Domain: jref.com
Stories and comments across the archive that link to jref.com.
Comments · 9
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Re:Redundancy and good planning.
What did I say about race? I talked about US vs. Japanese culture.
Consider:
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9231926/ns/nightly_news-nbc_news_investigates/
"Some 200 New Orleans school buses sit underwater in a parking lot, unused. That's enough to have evacuated at least 13,000 people. Why werenâ(TM)t those buses sent street by street to pick up people before the storm? ... One huge bottleneck in the evacuation â" the New Orleans airport. Officials say flights were delayed while screeners and air marshals were flown in to comply with post-9/11 security requirements, and then further delayed because screening machines werenâ(TM)t working. ..."The AC post can be seen as another example of US cultural problems. Shirley Sherrod was forced to resign for making a speech that ironically included mentioning how racism was being created by elite-pushed policies in the USA for centuries to cause poor blacks and poor whites to be at each other's throats to keep them all divided and powerless:
http://www.csmonitor.com/USA/Politics/2010/0722/Shirley-Sherrod-debacle-why-Obama-stumbles-on-race
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E9NcCa_KjXkSee also:
http://www.historyisaweapon.com/defcon1/zinncomrev24.html
"How skillful to tax the middle class to pay for the relief of the poor, building resentment on top of humiliation! How adroit to bus poor black youngsters into poor white neighborhoods, in a violent exchange of impoverished schools, while the schools of the rich remain untouched and the wealth of the nation, doled out carefully where children need free milk, is drained for billion-dollar aircraft carriers. How ingenious to meet the demands of blacks and women for equality by giving them small special benefits, and setting them in competition with everyone else for jobs made scarce by an irrational, wasteful system. How wise to turn the fear and anger of the majority toward a class of criminals bred-by economic inequity-faster than they can be put away, deflecting attention from the huge thefts of national resources carried out within the law by men in executive offices."That said, Japanese people can be pretty xenophobic, which is why they are creating a lot of elder care robots instead of importing "guest workers" from other countries like Western Europe or the USA.
http://www.jref.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-7650.html
http://www.globalaging.org/elderrights/world/2004/japaninvention.htmSo, soon Japanese-designed household and nursing robots are going to take a lot more low paid jobs in the USA... A Japanese anime about that complex issue:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roujin_Z -
Re:3000BC called...
All languages grow and develop or they wouldn't have become languages.
Some do it more than others, for various cultural reasons. The French famously have an institute, the Académie française, to keep their language "pure"; several other nations have something similar, to varying degrees. On the other hand English is a filthy whore who'll go bed with any other tongue.
Japanese is an interesting mis-mash of its own native words, Chinese imports, and words stolen from English, Dutch, German, French and Portuguese.
I don't know about the spoken language, but my understanding is that over the centuries, written Chinese has changed much less than written English (because of it's logographic nature), so that it's much easier for a Chinese native speaker to read ancient texts than it is for us to read Old English.
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Re:Perfect timing
Yes, that's the point - but even for regular non-terrorist stuff, the overwhelming majority of criminals in Japan are, surprise, surprise, Japanese nationals. Foreign crime just gets more attention for some reason (easier to blame, I guess...?)
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Re:*choke*
buddy, actually try looking up the Anti Comintern Pact. Your dependence on Wikipedia(which is great for some things, but doesn't give very clear explanations to people like you is its major failure)
what I really can't believe is that you read a Wikipedia article which tells you that full embargoes weren't levied until 1941. Btw, the anti-comintern pact was originally signed in 1936 and later revived after the outbreak of fighting between Germany and the USSR.
Now, we did break our treaty in 1939 that allowed us to begin imposing embargoes, but the severe embargo(which was only on oil and scrap metal, so it didn't exactly destroy the happiness of the population) didn't begin until 2 years later. Before that time, Japan joined the Axis, began a small war with Mongolia/USSR, invaded IndoChina, and again attacked certain free areas in China to cement control on the area. Now, we did put in place limited embargoes in 1939, but when we demanded that Japan immediately leave East Asia(along with fully cutting off oil supplies) Japan began planning the attack against the US to try and force us to support their expansion. At the same time, they planned a major expansion into south east asia to control their own supplies of oil(I'm sure this pissed off the British, it was their colonies).
http://www.jref.com/culture/Japan_WWII_Asian_hegem ony.shtml
read. or try the wikipedia article you mentioned. its not well written and very unclear about the time line.
So yeah. I guess the straw that broke the camels back was when we demanded that Japan stop enslaving the Chinese and Korean populace or we won't trade with them at all. poor Japanese government. That sounds like such an unreasonable demand now that I think about it. I mean, especially in the context of their deep friendship with Nazi Germany. Gonna call me wrong again? Or maybe you can just admit that you were mistaken on the WWII time line..... -
reminds me off
The japanese hikkomori syndrome. ( http://www.jref.com/forum/archive/index.php/t-909
. html )
When people start substituting real life with a digitall one it usually doesn't end to well.
Humans are by nature social beings, if the "old" ways fail one starts to look for an alternative.
Besides, real life interaction (think of sex ) will allways beat the "cyber" equivalent. -
Re:Weird but common cognitive disfunction
You seem to be rather ignorant of state science.
"Economically, Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, Hong Kong, and Singapore, although located very far east, may still be considered Western" (from here).
For a Japanese person's view on the matter, see here: "[by] The 2 latter [definitions of Western], Japan is definitely Western, and I think that's also where most Europeans would place Japan".
The term "western" is often used to mean "developed". A bit of a Eurocentric definition, but a generally accepted one. Anyway, replace "western" with "developed/modern/democratic" in the discussion above if this really bothers you. It changes nothing of the fact that Arab countries, as a rule, are third-world countries; the only rich ones are rich because of natural resouces (can you spell "oil"?) and not because of human resources. Contrast that with Israel's status.
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Re:NYC Public Transit
I also thought it was rather unimpressive.
While we are it: Here the Subway of Tokyo and Berlin. -
Re:In other news...
They also never apologized and didn't really care that they are some of the greatest villians in modern history.
Actually Japan has done a number of things , including APOLOGISE for it's actions during World War II as well as paying reparations to countries it tried to colonise, with the exception (as far as I know) of North Korea. They also recently apologised for the 'Comfort Women' aka civilian women forced to be prostitues. At the end of the war, some of the Japanese in charge were also executed (I include this, because I am sick of hearing people saying that the Germans had war crime hearings and the Japanese didn't - the truth is, both did, and those responsible were executed).
Now, before you jump down my throat, there are some things they haven't apologise for and tried to cover over. (just to balance it out) My Great Uncle was a POW at Changi and then later on the Burma Railroad (remember that film "Bridge on the River Kwai" ... well, he was one of the Aussies who help build that railroad). After the war my Great Uncle George was head of the Aussie POW's trying to get an apology from the Japanese Government for their mistreatment of Aussie POW's. That was one thing he couldn't get, because the Japanese Government said that it wasn't covered in thier surrender. Unfortunately George died last July, so he will never get to have that apology.
Also, the Japanese Government recently censored a Manga comic because the Japanese writer refered to the Nanjing Massacre. The Japanese Government still considers this to be fake. Read more here. On top of this, a textbook which glosses over the war has now been approved for Japanese schools. (I can't be bothered looking for a link to this, I think most people may have heard about it).
From the comic book, (and the fact that I know some very well versed Japanese people), most Japanese people want the Japanese Government to apologise for these sorts of things, as they really DO care about what happened. The Average Modern Japanese person is truely ashamed and amazed that their countries forces acted in such dispicable ways. It was actually the Japanese people who got the Japanese Government to admit to the fact that Unit 731 really existed, not outside influence from China or anyone else.
Now, I am assuming that you were speaking out of ignorance with what you said, but to a Japanese who is aware of the facts I mentioned above, (as opposed to an ignorant one), your comments smack or racism. (No, I didn't call you a racist, I think you were speaking from ignorance. Re-read your comments now that you know the facts, and you will see how a person could misinterpret your comments).
I hope you take these comments on board in the spirit of how they are ment, and not as a personal attack.
This link might be of some benefit too.
I probably could have added a lot more too, because I am a little knowledgeable on Japan, knowing the language a bit and being able to read and write it.
I hope this is enough to convince you of the truth about the Japanese apologising and that the Japanese People DO care about, and are repulsed by the inhumane behaviour of the occupational forces during WWII. If you meet Japanese people who don't know much about the Japanese WW2 attrocities committed by their country, it isn't their fault. They, like you, are probably unaware of the facts. With the nature of most modern Japanese being to seek peace, so the acts of thier forces during W -
Re:Just a thoughtIt actually is a bit different in Japan, with surprising things like CD Rental Chains. For things like games, including Sega's OutRun2 for Xbox, it gets complicated!
Strangely enough, they're concerned about the game rental markets in the West!Kikizo: You recently expressed concern about the large rental and used game markets that exist in the west, and that it might be an obstacle in bringing OutRun2 home - are you still worried about that, and will you be adding anything to the game to increase its longevity? Makoto Osaki: I am still worried about that, but after many discussions with Kats Sato [Producer at Sega Europe], he gave us a lot of ideas about what enhancements should be put in the Xbox version, and I am satisfied that they will be OK for the conversion. Another reason is actually Sega Europe is really keen to bring OutRun2 to console. Europe is a very unique market and there are many, many driving game fans, so if Sega Europe is really keen and willing to do it then I am happy for it to happen.