They won't have a choice at some stage. The population is declining so rapidly, and they're struggling so hard economically they are, whether they like it or not,importing more and more immigrants and the truth is, they can be as racist as they like but it only worked when they had the clout to get away with it. It's less and less viable for them to continue on this trajectory. People might never be "accepted" but the face of Japan itself will likely be different in the future simply because they've failed to embrace change properly.
Visit Japan now and there are more and more Americans, Australian, Indian and Chinese working, buying property and setting up businesses there.
I'm not really celebrating any of this, I just don't see how an old and tired population can continue to put so much energy into xenophobia when literally one of the only things between them and China are the US military having a base on Okinawa.
China will very soon have exactly the same "old and tired" problems. What are they going to do, beat each other with clutches while being accompanied by their drip lines? And why?
I still think China will have a much larger army and navy than Japan. They have 10x the population and probably a similar decline in their populating expected.
More climate change, war, microplastics in our body and now extreme joblessness ?
If I woke up and I saw a headline that said OpenAI has developed and AI which told us how to sequester huge amounts of cO2 then I’d be excited and agree.
Exactly. I'm sick of people advocating changes as "progress" until we get some fundamental baseline sampling of humanity's well-being. When "are you depressed?" "do you contemplate suicide?" "are you exhausted?" go up for 10 years around the globe, then people will look like lunatics saying this is "progress" and maybe we'll have a better conversation about where progress actually is.
The e/acc camp will tell you AGI can solve all of those, which is why AI research needs to move as fast as possible. What they don't tell you is only an aligned AGI can solve it in a way beneficial for humans.
We had a half-assed lockdown for a few months where most people just kind of stayed indoors and saw noticeable environmental improvements world-wide. An unaligned AGI can easily conclude the best way to fix these problems is to un-exist all humans.
There has never in the history of humanity been anything "aligned" in the sense that AI doomers use that word. Yet humanity has had a clear progression towards better, safer, and more just societies over time.
You say as you comfortably type on a thinking machine while indoors sheltered from the elements, presumably without any concern for war or famine or marauding gangs of lawless raiders.
Climate change is looking pretty existential to me. Might be comfortable now, but where I am we're having extreme snow fall shortages which are going to effect our water supplies and ability to farm. God knows what it's going to look like at this rate.
So practically massive destruction of the biosphere so people can sit there smug on there computers in the air-con.
Anyway you reinforced my point. Progress is a good idea, I'm not sure we all have the same ideas about what good progress looks like. Lifting the rest of the developing world by selling them arms and fossil fuels so I can sit on my computer in my room reading smug comments is probably not good progress.
Many people don't seem to realize how existential this is for Russia
What was existential for Russia? If they had of just remained peaceful and sold resources to the rest of the world, nothing would've happened to them, there was nothing existential about it.
Maybe Putin is a paranoid lunatic and thinks people were out to get him, but there is no way there was some secret western plot to invade Russia or anything like this? In fact, Europe and the rest of the world was trading with them just fine. All we hear about on here was how Germany is completely dependent on Russia.
The truth is, countries side with NATO for a reason, because they have something to offer. If Russia had something better to offer, was trustworthy and Putin supported democracy, maybe less countries would be interested in partnering with the west and happy to form stronger ties with the autocracy. It doesn't mean anyone was about to invade Russia though.
No one was about to invade Russia, not today. But NATO is by definition an alliance created against Russia, and it has a long history of trying to initiate regime changes in its enemies.
You have to remember that Russia is a federation, one with much deeper internal divides than the USA. The closer we are to Russia, the easier it is for us to fund, train, and arm Russia's separatist elements.
If NATO was officially present if Georgia, do you think it would ignore any pleas for help from chechen separatists trying to defend themselves from the butcher running them? Or would we actively work to try to make Chechenia an independent country, over the next 10-20 years?
And Chechenia is far from the only vulnerable place.
Note that I am not saying this would be a bad thing for the people of Chechenia. It is quite likely what a lot of them want. But if Russia were funding, arming, and training the IRA, or Texas's secessionist fringe, would the USA or UK be happy to allow this? No, empires are fundamentally built out of people who try to maintain their empire.
and it has a long history of trying to initiate regime changes in its enemies.
1. A regime change would not be existential for Russia, it would be existential for Putin. Maybe that's why he panicked or something, but if one man has the power to take a country on an idiotic war like that, then maybe a regime change is a good idea.
2. You’re not really presenting a lot of evidence there was a by real risk of this actually happening?
3. How does anything you’ve said justify invading Ukraine?
Regardless it’s all failing spectacularly if the goal was to create distance between Russia and NATO. Finland is now in NATO and is on the border.
> 1. A regime change would not be existential for Russia, it would be existential for Putin.
Regime change means your enemies controlling who runs your country. It is an existential threat for the whole state, even if it would be better for the populace.
When the USA suspected Russia of influencing their elections, no one said (and rightfully so) "that is only existential for Hillary, not for America, why should we care?".
> 2. You’re not really presenting a lot of evidence there was a by real risk of this actually happening?
The constant talk of the necessity of changing Putin and the EU and US support for Navalnyi make it obvious that NATO powers want regime change in Russia.
Whether they would actually spend resources to actually work for it is not something I could possibly bring evidence for. But several EU countries and the USA have often initiated or supported regime change in smaller countries when they were able to. Quite recently unsuccessfully in Venezuela and Syria. And more saliently, they did so in Ukraine in 2008, helping the Ukrianian people get rid of Yanukovich.
> 3. How does anything you’ve said justify invading Ukraine?
Invading Ukraine prevents it from joining NATO, which it was on a very clear path towards (they had had joint military exercises just one year prior, with NATO troups in Ukraine). The same happened with Georgia, but they Georgia acceeded to the Russian demands more readily.
Even if they fail to conquer Ukraine, they will keep it in a state of frozen conflict that will likely delay any further rapproachment for a decade or two.
Also, none of this makes what Russia did any less monstrous and detrimental to the Ukrianian people (nor to their own soldiers). There is no question whatsoever that it is highly immoral and a condemnable act, and a clear case of breaking international law, a clear act of aggression, the international crime for which most of the nazi leadership was hanged.
I'm just arguing it was a rational calculated decision, not some insane power play motivated by historical revisionism.
So if a more radical nationalist imperialist than Putin were to win open free elections, do you think NATO would be happy?
Not to mention, by all accounts, Putin would probably win fully free elections even today. The opponents he's suppressing or killing are not extremely popular today, they are people who he fears might become popular if left unchecked.
Well, NATO is a defensive alliance and so not too worried if no one is invading anyone. But I think if Russia had a normal democratic situation with freeish press and lack of jailing or killing opponents they would be unlikely to continue the present kind of war which is a terrible deal for ordinary Russians. I remember the faces of the other Russians in the room when Putin announced the invasion and everyone looked horrified but scared to say anything.
It is not existential for Russia, it's just yet another barely consistent concept Russian apologists are throwing around in hope it sticks. I vividly remember how there were dozens of comments on this website defending the lunatic conspiracy theory about "NATO biolabs below Azovstal" during week 3 of the invasion, so HN is just another social media "zone" which Russians and their Western sympathizers try to "flood with shit", quoting one of their ideologues.
Software Engineer and I absolutely love woodworking, I'm going to rebuild the roof on a barn this year and cover it in solar panels, I'm ridiculously excited about this project. So much so that I secretly don't really want to get back on the computer anymore. I have a feeling a lot of people feel the same and just do it for the money.
I love coding personally, but I like being outdoors or in my workshop better.
Visit Japan now and there are more and more Americans, Australian, Indian and Chinese working, buying property and setting up businesses there.
I'm not really celebrating any of this, I just don't see how an old and tired population can continue to put so much energy into xenophobia when literally one of the only things between them and China are the US military having a base on Okinawa.