Comment by johnnyanmac

Comment by johnnyanmac 3 days ago

Those are a lot of very wrong assumptions. Salaries aren't US level but more than liveable because even most non-tokyo housing is perfectly reasonable. The economny is stagnant (and now recessionary) but they have a decent amount of safety nets. They don't need to worry about walking to work one day to be locked out or being in debt if they collapse (yes, there are some very dark work patterns to "lay off", but you won't suddenly have zero salary next month).

>I'd much rather have a family than have store clerks obsses about serving me.

Okay, the US has neither. So...

>If you have tons of money in Seattle area and live in an exurb, and only go to Seattle for the orchestra and a baseball game in a box, you probably think everyone in America cares too

These are small micro-behaviors, not a larger mindset. Even a rich tourist would notice the difference between someone taking your ticket for an orcheastra and going to a corner store in Japan.

aprilthird2021 3 days ago

I don't think they are wrong assumptions. Japan has higher suicide rates, lower rate of having kids, and on and on.

And like I said, obviously a rich tourist is treated better. The average Japanese person doesn't benefit from these things because the average Japanese person lives in a cramped, barely livable closet-sized apartment in a huge city where costs are probably not close to wages

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johnnyanmac 3 days ago

They are wrong assumptions. They aren't so signifigantly high that they fundamentally affect the perceptions of the culture. Japan is 14.29 per 100k suicide rate. the US has 14.21. Japan has something low like 1.2 kids per family, the US has 1.66, also pretty dang low. You gotta do a lot of heavy lifting to say those differences make for a much worse culture.
>obviously a rich tourist is treated better. The average Japanese person doesn't benefit from these things because the average Japanese person lives in a cramped, barely livable closet-sized apartment in a huge city where costs are probably not close to wages
Tourism goes both ways. You can switch Japanese with American and this metaphor is just as apt. You're missing a lot of subtleties and cultural difference just saying "well Americans make more money on average" while comparing the quality of life of the lower compensated parts of each society.

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- aprilthird2021 2 days ago
  
  Fair play. I'm open more to the idea that a culture where people care about the greater good makes more of a difference. Haven't seen it myself, and I'm still skeptical that if he were an average Japanese person he'd see it the same way. But your argument is convincing.
  
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