May 11, 2007

It's been a troubled week in Japan

A friend who lives in Japan writes:


Yesterday, all the major national news networks carried a major story concerning this "social problem". A train arrived at a station in Hokkaido where about 60 people were waiting to get on. A group of high school students got on, but even after being asked a couple times to moves deeper into the interior of the car, they did not. The driver closed the doors and drove off, leaving 26 people on the platform. He informed the railroad of what he had done and the railroad arranged for six or seven taxis to take the stranded passengers to their destination.

This story was carried along with actual video of the station, interviews with local people, and elaborate animated illustrations of the train car showing where the students were standing in the car and where the stranded passengers were standing.

As if this were not enough, this morning's "wide" shows (news & entertainment), repeated the story in even more excruciating detail.

This story illustrates:

1. how orderly Japan is
2. how sensitive Japanese are to even the slightest social disorder
3. how enormous social pressure is brought upon offenders
4. Japanese attention to detail.

This story nearly wiped out the previous big story which was a fatal accident on a roller coaster. The story was presented night-after-night with elaborate engineering models of the wheel and axle structures, illustrating exactly where the axle had broken, along with interviews with various professors of engineering explaining in detail what metal fatigue was and how it can be detected. That was followed by actual visits to testing labs so we could see sonographs and other equipment in action on real bars of metal, with and without faults. That was followed by a review of the safety rules for roller coasters and the actual documents needed to complete the safety checks. That was followed by visits to *every* amusement park in Japan to determine when and how they overhaul the wheel and axle assemblies.

This of course was followed by scenes of the owner of the amusement park visiting the family and apologizing for the trouble he had caused, while they wailed "give us back our daughter." Interviews with the victim's friends revealed that she was a very cheerful girl who everyone liked, and who was always willing to help her mother in any possible way.


My published articles are archived at iSteve.com -- Steve Sailer

23 comments:

  1. I remember watching the national news once in Japan where the announcer said something to the effect of "And now this..." Then they showed a black guy jumping over a subway wicket. They also showed the station name, iirc, but provided no commentary.

    That was broadcast throughout the country.

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  2. Roller coaster accidents and rude teenagers! Let this be a warning to everyone regarding the horrors of monoculturalism.

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  3. One hundred years from now Japan will be Japan.

    What will the USA be in 100 years? What will the UK be in 100 years?

    In 500 years Japan will be Japan.

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  4. One hundred years from now Japan will be Japan.

    What will the USA be in 100 years? What will the UK be in 100 years?


    My perspective: however dumb the Western multicultural experiment is, at least it's a controlled experiment. East Asia is the control.

    But this is easier for me to say because I'm of Chinese ancestry, and if everything really starts going downhill in the US I can plausibly move to China...

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  5. Japan is great, but it's folly to extrapolate from Japan to the United States.

    The U.S. minus Jews, East Asians, South Asians, non-WASP whites, etc., wouldn't be Japan. Most of the WASPs in this country are of fairly low-grade stock; outside of the top layer of New England smarties, you've got millions of born-agains who don't believe in evolution.

    That's what's so sad about the "white nationalists" on here: if they got their wish, they'd be even worse off than they are now. Monoculturalism makes sense in Japan, because Japan can produce as many first-rate physicians, engineers, scientists, etc. as it needs; red state America can't.

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  6. Dog of Justice,

    Can some of us come with you? Im white, but if I couldn't live in the USA, I'd easily opt to live amongst the respectful, polite, considerate Asians or perhpas the Indians. As the USA gets "hip-hopped" culturally, I may not always want to be here.

    Civilization is a wonderful thing, I cannot believe our elites gamble with it so cavalierly.

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  7. Cat that isn't true.

    Much of the "Born Fighting" stock, i.e. the Scots-Irish are the same people genetically and culturally that were part of the Scottish Enlightenment and the start of the Industrial Revolution. James Watt ring any bells?

    Thomas Edison, the Wright Brothers, Philo T. Farnsworth, and John Moses Browning to name a few are Scots-Irish who had a few things to contribute to engineering. If anything the engineering profession until the outsourcing/multi-cultural phase and deliberate denigration of engineering by the new priesthood elite were dominated by Scots-Irish.

    The Scots-Irish are usually middle to low income. Lacking wealth and land that the WASP aristocracy has. Or the social old-money connections to get their kids into the new priesthoods: journalism, entertainment (Harvard dominates Hollywood), NGOs, and Government/Politics. They are also denigrated as "white trash" by WASPS and new aristos afraid of upwardly mobile competition. Look at the "nerd" stereotype and deliberate attempts to lower earnings (by importing foreign engineers) to decrease social success. Instead of the "right stuff" it's nerds! i.e. "ladies avoid them on the dating market no matter what their potential earnings, look at me I'm a journalist."

    African-Americans basically invented modern pop music (with the help of some influential white guys like Sinatra, Elvis, the Beach Boys, and the Beatles). Jews invented the Comic Book with the help of a few Scots-Irish like Bob Kane (Batman).

    But overall the story of America is one of domination by the Scots-Irish from Andrew Jackson onwards. And note all of that technological, social, and cultural innovation took place in a monoculture. Scott Joplin composed within a European oriented musical vocabulary, as did Duke Ellington. Comic books grew out of the popular pulp culture and were explicitly patriotic and "American."

    Ironically new or assimilated immigrants were "more American than Americans." Siegel and Schuster created Superman to fight for "Truth, Justice, and the American Way." Jack Kirby had Captain America punch out Hitler.

    White Nationalism is as dead and stupid as Black Nationalism. The Genius of America was it's conditional acceptance of immigrants: you could be American if you adopted it's values and pledged to defend it. The opposite of Multiculturalism.

    Of course America is not Japan. But America at it's most successful was no less monocultural.

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  8. cat of justice: Perhaps you think every Japanese is descended directly from the Shogun? Almost all Japanese are descended from peasants just like most white red-state Americans are; you can't extrapolate Japanese culture from Asian-Americans. Besides, it's not like Mexicans are flooding the US to become doctors and physicists.

    I live in Japan now and also was a high school exchange student here many years ago. The high school I attended in the US was a white monocultural school, in one of the top districts in the nation. One thing that strikes me now is the benefits both schools derived from having a monoculture: the social contract was well understood and enforced, and in both places it included a respect for learning that you don't see in inner city schools (which I also have experience with after living in New York for nine years). The people at my Midwestern school were mostly of German background so you might not see those kinds of results with a monocultural Scots-Irish school but it certainly couldn't be any worse than multiculturalism. If the US was partitioned and the Midwest had a wall built around it, in very short time it *would* become Japan.

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  9. There's a funny story about foreign hostesses in Japan here - http://www.pliink.com/mt/marxy/archives/2007/05/former-foreign.html

    A major problem these hostesses in Japan have is having to listen to customers recite Pi to 6,000 places.

    Japan is different.

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  10. Any orderly society will perish! Only randomness and those who adjust to randomness survive.

    Nature cannot be made deterministic and never follow rules.

    Go predict the next earthquake if you don't trust this!

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  11. "If the US was partitioned and the Midwest had a wall built around it, in very short time it *would* become Japan."

    I doubt it. Listen, I get what you're saying though: Scots-Irish and other Midwesterners accomplished some innovative stuff. I'll tell you what weakened white America though, and it wasn't highly-skilled immigrants. It was the New Deal and Great Society.

    Before the New Deal, life in America was HARSH. Communities needed to self-organize, by church and ethnic organizations, to provide care for their orphans, sick and elderly; poor people needed to know how to make their own clothes, etc. The Democrats made American life a lot easier, and reduced the incentive for striving and innovation among most whites (same with blacks, of course).

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  12. the Scots-Irish are the same people genetically and culturally that were part of the Scottish Enlightenment and the start of the Industrial Revolution.

    If you look at the distribution of birth places of famous mathematicians, there is a marked tendency for them to be born in the Northeast and Midwest.

    http://www-groups.dcs.st-and.ac.uk/~history/BirthplaceMaps/Places/USA.html

    Probably the Germans and upper class English could have carried the US, but the Southerners have never been known for intellectual achievements.

    "All stereotypes are true"...the fact that the stereotype about Appalachians and Southerners is one of the few that the media allows to be repeated does not make it false.

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  13. I'll tell you what weakened white America though, and it wasn't highly-skilled immigrants. It was the New Deal and Great Society.

    I'm skeptical about that. The most homogeneous country in Western-as in never part of the Soviet Empire- has the world's most competitive economy. That's Finland, a country with a very generous Scandinavian-style welfare state.

    http://www.forumblog.org/blog/2004/10/finland_most_co.html

    http://www.csmonitor.com/2005/1026/p01s03-woeu.html

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  14. Finland most competitive economy

    This year, though, it dropped to second place.

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  15. Scots-Irish are now somehow "multi-cultural" ... Are you kidding me?

    When these people say they do not believe in evolution, that is a political statement. Same with east coast libs, when they say they believe in evolution, that is politics not Darwin. Neither camp knows Darwin from dishwater. It is about something a little bit less tangible and harder to explain. What people used to call, Tradition.

    Call them "dumb" all you want. They are still having babies, while the libs are chasing after windmills. Working hard the best years of your life and not reproducing is "smart," in their book. You can see why some people are satisfied to be "dumb white trash."

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  16. Another Anonymous said:
    "If the US was partitioned and the Midwest had a wall built around it, in very short time it *would* become Japan."

    That is exagerrating a bit, but not without merit. A commenter on one of Randall Parker's blogs mentioned once that in the '80s or '90s there was a county in either South or North Dakota where schools had average test scores higher than Japanese averages.

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  17. America, or any other Euro nation, do not 'need' lots of foreigners to become the engineers and doctors. Wec could produce them easily enough. Most modern disciplines, science, engineering, medicine etc were created by European people. Did something suddenly go wrong with European genes only about 40 years ago? Oh woe is us, we cant do engineering, quick phone the Indian embassey! Curse my suddenly (and very mysteriously) decaying genes!Clearly Darwinists should investigate.

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  18. Anonymous, when you talk about how we must still be the shit because at one time we were the best, you sound like a Muslim or Greek. It might be that the ship has passed, the damage been done and there is no going back.

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  19. If anything the engineering profession until the outsourcing/multi-cultural phase and deliberate denigration of engineering by the new priesthood elite were dominated by Scots-Irish.

    I thought the Germans fit in there somewhere, this sounds like a Scots-Irish ethnic pride rally.

    Look at the "nerd" stereotype and deliberate attempts to lower earnings (by importing foreign engineers) to decrease social success. Instead of the "right stuff" it's nerds! i.e. "ladies avoid them on the dating market no matter what their potential earnings, look at me I'm a journalist."

    You couldn't pick a worse example because nerds are their own worst enemy in the dating game. "Hi I'm fat, lack social skills, and am trapped in adolescence. Want to come to my place and play video games/watch movies?" But if experience is any guide most of them are not picky and will be happy to settle for women that no one else wants. Nerds aren't very selective. I think some of them just prefer masturbation.

    Okay, so apparently America was shaped by Scots-Irish. I am finding that hard to believe. What is your ethnic background, by the way?

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  20. I posted Anonymous 3:55 about Japan in 500 years. This thread is supposed to be about Japan. There are many anon posters. This is my second post on this thread:

    cat of justice you are a thread-jacker. Plus, your reading comprehension is poor. My point was that while the US and UK are being radically transmogrified, Japan certainly is not. And there will be profound ramifications for the future.

    My point was not that the US should be like Japan in its homogeneity. American assimilation worked great for 200 years. And during that time the nation was never remotely like Japan.

    Your technique is to set up a false choice between a Noble Non-White Majority America or an Evil Pure White Nationalism, when you know damn well the country has never been completely white, nor completely mono-ethnic, nor truly mono-cultural.

    The historic American WASP elite and WASP middle classes have been the most tolerant to outsiders in the history of populations on this planet. And what is the result of this generosity? Relentless ridicule, scorn and demonization from mostly Jews, Catholics, and just plain Leftists. All of them ingrates who will be ironically forced to flee the country by the non-white hoards after WASP America really does exit the stage.

    The rest of your argument about the shortcomings of Scots-Irish or red state America is non-sensical animus. The number of "pure" Scots-Irish who will be studied as American giants in the history books (in 500 years in Japan) is huge. The numbers of Scots-Irish mixed with something else are too many to count.

    Right, everyone knows what notable figure is half-black or half-Jewish. But half Scots-Irish is not noted. It's basically known as white.

    And, no, I'm not Scots-Irish. In fact, they annoy me with their whiskey breath and musical stylings. And btw I'm not answering the query on ethnicity by Udolpho. That poster is a different anonymous.

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  21. Given its birthrate, Japan will barely exist in 100 years much less 500.

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  22. 'Can some of us come with you? Im white, but if I couldn't live in the USA, I'd easily opt to live amongst the respectful, polite, considerate Asians or perhpas the Indians. As the USA gets "hip-hopped" culturally, I may not always want to be here.'

    You could go where the weather keeps immigrants out. I travel to our office in North Dakota now and then and it is amazing how un-diverse the population of ND is. Also look at the murder rate. Now keep in mind that Norwegians are not known for exciting lives. Garrison Keilor often quips that he wished that he was Italian and dreamed of sitting around eating good food sipping wine and talking loud.

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  23. You guys are clueless about Japan. Google "Arudou Debito" to learn about Japan's multicultural future. Japan's letting in more and more foreigners as immigrants to replace the workforce being weakened by the aging native population.

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