How is Japan, Objectively, Not the Best Country in the World?

Ryuk9428 said:


I didn't narrow it, I'm simply using the conclusion that any normal person reading it would've come to which is that Japan has not been at war with anyone. Spain cannot say that.

Freshell said:

Oh me oh my. Apologies for not speaking precisely:

Oh, do tell. Tell the U.S., Europe and all the other OECD countries what it needs to do in order to be the best* society... that's less happy than Mexico and Saudi Arabia. :) No one will get triggered, trust me. I might laugh though.

Kosmonaut said:
Didn't you know, honey? It's because Japan is a conservative society that values traditional gender roles and incentivizes women to be feminine and sweet, to value their men, to care about their appearance and strive for being good wives - none of this feminist polarization between the sexes of the West. Also, also, they don't get affected by SJW western sensitivities. Obviously the west has a lot to learn from Japan. Baka, how can you be this dense?

Maenads said:

Also, by the most important metric they only come 66th:
https://www.worlddata.info/average-penissize.php

deg said:



lol the philippines rank so low but it does not stop this country from being too damn overpopulated

Maenads said:
Their working hours immediately disqualify them from being the best.

Also, by the most important metric they only come 66th:
https://www.worlddata.info/average-penissize.php

Ryuk9428 said:


The DRC and Cambodia lmao. Some stereotypes really are true.

Japan's working hours are lower than the global average now.

HyperL said:
And we haven't even touched on the Yakuza problem yet.

Dudes are even heavily affiliated with the government.

Like, everybody knows them and their deeds but they can't be touched cuz no proper evidence or whatever.

------

OH! And how about the fact that 99% of court disputes ends up in guilty. There is something deeply troubling and corrupt about Japan's justice system and their prosecutors, and that's something even Japan is openly honest about.

TheHentaiKing said:
I've been there twice and am going back soon. I think Japan is a nice place to visit but I would never want to live there; the work, transportation, and real estate culture isn't for me. I'd rather live in the U.S.

traed said:
There is no such thing as a best country all around. Different people like different things.

As for Japan's violent crime rate it's supposedly underreported artificially made low because unsolved crimes get reported as other things.

Ryuk9428 said:


Actually its quite simple, they are understaffed and only take cases which are pretty much guaranteed to win.

Really shows what a gentle society they have when they are understaffed on prosecutors but people don't take advantage of that situation to commit crimes.

The Yakuza is one gang, of about 30,000 or so members, in a country of 125 million. I'd hardly consider that a serious problem.

HyperL said:


The heck do you mean ONE gang?

"Yakuza" is not the name of any gang, is the term used to refer to a certain type of crime syndicate in Japan. There more than one and they are not specially united.

Also, that's not what their media say at all about their own system and prosecution. They paint most prosecutors as "win" hungry people with few to no qualms about bribing defendants to confess or forging evidence.

Ryuk9428 said:


So 30,000 dudes (0.02% of the population) comprise the entire organized crime structure of Japan?

Good to know how impressive Japan really is.

Have you read what a plea bargain is? Bribing defendants to confess is basically what a plea bargain is.

Kosmonaut said:
Didn't you know, honey? It's because Japan is a conservative society that values traditional gender roles and incentivizes women to be feminine and sweet, to value their men, to care about their appearance and strive for being good wives - none of this feminist polarization between the sexes of the West. Also, also, they don't get affected by SJW western sensitivities. Obviously the west has a lot to learn from Japan. Baka, how can you be this dense?

Svetvid said:

If you think that's a negative you aren't even worth acknowledgement and I already regret replying to you.

Ryuk9428 said:


In 1989 with significantly lower levels of technology available to them the Japanese police solved 95.9% of homicides...

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crime_in_Japan

Crime in Japan is so low that criminals from foreign countries like Britain, Russia, and Pakistan travel there specifically because the Japanese are so trusting and unaccustomed to crime that they are uniquely vulnerable to it.

Freshell said:
Lmao at trying to make your opinion "objective." Look, what you're doing is deciding criteria that you can measure then saying whatever fulfills that criteria is the best. Of course, what makes this still your opinion is that whatever criteria you choose isn't god given. I can say that the objectively best country is the one with the most guns per capita. Wow, I just "objectively" proved that the U.S. is the greatest country on earth.

Also lmao at discounting happiness as a very important variable. But I'm sure you left that out because it was inconvenient to your narrative. It sounds like you want Japan to be the best country and are fitting your criteria to match your bias. Most sane people would say that one of the most important variables is the likelihood they'd be very happy if they were in a particular country. Japan is not only low ranked in the happiness report among OECD nations, but it's dropping! But maybe they're just too humble to say they're happy. And are just getting humbler. ;)

Freshell said:

A fair argument! Surely the women of Japan are swooning over their men, just begging to be subservient in the house and the workplace. This surely reflects in a very high birth rate.

By the way darling, since we're on the topic, how do you feel about children? I figure we could double vp a chick and pay her to birth us a child. And does one of us play mom and one of us play dad? Or do we both embody some form of liberal super human fusion of both roles?

Kosmonaut said:
How dare you doubt the magic of traditional gender roles, you beta cuck soyboy?

As the ultra progressive couple that we are, we should be both the supreme caretakers of this genderless child.

Khalan said:
Most developed countries (except USA and Russia I guess) are not involved in wars for their own benifit but to bring peace to this world. Japan is not involved in any armed conflicts because the USA forced them to disband their military. Japan has been the biggest aggressor in war in the previous century. In their hearts they are still rapists (the high amount of rape in games and manga proves this) and if they get involved in a conflict again they will rape millions innocent people and even children again like they did in WW2.

Did not bother to read the rest of your arguments, Japan is the WORST country, I'd rather move to a muslim country.

149597871 said:


Japan has one of the lowest sexual assault/rape rates among the developed countries. Plus most of the people involved in the events you are talking about are gone so that's either a troll post or you are being delusional.

Freshell said:
@JazzPop
Indeed. I think there's aspects of Japan to be admired and emulated. I just get annoyed when someone places one particular country on a pedestal, lol. I'm a bit of an economic policy wonk, and there isn't one particular country I look to as doing things best. Rather I see there being lessons to learn from a plethora of places.

HyperL said:
Ha! I'd take the relative freedom and individualism of the western world over the colectivist conformism of Japan any day.

The biggest change the werstern world needs right now is to substitute all welfare programs for a single UBI system.

Xstasy said:


You are contradicting yourself there, you say you value individualism over collectivism but then you say that you want UBI which is collectivism.

Xstasy said:


You are contradicting yourself there, you say you value individualism over collectivism but then you say that you want UBI which is collectivism.

Xstasy said:


You are contradicting yourself there, you say you value individualism over collectivism but then you say that you want UBI which is collectivism.

Ryuk9428 said:
@JazzPop

You thought you were the only one? This website is full of people denying the glory of Japan.

@Freshell

I'll explain it for you since I have a little spare time right now.

The structure of NA and EU countries is based on the idea that freedom of choices is superior to all else. The way we are structured is that you are raised by your parents until you are 18 and then you can do whatever you want. In some cases this philosophy is fine, people shouldn't be forced to do something they hate. But we've gone too far with it to the point where there's no accountability whatsoever, you can get fat, become an alcoholic, get knocked up by three different men, leave trash on the streets, and abandon your responsibilities as a father. Nothing is off limits.

Because everyone feels that they have the right to make whatever choices they want because "they're an adult now," people are doing things that harm themselves and the community around them on a regular basis and don't see anything wrong with it. We strictly control people's choices through adolescence and then upon hitting 18 we present to them a shelf of 1,000 life choices and say "hope you pick the right one, see ya."

Its no surprise then that a lot of people are making stupid choices or destructive choices. Thus, our lower life expectancy and higher rates of crime, as well as general dysfunction among many segments of society.

Japanese society is more structured the way an AI society might be. Instead of a shelf of 1,000 choices, you are presented a few that have been selected based on your talents or circumstances and are told to choose one. You don't have the option of getting knocked up by three different men, the only options are either abortion or marriage. You don't have the option of deflecting responsibility for a child you've fathered, its either abortion or help raise that child. You don't have the option of leaving your garbage lying around wherever, as a citizen you are expected to dispose of it properly. Japanese citizens are raised to think about their community and how their actions effect the community around them.

This can backfire on them though, after-all, Japan isn't perfect. Sometimes the choices made for people were wrong, sometimes it doesn't take into account unique circumstances. The only perfect society would be an AI society that is capable of analyzing your genetic makeup and predetermining your path to happiness and fulfillment that doesn't make life more difficult for the people around you. Japan, however, is obviously run by humans who make mistakes. But Japan is structured on the same philosophy that an AI system is run off of, and that's why it has achieved such the lowest level of crime in the world, an amazing level of creativity in the arts and in technology, and the highest life expectancy in the world.

JazzPop said:


Y'know Japan has inflicted multiple mass genocides and enslaved ethnic Koreans & Chinese for thousands of years occupying their land and exploiting the people as well as the 1st & 2nd Sino-Japanese wars, The Russo-Japanese War, Japanese invasion & occupation of Taiwan, Soviet-Japanese War, War with Viet Nam, 9Years War, etc..

Just because since WW2 they've basically capitulated to the U.S. and U.N. doesn't mean they've rinsed their hands clean. They're unable to fight a large scale war now for a reason and if they HAVE to they need to call upon the U.N. as they weren't trusted after teaming up with Nazis... So yeah your point doesn't really make sense. They're only allowed defensive military technology and are unable to fight a war now even if they wanted due to public world opinion and having a very feeble Aggressive military complex.. If you could even call it that.

Freshell said:

The fact that Japan is so unhappy in its approximation of your utopia suggests to me that in the here and now, your utopia is not worth pursuing. I have nothing against utopia. They can be an effective guide. But what's important is that on our path to our goal of whatever utopic vision we have, we have evidence that society would actually improve along the way. I get the sense that we start from opposite directions. I'm open to having a fluid vision of utopia based on the current data. You seem to want to look for the data that supports your vision of utopia. Hence you prop up all the data like crime statistics that would, on the face of it, make one think that the society is better, but ignore the big glaring holes, like the fact that people are happier in Mexico. I don't use that to suggest that Mexico should be the basis of utopia. But rather, how in the world is a society less happy than Mexico at all conceivable as the best? Of course, none of this is to say that there's nothing to learn from Japan. Just that it shouldn't be placed on a pedestal. Yes, some of the statistics you brought up are impressive.

Freedom is valuable for multiple reasons, to the point that we should consider the promotion of freedom to be the default position and any restrictions on it requiring a burden of proof. For one, people feel the most purpose in life when they, of their own volition, are moving themselves toward an ideal, self actualizing their vision of what it means to be the best version of themselves. You can't force someone to do this. At best you can instill the virtue of discipline that this requires. For another, people just hate feeling dominated by others, whether it's by their bosses, their landlord, their husband, the draconian rules of a government, or by the judging eyes of society. Note here, my notion of freedom is very different from a right winger's. They probably find it paradoxical that nordic countries have the highest scores in perceptions of freedom with all those high taxes, while I see it as completely logical. But lastly, while people may often err in their judgment of what will make them happy, other people are often worse judges. Now, we can speak of edge cases in which this doesn't actually lead to people being happier overall. I believe if crystal meth were widely available, that wouldn't be the best thing, since one use can fuck you up. But this is why I consider the promotion of freedom to be the default position and any deviation being something that needs a burden of proof.

Anyway, the cases you brought up specifically are interesting ones. I think they're at least something that can be disputed over, so I won't really squabble over them. We already recognize some degree of responsibility of parents toward their children, since we recognize children as not ready for adult levels of liberty, yet are valuable and in need of being properly raised. The question is how much of a responsibility there should be to maximize the outcomes for children, in my view. As for a duty toward keeping the city clean. Hey, if it works. I'd be more inclined toward creating government jobs geared toward keeping cities clean though, rather than do it by punitive measures.

@Xstasy
Even Milton Friedman supported a guaranteed basic income, which is similar. Most people are on a spectrum in the collectivism vs individualism divide, lol.

Popura said:


If you only count the percentage of reported incidents, then yeah. But to be fair, I think we can all agree that actual percentages are lot higher if we consider all the unreported incidents.

Yes, you could say it's same for every other country, but due to the cultural difference and how rapes are seen in their society compared to western countries, many of the victims are unwilling to go to the police.

If I remember correctly, Mainichi did survey years ago revealing astonishing numbers of 70% of woman admitting that they were rape victims. Number of chikan victims were even higher(obviously), 83% of the woman admitting that they were chikan victims.

Japan is definitely not as safe as most people think, especially for woman.

As for argument regarding WWII, the issue is lot more sensitive than you'd think. Judging by posts I've seen, I assume you are Japanese and you are probably not very educated on all the horrible things Japan did during WWII and I don't blame you, because it's really Japanese school's fault for not teaching correct history to young Japanese students, telling them falsified histories instead.

All these horrible things Japan did during WWII, Unit 731's and all these human experiments "Maruta" as well as massacres and rapes of woman (forcing them to be a "comfort woman") of every age from little girl to granny, killing woman who got pregnant because of the result of their rape, which happened in Korea and China makes what Hitler and Nazis did in WWII looking like a kiddy pool compared to what Japan did back then. For some people, what your ancestors did back in WWII are still to this date, very hard to forgive and there are still survivors who extremely fears Japanese and traumatized for rest of their lives.

I know that Japan have gone significant changes since then, but there are people who still thinks cores of Japanese haven't changed and fears they will still do the same things if they ever go in war with different countries. You can't really label them as a troll and delusional for stating the obvious concerns. Even if people who's involved is gone, what Japan did is recorded in history book and it's there to stay forever. It's kinda funny Japan are still reluctant to admit everything they did, yet they are very proud of what they achieved in WWII.