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

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.

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.

Mainichi did survey years ago revealing astonishing numbers of 70% of woman admitting that they were rape victims.

In support of this, I found that I was part of the 3.7 percent of female victims in Japan who decide to report their rape to police (according to a 2011 Cabinet Office survey). Almost 70 percent told no one about their ordeal. And even for those who do report, their cases are unlikely to lead to a conviction, as the general rate for arrests of reported crimes in Japan is around 30 percent.

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.

Mainichi did survey years ago revealing astonishing numbers of 70% of woman admitting that they were rape victims.

In support of this, I found that I was part of the 3.7 percent of female victims in Japan who decide to report their rape to police (according to a 2011 Cabinet Office survey). Almost 70 percent told no one about their ordeal. And even for those who do report, their cases are unlikely to lead to a conviction, as the general rate for arrests of reported crimes in Japan is around 30 percent.

Ryuk9428 said:


Its not "so unhappy" its well above average in your rankings. 156 countries were surveyed and they beat 98 of them.

Mexico, Guatemala, and El Salvador's people prove how happy their countries are when they flee them by the tens of millions. Almost 25% of Mexico's population hated it there so much they went through hell and back to leave. This graph placing Mexico so far above Japan is just proof that there are serious flaws in their study. No happy country would have such a gigantic percentage of its population begging to escape from it. I'm sure if you told the Mexicans that Japan was opening up its borders and sending transport ships to allow them to move to Japan for free that they would hop on board in a heartbeat. If Mexico gave the Japanese the same offer, nobody would board those transports.

Scud said:
Suicide isn't even a problem.

149597871 said:
@konkelo

Eh, that's not exactly what they've said in their post:



And this is literally the quote from your post:



The first statement says that 70% of all women have been victims of rape. The second statement says that 70% of female rape victims haven't reported the incident. There is a difference, in this case an immense one.

Of course, whether the reason is some "bushido code" or something else, we can all agree that it is not a good thing and something should be done about that. But needless to say Japan isn't the only country that has this problem and as for chikan, even assuming the worst case scenario - 100 000 chikan cases per year (this isn't just sexual assault but any sort of weird sexual behavior or sexual harassment and in many cases there isn't any assault or even contact with the victim) it would still take about several hundred years on average for the average train commuter before they encounter an actual chikan. I'm not saying that this isn't disturbing or that there isn't any problem because there is and it is rather disturbing, but as I said Japan is still one of the safest places on the Earth statistically speaking.

Khalan said:


Sorry maybe I was a bit harsh in my first reply but Japan certainly is one of my least favorite countries.

Sure atm it's quite a safe even for us foreigners; the 70% rape victims @Popura reported doesn't seem very likely to me as well but Japan certainly isn't the paradise some people claim it to be. Also I don't really care for the current situation nor am I really bothered by what happened in WW2. What I meant to say was that I'm worried about the future as nationalism is on the rise and Japan is building an army again and once they attack another country I think it is quite likely they will rape the women of that country again. Most Japanese are perverted and xenophobic and I don't see any effort to change this. Of course there are many nice people as well.

Also safest (I don't think Japan even ranks first though) doesn't make it the best amazing country in the world; there is much more wrong with that country.

desmondlogan said:


Funny how you mention how a big chunk of mexicans want to flee from their country when in reality thats far from true, i'm mexican and i can assure you amigo, most of the people here despise people that flee from the country, calling them "pochos" (a derogative term to call an americanized mexican).
Believe it or not most people here are pretty happy despite the obvious problems with the organized crime and poverty, we take every opportunity to celebrate that we are alive and we are enjoying it even in the Dia de muertos.
And NO, only mexican weebs would kill to live in Japan but they are a small minority of teenage kids.
also you'd be surprised to know how many people from first world countries come to Mexico to live after they retire especially in coastline cities, including japanese citizens.

Ryuk9428 said:


Doesn't matter if you don't like them. Doesn't change the fact that Mexico's population is 130 million but has 37 million people living in the United States which means if so many people hadn't left, your population would be 167 million. Nearly 40 million people leaving the country is not a very good sign of how happy it is. Those are not normal emigration patterns. Japan has a similar population to Mexico but 40 million people from there have not left the country.

desmondlogan said:


that's because you are grouping people from south america and other latin american countries in the same group, actually most of those "mexicans" in the US are not from here, they say they are a mexican because that if they get caught and deported they can easily reentry the US trough the mexican border instead of getting deported to their origin country and have to traverse Mexico again.
thats how the statistics are so bloated with "Mexican" ilegals.
and thats not counting that more Mexicans are returning to Mexico
than entering the US.

https://www.businessinsider.com/number-of-people-moving-from-us-to-mexico-2019-5?op=1

face it homie, not every first world country is a happy place, not even Japan or the US

Or the whole culture of arranged marriage meetings and mixers. There are almost no genuine interactions between people, and that would just kill me.

Ryuk9428 said:


I'm not, if I was grouping all Hispanic people into the same category I would be saying it was 59 million. There are 59 million people of Hispanic origin in the US. Out of the 59 million Hispanic people residing in the US, however, 37 million of them are Mexican.

The US's Hispanic population now is pretty large. Its approximately 18% of America now.

@Pullman



That's specifically a major reason why I like Japan. They are actually doing something to help the lonely people in their country meet each other and setup things like mixers and arranged marriages so that its easy instead of just saying "improve your social skills."

People don't seem to understand that just because the way you met was disingenuous doesn't mean that all your interactions with that person in the future will be disingenuous. But for some people, the first meeting has to be through methods like this because the normal way is too anxiety provoking.

AxxLife said:
uhh buddy, isn't it a known fact that america is the best country in the world? why even debate about this. everything you use has been made by america. if it werent for america the world wouldn't be what it is today.

Ryuk9428 said:
@Overcast93

That's actually a good point because I've honestly never talked to someone from the UK who liked it there. I've never talked to someone who hated it either, but all of my conversations with people from the UK have suggested to me that you're a very unsatisfied people. I also get the impression that British people like to complain just to vent their frustrations so its not a big deal when they do so. But given how often they complain I've never gotten the impression that its a super happy country. It also seems to me that other Americans complain a lot too so I'm a bit suspicious of the US's position on this list as well. Its difficult for me to believe that a country with as big of a problem with depression, anxiety, and substance abuse as we have could be number 19.

Overall, the list just doesn't make a lot of sense to me so I'm wary of it.

konkelo said:

Why not bring country's history? With that one can easily start to reason why some countries are doing better than others. Cutting out World Wars out from your 30-40 years also doesn't reflect that despite WWII ended its conflicts and country relations were present even after, which could lead to new conflicts. Also comparing a country that is centuries old to countries that are under 100 years old isn't that logical in the first place. But if we start to talk about this day you can certainly find people who think Japan having Ryukyu islands and Hokkaido and northern parts of Honshu is colonization.

Ryuk9428 said:


Because we are talking about modern times, not the 1940s. Anything which is irrelevant to the modern age is not worth considering in best country analysis.

konkelo said:

So your 30-40 years is relevant, but anything farther in time isn't?

Though that is my argument, things that happened in the 40's didn't just stay there and not affect 50's, 60's, 70's etc. We're talking about three to four generations to this day. Nevertheless if I used your reasoning Denmark wouldn't be even qualified for "the best" country simply because it has involved itself in NATO operations, while it still manages to top statics in many fields and would very unlikely start any war or use armed forces against civilians. Meh, I'd be more concerned in something like does the country use aggressive foreign and domestic policy to warrant being dubious to safety.