> Darwinists assure us this will reverse any day now...

Far be it from me to carry the torch for Darwinism -- but based on my experience with SimLife on the Amiga, I'd more likely expect the Japanese "species" to die off and be supplanted by a more robust one.

They have women - the chicoms have men.

Problem solved.

Is Japanese culture really as selfish as it seems? Russia as well?

There just doesn't seem to be any sense of community. I'm comparing say with Sweden, where their socialism stems from what I see as an actual community spirit.

When I was in college I had a Japanese roommate who is a fantastic photographer and a brilliant mind, but he was so terribly withdrawn. There was no attempt to "cross-pollinate" culture. There was no sharing of anything. It was practically paranoia.

Those from Taiwan and Singapore were radically different (and, admittedly, Christian). The Chinese were also withdrawn, but they were understandably fearful of their government and older than the rest of us.

David Beckham and Michael Owen are like Gods in Japan.

If you don't know who those people are, it might be because your culture is very withdrawn... practically paranoid, even.

Maybe in Darwinian terms they are adapting to overcrowding on a small island.
Ah! I get it, weren't the Japanese evolving into small people for the same reason, then the outside artificial influx of American food and customs reversed the trend, they are now bigger. So, obviously, the only other answer is fewer people. Darwin triumphs again!

Before you all point the finger at the Japanese and call them selfish, walk a mile in their shoes. Few of you have any clue as to how incredibly expensive it is to raise even one child in a densely packed urban environment like Japan. Whether its ancient Rome, medieval Constantinople, industrial London, or modern Tokyo - cities have always filled fewer cribs than graves each year. They have always depended on new arrival from the country side to maintain their populations. Japan is essentially one really big city. What is happening there is in keeping with historical norms.

daniel:

Yes, but they don't take folks from the countryside because they've an anti-human society.

Carl Lewis also sold millions of disco records in Japan. It is a very strange place. It is as if everything really awful in everyone else's culture ends up there, only magnified. Women's professional wrestling, conducted by large fat women with bad makeup(not WWE fitness and swimsuit model types), is extremely popular. They also love comic books and game shows. Yikes!

OJ,

There is precious little country side in Japan from which to take people. Price supports for farmers and rice growers that keep people down on the farm may be short sighted and economically inefficient - but it is hardly "anti-human".

Where Japan fails is its anti-immigrant policy (and culture). It's inability to accept and culturally absorb immigrants is it's fatal weakness.

Daniel:

Do you mean Japan's failure to adapt is the cause of its current decline?

How Darwinian...

daniel:

Yes it's too racist/nativist to accept immigrants.

Failure to adapt is always a cause for decline.

The trouble with you folks is that you go searching for some over arching meta-philosophical reason for Japan's demographic decline. You need look no further than basic pocket book issues affecting a Japanese couple's decision to have kids, and if so, how many kids. It's too bloody expensive to raise a large family in any urban environment - always has been, always will be. Especially in Japan where the average family lives in a rabbit warren apartment.

Wanting to avoid the poverty resulting form the costs too many kids is not the same thing as selfish greed. So don't be so quick to judge them.

OJ,

BTW, I noticed that somebody pulled the post/thread where you stated you wanted to burn certain types of people alive and that Galileo should have be so burned. Did you do that yourself or do you have a handler who removes embarassing comments and santiizes your blog in a Minitruth fashion?

Daniel,

Nobody takes Orrin's occasional exhortations to burn witches as a call to action.

If I may get back to the article upon which that post was based:

I wonder if it is possible to move in the opposite direction from the "incredibly fine-tuned place" concept?

What laws of nature, what constants, would have to be changed and by how much in order to produce a universe in which every other solar system presents hospitable enough conditions for the emergence of life and civilizations like ours?

We may be living in a bargain basement universe rather than a Designer one, after all -- a cosmic Filene's.

japan is very crowded, even over-crowded. the population levels are dropping to compensate. and this is a mystery, or somehow bad ? japanese society is hyper-conformist, even more so than leftists are comfortable with. that's why they are so withdrawn and insular.

another one of their oddities is the ban on showing pubic hair in films or still images.

Nobody takes Orrin's occasional exhortations to burn witches as a call to action.

Except possibly Orrin himself. I would like him to plainly state whether these exhortations are mere hyperbole on his part or if he would literally want to see people that he doesn't like burned and/or stoned to death.

Brit -- I don't get it. Are you calling me withdrawn and paranoid because I don't know who a couple of overpaid soccer players are? The president of the college I was attending at the time was Prince Charles and he came to visit us, if that makes you feel better.

India's population density is nearly as high as Japan's, and Russia has more space than can be believed. There's got to be some other explanation.

And since when did "selfish" become slanderous? I thought "selfishness" was what made the world go round, at least for Ayn Rand types.

I did not find Japanese society to be anit-human while I lived there. The Japanese are certainly nativisit/racist in their reasons not to allow unrestricted immigration into their country. However, there are foreigners all over the place whether its working white collar expats in Roppongi or Iranian construction workers in Shibuya and Shinjuku.

Randall Voth is wrong to say the Japanese have no sense of community. They have an extreme sense of community whether it be that of their nation, neighborhood, co-workers, or friends. The Japanese engage in communal activities far greater than Americans do.

Historically, the pattern with Japan is that they take a long time to change because of their need to maintain social harmony, but that once they've decided what to do, they make changes very quick. Japan will continue to have problems with economic stagnation for a while and demographic issues in the short term, but the long term prognosis will be OK.

Randall:

Nothing personal, old boy.

It just amused me to see an American accuse another country of being withdrawn, paranoid or otherwise overly inward-looking.

I've seen your news broadcasts. Olympic coverage is the funniest (the USA versus the Rest of the World Competition).

(And before you hit the anti-Americanism alert panic button, I'm pro. But I can still enjoy ironies).

Brit:

Don't medal counts reflect that reality?

daniel:

It would be better if we did, but we're not about to.

Jeff:

Ah yes, the old "failure to adapt demonstrates adaptation" argument. Self-parody lives!

"Don't medal counts reflect that reality?"

Which comment encapsulates nicely why America is, among other superlatives (many good), the most insecure nation in the world's history.

Did you cheer on Cathy Freeman in Sydney?

If not, you'll never understand the Olympics.

Brit:

I'm American--I don't pay any attention to the Olympics. If they were real atheletes they'd be able to hit a curve.

brit: americans are insecure ? i feel no need to answer that. yes, without cathy freeman there would be no olympics.

Chris,

Once we figure out how to make raising a family less expensive, the Japanese will copy our ideas and all will be right with the world.

Brit,

As for the Olympics, French TV covers French athletes pretty much to the exclusion of all others and since they win about as many medals as Togo, that coverage can get pretty boring.

Americans brag because we have lots to brag about. Europeans, including the residents of Perfidious Albion(TM), resent it because they'd like to have stuff to brag about too. From Penzeance to Potsdam, Europe is little more than a graveyard with a few good museums and restaurants, nothing of any consequence goes on there. There are more top-shelf scientists and engineers living within 50 miles of Bangalore than in all of the UK.

It would be better if we did[burn people alive for the crime of nonconformity], but we're not about to.

Anybody else here think that OJ needs to get some serious psychological help? OJ's desire to literally burn to death gays and other social outcasts is no differnt than Hitler's compulsion to gas Jews.

Even if you could find a less sadistic means of enforcing social conformance, you wouldn't want to. Troublemakers and those who just don't fit in are the yeast of any society, they keep a society from growing stagnant. Witness the cultural decline of Spain and its eventual demise as a great power after the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews. Or witness the Japanese inability to accept immigrants and their resulting social and economic decay. A mongrel society (like America's) is superior to any pure bred society.

It would be better if we did[burn people alive for the crime of nonconformity], but we're not about to.

Anybody else here think that OJ needs to get some serious psychological help? OJ's desire to literally burn to death gays and other social outcasts is no different than Hitler's compulsion to gas Jews.

Even if you could find a less sadistic means of enforcing social conformance, you wouldn't want to. Troublemakers and those who just don't fit in are the yeast of any society, they keep a society from growing stagnant. Witness the cultural decline of Spain and its eventual demise as a great power after the expulsion of the Moors and the Jews. Or witness the Japanese inability to accept immigrants and their resulting social and economic decay. A mongrel society (like America's) is superior to any pure bred society.

Bart:

Yeah, that's what I meant about insecure.

The Olympics has nothing to do with medal tables. Who even keeps track of them, apart from you Yanks? Without weighting for population/team size and/or wealth/training facilities (drug-abuse based weighting would be interesting in the US and China's case), they're quite meaningless.

The Olympics are about Extraordinary Stories of Extraordinary People.

(Incidentally: now it's ok because the French do it too?)

Wow, the Olympics and burning witches all mixed in together. Boy, I love this site!

No reader of brothersjudd.com is about to light up a torch, grab a pitchfork, and head to the nearest gay bar with mayhem in mind. Nor do we wish for anyone else to do so.

Orrin is a crusty crustacean from the New Hampshire shoreline, a barnacle on the smooth hull of social progressivity.

Is there not to be room for his kind on the open expanse of this glorious invention called the Inter-Net?

Only losers don't care about medal tables.

As the great football (that's real football not soccer)coach, Vince Lombardi, said 'Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.'

You claimed that somehow the Americans were unique in a hyper-nationalistic approach to the Olympics. I pointed out at least one other nation, which I am extremely familiar with, which is if anything even more jingoistic than we are. If Britain doesn't celebrate its Olympic champions the way America does, the reason is that there are so few. It doesn't take a long time to fete 9 gold medalists, two fewer than France.

Daniel,

You are right that society has to open to a panoply of new ideas, and people should have the right to accept or reject them in the marketplace free of the intrusion of a theocratic government, whether than theocracy is Christian, Muslim, Jewish, Hindu, Buddhist, Communist or Nazi. We don't need to burn witches at the stake but we should be allowed to ridicule the Michael Moores of the world more openly, and the bounds of political correctness or 'hate speech laws' should not be imposed on us to chill our ability to say that a position held by someone else is complete and utter balderdash, or that people should not waste everyone else's time looking for approval about where they decide to place their genitalia.

Since I consider racial purity a crock, I really don't have any opinion on whether the Japanese 'pure' society or our 'mongrelized' society is better. But I do believe we should be open to everyone else's ideas and they should be open to ours.

We don't need to burn witches, but if they can't turn someone into a gopher what good are they?

"Olympics are about Extraordinary Stories of Extraordinary People"

That's correct and perhaps you can tell us why most of them are Americans.

Is there not to be room for his kind on the open expanse of this glorious invention called the Inter-Net?

There are too many of them on the net already. They're called "hate sites". So how is OJ's obviously sincere desire to kill gays, witches, etc. any different than a Nazi/Klan hate site calling for the deaths of Jews and Blacks?

Vince Lombardi, said 'Winning isn't everything. It's the only thing.'

He never said that. What he said was: "Winning isn't everything, but wanting to is."

Actually according to the Dictionary of Cultural Literacy(3d ed, 2002), he said both.

There are about 30 really good quotes attributable to Lombardi, showing the value that once attached to a Jesuit education. He was as much a master with the language as with the football chalkboard.

I think OJ is being firmly tongue-in-cheek with his exhortations to mass murder, but when he endorsed the Spanish Inquisition's habit of butchering people for not having the 'odour of sanctity' because they bathed regularly which was seen as a sign of Judaizing, I thought he went a little off the deep end.

As for there being 'too many' hate sites, I disagree. It is far better to have that human mildew out in the open than hiding in the darkness where they can posture themselves as a 'forbidden fruit' thus enticing the young and the impressionable.

daniel:

Of cours it's different. Hitler killed people for who they were, not for what they did.

Peter:

It might be the only redeeming feature of the Olympics--you can always find a lit torch.

Brit -- I'm a Canadian, so does that make it more or less ironic?

I guess what I mean by community is something like church and family, not communal workout sessions before work, karaoke and renting "children" by the hour for company.

As I always say, ask an honest question and offend a lot of people.

daniel, so what you are saying is you are pro-witch ?

h-man:

"That's correct and perhaps you can tell us why most of them are Americans."

America has more medal winners than any other country because it has an enormous team of highly-trained, professional atheletes on the most sophisticated drugs. It doesn't have most of the medal winners.

It certainly doesn't have most of the extraordinary people or stories. Though it does have probably the most extraordinary of them all: Jesse Owens.

Not all the extraordinary people win gold. After Cathy Freeman and Steven Redgrave, the most memorable story of Sydney was that of Eric Moussambani, who made up the whole of the Equatorial Ginea swimming team, and who had only learnt to swim a few months before in a small hotel swimming pool. Heroically, he just about finished his heat in a state of utter exhaustion, but won it because the other two competitors had been disqualified.

It was glorious.

But you probably missed all that, being too busy cheering on your multi-millionaire basketball 'Dream Team' or something. Arf.

Randall:

Makes it twice as ironic but rather defeats my point in your case, I must admit :)

The Brits have this cult of the plucky but inept amateur that blissfully has never traversed the pond. A good example is the competition between Amundsen and Scott to reach the South Pole. Scott's vain, clueless and bumbling ineptitude got him and his team killed, while the coolly professional Amundsen had surprisingly little trouble getting to the Pole and back on a shoestring budget.(see Roland Huntford's The Last Place on Earth)

While you may be inspired by the Equatorial Guinean who taught himself to swim, most Americans see that and think that the dumbass is lucky he didn't drown.

He virtually did drown. He sort of drowned his way in roughly the right direction for two lengths. It was wonderful beyond words.

You're quite right about the plucky amateur thing. We like our winners too, mind - Steve Redgrave, the greatest Olympian of all time from any country, got a knighthood and has a lifetime's supply of TV spots and motivational speaking engagements ahead of him. But we like our plucky, inept losers almost as much.

Which is the original point about the 'insecurity' of America. It's like one big, brilliant teenager who can do everything except laugh at himself now and again.

OJ is on record for desiring the murder of millions--homosexuals--for being who they are.

Yet feels qualified to lecture the rest of us on morality.

Go figure.

Homosexuality is immoral. There are traditional punishments for transgressive behavior.

CJM,

I am not pro witch, I'm anti-bigot.

And I hate to be the one to break this to you and OJ but witches aren't really real. None of their spells can really harm you (or help you for that matter). It's all a fantasy, so you and OJ can stop being afraid now.

Brit does have a point, Bart. Those secure Brits have been laughing at everything about themselves since World War 1, and look how well they've done.

Hitler killed people for who they were, not for what they did.

So you agree with the Nazis that Jewishness is a racial/ethnic designation (something they are) not a religious affiliation (something they do).

I Wonder where that leaves people like Sammy Davis Jr.?

Peter:

Aha - but Dyson's now the number 1 vacuum cleaner in the US, apparently (admittedly he had to oustource production to Malaysia or somewhere to be competitive, but still...)

In your face, Hoover!

(waves giant Union Jack-daubed hand-with-pointy-finger)

"Yoo-oo-Kay! Yoo-oo-Kay!"

Two more signs of the insecure teenager:
a) spluttering with indignation at the smallest criticism, even if it comes from your best friends.

b) an imbalance between one's ability to dish it out, and one's ability to take it.

I claim this thread as proof.

There are traditional punishments for transgressive behavior.

Slavery is traditional as well, so is child labor, feudal oppression, theocratic ignorance and fear, and a host of other evils. Besides, if you're going to be tradional, why not go all the way and demand the death of people who pick up sticks on Saturday? Why are you such a wuss about these people? Don't you understand what a menace to moral society stick pickers are?

Let's cut the crap, OJ. This isn't about immorality or traditon. It's about your revenge fantasies for that incident that happened to you in your fraternity.

This is one wild thread. Jeff/daniel, give it a break, please. Does the word irony mean anything to you? Orrin does not want to kill all gays and witches. Just a few. We think.

daniel:

Yes, slavery and Blue Laws should endure.

If I were upset about the fraternity I'd talk about bestiality, but if you'd had a sheep you'd not complain.

daniel:

No, Hitler was a Darwinist and crazy. Jews aren't a race.

daniel:

I'm pro-bigotry and anti-witch. It doesn't matter that normal people know magic is bunk. It matters that these evil folk believe it real.

Judging by his obsession with homosexual depravity in boarding schools and the British Navy, I'd hazard that OJ's repressed experience might well have involved a retired Eton master and a sailing trip.

Brit:

"spluttering with indignation at the smallest criticism, even if it comes from your best friends."

Now you are talking like the French Foreign Ministry. It really is astounding how many "best friends" the Americans have these days. Why, just the other day old Kim-Il Jong was saying to me...

OJ,

I won't be impressed with your statements until you stop being soft on those evil bastards that pick up sticks on Saturday.

daniel:

You are years behind the curve. Sabbath laws should be enforced:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/004248.html

Peter B,

OJ is not being ironic in the slightest. He is being literal and means exactly what he says.

Peter:

Tragically, in our case it's true. Was it Phil Gramm of whom it was said: "his enemies hate him and even his best friends don't like him"?

Mind you, we're no better off. The only people who want to be our friends are the Gibraltans and the Maltese.

but if you'd had a sheep you'd not complain.

So you enjoyed having sex with a sheep as well as that other little incident in your frat house? Good thing you're such a moral person. I'd hate to think what havok you would inflict on society if you were a moral noncomformist.

You do know what Leviticus has to say about such practices? And what should happen to people who perform them?

Brit:

Awww... look, we'll be your friends. Heck, we'll be everybody's friends. That's the Canadian way.

daniel:

Yes, we should be punished expecially because it's so easy to fall prey to their seductions. Try it once and you'll have a lanolin Jones. Once you go baaah you never go back.

OJ,

If the Catholic Church does not have a problem with evolution (calling it "more than a theory"), who are you to oppose it?

Yes, we should be punished

So you're calling for your own death?

Peter:

Thanks and all that...but we're not quite that desperate yet. Hope you understand.

(Gibraltar and Malta might not be much use in World War III, but they're lovely for holidays).

You are years behind the curve. Sabbath laws should be enforced

Gee, I must have missed that popular mass movement of recent years demanding a constitutional ammendment to impose OT sabbath laws on America. I should read the papers more often.

daniel:

Sadly we don't stone and burn people anymore. I'm saying we should. If we did I'd have passed up the sheep.

Yes, slavery ... should endure.

Tell you what OJ. Why don't you find a black person (I'll assume that you don't know any personally, so pick a stranger off the street corner) and repeat this statement. Then let us know what happens next (assuming you're still conscious from a well deserved pummeling).

It never fails.

People draw close to the Rabbit Hole, think they can hover above it, and before they know it they're bouncing off the inside of the padded cell together with the rest of us.

If we did I'd have passed up the sheep.

So this really isn't about defending society. It's about projecting your own sick compulsions, just like your desire to kill gays stems from that little fraternity incident.

Eugene:

They ought to take the Blue Pill:

http://www.brothersjudd.com/blog/archives/006787.html

daniel:

No, it's about projecting moral standards onto everyone because sin is so attractive.

daniel:

That's not biblically sanctioned slavery but chattel slavery that you're talking about. The latter is a modern innovation based on race, not an ancient based on assimilation of defeated peoples to their new culture.

OJ:

So what would that be in practice?

Sunni working in US cotton fields, or is it just the Russians working in the Moscow branch of McDonalds?

Brit:

Yes, it's what we're doing in Fallujah, what we did in Japan and Germany, what we did to the Confederate states, etc. It's worked for thousands of years but chattel slavery gave it a bad name and most are so morally vapid they can't distinguish.

So what you're saying is: defeat a country in battle, and the US can rightfully do to its cutlure what Orrin Judd once did to some petrified ewe one wild night in the mid-1970s...?

Yes, I can buy that.

Brit:

We domesticated the little seductresses didn't we?

Brit,

It is the serious quest for excellence that matters. Merely showing up and thinking that whatever result you post is good enough is the stuff of those primary school field days where every kid gets a ribbon, or those politically correct gym classes where dodge ball is banned.

It's not a matter of being able to laugh at oneself. It's a matter of taking whatever you undertake seriously. Most successful people I know have a few avocations about which they are as fanatical as they are about their main source of income. One of my hobbies is cooking and I make a lot of mistakes, and some can be damn funny but my goal is to get better each time I cook something to learn from my mistakes. As is often said in America, there is no point in doing something if you aren't going to do it well.

Britain still produces a lot of highly skilled, well-trained really smart people. And Thatcherism isn't completely dead yet, as Britain is a magnet for talented Continentals. But sometimes that self-deprecatory humor can mutate into decadence and sclerosis. And the Brits ought to be careful.

OJ,

1. It's one thing to defeat another nation in battle and export your culture, politics, folkways etc there in some form, whether it is Iraq or the Sioux. It is quite another to enslave people. Most intelligent people know the difference between our occupation of Japan or the Philippines and the enslavement of Blacks in the antebellum South.

2. Why does it matter what people do in their own lives, to themselves so long as it doesn't affect you? If two people of the same sex do the nasty behind closed windows, curtains and doors, why is that your problem? If they flaunt it around the society, that is a different matter. Similarly, if a person wearing a conical black hat and carrying a wand with a star on the end comes up to you and says 'Abracadabra you are a newt' why do you care so long as you don't turn into a newt? If a person wants to open his barbershop on a Sunday, or if a person closes it on Saturday or Friday for religious reasons why is that your problem? I have enough trouble micro-managing my own life to believe that I can micro-manage other people's.

Bart:

The difference is just temporal prejudice, the bigotry of modernity.

temporal prejudice, the bigotry of modernity

Care to explain what exactly you mean by this?

Bart:

Thanks for the nuggets of wisdom, and the sober warning.

"As is often said in America, there is no point in doing something if you aren't going to do it well."

A commendable maxim. But one thing puzzles me: how do you then explain 'Joey'?

Man, that show sucks more powerfully than a Dyson.

daniel:

The vacuity of judging the things your ancestors did to be intolerable while excusing yourself for doing the same in slightly different form. Or, more often, tolerate much worse.

judging the things your ancestors did to be intolerable

True enough, I would find burning anyone at the stake for whatever reason to be intolerable. Similarly, I would find killing someone just for being gay or a witch to also be intolerable

while excusing yourself for doing the same in slightly different form.

This is where you lose me. How am I doing the same thing (burning or stoning people to death) in a slightly different form? Quite the contrary, as I oppose such actions.

Or, more often, tolerate much worse.

Again I don't follow. Far from tolerating your desire to kill other people because they are different, I am in strong opposition.

Your explanation makes no sense.

daniel:

No. it wouldn't.