarray.
>the Japanese are so hostile to foreigners/immigrants that it's borderline xenophobia.
That's not been my experience over the previous six years I've lived here. Initially I had a company sponsor me for a work visa but I've now got two relatively straightforward paths towards PR if I want it. Locals have been very accommodating and have bent over backwards to help me integrate into this society - that even includes the older generations.
I've personally found the older people to be the most friendly. That was one of the biggest surprises. Not sure how much of that is older people just being happier in general. This could totally be biased as the older people I interact with are either in a service role, or a wealthier traveler, which may be more friendly than the general population.
It's refreshing to see other foreigners not feel bitter about Japan. The subreddit of foreigners in Japan feels like a cesspool of people with this dogmatic view that Japan isn't like their home country
It's been a mix for me. One time I accidentally lost my paper ticket for the metro before I had gotten a Suica, and an older gentleman hanging out with friends near the ticket gates went and bought a new ticket outside for me to put into the reader so it'd let me out.
On the other hand, I've met a plethora of young people who've become friends I meet and stay in touch with.
Heh, fair enough! Can't say that opportunity has quite presented itself yet but one of these days I'm sure it'll happen.
Honestly the funniest experience I had with culture clash was one day at a hotel I stayed at in Takasaki. I got in an elevator occupied by a young family. As soon as I walked in, the little girl, maybe 6 or 7 years old, just dropped her mouth open, completely gaping at me the whole time we rode the elevator.
Probably not too surprising, assuming they're from Gunma or a similar prefecture that doesn't see as many foreigners.
>Not sure how much of that is older people just being happier in general.
That's the vibe I've been getting which did come as a surprise. I think the movies I watched (both Hollywood and Japanese) do a disservice to them - especially the ojiisan's.
My experience, and that of my colleagues, has been the opposite, and I'm a walking mess of a man when not at work. I have made very high quality friendships with Japanese people and the average Joe isn't any more racist than people in the US, I'd dare say they are a lot less racist than people was in Spain. They dislike illegal immigrants like most countries do, and tourists that think Japan is like an anime and they can go around groping waitresses or making a spectacle in the middle of busy crossroads. Anything else you can think of is nothing the general populace partakes into, blame who you need to blame. It's like saying every Chinese person is in line with the CPP's interests, that's nonsense.
I never understood why Japan of all places is so demonized online. It's far, FAR from a perfect country, but most people just do their non-outrageous, boring life things. There are no used panties vending machines littering the streets, not everyone is obsessed with cute things, there are no child wives everywhere and there are no game shows where guys fuck their female relatives. With every other country there are at least people calling this stuff out, but when it's Japan everyone just accepts the fabricated or misunderstood article at face value and goes "oh Japan you are so wacky/xenophobic" or even "Two nukes weren't enough" (I swear this comes up more often than it's comfortable, I'm not making this up).
If anything I get the impression that people is very racist against Japan.
I've worked in Asia and I know quite a few foreigners who worked in Japan and the country is still very xenophobic. It is still common for say, landlords to flatout not rent out to foreigners. I've heard numbers like 20%-30% thrown around. There's also still "Japanese only" bars, sometimes with that literal sign on the door. You'd be very hard pressed to find that attitude even among very nativist Europeans or Americans.
Japan also still virtually has no legal protection against this kind of stuff, discrimination of that type is often not being prevented.
That said a lot of the younger Japanese don't share these attitudes. Large cities are more diverse than they were 20 years ago.
I don't know, I was very foreigner and I stick out like a sore thumb (you could probably spot me from satellite photos in a busy street), and I had absolutely no issues finding rent, banking and all other services outside of obtuse language. Other English speakers I met around never had issues with it either, including other Asians and even people of color (who you'd think would be affected a lot, but Japan's actual racism is very targeted to their neighbors, not unlike everywhere else I've been at).
It seems to me nobody has any problem with you if you make a minimal attempt at speaking using Japanese (most of them don't understand English at all and that puts them "on the spot", and while you can find some who are adept at Spanish and Italian and other languages you'd never expect, by raw statistics you aren't going to meet one of those in the streets if you are asking for directions or something). They seem to be pretty reasonable about it if you suck or make mistakes, but they seem to really value the effort.
About the bars, I never pried too much, but I was told it was Yakuza hangouts and I probably don't want to go in there anyway. I don't think locals are welcomed either. Not sure if they were messing with me or not, but to be honest they didn't look like a place I would have fun into if I was magically accepted. None of the actually fun places seemed to have an issue having me or my colleagues as patrons.
I have far more people checking me out while shopping like if I was a shoplifter, giving me weird looks, troubling me with paperwork and rent, trying to charge me more in restaurants or shops, and generally making me feel unwelcomed when I am in Spain. And I was born there! (I did lose the accent and I don't look very "typical" so they think I'm British or American).
Yesterday I learned about the case of Michael P. Fay that left a strain on US-Singapore relations.
Michael Fay was an American who was sentenced to caning by the Singaporean court. The United States felt this practice archaic. One of Singapore's senior ministers responded: "If you like it this way, that is your problem. But, that is not the path we choose"
FWIW, I remember this case well when it was in the news, and saying it "left a strain on US-Singapore relations" is a bit of a stretch.
Most importantly, there were plenty of Americans, I'd bet a majority, that agreed with Singapore. Not necessarily that we want caning in the US, but more that this boy didn't deserve any special treatment just because he was American.
To me it felt like the media (and, in fairness, the boy's parents) were really trying to play this up because it had the elements of a good story.
It's hard for people in the US to completely respect this. Just look at US attitudes towards China. From our perspective some of the things China does are Atrocious, but from the Chinese perspective it's just normal enforcement of rules from a central regime for the betterment of society.
Essentially US cultural standards mark certain behaviors as horrible in the same way Muslim countries think women wearing a bikini is a crime. Very hard to change the way we think and arguably maybe we shouldn't change the way we think.
A native-Japanese-turned-US-citizen colleague once told me that career advancement is slow, because you pay dues with time, not accomplishments. Also, family matters in business. So, if we apply that one bit of knowledge I have, I can imagine newcomers from overseas are not pushed against because they are from another country, they might just chafe the traditions. Culture clash.
>the Japanese are so hostile to foreigners/immigrants that it's borderline xenophobia
Have you ever actually visited Japan?
If so, how do you usually behave?
I'm white and haven't really had a single negative experience. I've also made several friends who are incredibly friendly, keep in touch, etc.
When I've been lost, random Japanese citizens, not even government officials, have helped me find my way, even taking me over a block away from where they were to make sure I found what I was looking for.
Occasionally there are glances and stares but I'd definitely not classify that as "hostile".
Not the person you replied to but I've been to Japan twice, with different people, each for a month across Honshu/Kyushu and can definitely say there's a duality in how they behave towards foreigners...
On one hand, as you mention, we experienced lots of acts of politeness, as I would put it, e.g., being helped to find some location as in your example, being helped to understand some menu dishes when I couldn't decipher them (I had at most intermediate level of Japanese), being bowed to upon entering hotels, ryokans, etc.
On the other hand, we also experienced straight up nasty behaviour, e.g., someone standing up and leaving the train wagon when we sat next to him (and then reentering through the next door and sitting far away from us), being forbidden from entering a bar because of being foreigners (despite the fact I can speak Japanese, not great admittedly, but more than sufficient to order, pay, etc.).
When talking with people from my country settled there the common negative theme is "you'll never be accepted/treated as one of them".
>On the other hand, we also experienced straight up nasty behaviour, e.g., someone standing up and leaving the train wagon when we sat next to him (and then reentering through the next door and sitting far away from us), being forbidden from entering a bar because of being foreigners (despite the fact I can speak Japanese, not great admittedly, but more than sufficient to order, pay, etc.).
Sure, I observed some of these things and didn't always feel comfortable about it. But I wouldn't consider them hostile. The way I was told, some of the things about bars not allowing foreigners is more that they get booked for post-work drinking parties. Maybe that's not always the real explanation, but I realized it wasn't a big deal. If you're in a large city like Tokyo, Sapporo, or Kyoto, there are bars and restaurants everywhere, just move on to the next one.
As far as people coming and going out of trains or not sitting next to you, yeah, I had that happen. But I'd be lying if I said I've never observed or even done the same thing here in the US.
The train situation is not "we were sat down --> he entered the train --> he decided not to sit down next to us and sat elsewhere", but "he was sat down --> we entered the train and sat close to him (not literally next to him, just close) --> he stood up, exited the train through the closest door, entered the train again through a different door and sat further away from us" which is a WTF situation in my opinion.
The bar banning foreigners is not just hostile but also illegal in many other countries, if you try that shit in the UK, Germany, or Spain (I can speak from experience having lived there, but I guess it wouldn't fly in the US either?) they'll shut down your venue and possibly fine you.
But that's not a hostile situation. He didn't engage you at all.
He felt uncomfortable and moved away. Maybe over-dramatically, but it didn't cause you or anyone else, including himself, any harm. Again, I encountered this behavior too. It made me feel uncomfortable, but it was understandable. Some people just don't feel comfortable. Honestly I'd rather someone do something to feel more comfortable than let me invade their space and bother them.
Not sure on the rules in the US, but bars and restaurants can certainly restrict people from entering for various reasons.
I believe we are interpreting hostile differently because for me it doesn't necessarily imply actively antagonistic or harmful, it can simply mean inhospitable/unfriendly and that to me is a textbook situation.
Here there are also situations where they can refuse entry/service, e.g., you're not wearing tshirt and shoes, or you're drunk and belligerent, but certainly not because of your race, sex, gender, etc.
In any case, to avoid going back and forth on the same topic, I reiterate that my personal experience (and my 2 friends from the first trip, and my partner from the second) was that although we had wonderful experiences with Japanese people that made us feel generally welcome as tourists, we were left with the impression that if we already had issues like those I wrote about what other problems someone living there permanently could encounter (maybe problems when renting, dating, etc.)
I loved visiting Japan, it's the most unique/different of all countries I've been to, but the bittersweet taste it left in me took away any desire to look for jobs there when I left Germany (not my country of origin either).
That's kind of ironic. Funnily enough, one respect in which Japan is less xenophobic than Germany is the total absence of terrorists and serial killers that target immigrants or any incidences of mob violence like the 2018 Chemnitz riots. I'm sure you've heard of the NSU-Mordserie—or have you?
>In December 2018, five German police officers were suspended from their posts after Seda Basay-Yildiz, a Turkish-German lawyer who had defended the family of one of the victims of the NSU, was faxed a death threat against her two-year-old daughter. The fax was signed "NSU 2.0". An investigation concluded that, just before the fax was sent, a Frankfurt police computer had accessed a confidential database to obtain Basay-Yildiz's address. The phones of the police officers who were on duty at the moment were confiscated, and it was found that many were exchanging racist and far-right messages in a group chat, and posting pictures of Hitler and swastikas.
It seems a little crazy to me that you were perfectly willing to live and work in a country where agents of the state fax death threats to two-year olds in the name of a Nazi terrorist group, but a guy standing up when you enter a train is so xenophobic that even living in the country, like millions of foreigners happily do, is just unthinkable. Know what I'm saying?
There are foreigners who have good reason to avoid Japan, namely indentured workers from southeast Asia. Something tells me that a guy who used to work in Germany and posts on Hacker News is not going to suffer the same problems that they do.
I mean, Germany is not void of issues, or the UK, where I currently reside, or any other country really...
But comparing my example with the NSU makes no sense to me, the NSU is comparable with Aum Shinrikyo (the Japanese cult that caused the sarin attack back in the 90s) in the sense that they both have/had negligible memberships compared to the countries population, i.e., a few hundreds or couple thousands members, so I don't think in either case you can generalise the behaviour of German or Japanese citizens from the existence of 100 or 1000 pieces of shit human beings.
Japan's immigration percentage is also massively different (~2%) from that of Germany, Spain, UK, or USA (each ~15%) and I'm sure that has an impact on the attitude towards foreigners too.
I completely agree though that the issues I may run into in Japan are probably going to be different and possibly less severe than those that eastern/southeastern asian people or dark-skinned people may face.
People invoke Aum Shinrikyō all the time to draw conclusions about the condition of Japan at the time and the wider sociological forces that led to its rise. People invoke the existence of the tiniest, most fringe right-wing groups to draw conclusions about Japanese attitudes as well.
But I'm not even claiming the NSU, or even its allies in the state apparatus, are representative of the attitude of the average German, which are of course very liberal by historical standards—what I'm saying is that despite Germany being a country where the police forces are penetrated by Nazis operating in coordination with murderous terrorists and where right-wing groups were able to mobilize a riot with thousands of participants in Chemnitz alone, none of that stops millions of immigrants from leading peaceful, happy lives in Germany, despite the real, even violent, dangers that some of them face.
In comparison, a stranger not wanting to sit next to you on a train sounds like a very trivial problem—a very first-world problem. And yet, it's enough to cause you to dismiss Japan entirely as some inhospitably xenophobic society, even though there are immigrant communities in the countries that you've lived in who can complain about much worse. I'm sure you've seen the videos of people screaming racist abuse at passengers on the Tube—would it be fair to conclude that Britain is so hostile to immigrants that I shouldn't even consider living or working there?
My contention is simply that the experiences you've described are hardly adequate to demonstrate that Japan is uniquely or exceptionally xenophobic, and it's bizarre to conclude from that alone that it would be difficult to establish a happy life there.
Again my point with Aum is that, like NSU, they're microscopic in terms of percentage of population (NSU membership being 0.0002% of Germany, Aum being 0.001% of Japan) so it's missing the point of discussing behaviours that may encompass a more substantial percentage of each society.
The bar example is way worse than the train example, to the point I already mentioned that said behaviour is illegal in the European countries I've lived in; and I only described two examples as I didn't feel like writing a whole essay on the good and bad, but those certainly weren't the only issues we faced (nothing as severe as death threats or whatever, but enough to make me not want to settle there).
Anyway, I'm pausing this here; hopefully you're not arguing on bad faith, but it's clear this conversation isn't going anywhere productive anymore...
There is a type of hostility which is very polite and bureaucratic hostility, the kind encoded in immigration laws and policing... but executed politely.
For example, in a dispute with a Japanese person, the police are pretty famous for making foreigners second class citizens. I'm sure they're polite about it though.
Also a lot of casual disparaging remarks at Chinese and Koreans, along the lines of stereotypes in the US about people from Mexico, perhaps because a similar dynamic exists with illegal immigration.
Compared to what other Asian technological power? Japan at least has a pathway to citizenship for foreigners, China does not. In China if you're Elon Musk you might get an offer of permanent residence or if you're well-connected to the party, but regardless they are not a nation of immigrants(their words, not mine) and they're doing fine.
It's not impossible for a foreigner to become a Chinese citizen but for most people it's not particularly attractive because you have to renounce your original citizenship. Since the passport isn't particularly strong at the moment that would mean you most likely need to go through an annoying visa process just to visit your home country.
The Minister of Justice may permit the naturalization of an alien notwithstanding that the alien does not fulfill the condition set forth in item (1) of paragraph 1 of the last preceding Article, provided that the said alien falls under any one of the following items, and is presently domiciled in Japan:
(1) One who has had a domicile or residence in Japan for three consecutive years or more and who is the child of a person who was a Japanese national (excluding a child by adoption);
(2) One who was born in Japan and who has had a domicile or residence in Japan for three consecutive years or more, or whose father or mother (excluding father and mother by adoption) was born in Japan;
(3) One who has had a residence in Japan for ten consecutive years or more.
There was a longtime member of of the Diet of Japan who was born in Finland and is of pure Finnish ancestry. He became a naturalized Japanese citizen in 1979.
Seriously, where do you people even come up with this bullshit? Where do you summon the confidence to state these easily disproven falsehoods about a country that you don't have the slightest clue about?
ok, so it happened to 1 guy, and it was such a novel thing that you happen to know about it because its an interesting factoid. it's not common. realistically it's impossible for most people. I know someone who is white, born in japan, has lived there for 40+ years, native japanese speaker and she does not have citizenship.
my wife and extended family are japanese. she is actually half japanese, so i get a special view of all the weird racism embedded into their society. she even has citzenship as well as my kids, but she still is not treated as japanese because of her appearance.
That's just false. Becoming a Japanese citizen isn't harder than being a permanent resident and in some cases it's easier (https://www.turning-japanese.info/2010/07/faq-which-is-more-...). The most common thing is that people don't want to become Japanese citizens because it requires giving up their native citizenship and the benefits of permanent residency is basically equivalent to that of citizenship (other than voting).
No, it happens to a bunch of people, I just chose the guy who has a Wikipedia article so you can't claim I'm fabricating an anecdote.
>she does not have citizenship
That tells us nothing. Has she tried applying for citizenship and was rejected or does she just not want it? The approval rate for naturalization requests is upwards of 95%, by the way, above that of the United States even.
You have a Japanese wife? That's nice. I'm actually Japanese and live in Japan. I think I have some authority on this topic as well.
the point is my wife is half, born in japan with citizenship, and as a result gets exposed to all kinds of edge cases that you yourself wouldnt experience or be aware of. the xenophobic tendencies of japan are well known, its disingenuous to downplay them. stuff like Atsugiri Jason is basically a minstrel show. a white guy with japanese citizenship will never get the same treatment as someone "actually japanese" like you. personally that doesnt bother me at all, im aware that im not japanese, but it sucks seeing my wife treated differently because she doesnt look full japanese.
The US is notably the most immigrant-friendly country in the world*, and has been since 1965. Birthright citizenship is unheard of in most of the world, but it's a constitutional right in America. Even skilled workers have a fair shot in America, but I do personally think it should be easier and more flexible than the H1B system we have today. More immigrants of all kinds are good for this country.
You’re correct, I do think Canada is going to continue to be a major competitor in this regard. They do have a lot of our advantages here with a more skills-focused immigration policy.
I know somebody who was highly skilled who spent years trying to get permanent residency in the USA, but gave up, moved to Canada, and got it almost immediately.
I know people who spend a few years working remotely for a US company while 'waiting their turn' to be able to actually go to US.
Meanwhile I got invited to apply for a provincial process (Canada) while still living in Brazil, and both processes (provincial nomination + permanent residency) were easy, transparent, and I guess quick?
I sure do love my Ryobi tools. They have a hobby-user engineering and price point, and features for people who are bad with tools, like myself. Some plastic makes it light / cheap. Brushed motors because of the lighter workload. Plenty of guide lights that you don't find on Dewalt. Half the price.
Hell, the Toyota Tundra is one of the best loved pickups around. It feels like a Ryobi pickup: For the light workload, probably urban, non-career-hauler.
I'm pretty sure Ryobi just licenses their name, and the tools are designed/made by Hong Kong's Techtronics. I don't think you can even buy Ryobi tools in Japan.
I've had the opposite experience with one of the largest ISPs in Japan. We were supposed to have a lucrative deal between both companies but our side fucked up. Instead of a polished working product, it didn't pass basic tests by their engineers. Nonetheless, we were given a few opportunities to remedy the problem.
I don't know what society 5.0 means[1] in practice, but after faltering a few decades, it's good to see them publicly redouble their efforts into science and technology. I'm excited to see what their sea exploration/exploitation technology delivers.
[1]"a human-centered society [helped] by a system that highly integrates cyberspace and physical space,"
> but after faltering a few decades, it's good to see them publicly redouble their efforts into science and technology
If the faltering you're referring to is deflation and economic stagnation over the past three decades, the biggest issue now is population decline ( due also in part to the decades of deflation, and 1.5 generations developing a habit / culture of saving ). Science and Technology is good, and maybe both issues should be addressed, but I'm curious whether a push for STEM is a distraction from these potentially even harder problem
They may no have reached population equilibrium yet. Does Japan have to exist at 115MM people? Maybe it's viable at 50MM. Same for everyone else. Does the US have to have 330MM, or can we be okay with 250MM, or China at 750MM, etc.
Declining pops diminish the need for expansionism and internal unrest. Less fighting over limited resources.
I think this switch from supporting an always-growing economy to one that one whose population numbers are in relative stasis will be the biggest challenge of this century. It's something we've never encountered as a global civilization. And I think it could break said civilization.
> It's something we've never encountered as a global civilization
I'm not sure what that means. There have been periods of population stagnation in continent-size swaths of land before.
Culturally speaking, stagnation has effectively been "official policy" in Europe for centuries, before the XIX/XX century changes. It ended simply because technological advance by growing societies made it culturally unsustainable to pursue ideals of eternal stagnation. If you don't grow, somebody else will and eventually they will show up at your door. This is also the case of Japan, btw. They were effectively forced to grow and progress by foreigners demonstrating military power and tech that they could not match. If they stagnate too much, they are at serious risk of somebody else (China) doing it to them again.
If you think a global policy of stagnation would not have such drawbacks, you're effectively stating that no interplanetary species will ever show up at our door with big guns, ever. That's kind of a big gamble.
>This is also the case of Japan, btw. They were effectively forced to grow and progress by foreigners demonstrating military power and tech that they could not match.
Yes, war gets rid of the surplus population and wealth, forcing a rebuilding of society in terms of economics and population. Of course it would be smarter to just give the surplus population something to do even if it is not the most effective use of the surplus population. After all, that is still better than having no surplus at all.
It’ll be rough no doubt, but the Black Death didn’t break civilization, and it was a much more drastic population reduction.
I do wonder how we will accomplish really big projects, such as properly decommissioning nuclear power facilities, with a reduced population. All of the models for licensing and re-licensing reactors assume population growth, and doing it wrong or neglecting it could lead to some really fucked up situations.
The "always growing" part, I think has a lot to do with the stock markets and public companies. Private companies can go up and down, expand and contract (it's not painless of course). But a lot of this is due to expectations.
Society can adjust if it's allowed. Before the 1900s old people didn't retire (unless they were wealthy and never actually did hard work). Maybe we need to rid ourselves of the idea of living idly with golfcourses and driving an RV all over the country and instead to add to the household, if in diminishing amounts as one ages.
We’ll be better off as a species if we find a natural stable state, but that doesn’t mean that getting there will be a good experience for everyone.
Shrinking populations in particular puts a lot of strain on workers to support a larger elderly population. The more rapid the decline, the worse the strain is.
>Shrinking populations in particular puts a lot of strain on workers to support a larger elderly population. The more rapid the decline, the worse the strain is.
It's the exact opposite. There will be a strain on the large elderly population that dies alone while workers get large salaries paid by all the wealthy old people.
We would be much better off as a species if we were able to handle the transition to a stable state. On the other hand, population growth is what allows us the enormous specialization that lets us achieve unbelievable technological feats while also wasting time during work on HN.
There are enormous amounts of people who don't add to innovation. Very few people are needed for innovation. Most people even on HN are doing routine things. Not discovery or in support of discovery. Most people's minds are not being taxed -and that's okay. That's to say, having millions of idle minds to produce one very productive mind isn't a requirement. I think this initiative could be part of this solution where we need fewer raw numbers but more productive percentages.
Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who comes out, and that's very much a numbers game of getting as many entrants as possible.
Second, the trail of supporting cast for any technological development is enormous, and we're making a huge mistake when we forget that. Not just the people who clean the streets and the buildings, but the people who build them, design them, maintain them, create the organizational and financial structures that keep them operating, and so on. And a few of those roles aren't very low end, just to keep the static pieces of the built environment from falling apart, just so you can get to the point where there's somewhere to live for the people fixing bugs and writing documentation for the the libraries you want to use multiple times a day, quite likely for free, without asking anyone for them or even giving a second thought. And it's not like those were written for you: there are dozens of implementations in as many languages, just waiting to be picked up. Things get massively more difficult for you if those tools are being produced for you specifically (that's what military procurement projects tend to have.)
That obviously does nowhere near justice to even a simple software project. Now take that x1000 for any hardware project, where the raw materials, processing, and logistics circle the globe several times on their way to you.
> Two things: first, without having a recipe for very productive people, our best option is fostering fertile environments for development and then seeing who comes out, and that's very much a numbers game of getting as many entrants as possible.
I don't see the connection. Why do you need to get many entrants as possible? Why not do the obvious thing and create those fertile environments instead of letting random chance decide everything? All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter. No matter how difficult you make it for fertile environments to exist a higher population will always cancel it out.
> All I am seeing here is the argument that given a high enough population fertile environments don't matter.
This is the exact opposite of what I read GP to say. They were making the point that for every “genius” driving innovation, there is a long trail of people necessary to support and foster such innovation. This is not an “innovation by numbers” argument.
You need as many entrants in those fertile environments as possible because humans and societies are complex, leading to unpredictable outcomes as results of factors that anyone raising kids may have discounted, not known about, or been unable to measure. You can't just make a perfect path and then get exactly the super-offspring you want. Thinking you can is literally the founding story of Buddhism (not discounting the significance of Buddhism, but his father was shooting for a perfect ruler, not an enlightened-but-impoverished visionary.)
Edit to add: A side effect of all those people just barely going astray is that you get improvements in thought and technology across a span of many fields, which in turn brings future great achievements nearer to our reach.
Considering the current state of the economy there is a huge surplus of people that aren't needed for anything. It's clearly not a numbers thing. You could probably beat population growth by much faster allocation growth.
These are the people for whom the $600/wk covid unemployment in the US has been disastrous.
I visited my rural hometown last week, and the normally-occupied (though I wouldn't call it busy) downtown was empty. Of the 4 worthwhile restaurants, 1 was open, 2 kept narrow operating hours because of staffing problems, and the 4th was unexpectedly closed because of staffing problems that day. The prices at all the restaurants was quite out of character with the area, even accounting for the general inflation that has been pervasive this year.
It's apparent to me that the town has been largely priced out of having local restaurants by expanded unemployment benefits. Those that remain serve dinner 4 times a week. And it's unclear to me how people who were working for low wages are better off having any clear way to serve their community.
All that to say, "not needed for anything" needs many qualifiers.
This argument always makes me nervous, as it implies that someone somewhere will decide which people “aren’t needed” and therefore shouldn’t get resources. Nothing good lies down that road.
>Declining pops diminish the need for expansionism and internal unrest. Less fighting over limited resources.
This is probably true, but the problem is that its logical conclusion is the literal death of everyone. Stop anywhere short of that, and people will return to the point where they're no longer too preoccupied with avoiding imminent death to compete for resources. At that point, the less fighting is unlikely to be less per capita, and the only good thing to say will be that technology will have regressed so far that we won't be able to fight and kill very efficiently.
Sure the US could probably exist with 250MM people, in the sense that there are certainly countries which are smaller than that which are doing well. But the path to get there would be shockingly painful and result in a huge decrease to the average quality of life. The path to get to 500MM or 1B people on the other hand would bring about a huge increase to the average quality of life. You have it backwards thinking that life is better if the population shrinks.
This is getting into a whole other can of worms but I firmly believe the most moral path for the US to aim for is the latter.
Could we? Maybe. I don't think we want to. Not the way we consume our resources. We already have water issues in much of the country when there is a drought.
We do not need that many people. The planet does not need it. We need to learn to live with less and without never ending growth.
Just as we target the 1990s or some other period for C02 production, we should do the same for population stabilization. A couple of droughts here and there (as we used to suffer from in the past) and we'll have massive hunger and famine problems.
We need slack in the system for safety. We cannot operate at the limits and not expect catastrophes.
Peak water use in the US was decades ago and isn't related to population growth, nor does economic growth require increased resource use. It requires efficiency.
Degrowth is just killing people, in which case the people proposing it rarely want to go first.
It does because the people left alive will be old and need medical care, and you won't have any healthcare workers.
That and you'll increase inequality which will cause people to kick you out and elect fascists.
(One reason for the California housing crisis is that 70s degrowth/pastoralist environmentalists thought it would encourage population decline if no-one could afford to buy a house and have children.)
Economic stagnation, caused by population decline in the absence of robust productivity growth, leads to social problems and the so-called "deaths of despair" in the US. Haven't seen statistics on elsewhere.
> We do not need that many people. The planet does not need it. We need to learn to live with less and without never ending growth.
This is where I really think it gets into the grounds of a moral or philosophical argument. Life without this neverending economic growth is nasty, brutish, and short. We would never have advanced modern medicine, increased lifespans, or invented any of the conveniences we all use every day without it. There are no systems other than broad economic/productivity growth that have ever worked on a large scale for improving the living conditions for humanity. And we still have a long way to go to make life better for the poorest communities around the world. Denying this type of progress to future generations of humans, for a purely aesthetic reason such as we're comfortable enough today in our upper middle class lifestyles and we just kind of feel like we don't need more people around, is unconscionable.
There is plenty of water on the earth, and capacity for clean energy production, it's just a question of how do we harness it effectively while mitigating the downsides. I'm all for making some short term sacrifices and paying some costs now to avoid the worst of climate change, but that does not mean accepting that the future for humanity should be degrowth.
The issue with Japan is not specifically the decline nor absolute level of overall population. It's rather the demographic makeup which is shifting older. The next few decades will be increasingly difficult for them as their economy will need to support a larger level of retirees.
https://www.populationpyramid.net/japan/2019/
> The next few decades will be increasingly difficult for them as their economy will need to support a larger level of retirees.
How do you come up with this stupid idea? Japan has deflation and slow growth because of demographics, meaning the economic problem is the exact opposite. Old people spend very little money, meaning they need very little support to take care of them. The economy is dying because those old people don't spend their money, resulting in surplus workers that can't find well paying jobs who then subsequently drop out of the labor market. If old people somehow spent all their life savings on medical bills to stay alive for one more year then a lot of young people would end up getting that money.
Those young people have a whole life time of earning money ahead of them. It's only when you deny them the ability to earn that money that they suffer. Full employment will just create more demand for increases in productivity which then results in greater increases in productivity than one would expect if there wasn't urgency.
> As of 2019 Japan's unemployment rate was the lowest in the G7.
> Japan is now facing a shortage of labor caused by two major demographic problems: shrinking population because of a low fertility rate, which was 1.4 per woman in 2009, and replacement of the postwar generation which is the biggest population range who are now around retirement age.
That's the usual specter; however, before modern times, populations grew and shrank for many reasons. Once people were out of the weeds from childhood disease, people lived reasonably long lives.
One big difference now is people expect to "retire". That's a modern construct. Sure, people used to add less and less to society as they aged and ultimately would need some subsidy, but much less than today.
My understanding is that the issue with declining population is that typically that also means an aging population. Younger people are not having children which causes a whole slew of issues.
What you've described is the best-cast scenario of an aging population.
Far worse is the modern reality in most places, which is systems that take growth and a certain demographic shape as base assumptions, and then make promises to people decades in advance based on those promises. That's what we do in the United States (and probably most places, but I won't speculate.)
> If the faltering you're referring to is deflation and economic stagnation over the past three decades
And yet they have a high standard of living, some of the top health metric on the planet, and low unemployment. If you look at GDP per working-age adult, they've grow at the same rate of the US:
And that's why I took a 60% salary cut to live in Japan.
> low unemployment
I don't think Japan having lower unemployment than other developed countries is an indicator that other countries are worst off. A part of the employment rate is due to cultural reasons. There are people who can afford not to work, but choose to work anyways.
> some of the top health metric on the planet
The Japanese eat less processed food, eat moderate portions, use public transportation which involves a fair amount of walking, and just take more sanitary measures such as wearing a mask and washing hands.
After a certain economic level, this is also a cultural phenomenon.
> A lot of places would be very happy to have that kind of "faltering"
It doesn't change the fact that Japan was going to be the global superpower, until it didn't. Deflation is a fact.
A lot of places would be very happy to have the American standard of living even during 07-08 recession, but that doesn't change the fact that it was a setback.
STEM could solve this problem if you could automate all the low value stuff and use the humans for higher economic value tasks, but it is uncertain whether you can educationally get all people up to that level.
> it is uncertain whether you can educationally get all people up to that level.
Japan has one of the most educated populace.
> use the humans for higher economic value tasks
People are under-employed.
There is also the social expectation that people work hard, so it's not obvious to me if universal basic income would be well received, even by the people who would benefit from it.
> STEM could solve this problem if you could automate all the low value stuff
Japan has access to cheap labor in neighboring southeast asian countries. Many of the workers at the convenient store are from Vietnam, Philippines, Turkey.
Tim O'Reilly wrote a seminal paper about the "Web 2.0" in 2005 [1]. I remember reading it and it truly was an influential masterpiece "one of it's kind". Since then cohorts of much less important groups keep counting up and releasing things echoing Tim's "2.0", e.g. "Industry 4.0"
From a time line perspective we seem to have reached "5.0". This time with the prefix "Society".
> At the capital's iconic 634-meter Tokyo Skytree, over 200 items are being exhibited as examples of Japan-born innovation
Tokyo Skytree is part of the 'All-Japan Tower Association' franchise of 20 observation decks around Japan. One of the observation decks I went to in Fukuoka didn't have commercial or residential units, and appeared to be purely an observation deck and one sad little cafe.
Observation deck tickets in Japan are an order of magnitude cheaper than the observation decks in the states, which makes me curious how the economics work out. With notable exceptions such as the Space Needle which was built for the World Fair, most observation decks in the states are in skyscrapers that are developed with luxury real estate.
Maybe not coincidentally, Fukuoka tower was finished in 1989 in the midst of the Japan asset bubble, which succeeded a period of opulence and hedonism with the anticipation at the time that Japan would be the global superpower, until it didn't.
I believe the same company owns a decent amount of train stations and routes. The skytree was a way to get more traffic to a less-traveled station, and it worked like a charm. I'm willing to bet that the other observation decks serve a similar purpose.
That was my thought as well. I was at Uni when it happened and one of our profs was convinced that the Japanese would immediately leapfrog western computing efforts.
The Japanese sure love the number 5... 5th generation computer, Society 5.0. The number five holds tremendous significance in nearly all Buddhist traditions:
This exhibition looks amazing. Each time I go to Japan I try to find new exhibits, there are so many times that one can go to the national museum in Tokyo and finding something new (some items rotate, so probably I will go again, thou).
I hope that they repeat it next year, I hope that travel restrictions are lifted. I like science and it's fun to see real mechanical engineering instead of just software.
They named it "Society 5.0" but they don't address the issues of their society that will actually cause problems keeping up. Their technological prowess is already well established, and does not need much boost. However, Japan's got a few social issues that will hold it back - particularly the work hours requirements, and related to that, it's low birth rates.
I don't see why Japanese men shouldn't be up to the job compared to the groups you listed with their obvious downsides:
younger - lack of experience
female - women to the rescue
international - lack exposure to local customs
"Fresh perspective" / "leaders in the decision making process" (leadership positions) - Hacker News agrees that "it's all about execution" and that "adding more ideas/perspectives" as you suggest here might be rather counterproductive or at least not a benefit.
It's software engineers that get payed a multiple of other (regular) jobs in silicon valley, which sets SV apart from the rest of the world.
People arguing like you are either young, not-male and/or not-native and want one of the financially attractive leadership positions for the money. They don't want or promote diversity anywhere else but in this limited area (leadership positions), which just quickly exposes their true underlying motivation: Hypocrisy and your own greed.
That's your personal interpretation, and in my opinion it's quite revealing.
It should go without saying, but I guess it needs to be explicitly stated here: it's good to have -qualified-, diverse candidates in leadership roles. Obviously just putting some underqualified person isn't going to work out and it's a bit tautological to state this. There's nothing about "young" that automatically means "lack of experience", or "old" that automatically means "experienced". There's nothing about "more diverse candidates" that means "not qualified"- that's your personal interpretation. It doesn't mean "more qualified" either.
Leadership (and really, all company roles) benefit from having different perspectives. When your perspective is from generally one group it's easy to be out of touch and just start missing the mark.
"Diverse often means to accept less qualification for the sake of accomplishing diversity, unfortunately."
This is your opinion. It's not factual, and I'm pointing this out. There is nothing intrinsic about being more diverse that makes it lower quality or less able "to execute" than a monoculture. There is nothing about monocultures that means they are more, or less, capable "to execute" in the first place... a lot of them are just buddies hiring buddies. It's your assumption in the first place that these are efficient or meritocratic in the first place. They can be. Many businesses aren't even efficient or good at executing.
"It's not the perspectives that matter, its execution."
...perspectives are what influence execution in the first place. You need to be able to execute a plan well, but creating a good plan is also vital. Diverse perspectives catch potential design flaws and other things that can be missed by having a monoculture (any monoculture) in leadership.
I find it discriminating of you that you distrust any ones ability to do the job. In Japan there are Japanese people. Who should do the job? They of course, why not, they live there. Why shouldn't "some of them" create enough diverse views? What do you want? That people from other countries go to Japan and enrich them? Gentrify and replace them? Will they have/add better perspectives? Will they mix or integrate into the local population while providing more diverse views and creating a more diverse population (also: physically - like "mixed ethnicity babies")?
I don’t have a lot of faith in the Japanese government pulling this off. They botched the COVID response, they botched the olympics. Like, there isn’t a lot going for them in the previous successes department.
Semantic versioning. 4.0 -> 5.0 indicates that the new society may be backwards-incompatible, whereas 5.0->5.1 implies that society will keep all of its existing APIs while adding more. A patch version that changed its internals without adding or removing any new features would be called 5.0.1, but society versioning doesn't include the last digit because civil servants don't ever get credit for their behind-the-scenes improvements.
I think it gives it a clearer indication that it's a version number, whereas "Society 5" either sounds like either yet another sequel to Society, or part of the title itself.
Also, point-oh sounds cool in English and just based on how much they use fractional percentages in Neon Genesis Evangelion, I assume it sounds cool in Japanese too.
I’ve seen a surprising amount of things with functional version numbers.
The frozen vegetable “meat” that’s being delivered my way is on v1.1 apparently. If people get used to food versionning, I think they’ll be fine with any other versionning.
While watching the Olympics this past weekend and I recalled how the flip phone cellphone era of the late 90s/early 00s was always on some other level in Japan. No one in North America had anything like we would sometimes get a glimpse of what was being used in Japan. Yes, even EU had some of the more advanced stuff but it was always Japan at the bleeding edge. So many designs, features, video etc. Reminds of the Fast & Furious Tokyo Drift movie that showed all the kids relaying video during races etc. And movie audiences in NA thinking that's crazy/wow/unheard of.
But then things changed first tipping with Blackberry and then iPhone/smartphones and now Japan is nowhere in the conversation. (How Japanese use some of their tech/apps/interfaces in the city etc is a different thing, culture that's somewhat kept on, their relationship with technology has a fascinating evolution that's kept them in otherworldly territory in some regards, but that's a different discussion) It's all samsung and apple and google designs etc. Crazy how that changed.
I think I'm late for the discussion, but as a person who grew up in Japan and lived both in the US and Japan, so many things people mentioned here ring true. The thing is that, there are many, many people who want to change, but they're afraid to speak up. Here's my (probably unpopular) suggestions to Japan:
- Fire more people, more often.
- Dismantle lifetime employment.
- Forget perfectionism.
- Destabilize the social hierarchy.
- Stop being polite and be ready to confront others.
- Incorporate more foreigners.
- Learn to negotiate.
- Be assertive.
Basically, we should drop the stereotypical image of being Japanese. Not sure if we can do it, but there isn't much time left.
The Society 5.0 idea comes out of the U.N. Sustainable Development Goals, which is also promulgated by the World Economic Forum. Japan is calling their implementation Society 5.0. Other countries will use a different names or similar naming schemes.
And Japan is betting on pervasive hydrogen based electricity generation to manage carbon neutrality by 2050... A lot of wishful thinking + hot air and "I won't be there to see the disaster" from current politicians...
Society 5.0: Dystopian tracking and extra suicides! Feels like another government project that probably won't have much tangible benefit for society and is all just a flashy name.
If you mean increasing globalization then this isn't exclusive to Japan. In fact, if you want to escape this trend then your only two options are Iran and North Korea.
My debit card got de-magnetized ( like a flaky hotel room key ) and stopped working at the official bank ATM. It doesn't work at most third party ATMs, but I've found the 7-11 ATMs are quite robust and is actually able to transact. Seems like a weird security mechanism if the official bank ATM can't authenticate the card, but somehow 7-11 ATMs can bypass this and allow me to withdraw money.
The bank's website also has a very strange username / password rules. They can only contain numbers and letters, case insensitively. Also, you can't have more than 2 consecutive numbers or letters. For example, 'foo2bar' would not be valid, nor would 'fo911baz'. 'fo23ba23' works.
One of my friends in Japan is a doctor from Belarus, one of the poorest countries in Eastern Europe. She came to Japan thinking it was technologically advanced, and was shocked to find that in some aspects Belarus is more technologically modern.
I have a very cynical theory about why technology is seemingly archaic here. I think the state of digital technology is due to structural / hierarchical social reasons that these initiatives don't really address. Not directly related to the hierarchical constructs, but examples of traditional practices include:
- resumes must be hand-written
- the stack of paperwork you need to sign for an apartment is about 1 inches thick. If you're purchasing a property, you'll probably need a couple binders.
- you need to create Hanko ( personal seal stamp ) as your official signature for some paperwork