Miscellaneous News

Randomuser said:

https://twitter.com/i/web/status/2047127660191535557

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Japan is having its India moment where the rest of the world has to actually interact with Japanese users and find out what they are really like now.

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Funny enough, one of the biggest assets in Japan's soft power has precisely been its low English proficiency. South Korea has higher English proficiency with all those middle class to rich kids going to international schools, plus a bigger and more recent global diaspora deriving alot of cultural pride from Hallyu, so people online have gotten the full taste of South Korean chauvinism and bigotry that massively tempers the romantic image that their pop culture exports portray.

When it comes to Japanese people themselves, people have only ever seen what's on the surface, salarymen courteously holding the door open for you, polite hospitality staff providing good service, bowing etc. All it took was automatic translation to shed light on the real Japan.

Phead128 said:

Iran has been on the cusp of nuclear weapons for 40 years yet they choose 2026 to start a war with Iran, knowing PLA will invade Taiwan in 2027....

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China is probably changing its plans as the US and its "allies" are depleted of their fuel and ammunition.

TPenglake said:

When it comes to Japanese people themselves, people have only ever seen what's on the surface, salarymen courteously holding the door open for you, polite hospitality staff providing good service, bowing etc. All it took was automatic translation to shed light on the real Japan.

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I have been living in Japan for decades, what I feel is that these "politeness" and "tend to provide good service" preconception of Japanese people by forenigners often are more a reminiscence or legacy of its post-war economic miracle growth and such successfulness-brought-social collective mindset; it isn't something human natively process when birth out of a "Japanese womb"; in fact during the recent decades long economic stagnation, typical Japanese style service degraded obviously, compared to 1980's peak.

shiftenter said:

I have been living in Japan for decades, what I feel is that these "politeness" and "tend to provide good service" preconception of Japanese people by forenigners often are more a reminiscence or legacy of its post-war economic miracle growth and such successfulness-brought-social collective mindset; it isn't something human natively process when birth out of a "Japanese womb"; in fact during the recent decades long economic stagnation, typical Japanese style service degraded obviously, compared to 1980's peak.

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In other words, you can only afford to act nice when you have money.

Randomuser said:

In other words, you can only afford to act nice when you have money.

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If poor, they attended to their own virtue in solitude; if advanced to dignity, they made the whole kingdom virtuous as well.
穷则独善其身，达则兼善天下。- Meng Zi (Mencius)

henrik said:

China is probably changing its plans as the US and its "allies" are depleted of their fuel and ammunition.

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Given US has to tap out after just 4 weeks of war against Iran, I don't think it matters or has ever mattered if US had ammo or not against China. If anything US was extremely fortunate it discovered this before going to war against China.

I used to support earlier AR, but honest at this point I'm actually more leaning toward delaying it a few years so we can see humanoid combat robots in action, both to minimize causalities and because it'll look so much cooler.

Randomuser said:

In other words, you can only afford to act nice when you have money.

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I feel the same about Americans. In the 2000s, it felt the majority of at least middle class educated Americans were at least decent civilized people, and some (generally older folks) were even genuinely friendly and welcoming. Nowadays its impossible to meet a likable American. Of course, this generalization doesnt hold for upper class Americans, who have always been ignorant arrogant narcissistic self-righteous snobs.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

I feel the same about Americans. In the 2000s, it felt the majority of at least middle class educated Americans were at least decent civilized people, and some (generally older folks) were even genuinely friendly and welcoming. Nowadays its impossible to meet a likable American. Of course, this generalization doesnt hold for upper class Americans, who have always been ignorant arrogant narcissistic self-righteous snobs.

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Nothing a decade or two of forced reeducation can’t fix.

FriedRiceNSpice said:

I feel the same about Americans. In the 2000s, it felt the majority of at least middle class educated Americans were at least decent civilized people, and some (generally older folks) were even genuinely friendly and welcoming. Nowadays its impossible to meet a likable American. Of course, this generalization doesnt hold for upper class Americans, who have always been ignorant arrogant narcissistic self-righteous snobs.

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Inflation is affecting the world but its hitting America particularly hard.

its hard to put up a nice face when groceries alone take a huge chunk out of your available cash each week.

Randomuser said:

Inflation is affecting the world but its hitting America particularly hard.

its hard to put up a nice face when groceries alone take a huge chunk out of your available cash each week.

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Also I feel the workplace has gotten a lot more toxic. At least in software industry, ever since the 2023 layoffs, it now feels like nowadays all your coworkers are only out to get you, ready to throw you under the bus or knife you in the back at any moment. There is a persistent environment of fear due to continuous layoffs and increasing prevalence of stack ranking.