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“Robots or immigrants?” Japan: furiously developing gundam technology

Moral of the story: Japan could not build better robots

Maybe we need a system that doesn't rely upon an impossible everlasting economic expansion?

Japan is "the other country" because of how mainstream media, international media coverage, and how lots of people who probably never lived and don't know enough about living in the country itself or it's culture chose to portray it. It's the country chosen to be the other place, open enough to take a peek, distant enough to draw comparisons to. In some aspects, it's portrayed as some sort of utopia, and in other aspects it's portrayed as weird, alien, insane, absurd.... and then sometimes with a tinge of racism and hatred. A linchpin that is still kinda relatable on some level, that also seems to be open to it. It's as distant a developed nation can get, while still being an allied country, which means being accessible. But in the end, it's just another country with people like me and you. It certainly has it's own unique cultural aspects because of a history of isolationism, but it often is less different in several aspects people think of than what it seems. Weirdly enough, a lot of attention is focused on aspects that are not as distant from western countries as what people may think. The biggest examples that have been popping up recently with regular frequency are talks about overtime in work, suicide rates and general happiness and satisfaction of the population. This is because decades ago, Japan really had some alarming rates, and people used to think very differently about work. The problem with suicide is also often covered in japanese media, not being a huge taboo topic in comparison to countries with a history of Christian religions. But much like what Evan said about immigration policies becoming far more open in recent years due to political decisions, what most people don't seem to realize is that at the same time there are also ongoing big transformations regarding suicide prevention and work policies in Japan in the past decade or so. So much so that, despite still having a pretty serious and heavy suicide rate, Japan is more or less on par with several western countries these days, including the US and Canada. A bit because their suicide rate has steadily lowered over the years, but mainly because the suicide rates in several developed countries including the US has pretty much exploded. So it'd be funny if it wasn't tragic that so many people are taking time nowadays to criticize Japan's suicide rates, when actually their own country have increased their own rates so much in such a short period of time that it'd make Japan blush in some way. The rates are staggering. We just don't pay a whole lot of attention on the topic just as much as your average japanese also don't. People often take Japan to talk about certain topics they don't pay much attention in their own countries because Japan is "the other country". It's easier to talk about their problems without seeing the problems in your own country, but it's also easier to talk about Japan's good aspects as something unachievable in our societies as cultural products - without taking sacrifices into account. I think what Evan seems as socialism in the video, which I partially agree with, I tend to see as collectivism instead. The concepts coincide in several aspects, but at least in my mind, the difference is origins and on concept. Without the heavy burden of politics, socialism is a social and economic system. I think because it was a devised system with it's set of rules, philosophy, ideals, methods and whatnot, it's often taken more from an ideological standpoint rather than an analytical one. Collectivism is more like a value, a standpoint, a cultural aspect that draws from something. As opposed to individualism, it puts the priorities of society over the ones of individuals. Which then has it's own set of advantages and disadvantages. But I make this distinction because you really don't see a whole lot of socialism in Japan from an ideological or political standpoint. Japan is a heavily capitalist society even if it has been in recession for several years, it's biggest investment groups and companies have been funding a whole lot of american gig economy (which could be seem as capitalism on the extremes), social work could be way better in Japan, and minority rights could be worked better too. From what I heard and seem in interviews with japanese people, I don't see many of them thinking in terms of politics, thinking they have political power, or seeing services and production at the hands of japanese people, as in public service. I mean, public healthcare, public education, and basic services all seem to be very good and well funded, but it's more like the government is making all decisions behind that, instead of power being on the hands of people. In turn, it seems that lots of japanese people are largely uninterested in politics overall. Which is a whole other thing to discuss, but kinda why I can't see Japan as a "socialist" society. In any case, just to reinforce, these are just my personal opinions, the opinion of a nobody living in a 3rd world country... xD So do take it with a grain of salt. But it's an interesting discussion anyways, I do think it's work talking and thinking about.

My question is how do we move away from the idea that perpetual growth is the only means to prosperity? It's never going to be sustainable in the long run.

Maybe once they perfect cat girls

Damn this man is good at making thought provoking videos.

Rare Earth: Japan has good wealth distribution Also Rare Earth 2 years ago: Japan's untouchables

This is the first time I've caught a video of yours early so let me just say (& for the sake of The Algorithm): You're so well spoken and these videos are just so well put together. You present interesting ideas and situations in a way that is really, genuinely deep and thought provoking. Thanks for making these.

Moral of the story: Don't rage tweet.

Everybody's been talking about how the U.S. and China are goin for military victory's, meanwhile, Japan is over there goin for a culture victory with all these weaboos and video games

"Without growth, all of this is unsustainable" Wanna run that by me again?

The cetacean family would like to disagree with that.

I never really thought much about how different types of immigration affect the economy. This was a great video that changed how I understand the idea of immigration.

Finding a example of a capitalist nation that you find has a good wealth distribution and calling it socialist just shows a miscomprehension of both capitalism and socialism. I know that "socialism" is a term that has been greatly banalized in places, to the point that some people think that any nation with public healthcare is socialist, but I hope you'll abide more strongly to the meaning of the word in your future videos.

Japan has immigration but they have socially imposed mandatory assimilation, you need to speak Japanese fluently, adapt Japanese lifestyle, and adapt Japanese culture.

I just took a screenshot of the end credits because of how profound these ones are.

Title: Is Japan a perfect country? Video: Hardcore logic about immigration

3:51 Japan is the world's biggest creditor nation, US owns Japan $1.15 trillion of national debt Most if not all of Japan National debt owns by Japanese creditors.

I love Japan and am studying Japanese but I still believe working in Japan is a nightmare

just as a perfect place cannot exist an unchanging culture cannot exist Japan is wonderful place but underlying issues should be addressed before they become unavoidable well said thank you

6:56 as someone who has lived on the Texas/Mexico border we lived with this constantly. Under Obama there were more deportations, family separations, and even deportations of U.S. citizens simply because they looked 'illegal' yet no one cared. But when Trump talked about doing so everyone lost it even though he never did as much as Obama.

Honestly, while I don't always agree with the views you present, your channel deserves more attention, more viewers, more exposure. You present salient points concisely, non-confrontationally and in a way that's respectful, thought-provoking and quite simply insightful. Please keep on doing what you do. It's perfect. And you rock. I'll still disagree at times, but that's perfectly okay. You still rock!

Love your stuff; Rare Earth tells stories that need to be told

You seem to base many of your arguments on two sentiments on which I do not per se agree: 1. "Economy always needs growth." This is historically a proven assumption but one that humanity can no longer afford to hold for long. As we measure our economy by the amount of resources we consume and are not on the way to establish circular resource flows, humanity will destroy itself holding this assumption. We can no longer afford to accept it. 2. "Population = Military strength". Again, this is a historical truth. This one I deny not out of idealism but because I think that it changed when technology became the undoubted master of war. Japan is not likely to attempt invasions on less industrialized countries, like the US have made a habit of in the last decades. They only need to defend, and this will be a question of economy, politics and technology, not of population.

With each new video more i appreaciate the shots. Keep it up, guys.

This was a really really interesting video thanks for this one

From the very first video up to this day my internal reaction to your videos hasn't changed much, while being a very unique reception and feeling. There's something that I still can't pinpoint that causes some aversion, maybe your crude words. That aversion haven't disappeared, despite having seen pretty much every video on this channel. It's a really singular situation. And also since the very start I like your overall attitude, views, dares, questions, topics. There are some disagreements? Of course. But what you bring to me is so unique that I couldn't find anywhere else, and I certainly don't want to lose it.

I would love to see this subject done in Singapore, they have almost no responsibility to the immigrant worker, but they do care for Singaporeans; yes the big T loves immigrants, they however do not feel the same

Instead of immigration, they could try to encourage a babyboom. Lots of socities seem to make it harder and harder to raise a family.

Wish I could like this 2x, amazing video with some great points I hadn't considered before

I would have liked it if this video came along with some citations too

population decline is only an issue in a highly financed economy where a lot of interest has to be paid by future generations. In a net positive economy, it is no issue for a population to decline it even has benefits since population decline now means more wealth per capita.

Beautiful photography. I love clouds above the mountains in the distance.

The reason why many people, as you say, take "economic concern" for xenophobia, is because so many people argue with xenophobia and not legitimate concern

There's one thing you keep referring to: "Growth". Infinite growth on a finite planet. That's all that needs to be said, I believe. Efficiency only gets you so far.

Short answer: No it ain't

The b roll footage in this video is amazing. Great job!

Man your videos are always interesting!

Should have also talked about increasing birth rates and mentioned how expensive is it to have children in the West.

I love your stuff, but this is bad economics. Inbetween "socialism" definition, misunderstanding open borders, etc. You really need to do some reading of Moah Smith, Paul Krugman, Daren Acemoglu, etc. Japan is a very capitalist country. It has little to no worker control.

This video was very articulate and well thought out. Nicely done!

I saw a comment about the end credit. I've watched all of your videos and this is the first time I've read one lol. I gotta watch them all again.

But should we have systems that depends on ethernal growth?

Decreasing population is good. Constant growth is something we are going to have to eventually abandon.

i discovered this channel wednesday, pretty good content man

Very intersting channel, I like tha fact that commenting is not blocked. I hope we all cann act civil and have a nice connversation about the topics at hand.

I have a simple question, nations existence is based on continued economic growth. Economic growth worldwide is now sustainable. So when is enough really enough?

I have a major disagreement with the video with only one thing, Background checks. Immigration is pretty much as tricky and messy once a person starts thinking about it, as many people in the internet tend to misunderstand(with a liberal bias) that it has to do with xenophobia(which is flawed by definition) as the models that do work was with the Eastern Europeans and by giving the immigrant an environment to make them assimilate towards the natives, not the other way around. The reason for this is because if there a lot of immigrants of the same nationality creates a community that refuses to assimilate. A solution that many centrists offer is to allow a small amount of immigrants to properly assimilate with the community they are in rather than excluding them or making them enter in masses. If you want a better example as to why I disagree with you on this solution would be Cebu City, my hometown, where the Korean and Local immigrants from other provinces or from the Capital would immigrate here and form their own communities and not even once tried to assimilate with the local populace to the point that the locals would sometimes think of making them learn how to assimilate or return to their homeland. Aside from that, they become prey for criminals as they usually do not know things that locals knew.

Wisdom. Thanks for an eloquent and intelligent commentary on this important issue.

Will you ever come to Singapore? I'd very much love to hear your take.

They should encourage having children. If you import all your workers is it still japan? If the japanese become the minority is it still japan?

So video on Japan's work culture when? :D

Thanks for the information!

Fantastic video, as always. But if I were to be a bit cheeky I would add that worker control over the means of production (co-operatives, workplace democracy, public ownership etc.) is also one of the pillars of socialism, one that I find a lot of people tend to forget. Granted we've seen that a few regimes have ignored that part, rather conveniently. Anyways, apologies for being pedantic. I've heard a lot of the arguments some make about the situation in Japan, and it's nice to see it deconstructed like this.

How cool to see a video shot in Okinawa. I move there next week, can't wait to see it in person.

Why should something be growing all the time, until the end of time?

I needed this. Thank you.

Good one, bro. Well done. Thank you! 💖😎

I disagree with almost everything you said in this video.

While you make really good points, I feel like you're misrepresenting the "Anti-immigration" argument in the US. While I can't speak for everyone, most anti-immigration people in the US I know and have listened to and watched are actually pro-immigration, they're just not for open borders like many in the democratic party is. I agree that Japan needs more immigrants to fill it's population, as a temporary measure until the native population can get back on it's feet. But I don't want swathes of both skilled and unskilled workers just flooding the country near unrestricted, like what we have in the EU. 300,000 people enter the UK every year because of the open border policy of the EU and when you have massive numbers like that, integration becomes much more difficult for the migrants when they can just huddle with their own instead of mixing with the natives. In my home in the south, a small market town with a lot of historical significance, I've seen several traditions gradually become replaced by foreign and alien customs that nowadays would actually feel more at home in Londonistan. And it came with influx of immigrants that moved here over the years. I'm all for immigration, but with what the general idea that the overall populace of the world has of it, it's eroding national DNA and making us less diverse by proxy. And not only that, it's replacing the native populations of our countries. Japan needs immigration, that's a certainty, but without first carefully defining how they're going to allow more immigrants, I feel they're going to lose what makes them so appealing as a country in the first place: their culture and people.

I can't remember last video where my view were challenged so much. Awesome!

Great episode. If you (dare) come to China I'll happily film, arrange fixers, and help you research. There are a lot of great topics and places to explore here, but I wouldn't post it until you're right away from the country and somewhere that doesn't share an extradition treaty 😅

I lived in Japan for a better part of my life. I can say that Japan doesn't need immigrants. We just need better working conditions. Our working conditions are so dreadful and long that it really sucks the soul out of you. How will we have time to have children if we work 12 hours a day 6 days a week? How will we even date? We simply don't have time. If politicians really cared about this issue, they would do a huge labor law reform.

Great video! I live in Japan (intentional immigrant) and I know that Japan is FAR from perfect. I think a lot of the reasons people think it is is because how few protests there are here about major social issues. So many people just grin and bear it, even though they can't stand the system either. Japan needs immigrants, but it also needs to get over its superiority issues, thinking that it's okay to treat them poorly and pay them much less for the same work that Japanese do (to be fair, this is true in many countries). They also need to do more to help integrate immigrants, because without help and support, it's not going to happen in one (or more) generations.

Good video.. very informative … not biased 😀

Would a dip in population for a country as densely populated as Japan be bad in the long run? Sure, there would be economic fallout once the silver generation starts thinning out, but would dense cities be less dense, or would more and more people flee the countryside for work in the big cities?

I'd say that this video wins the over-simplification award of the day. This is a deeply multidimensional issue.

A place where people die from overworking themselves in not even close to being remotely a good nation.

Another brilliant video, shame youtube did not feature it on my feed when it was published. The more I watch these kinds of videos, the more uncertain I am about my plans on working and living in Japan. Sure, it has a stressful working environment, but I can live with that because my scope of work is going to be stressful regardless of where I work, might as well work at a better place with a better pay than my home country. The issue of xenophobia and discrimination against immigrants is real, my aunt's friend works there and is treated rather coldly by one or two workers at her workplace, but the rest of her colleague seems fine with her. Workplace politics is bound regardless of where you work, let it be your home country or overseas. I may be quite optimistic but I hope that people are fine with me just like how the Asian Boss interviewers were, if the interviewees were genuine.

great video! if I may give a technical note in hopes you read it, if you've noticed the flickering lights at basically all of this quite wonderful footage, and would like to avoid it: notice that Tokyo is running on 50hz, so you should be shooting with a shutter of 1/50 or multiples of such, if that's not the issue, you might need to buy an nd filter for your lens, which will allow you to open the shutter for longer - either to 1/50 or even to 1/100, which should remove the flicker entirely. I did kind of like the look of it though so maybe it was an artistic choice and if so - kudos.

Another context regarding immigration to consider is cultural integration/assimilation. Take Sweden for example- in the 1950s-70s there were thousands of immigrants entering from Yugoslavia, Greece, Turkey, Hungary, Austria, and Italy. There were integration pains lasting 5-10 years, but arguably most nordic immigrants successfully integrated. Fast forward to 2015 and the refugee crisis. The last 5 years has not seen the same successful integration as in the past, things are rapidly deteriorating for Sweden, putting it lightly. My point being Sweden had every right to think immigration would work out. It worked out in the past. But it isn't working now. There will be no cultural integration this time.

Good vid. Japan is going through an immigration boom, likely much larger than what the official numbers show. Is infinite economic growth the only model? Many countries will deal with population declines this century. Maybe redefining societal metrics beyond gdp is an important consideration to addressing population growth issues.

I like these videos they make me reevaluate my thinking.

nice cuts good work on this video

Take the Robots...

Japan isn’t socialist. Socialism isn’t just lack of disparity. Socialism is a means of getting there.

dude, never stop doing videos please

Excellent analysis. Very good about the different types of immigrants. You've got a new fan and subscriber.

I remember seeing a whole bunch of backlash when the minister of Japan talked about getting more immigrants in; something about "abandoning the culture" and "losing who the Japanese are" or "Indians taking over" It's a weird idea on globalization; and as a recovering weeb, I can't say that part of me doesn't worry about that a bit too. As bad as that concern is. Obviously, I'm not saying that immigrants shouldn't' come in; I guess I can't help but wonder what'll happen to the traditional culture. If anything will happen to it at all.

Can you please link your sources in the description? Thanks.

Just incredible scripts you present here. It boggles my mind that this is available for free on KZfaq.

Great video ✨

Your videos on Japan truly fascinate me, I love your videos and I love that culture, but nothing can ever be always positive and I love that you show that in all those videos.

Answer: *On Paper*

Congratulations! Amazing episode. As a son of emigrants myself I agree with ost of it. Paraphrasing Sitting Bull, the Earth is not ours, we're of the Earth. When you talked about culture changing got me thinking, please do one on bullfighting.

I think I finally came up with a way to classify your videos: they are sociology and history lectures with just a pinch of occasional politics thrown in.

"Without growth, all of this is unsustainable." That's really weird, because _growth_ is unsustainable. How is this supposed to not end in disaster? Also: you'll find most socialists care little about "employment rates" or nation-state borders, and their solution to "illegal" immigrants not having protections is to _extend them._ And also to end imperialist wars. (The USSR was bad at a lot of this and can suck it. State-capitalism is a shitty way to do "socialism", in one or any other number of countries.)

As long as immigration is tightly-controlled, then it can work.

damn this is such a good video !

You keep posting videos from Okinawa. How long will you be here? Are you doing a video about the military influence here?

Oh sweet summer child, they laughed because they ARE making those robots. Skynet 2020!

*laughs in the rest of East Asian*

A damn fine video on the topic.

I discovered Rare Earth a week ago and have been binge watching ever since.

I've been a subscriber for the last 2+ years. You never fail to accurately articulate POVs and subconscious perceptions with the right words no matter what topic you're discussing. Thank you!!

There's always going to be pros and cons in every nation.

I love that I got a Chris Hadfield Masterclass ad before this

I know don't understand what you're saying. But this is is just deep content bro. Such insights, into what usually seem to mundane topics, are priceless. Mega shout out.