[HN Gopher] Middle-aged man trading cards go viral in rural Japa...
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Middle-aged man trading cards go viral in rural Japan town
Author : PaulHoule
Score : 1637 points
Date : 2025-04-07 21:03 UTC (1 days ago)
(HTM) web link (www.tokyoweekender.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.tokyoweekender.com)
| bangaroo wrote:
| i needed an "oh, that's really nice" story today. this delivered.
|
| in every way, this seems well-intentioned, quirky, cute, fun, and
| positive. unless there's some subtext i'm missing, this is just a
| good and nice thing happening that's great for everyone involved.
|
| nice to have a story like that these days.
| uneoneuno wrote:
| Reminds me of "Divorced Dads" playing cards
| GlassOwAter wrote:
| Haha yep!
| dmix wrote:
| I wonder which one came first
| subroutine wrote:
| We're looking for _house_! Come on, _house_!
|
| _Holographic white Oakley 's_... not bad, it pairs with day
| drinking.
| jbmny wrote:
| Yep, I totally expected this article to be about Divorced Dads
| inexplicably catching on with Japanese youth.
| JTbane wrote:
| I tried to pull the house but got shingles instead
| 1317 wrote:
| Original video and articles (in Japanese)
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6m21OBCVPWo
|
| https://www.fnn.jp/articles/-/842101
|
| https://www.fnn.jp/articles/-/838709
| NickC25 wrote:
| That's awesome.
|
| Town celebrates its own via a medium that the youth seek out on
| their own. The youth then forge closer connections with their
| elders. Everyone is happy, everyone wins.
| oulipo wrote:
| Except that women are totally absent?? does nobody on HN even
| realize that?
| tomcam wrote:
| Hey, what about the women?
| falcor84 wrote:
| Putting on my Product Manager hat, the best product launches
| often focus on a single well-defined persona, as this one
| apparently did. Now that this is proven to work, they can
| expand to middle-aged women, older people, younger people,
| animals and what have you. But I think that this is a great
| start.
| Andrex wrote:
| An obvious choice for an early expansion pack.
|
| Like Pokemon adding a girl player character in 2nd Gen.
| xanth wrote:
| In fairness older men are goofy, women not so much
| presentation wrote:
| And Japanese people are well aware of this, there is
| definitely a common youth cultural appreciation of goofy
| middle-aged men here beyond what I was used to growing up
| in the USA.
| munificent wrote:
| In Japan, men commit suicide at roughly twice the rate of
| women. The age group with the highest rate of suicide was
| 50-59. I can't find good data, but loneliness and not feeling
| valued by a community is very likely a significant
| contributor here.
|
| Women are important but if the problem you're trying to solve
| is deaths of despair, then focusing on men makes sense.
| steve_adams_86 wrote:
| Suicide among men is ~4x higher in Canada and the USA in
| some demographics, too. In some cases, such as men 80+, the
| rate is 6.5x higher in Canada. This is crazy sad. It
| doesn't mean other things affecting women aren't sad. It
| just means this is sad.
| amrocha wrote:
| Except that's not in any way their motivation, so this is a
| completely unrelated comment.
| munificent wrote:
| From the article:
|
| "We wanted to strengthen the connection between the
| children and the older generations in the community.
| There are so many amazing people here. I thought it was
| such a shame that no one knew about them."
|
| Older people being forgotten and unknown seems relevant
| to me.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| That isn't even only Japan. On a global scale men are 1.7
| times more likely, in the US 3.6 times, Europe 4.0.
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suici
| d...
|
| There are so few resources about the topic for men compared
| to women that comlaining about it is just sad.
| oulipo wrote:
| what does this has to do with the game? and why having BOTH
| men and women in the game would change anything to this?
|
| You're trying to justify something which is unjustifiable
| in 2025
| philsnow wrote:
| "obachan" expansion potential
| presentation wrote:
| Don't let perfect be the enemy of good.
| mattigames wrote:
| The whole thing was an idea of a woman, Eri Miyahara,
| 45-year-old secretariat head of the Saidosho regional
| community council, I bet she have her reasons to focus on
| men, I suspect it's the perceived loneliness of the selected
| ones.
| seabird wrote:
| That's a needlessly uncharitable interpretation, but it is an
| interesting point.
|
| I think that increased rates of low (and high) grade
| neurodivergence in men, and society expecting eccentric
| behavior from men, especially as they age, results in in the
| sort of characters that make something like this work.
| Umarells in Italy come to mind.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| There's quite a few assumptions in your comment; one, that
| men have higher grades of neurodivergece than women
| (whereas it can also be underdiagnosis or masking through
| higher societal expectations on women). Women are eccentric
| too.
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| Men are more dissimilar from one another, generally, than
| women are from one another. Sorry.
| laurent_du wrote:
| This is a well-known fact with a well-established genetic
| basis. For pretty much any trait, the standard deviation
| of the distribution for men is larger than the
| distribution for women.
| sceptic123 wrote:
| Bold claim with no sources there
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| If there are studies that prove this, can i see them? And
| are there equivalent studies on populations of women? Or
| is this a Kodak situation where there's just at best an
| assumption based on existing biases?
| __MatrixMan__ wrote:
| The bar in this medium is pretty low. Pokemon is about
| capturing animals in the wild and making them fight in
| captivity.
|
| The "why just men?" question is probably worth raising
| locally, but I'm not going to shame them from the other side
| of the planet for it.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Totally. And also lgbtqia+ community and people of color. /s
| pjc50 wrote:
| Interestingly, Japan is in the middle of its own version of
| _Obergefell v. Hodges_ where several courts have ruled that
| the ban on same-sex marriage is unconstitutional and
| plaintiffs are currently awaiting the consolidated Supreme
| Court ruling.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| This is unnecessarily antagonistic.
| awongh wrote:
| Japanese society is famously sexist.... also the game was
| created by a woman.
| GuinansEyebrows wrote:
| I was going to comment on this. I wonder if there are any
| cards for women (dumb!) or if they're just not mentioned in
| the article (dumb!).
| flashgordon wrote:
| Wow this is so heartwarming. Actually celebrating "common humans"
| is so underrated. And kids doing this no less is even more
| amazing!
| Trasmatta wrote:
| This sounds like something straight out of the Yakuza video game
| series. Which, incidentally, is a series largely focused on
| middle aged men - I would love a set of these cards with Kiryu,
| Majima, Saejima, Akiyama, Ichiban, Nanba, Adachi, etc...
| pelagic_sky wrote:
| Need a Nancy card so badly...
| marginalia_nu wrote:
| I thought the same thing. The sujimon in the Like a Dragon
| games are conceptually pretty similar (except it's various
| Yakuza mobs you're collecting).
| statskier wrote:
| That's neat. I hope they expand it to include middle aged women
| in the community too.
| klipt wrote:
| Men statistically have fewer social connections and suffer more
| from loneliness as they get older, so if the goal is to remedy
| that, it makes sense to start with men first.
| dTal wrote:
| I see no particular reason to discriminate even from the get-
| go. Nor was addressing loneliness even the goal.
| klipt wrote:
| If one house is on fire and you spray water on it to put
| out the fire, do you feel obligated to spray water on every
| other house too so that the other houses don't feel
| discriminated against?
| 9dev wrote:
| If you're the fire department, acting on the governments
| behalf? Yes.
| klipt wrote:
| Fire departments spray water on not burning houses?
| II2II wrote:
| Yes. It is done when they think the neighbouring
| structure is at risk of catching fire.
| klipt wrote:
| That would still be prioritizing structures based on
| risk. Not just spraying random other houses in town
| because they feel left out.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| In the current political climate, yes.
| awongh wrote:
| Actually that is what you do to the houses next to the
| house on fire. So it doesn't spread to other buildings.
| tspike wrote:
| You could apply the same logic to "Women in X" groups. It's
| not discrimination as much as it is support.
| mc3301 wrote:
| Is this true in Japan, too?
| presentation wrote:
| I don't have hard data but from my personal anecdote, I
| would say yes.
| Suppafly wrote:
| I suspect it's worse in Japan.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| It's true for any intelligent species with sexual
| dimorphism.
|
| However I agree; it's great that the initiative was started
| for those men, but they could totally hit up the older
| women in the area as well for an additional set.
| statskier wrote:
| It's funny to me that the honest intent of my comment was
| merely "that's neat, it would be cool to expand it to other
| members of the community" and people go straight to
| discrimination & indignation. Is it so hard to just express
| that it'd be cool to take a neat thing and expand it?
| presentation wrote:
| Seriously, I think the subtext is that people in the West
| equate Japanese = sexist (and therefore are an inferior
| people) and that the choice of focusing on ojisans, is a
| sexist decision made to degrade women.
|
| When in reality it probably is just a light-hearted decision
| since old men are goofy, a lot of visible local businesses in
| rural Japan tend to be run by men, and the concept provoked a
| laugh.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| I'd say the core reason is more that the person who started
| it was very much likely to be male and had a few existing
| connections to the group of men featured on the cards.
|
| We should strive for equality where possible but to hold
| individuals account to it is tougher; we should enforce in
| our interactions/beliefs, that's personal responsibility.
|
| But in play or for hobbies it's harder - the group of
| friends I play games with is all male for example (all gay,
| actually). But does that mean that I need to "diversity
| hire" a woman for the group? We'd have no problem with that
| at all, if a female friend asked to join when hearing about
| it we'd be all for it. But it's not like we're going to go
| out of our way to ensure that we have at least 1 woman in
| our play group. If that makes sense.
| presentation wrote:
| The article says it was made by a woman. Regardless I
| don't agree we need to hold these people accountable for
| not making female cards, it's their prerogative to do
| what they think makes sense or is appealing to them, and
| choosing ojisans as a theme makes sense if you have
| experience with Japanese culture because of the vibe
| associated with it. Not everything needs to be a gender
| equality culture battle, and I'm pretty confident nobody
| is feeling disenfranchised because they chose that theme.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| >We should strive for equality where possible but to hold
| individuals account to it is tougher; we should enforce
| in our interactions/beliefs, that's personal
| responsibility.
|
| To be clear, you think someone should be held accountable
| for not including women in this trend? What might that
| look like? Are we talking about new laws? Changing the
| values of society somehow so people will independently
| ostracize? Or just some more coordinated activist effort?
| What?
|
| >But does that mean that I need to "diversity hire" a
| woman for the group? We'd have no problem with that at
| all, if a female friend asked to join when hearing about
| it we'd be all for it. But it's not like we're going to
| go out of our way to ensure that we have at least 1 woman
| in our play group.
|
| Why not ask a woman to join on the basis of wanting to
| diversify? That seems entirely consistent with your
| stated values.
| rat87 wrote:
| Japanese culture has quite a lot of sexism but so do many
| "western" countries some are better in some ways some are
| worse in some ways. And divide between "the West" and Japan
| isn't so huge Japan is fairly westernized in many ways.
| It's a rich liberal democracy with a lot of similarities to
| other rich liberal democracies we may label western.
|
| > A lot of visible local businesses in rural Japan tend to
| be run by men
|
| And you don't think that has anything to do with sexism in
| society?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Is it so hard to just express that it'd be cool to take a
| neat thing and expand it?
|
| If people feel the need to do such a thing, they will do it
| without being asked.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| Furthermore, the commentor is implying its sexist which
| totally seems unfair.
| statskier wrote:
| If you're referring to me, I don't think the mere
| observation that it would be fun to expand this to
| include women is me implying sexism. That honestly was
| not my intent, which I specifically was addressing in my
| follow up comment about how sad it is how quickly the
| responses devolved into sexism arguments.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| So there is no problem with excluding women from these
| trading cards? Just that the entirely optional
| alternative to include them would be fun?
|
| I would agree with that. Same as it would be fun to
| include younger people or non-Japanese people. Or dogs.
| Although it seems pretty random to just include
| everything that isnt currently the subject of these
| cards.
| statskier wrote:
| I'm not really following what your point is. The context
| in this case is pretty clearly geared towards connecting
| people across age generations. In that context, I merely
| observed that doing that for women would also be
| interesting. I don't see why you're branching off into
| random stuff like dogs.
|
| I am equally interested in whether other non-Japanese
| cultures could do this too, although I suppose its
| popularity might not generalize across cultures. I don't
| know. Be interesting to try though, right?
|
| Or is merely suggesting that deserving of some sort of
| criticism? The whole thing just made me think "why not
| share a neat thing with other groups". Dunno why that's
| such a big deal.
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| If anyone makes a similar comment in the reverse situation
| they're dogpiled with "bUt WhAt AbOuT tHe MeNz?" comments.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| You could say the same about people going straight to claims
| of sexism for a perfectly innocent story.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| Trading cards skew toward boys, and boys are more likely to
| look up to men. Of course, I wouldn't rule out old babaa cards
| either.
| Suppafly wrote:
| > I hope they expand it to include middle aged women in the
| community too.
|
| Neighborhood MILFs and Cougars?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >Neighborhood MILFs and Cougars?
|
| If they do that, some angry commenter on HN will shout about
| objectifying women.
| saagarjha wrote:
| As they should?
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| Only if they also complain about all the other
| objectifications often glorified.
| 9dev wrote:
| Nonsense. I can call out something wrong without the need
| to enumerate all other wrong things, too.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| Its not about enumerating all of them but not ignoring or
| even celebrating them because its convenient and "its
| different when we do it"
| saagarjha wrote:
| If we're going down this route I feel you should think
| about how likely it would have been that I got a similar
| response if I called out the objectification of men.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| Almost nobody would and the ones who do would point out
| that people would say something if it was about women.
|
| Note that my comment wasn't about different opinion based
| on sex but social framing.
|
| dislike = objectification
|
| like = empowerment
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Objectification is natural in a species that reproduces
| via sexual reproduction.
|
| The key is sexually objectifying (recognising an
| attraction) whilst respecting said individual.
|
| As a gay dude I see _plenty_, _pleeeeeenty_ of women
| wantonly objectifying men when they choose to, with no
| repercussions or qualms. It's just unfortunate because of
| sexual dimorphism and expected behaviours, men are
| expected to take the more active role most of the time
| and hence these reprehensible behaviours are more common
| amongst men.
|
| Would be really fun to be a god and tweak everyone's
| brains such that heterosexual men take the passive role
| just to see what happens.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| The special abilities write themselves
| pelagic_sky wrote:
| Reminds me of the fisherman call where you could sign up to have
| a professional fisherman give you a wake up call.
| https://soranews24.com/2017/05/12/japanese-fishermen-start-m...
| 0cf8612b2e1e wrote:
| "Good morning! Are you up?" asks the fisherman in the video, to
| which the user replies "Yes, thanks to you. Are you on your
| ship?" "Yeah, I got up at 3, so I'm already on the sea," he
| replies, before adding "I caught a really big fish."
|
| I'm not sure how much demand there is for this product, but
| that really brought a smile to my face.
| wil421 wrote:
| I don't speak Japanese but I would pay for this. Trying to
| get up and run before 6 is a chore. Having a fisherman wake
| up call would be awesome and motivating. Especially for
| someone who loves fishing.
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| I found Wakie[1] in 2015 while on a project in London. Every
| morning at a specific time you set, a stranger (real person
| and no AI) would call you and talk to you briefly, waking you
| up. I used it for about a month.
|
| 1. https://wakie.com
| _def wrote:
| How interesting, can you share some pros and cons from the
| one month experience? Was it always the same person?
| Brajeshwar wrote:
| There was always a different caller. One thing I vividly
| remember was when I found it really hard to understand a
| pretty heavy Scottish accent. I'm not random-social
| enough to be talking to new people every day, but it was
| a fun experience. Fun for that short interval but not
| really my type of thing.
| torginus wrote:
| I would prefer this very much to Jocko Willink
| BurningFrog wrote:
| Last year it was a real fisherman.
|
| Next year it will be an AI.
| klabb3 wrote:
| But AI is like video games, it can't emulate sacrifice and
| other deep human dynamics because there's no stake. If you
| die you restore from last save point. For AI you have
| infinite no-memory interactions, which changes the dynamic.
| In other words, your actions don't have lasting consequences.
|
| The few games that succeed in building something deeper (for
| me RDR2 but you take your pick) have to carve out sacrifice
| and character out of the _player's time_ , which _is_ finite.
| zparky wrote:
| Well said. If I signed up for this and I knew it was AI
| calls, I would likely not pick up. But if I knew it was a
| person calling me, there's a much stronger emotional
| incentive to pick up and talk to them.
| Ferret7446 wrote:
| Given Japan's extreme conservatism, I doubt it.
| sudahtigabulan wrote:
| Check out their robots.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_robotics
|
| Female companion robot as early as 2005.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| Japan has an exception to copyright law allowing for
| analysis, which has been (ab)used to train AIs to generate
| Studio Ghibli style content.
| sexy_seedbox wrote:
| I want a wake up call from David Goggins.
| rc5150 wrote:
| I want one from Walton Goggins.
| phatskat wrote:
| Baby Billy's Bright Beginnings
| ActVen wrote:
| That caused a much needed chuckle this morning.
| m463 wrote:
| I think literally and figuratively it would involve a bathtub
| full of icewater.
| zoogeny wrote:
| I still remember decades and decades ago hearing about vending
| machines in Japan. Someone mentioned going to Japan and how you
| could get cold cans of coffee out of vending machines there. This
| was sometime in the 1990s, before even Starbucks was a huge
| thing. Everyone I knew thought the idea of cold coffee was
| ridiculous, a quirk of the Japanese that would never catch on.
|
| I feel the Japanese have been pretty good at exporting culture,
| but it has a lot of misses among the few hits. I wonder if this
| is something that would catch on outside of Japan.
| pelagic_sky wrote:
| And vending machines with hot drinks and soups, my favorite
| being cream of corn soup...which I have yet to see stateside.
|
| Another thing Japan had before the US was texting on your
| phone. I was living in Japan at the time and recall telling my
| American friend who worked as a Manager at ATT about texting
| and she thought it was the dumbest thing she had ever heard of.
| bombcar wrote:
| I've seen vending machines in the USA dispense hot soup, it
| was at a rest stop somewhere in the middle of nowhere.
|
| No idea if they had cream of corn.
| thfuran wrote:
| Emoji also caught on, I'm told.
| flanbiscuit wrote:
| I was living in Australia in 2000 and texting was more common
| than calling because it was cheaper to text than call. But in
| the US it was the opposite. You had unlimited calling, but
| plans around that time had a different pricing scheme for
| texting (can't remember the exact details) so could be one
| reason why it took the US a bit longer to finally pick up
| texting. I remember it was about a year or 2 later that I
| felt texting started to become more common in the US.
| sien wrote:
| Yeah, I lived in Europe in 1999 and 2000 and then moved to
| the US. In the EU you could text people from different
| countries and it would often work.
|
| Then I moved to the US and the shock of not being able to
| text between networks was really something. That and
| writing cheques. I'd never written a cheque in Australia or
| Europe but you sort of had to in the US while electronic
| payments between banks were sorted in Australia in the
| 1990s.
|
| These days it seems when a technology appears it generally
| spreads more quickly.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| > In the EU you could text people from different
| countries and it would often work.
|
| Wasn't foreign texting expensive at the time?
| kortilla wrote:
| Texting in network was a fixed rate per text (later
| unlimited) and then texting out of network was crazy like
| 10 cents a message.
|
| You thought blue bubble was bad, it literally cost you
| money to talk to people who chose another carrier.
|
| The texting culture had funny side effects then because of
| it. You would get roasted for multiple messages when one
| would suffice. :)
| lovehashbrowns wrote:
| My first cell phone bill was like $600 because my gf at
| the time used a different carrier. This was also back in
| the olden days of unlimited texting!! (Only after 9pm)
| Loudergood wrote:
| Interesting I thought the main reason whatsapp took off
| outside the US was the texting costs.
| firefax wrote:
| Facebook was big partly early on at places like CMU because
| unis were early adopters of ubiquitous wifi -- so FB
| messenger served as a free texting tool back when you'd
| have people tell you to put their last name as NOTEXT.
| BugsJustFindMe wrote:
| Kinkos in the 90s (back when it was a by-the-hour computer
| lab) had vending machines with hot chicken soup.
| Suppafly wrote:
| was it just broth? the vending machine at my college, had
| that where it'd have coffee, cocoa, or chicken broth.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| We had hot chicken soup from a dispenser at school (~2000)
| too, but it was gash made from powder.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > And vending machines with hot drinks and soups, my favorite
| being cream of corn soup...which I have yet to see stateside.
|
| Its a cultural thing I am sure. As an American I will say
| that prepared food served from a vending machine is going to
| be associated with low quality and possible poor hygiene. I'd
| equate it with food from a gas station store or roach coach
| (mobile canteen)- food prepared with little care or quality,
| destined to be sold for as little as possible while still
| being profitable. Stale bread, wilted vegetables, low quality
| meats, cheese, etc, sloppy prep. Who cares, ship it.
|
| On the other hand, I can see food vendors in Japan guarding
| their reputation with attention to their craft ensuring
| quality.
| murderfs wrote:
| > As an American I will say that prepared food served from
| a vending machine is going to be associated with low
| quality and possible poor hygiene.
|
| The grandparent post is talking about canned food/drink
| that's heated in the machine. Vending machines with
| freshish prepared food do exist, but they're kinda
| pointless given the existence of...
|
| > I'd equate it with food from a gas station store or roach
| coach (mobile canteen)- food prepared with little care or
| quality, destined to be sold for as little as possible
| while still being profitable
|
| Convenience store food in Japan is fantastic: food from
| 7/11, Lawson, Family Mart, etc. is probably unironically
| better than the median restaurant in the U.S.
| MisterTea wrote:
| > Convenience store food in Japan is fantastic
|
| Indeed. Spent a few weeks there last year. You can't
| throw a rock and not hit one of those places - it's
| absurd how many there are no matter where you are.
| Though, TBF in NYC the density of convenience
| stores/bodegas is similar but the consistency lacking. I
| do miss those gooey chocolate babka things they sell in
| the 7-11s.
|
| > is probably unironically better than the median
| restaurant in the U.S.
|
| Eh... I would say they certainly beat out fast food.
| presentation wrote:
| The foods sold in vending machines make sense though -
| everyone's already used to instant or canned soup, so
| throwing it into a vending machine and warming it up makes
| sense. You're not getting fine dining from the vending
| machines, you're just getting a quick and tasty snack
| (although there is also a culture of niche vending machines
| with serious meals that require cooking at home, which is
| another story). Just swap out the corn potage with
| something Americans would already be familiar with, like
| Campbell's chicken noodle soup in a single-portion can with
| a twist cap instead of needing a can opener, and it could
| work.
|
| I think some Americans might object more to the idea of
| microplastics leaching into your food, or high amounts of
| preservatives, though. And the ubiquity of vending machines
| in Japan makes it possible to build a habit around vending
| machine food, whereas in the US they're fewer and far
| between, so you couldn't really depend on them.
| wahern wrote:
| > The foods sold in vending machines make sense though -
| everyone's already used to instant or canned soup, so
| throwing it into a vending machine and warming it up
| makes sense.
|
| The US used to have much more diverse vending machine
| offerings, including prepared hot foods and drinks, but
| they started to disappear in the 1970s, though you could
| find stragglers into the 1990s in older institutional
| settings (e.g. government buildings), especially for
| drinks--coffee, hot cocoa, etc. As previously mentioned,
| I think they fell out of favor because they began to be
| considered very poor quality (it's a death spiral if
| turnover doesn't happen fast enough), perhaps as compared
| to increasingly popular drive-thru alternatives. I guess
| in a way it was a result of our car culture. Like with
| the demise of cafeterias generally[1], Americans
| preferred to jump in their car rather than choosing from
| what was available within walking distance.
|
| [1] A wall of vending machines selling sandwiches,
| salads, soups, and hot drinks constituted a "cafeteria"
| in many buildings.
| toyg wrote:
| People always forget something, when talking about
| Japanese vending machines: vandalism. Vandalism is
| relatively uncommon in Japan, whereas it's sadly endemic
| in most Western societies.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Hang on - are you saying Americans don't have vending
| machines with snacks and hot drinks in office buildings,
| schools, hospitals, etc.?
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| In almost 40 years, I have never seen a vending machine
| in the US selling anything hot.
|
| It is always cold, usually carbonated, sweet drinks,
| water, or junk food like candy, chips, and pastries.
| Tijdreiziger wrote:
| Wow, that's quite surprising!
|
| In Europe, it's quite common to see machines like these
| in buildings: https://www.seeberger-professional.de/wp-
| content/uploads/202... (left to right: hot drink, snack,
| and cold drink machines).
|
| Smaller ones are also common: https://www.observantonline
| .nl/Portals/0/OpenContent/Files/1... (there you can also
| see the disposable cups that the hot drinks are dispensed
| in).
|
| Is that why Starbucks is popular in America - no hot
| drink machines?
| Loudergood wrote:
| Yup, there was one! that I was aware when I worked at an
| 8000 employee IBM facility 20 years ago. It was novel to
| be able to get hot burgers out of it.
| goosedragons wrote:
| Emoji is a Japanese thing too. It's why a lot of the early
| emoji are kind of odd from a western point of view, like the
| naruto fish cake, Japanese top secret emoji and hot bath
| symbol.
| kmeisthax wrote:
| There's also the Moyai statue in Shibuya that gave us an
| emoji: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moyai_statue#Shibuya_S
| tation_m...
| sunaookami wrote:
| Well, it's called "Emoji" (Hui Wen Zi , literally "picture
| character/letter") for a reason ;) Weird how it's often
| misunderstood as being derived from "emotion" in western
| media.
| thesuitonym wrote:
| It's not that weird. In English we had a similar idea
| called emoticons, which started as ascii/your local
| encoding and then evolved to be pictures. When emoji hit
| the masses, it was only natural to assume the two were
| related.
| soupfordummies wrote:
| Yeah! The hot corn liquid from a vending machine was maybe
| the weirdest thing I had when I visited.
| decimalenough wrote:
| First trip to Japan, I selected what I thought was a local
| cherry Coke equivalent from the vending machine. I was more
| than a little surprised to get a can that was a) hot, and b)
| contained not cherry-flavored cola, but chunky sweet red bean
| soup (oshikuro).
| gregjw wrote:
| oh noooo
| throw0101d wrote:
| > _Someone mentioned going to Japan and how you could get cold
| cans of coffee out of vending machines there._
|
| The actor Tommy Lee Jones has some amusing commercials for
| canned coffee:
|
| * https://www.brandinginasia.com/the-tuesday-take-suntory-
| boss...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Boss_Coffee
|
| The premise is that he is an alien in disguise evaluating human
| society, so some of the situations shown are quite whimsical.
| neilv wrote:
| > _There 's an old tradition of American stars appearing in
| Japanese television commercials, [...] before downing what
| appears to be about a four ounce can of Suntory Iced Rainbow
| Blend coffee._
|
| Was this tradition _referenced_ or _inspired_ by Bill Murray
| 's "Suntory Time" scene in "Lost in Translation" (2003)?
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FiQnH450hPM
| throw0101d wrote:
| Westerners in Japan has been a thing for decades:
|
| > _Anyone who has seen Sofia Coppola's Lost in Translation
| must wonder for at least a second if there is truth in Bill
| Murray's character of a famous American actor in Japan to
| film a commercial. Well, there definitely is. Huge American
| and European stars have been hawking products in Japanese
| commercials for decades._
|
| * https://www.cinemablend.com/movies/western-entertainers-
| who-...
|
| * https://www.goretro.com/2015/08/sake-to-me-western-
| celebs-in...
|
| * https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Big_in_Japan_(phrase)
| SECProto wrote:
| > Was this tradition referenced or inspired by []
|
| referenced. Here's a couple suntory commercials dating much
| older:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yyN-aHtAVzs
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=goUBezKpNmU
| minikomi wrote:
| One of my favorites:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EgEM8VjHD_0
|
| Andy Warhol for TDK
| ascorbic wrote:
| She was referencing the ones done by her father:
| https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/akira-kurosawa-francis-ford-
| cop...
| starkparker wrote:
| David Lynch's Twin Peaks commercials for Georgia coffee,
| featuring almost the entire cast in character and a running
| subplot of a missing Japanese woman:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xAxNvhN7UUE
| krenzo wrote:
| This is incredible! Thanks for posting.
| rqtwteye wrote:
| MMA fighters did a lot of cool stuff during the Pride days
|
| https://www.sherdog.com/thumbnail_crop.php?image=http://www..
| ..
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wkV8TohDyGA
| echelon wrote:
| > Someone mentioned going to Japan and how you could get cold
| cans of coffee out of vending machines there.
|
| They're everywhere!
|
| In rural Hokkaido, some people even have them outside their
| home's driveway for people walking by. They have various teas
| (green, hojicha, jasmine, etc.), Coke and Pepsi products,
| Pocari Sweat (like Gatorade), iced coffees, and sometimes even
| hot teas and hot coffees that are heated on demand. They're
| super convenient and something I miss having in America (we
| seemed to have more of them here in the 90's and early 2000's).
|
| The only problem is that in Japan there can sometimes be
| absolutely zero public garbage (or, more correctly, recycling)
| bins in sight. You have to carry your trash with you, which is
| a bit annoying and mildly gross if it spills.
| nicbou wrote:
| There was a story of someone finding one in the middle of a
| hike, and following a long cable to an actual settlement.
| pjc50 wrote:
| Profound metaphor for the "uplink" to civilization which we
| all ultimately depend on.
| Aeolun wrote:
| > You have to carry your trash with you, which is a bit
| annoying and mildly gross if it spills.
|
| True, but it also means that most people are used to this and
| don't even question it. Which means no overflowing garbage
| bins or the need to service them in the middle of nowhere.
| Suppafly wrote:
| Pocari Sweat is so good. I always grab a bottle anytime we go
| to the japanese store outside chicago. I assumed it was a
| fake anime product like the way they always turn pepsi into
| bepsi or something, but no it's real and it's delicious.
| gregjw wrote:
| Pocari Sweat is great. I live in Osaka now and it's hard to
| resist constantly drinking the stuff. Aquarius also.
| shmeeed wrote:
| TIL there was a real-world inspiration for Tropic
| Thunder's Booty Sweat.
| briandear wrote:
| Aquarius is huge in Catalonia as well.
| h2zizzle wrote:
| Aquarius (essentially grapefruit, somewhere between soda
| and sparkling water) is a bit of an acquired taste. And
| when my school's Japanese club visited in high school,
| boy, did we acquire it. Lots of "Pocari Sweat" and
| "Calpis" double entendres flying around, too.
| JimTheMan wrote:
| I found they did have bins, but they were either at the
| vending machine or _in_ the entrance of any store. And there
| are a lot of convenience stores!
| klausa wrote:
| The bins near vending machines are almost always _only_ for
| cans/plastic bottles.
|
| That accounts for ~80% of the garbage you'll produce, but
| sometimes you'll have a onigiri wrapper, or a dirty tissue
| that'd be nice to get rid of, and finding a place to do
| that can be more difficult (ironically, especially so in
| heavily touristy areas).
| lxgr wrote:
| My most bizarre Japanese vending machine experience: I once
| found one featuring an eduroam [1] sticker.
|
| Incredulously, I tried to connect, and... it worked. I still
| have no idea what that was all about!
|
| [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eduroam
| bsder wrote:
| Japanese vending machines are an act of engineering beauty:
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3AJnGjMAObA
| imjustaghost wrote:
| These is easily one of the most heartwarming videos on
| YouTube.
| ericzawo wrote:
| I dream about being able to get a cold can of Boss Coffee every
| day outside my house.
| prawn wrote:
| Iced Coffee has been very popular in Australia (and especially
| South Australia) since the 70s:
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Farmers_Union_Iced_Coffee
|
| (I'm assuming this is an equivalent product; I don't drink
| coffee personally.)
| jen729w wrote:
| Better than that is the Japanese 'Boss', which even comes in
| a very-Japanese steel tin. Great coffee that you can now get
| at most Australian servos, convenience stores, etc.
|
| https://suntorybosscoffee.com
|
| It's made in the Japanese iced style, which is easy to mimic
| at home and really does make a nice iced coffee.
|
| 1. Get your standard filter/drip machine. Nothing fancy.
|
| 2. Double the amount of coffee you normally use. You want it
| coming out strong.
|
| 3. Fill the receiving jug with ice.
|
| 4. Drip directly on to ice.
| p1necone wrote:
| As a New Zealander who's been to Australia + a small handful
| of other countries I can vouch for Australia having a
| uniquely good convenience store dairy based drink industry.
| OAK is another old faithful brand I miss in NZ. Also Hungry
| Jacks (Burger King) there uses cream instead of milk in the
| soft serve and it's noticeably better.
| gizajob wrote:
| The $1 coffee from 7-11 was my go-to drink in Australia.
| Came with the added bonus of annoying the hipster coffee
| snobs in melbourne when I was walking down the street
| holding a 7-11 cup. Damn fine coffee.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| 7-11 has surprisingly good coffee in the US too, or at
| least Texas. There was a 7-11 on the corner of the block
| I use to live on and drive past to get to Starbucks until
| I was running late once and decided to just grab the
| first coffee available. Now if I just want plain brewed
| coffee I'll find a 7-11. And if I'm wanting something
| more Starbuck-ish but don't want to deal with the morning
| rush, I'll go to a 7-11 and mix little over half a cup of
| the brew coffee then top it off with their hot chocolate.
| joshschreuder wrote:
| I am not a coffee hipster (as will probably become
| evident by my next statement) but I do like good cafe
| coffee here in Melbourne and I completely agree. I don't
| make it my daily driver, but 7/11 and even McCafe coffee
| is quite decent here IMO
| kortilla wrote:
| Iced coffee in Australia seems to automatically imply sweet
| with lots of milk (or even ice cream). This is very jarring
| when you expect the default "iced coffee" to be black coffee
| over ice.
| 1659447091 wrote:
| > This is _very jarring_ when you expect the default "iced
| coffee" to be black coffee over ice.
|
| Same reaction I had the first time I ordered a cappuccino
| there. I learned to order Flat Whites cause I kept
| forgetting to tell them to not put chocolate powder on
| top...why anyone thought that would be a great idea is
| beyond my comprehension. The Flat White on the hand easily
| makes up for their cappuccino faux pas
| joshschreuder wrote:
| I agree completely, most iced coffee here from supermarkets
| is hyper sweetened rubbish that barely tastes like coffee
| at all. You have to go for "double" or "triple" espresso
| options to get a proper taste of coffee, otherwise you're
| just drinking sweet milk (and not even in the guilty
| pleasure Vietnamese iced coffee way)
|
| As previously mentioned Boss does do a decent black iced
| coffee though, and there are a few niche brands around
| putting out less sweet varieties
| klausa wrote:
| _Most_ of the coffee sold in cans in Japan is also
| sweetened. Not all, you can usually find a can or two that
| are just black and unsweetened, but a majority of the cans
| will be sweet to some degree.
| averageRoyalty wrote:
| > Everyone I knew thought the idea of cold coffee was
| ridiculous, a quirk of the Japanese that would never catch on.
|
| Iced coffee has been around for centuries and is very common in
| warmer countries (and was before the 90s). aisukohi is closer
| to cold brew than the milkshake-esque thing we call iced
| coffee.
| froh wrote:
| it may well be "cold brew", a coffee specialty that is some
| work to make at home and that has a very distinguished taste
| and contrast coffee that was brewed hot and then cooled down.
| Cthulhu_ wrote:
| > I wonder if this is something that would catch on outside of
| Japan.
|
| Cynically, only if someone sees a business / money making
| opportunity.
| alephnan wrote:
| Vietnamese people have been drinking iced coffee for half a
| century.
|
| The more ridiculous proposition here is that people, other than
| Americans, only drink hot coffee.
| xhevahir wrote:
| My first thought when I read this was, "This is very Japanese,
| and nothing like it would ever happen in America." Americans
| and Japanese are poles apart in the ways they relate to their
| communities, older generations, etc.
| bombcar wrote:
| Apparently the "fat Steve" minecraft toy is sold out everywhere.
|
| https://shop.mattel.com/products/minecraft-steve-large-scale...
| flerchin wrote:
| Ages 74, 81, and 68. Are these middle aged?
| Ifkaluva wrote:
| In Japan, yes
| ElemenoPicuares wrote:
| Well, if the edges are the Japanese life expectancy of 84 and
| 0, then 80 does fall somewhere in the middle. So there should
| be some four-year-olds in this deck, too.
| michaelt wrote:
| As I understand things, in Japanese the terms "onii-san",
| "ojisan" and "ojii-san" literally translate as "older brother",
| "uncle" and "grandpa" respectively - and are widely used for
| people who aren't relatives.
|
| So while the colloquial use of _ojisan_ roughly lines up with
| "middle-aged man" it's not a perfect mapping.
| presentation wrote:
| Ojisan age bracket can be pretty wide, but 81 sounds to me
| more like an ojiichan. That said, if they're running a
| business and are still somewhat lively they can possibly
| still pass as ojisan in context.
|
| Oniisan is much younger usually; usually I don't hear ojiisan
| so much as ojiichan (as well as ojisan rather than ojichan),
| my wife is Japanese and it rubs her weird to hear the
| opposite honorific in these cases.
| skhr0680 wrote:
| "Middle-aged" is a wrong in this case translation of "ojisan",
| lit "uncle" but colloquially can mean "old man" in an endearing
| or mean way depending on context
| atoav wrote:
| This such a genius idea to get the kids to learn about the people
| in their community.
| everyone wrote:
| Reminds me of divorced dads card game
| https://www.youtube.com/@AudioOpera
| doormatt wrote:
| Thank you! I knew it reminded me of something!
| Uptrenda wrote:
| Creativity thrives in Japan. I wonder why this country seems so
| prolific in that regards.
| foobahify wrote:
| Japanese websites have a great aversion to even 2005 level Web
| homogeneity, let alone the modern tailstraps.
| asadm wrote:
| I feel like this is the kind of stuff that will be common with
| AI. Imagine having a whatsapp family group and a bot auto-
| generates this type of games for you based on your group.
|
| It's a privacy nightmare but it will be fun for sure.
| lazide wrote:
| The whole point of this is that it's people thinking about
| people, not some AI bullshit.
| asadm wrote:
| AI can facilitate the creation part and become invisible. It
| will still be p2p.
| astrange wrote:
| Interesting translation issue where they use the dictionary
| definition of "ossan" (middle aged guy) but then they're all
| senior citizens.
| mosura wrote:
| This is a superb idea. I had seen random cat gacha but not
| trading cards of random dudes.
|
| Most efforts at custom TCGs seem to go nowhere at all because of
| the absence of any practical trading meta game, so bootstrapping
| that with local interest is a very neat marketing move that
| aligns very well with the desired community engagement.
|
| The result is that whole idea is greater than the sum of its
| parts.
| mrexroad wrote:
| I clicked the headline expecting a chuckle and left with an
| unexpectedly warmed heart.
|
| > "We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children
| and the older generations in the community. There are so many
| amazing people here. I thought it was such a shame that no one
| knew about them," [...] "Since the card game went viral, so many
| kids are starting to look up to these men as heroic figures." >
| Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for
| community activities -- just for a chance to meet the ojisan from
| their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled
| since the game launched.
|
| there's so much more I want to comment on--it's not screen-based,
| increased cross-generational interaction, strengthening
| community, elders having their stories known--but what I love is
| that these effects will compound into even greater benefits for
| the community.
| xivzgrev wrote:
| This brings back something we've mostly lost in modern times.
| Elders had respect because they knew a lot and had contributed
| a lot, and everyone knew that. But that's not scalable, and we
| migrate a lot more now.
|
| This is an engaging way that brings that back - rather than
| focusing on fantasy heroes, show kids real life role models.
| zdragnar wrote:
| It's even less that we move around a lot more; technology
| advanced with the personal computer and Internet such that
| kids see adults not knowing things about the world that they
| already do. What is decades of personal lived experience
| wisdom when there's tiktok and YouTube and chatbots?
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >kids see adults not knowing things about the world that
| they already do
|
| In the age where anyone can find anything online,
| experience is more valuable than it ever was. Technology
| won't replace that.
| phil21 wrote:
| In the US we are at all time lows for internal migration. Or
| at least very close to them, I haven't checked those stats in
| a couple years since this last came up on HN.
|
| We used to (as a population) migrate to opportunity far more
| than we do now.
|
| For many reasons there is simply far less community
| engagement and integration going on. Fewer people put down
| strong "roots" in their communities these days.
| klabb3 wrote:
| Thats surprising, I thought moving was less common than
| now. In either case, is it possible that the single
| households is the other factor, people choosing more
| instead of interacting with whoever is around?
| etrautmann wrote:
| It might be who's migrating. Possibly the coastal PMC
| workers sloshing back and forth while blue collar workers
| have less mobility than the 60s?
| kortilla wrote:
| When? In my grandparents generation (born late 1800s to
| early 1900s) moving to either try to start a farm in the
| US or to leave a failing farm for a job in town at the
| local whatever factory was very common.
|
| Post WW2 for the boomers was loaded with people flooding
| to all kinds of industrial boom cities.
|
| After that it was hollowing out of the rust belt and
| moving out of cities to suburbs due to the lead/crime
| epidemic.
|
| Then rich cities boomed back with millennials in a
| continuous feedback loop where the successful ones became
| more desirable as money brought
| attractions/activities/restaurants, draining the failing
| ones even more.
|
| Then 2020 was the brief mega disruption where people
| thought the internet might catch on and they found out
| the vast majority of white collar jobs can be done from
| home so the fanned out to all of the nice and cheap
| suburbs, mountain towns, etc. Now the Internet fad has
| worn off so that's reversing a bit.
|
| Moving in the US has been very common until this brief
| lull where you could change jobs without relocating
| thanks to remote work.
|
| Unfortunately we're going backwards so it wouldn't
| surprise me if constant relocation resumes.
| c4ptnjack wrote:
| The main factor that you fail to mention is living cost,
| and not the internet, which made it possible and
| desirable to frequently move in search of opportunity.
|
| It didn't mean there weren't people that lived long-term
| in communities. However, it did mean that you could find
| more lucrative opportunities in different places while
| also affording to move and live there.
|
| That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with
| the death of single occupancy residences and a lack of
| funding/investment in affordable housing for a
| significant portion of income brackets.
|
| The last 30ish years helped cement that for lots of
| reasons, but the ability to work remotely via the
| internet isn't particularly new nor causative for that
| change.
| kortilla wrote:
| People moving in search of opportunity back then weren't
| doing it because it was easier. It meant giving up your
| family and friends far more so than now because of the
| lack of internet. An out of state move meant a handful of
| letters a year was the level of contact you were in for
| and that was only for close family.
|
| Living cost was a big barrier back then (except maybe the
| homesteading) too. Any time someone is leaving a poor
| outlook to a more booming area it usually means cost of
| living is going up.
|
| > but the ability to work remotely via the internet isn't
| particularly new nor causative for that change
|
| It absolutely was the first time any non-trivial
| percentage of work was remote. More importantly, the
| spike meant 15% of the population became eligible to
| leave an expensive city that sucked during the lockdowns.
| https://www.stlouisfed.org/on-the-
| economy/2024/dec/trends-wo...
|
| There is most definitely affordable housing all over the
| US. People are just both picky and lacking opportunity in
| the cheaper places. Remote work was the fix for the
| latter part so downplaying that is missing the point.
|
| If you have a remote job and just want to live in NYC
| because of culture, then you have no leg to stand on when
| complaining about housing. It's purely a luxury decision
| at that point.
|
| > That began to slowly change in the 60's, beginning with
| the death of single occupancy residences
|
| This is only true in a few select areas. Check out
| https://ipropertymanagement.com/research/renters-vs-
| homeowne...
|
| Specifically the "average annual homeownership rates
| since 1964". Right below it has a snapshot of rates by
| state and the difference tells you everything you need to
| know.
|
| Housing is only broken in the top desired areas and
| remote work gave you the opportunity to get a good job
| while leaving those.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> However, it did mean that you could find more
| lucrative opportunities in different places while also
| affording to move and live there._
|
| Same as now. The data clearly shows more job opportunity
| in rural areas (not all rural areas) and more affordable
| living to go along with it. But we haven't (yet) reached
| the dire situation where the people actually have to make
| the move like previous generations found themselves in.
| Most people won't leave family and friends behind unless
| they feel they are out of options.
| energy123 wrote:
| Housing crisis deters people from moving to where the
| jobs are, and it's a new phenomenon.
| 9rx wrote:
| _> I thought moving was less common than now._
|
| International migration has increased over time, although
| still representing a very small segment of the
| population. Presumably that is mostly people fleeing
| terrible situations (e.g. war torn areas). When you are
| in a stable country, it doesn't matter so much where in
| the country you are.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| Worth noting that the relations to elder is really getting
| rocky, and people are rethinking them in both directions.
|
| We can't hide from the influence the elder generations had on
| the current situation. Japan is a developed nation with a
| crazy low crime rate and incredible infrastructure thanks to
| them. It's also a social mess and the poster child of
| stagnation thanks to them.
|
| This whole trading card game surfaces both sides of the coin,
| with what these people are bringing to the community and also
| why small kids shouldn't look to much upon them as it's a
| recipe for trouble.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Japan always does the hard thing. If someone misbehaves and
| two people are close by you can be sure that they loudly
| will talk with each other about how the person misbehaves
| (they are not afraid). The prisons are very strict, with
| beatings if you don't follow authority. The police acts
| swiftly and have small offices everywhere . Green tea and
| healthy food makes people be able to control their mood
| (hard to not stuff your face).
|
| The rules are very open and clear. The deincentives for
| misconduct are strong.
|
| The newspapers focus are different. More fun or actionable
| news.
|
| People just think they are built different, that is not the
| case. They just succeed with many small things that makes a
| greater whole. But people just dismiss it as a culture
| thing, which is reductive.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| >They just succeed with many small things that makes a
| greater whole. But people just dismiss it as a culture
| thing, which is reductive.
|
| Aren't rules part of the culture? The culture helps
| strengthening the rules while the rules help
| strengthening the culture.
| tankenmate wrote:
| Chu ruDing haDa tareru.
| pmontra wrote:
| The nail that sticks out gets hammered down (Google
| Translate.)
| danielscrubs wrote:
| It is a way of dismissing clear rules.
|
| Because it's not that it is used to attack people that
| are different, but it is used to deincentive bad
| behaviour, but by conflating the two you end up in a bad
| place, where incentives are...misaligned.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| It seems to me Japan does just fine by having rules and
| sticking to their culture.
|
| Many people admire Japanese culture. But they wouldn't
| have anything to admire had Japanese people not
| conserving and caring greatly about their culture and
| sticking to their rules and ways of life.
|
| I probably won't be integrating in the Japanese culture,
| but I admire and respect it and the fact they still have
| that culture.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Yes, but it is sometimes used to dismiss any actionable
| insights that can be used in politics.
|
| "Would never work here, the culture is different!"
|
| Maybe Im just ranting...
| Pooge wrote:
| > If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you
| can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other
|
| This is the exact opposite of my experience (and all my
| Japanese friends). They will stare at the person
| misbehaving but will absolutely not challenge him. Their
| culture is "avoid the problem/confronting at all costs".
|
| > The police acts swiftly
|
| They are considered tax thieves, even by Japanese people.
| Also, talk to some foreign women that got sexually
| harassed or even raped how the police helped them. In
| fact, I don't have proof, but I sincerely believe that if
| the police was trained well, crime rate would increase
| because they would find _more_ crimes.
|
| > healthy food
|
| Are we talking about deep-fried food? Or perhaps over-
| salted dishes? Oh, no, you meant the sugar they add in
| basically all their cooking? Time where they mostly ate
| fish and rice is over. They barely eat enough vegetables.
| And fruits are for the well-off only.
|
| It's a country that I love and have spent quite some time
| there--and more to come--but your observations are
| exactly the opposite of what I saw.
|
| What they do correctly is the low unemployment rate,
| though I think it's starting to rise with younger people.
| People don't need to commit violent crimes to feed
| themselves if any work lets them afford necessities.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| I think they are opposite because when I say police acts
| swiftly, you turn around and say that they are tax
| thieves. They can both be true?
|
| Healthy food. Yes they eat healthy and their BMI shows
| it. I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants
| represent what they eat on daily basis. Proof is in the
| pudding (BMI). Yes it is getting worse and I hope
| American tariffs will help in this regard. Again, healthy
| living AND getting worse can both be true, especially
| with people that are friendly with cultures they want to
| know more about (many, but still a small subset).
|
| Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-
| violent crime for feeding your kids. But the narrative
| that is pushed heavily in media is the equal sign between
| poor and criminal, instead of the correlation, which
| again is reductive. Why? Is there anger? What food do
| trigger it? What mindset?
|
| My grandparents where very poor (as in oat porridge for
| weeks poor). They would never hurt a fly. In certain
| minds that would have been a weakness, in certain minds
| it's self sacrifice and equal strength.
|
| Most want to be the wolf among the sheep. It is US
| greatest strength and greatest weakness at the same time.
| Pooge wrote:
| > police acts swiftly
|
| Perhaps I misunderstood what you meant by "swift".
|
| > I find it quite ludicrous to think their restaurants
| represent what they eat on daily basis
|
| I have lived with 2 different Japanese family (one
| younger, one older) and I was referring to the younger
| one when writing my previous comment. You say that
| restaurant doesn't represent what they eat, but again
| this is not my observation; restaurants and prepared meal
| (bento) are socheap--price-to-purchasing-power compared
| to Western countries--that many people don't even cook
| for themselves. So yes, it's absolutely relevant.
|
| > Not sure why Violent crime would be better than non-
| violent crime for feeding your kids
|
| I never said it was. But hunger definitely makes you more
| violent and more irrational. I excluded non-violent
| crimes because people usually exclude those when thinking
| about a country's safety. There are a lot of scams in
| Japan, for example.
|
| > They would never hurt a fly.
|
| Most people would never hurt someone. Most people are
| lawful. But most criminals are not from well-off families
| and grew up needy. Perhaps there is a causation, perhaps
| not.
| darkwater wrote:
| > But most criminals are not from well-off families and
| grew up needy.
|
| Petty or to-some-extent violent criminals. White collar
| criminals, the worse kind of criminal, usually come from
| good/rich/powerful families (I'm generally speaking, not
| talking about Japan specifically)
| Pooge wrote:
| Which is why I initially mentioned violent crime. The one
| people tend to care about the most.
| achenet wrote:
| nitpick: I'd argue the worse types of criminals are war
| criminals, like for example Hitler, who is, in my mind,
| worse than someone like Bernie Madoff.
| mrob wrote:
| I think it's more likely that social pressure to control
| people's weights is responsible for Japan's low BMI, not
| anything to do with the food. Japan is the land of
| vending machines and convenience stores. It's easy to eat
| junk food all day if you want to. But people will notice
| you getting fat, and unlike in Western countries they're
| likely to criticize you for it.
| lynx97 wrote:
| "Bring back shame again" increasingly feels like
| something that would actually be beneficial in the long
| run.
| makeitdouble wrote:
| We tend to hit a Goodhart's Law situation, where focusing
| on weight and BMI comes at the expense of actual health.
| That's how we get eating disorders and other mental
| health issues as well, so as usual it's complicated.
| mantas wrote:
| Just an anecdata but on my last stay in Japan I lost a
| couple kilos in a good month. Even though I did abuse
| kitkats.
| Pooge wrote:
| Also some anecdata, but I think it depends so much on the
| person: I gained 10 kilograms by living more than a year
| in Japan.
|
| I ate healthily so I wasn't fat by any means (in fact,
| I'm really skinny), but I ate so much that I think this
| is the reason I gained some weight. I ate a lot of rice
| (my rice portion was usually more than a Japanese
| person's entire plate).
| makeitdouble wrote:
| FWIW if you're on a trip it might counter-balance: you
| might be more active with fewer idle time, and the local
| food might also be harder to fully process. I saw that on
| a Spain trip where it made absolutely no sense I didn't
| gain weight touring tapas places for a week.
| mantas wrote:
| It was a business trip matching my typical routine. I'd
| say I was even less active because apparently running in
| Tokyo sucks.
| autoexec wrote:
| Every time I'm in japan I walk far more than I do while
| in the US. I also end up going up stairs a lot more than
| I ever need to in the US. Good public transportation
| makes a huge difference.
| mantas wrote:
| I'm euro and runner/cyclist so I doubt that was a factor.
| I also had my bicycle with me for some rides on off days,
| but it wasn't beyond my usual mileage. Maybe even less,
| because riding road bike in Tokyo was an experience that
| made me realise how good I've it back home. Surroundings
| hills are nice, but getting out of the city sucks big
| time.
| friendzis wrote:
| BMI is mostly useless metric when comparing genetically
| diverse cohorts. Weight gain is mostly in fat and that is
| proportional to fat cell count. There is a saying "nerve
| cells are born and die, but fat - lives forever". The
| truth to it is that at an adult age fat cell count is
| mostly constant and mostly genetic. As you get fatter you
| don't produce more fat cells, they just get fatter, pun
| intended.
|
| There is huge genetic diversity between geographic
| regions / ethnic lineages in this regard. On one end you
| have northern european / african lineages, on the other
| end you have far east lineages, with other lineages
| somewhere in between, with northern european / african
| lineages having the largest fat cell counts, east asians
| the lowest. Furthermore, north european / african
| lineages tend to have fat distribution much more biased
| towards subcutaneous fat, whereas east asian lineages are
| biased towards abdominal fat, so many of the problems
| associated with high body fat (not insulin resistance)
| are seen at lower body fat percentages in east asian
| lineages.
|
| On top of that, body fat percentage does not map to BMI.
| BMI may roughly linearly scale with body fat percentage
| around the "healthy" region, however there will be huge
| offset between genetic cohorts, including sex.
|
| You should expect east asian BMIs to be lower across the
| board given similarly "unhealthy" diets.
| Pooge wrote:
| Not the person you responded to, but this is a topic that
| fascinates me; do you have any resource to learn more
| about that? One that explains in average human terms
| would be appreciated!
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| Japan is also full of Japanese people.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Reductive
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| So?
| NalNezumi wrote:
| If you think sugar added to everything is a Japan
| phenomenon oh boi, time to travel.
|
| As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off
| as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that
| lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife"
| and think Tokyo represent the average.
| Pooge wrote:
| > If you think sugar added to everything is a Japan
| phenomenon oh boi, time to travel.
|
| You're not refuting my argument.
|
| > As someone that lived there, frankly your take come off
| as the typical "English teacher/exchange student that
| lived in Tokyo and spend too much time on r/japanlife"
| and think Tokyo represent the average.
|
| That's very condescending of you and again not refuting
| my claims at all. Do most of your colleagues eat their
| own dishes? Don't they add a helluva lot sugar and salt
| to everything? Hell, even Japanese-made Western desserts
| taste way too sweet.
|
| I think you could be a bit kinder and not resort to
| personal attacks.
|
| Edit: it's true that I lived in Tokyo, but unfortunately
| it's a country that contains 4 cities that get more dense
| by the day at the cost of unpopulated rural areas.
| XajniN wrote:
| The poison is in the amount, not in the substance. Salty
| or sweet food is completely fine if you don't eat a ton
| every day. You actually need salt, it is much more
| dangerous to not consume enough of it.
| Pooge wrote:
| Don't you think we eat too much of those?
|
| Most people are dying of heart diseases and guess their
| causes...
|
| Japanese elderly don't even drink the broth of ramen
| otherwise they may literally die (not my words).
|
| Edit: sugar we don't really need to survive (trace
| amounts found in fruits and vegetables is basically
| enough) and salt maximum daily _recommended_ amount is
| around 3g. Do you know how much salt a tablespoon of soy
| sauce contains?
| XajniN wrote:
| That may be the limit for sodium, the max RDA for salt is
| above 5 grams [1].
|
| Now check what happens when you don't consume enough
| sodium [2] (it happens relatively often among athletes
| and gym bros who drink too much water).
|
| [1] https://www.nhs.uk/live-well/eat-well/food-
| types/salt-in-you...
|
| [2] https://www.mayoclinic.org/diseases-
| conditions/hyponatremia/...
| Pooge wrote:
| > who drink too much water
|
| I totally understand what you mean, however the vast
| majority of the population isn't even close to being
| hydrated properly so you're just taking an extreme
| example to make your point.
| XajniN wrote:
| You're right, but the point of my first reply was that
| the Japanese (unlike Americans) don't eat excessive
| amounts of food on average.
| Pooge wrote:
| This is definitely true from my experience. They eat less
| than even Europeans (which themselves eat less than
| Americans on average).
| pezezin wrote:
| I live in the inaka (Aomori) and my experience is the
| same.
| ListeningPie wrote:
| Many Japanese recipes I've tried have 2 tablespoons of
| sugar, but that's not much in a meal for four.
|
| Then there is mirin, which is basically sugar.
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| Yeah, the us subsidy for violent crime aka "no money for
| the unemployed" is quiet counterproductive.
| klausa wrote:
| This is about as deep of analysis of Japan as the Ghibli
| AI avatars are "art".
|
| > If someone misbehaves and two people are close by you
| can be sure that they loudly will talk with each other
| about how the person misbehaves
|
| This is just straight up fan-fiction, and absolutely not
| how the society here operates. You will get stared at.
| People will move aside, maybe. That's the extent of
| reaction from the public you can expect.
|
| > The police acts swiftly and have small offices
| everywhere .
|
| The "small offices"/kobans are more than useless for any
| actual "crime". They're quite useful in reporting that
| you lost a wallet/keys, but good luck when having any
| actual problems that need to be reported. Goes doubly so
| for areas where there's elevated chance of actual crimes
| happening -- interacting with cops in Kabukicho has to be
| one of the least useful activities on the planet.
|
| > The prisons are very strict, with beatings if you don't
| follow authority.
|
| And this is... a good thing? We have wildly different
| moral systems if you think that.
|
| > Green tea and healthy food makes people be able to
| control their mood (hard to not stuff your face).
|
| "Green tea and healthy food" is, frankly, an even
| stupider argument than "they're built different". Yes,
| it's the diet that makes the society more conformist,
| sure, why not.
|
| There's many great, and many not-so-great things about
| Japan -- why do these arguments online always just start
| with the most basic, surface level, inane pseudoanalysis?
| danielscrubs wrote:
| 1. Yes they won't interact with the misbehaving person
| but they will loudly declare their feelings around it.
|
| 2. Police boxes are great when drunk people are causing
| ruckus. What are the details in your case?
|
| 3. Never said it was. You need to stop seeing things as
| being good or bad. What I said was strong incentives.
|
| 4. L-theanine has a calming effect, it is quite well
| known. Just as lead has the opposite effect.
|
| To be productive, what actionable insights do you glean
| from countries such as Japan?
| energy123 wrote:
| > L-theanine has a calming effect, it is quite well
| known.
|
| The evidence for this in humans is very weak.
| danielscrubs wrote:
| Here is a randomized, triple blind study:
| https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/34562208/
|
| "had significant positive effects on brainwaves, salivary
| cortisol, and self-reported state anxiety compared to the
| placebo in response to an acute stress challenge. These
| changes are indicative of relaxation in the brain and
| suggest a calming response in a moderately stressed but
| otherwise healthy population"
| q3k wrote:
| n=16. This isn't even worthy of classifying as a Phase I
| trial. Efficacy studies generally _start_ at n=100.
| Drawing any conclusions on efficacy from this kind of
| sample size is simply unscientific.
| lazyasciiart wrote:
| > Japan always does the hard thing
|
| Talk about reductive, but also wrong. Not being racist,
| for example, is the harder option for most people, and
| not the one encouraged in Japan.
|
| Another one: Japan still has children growing up in
| orphanages because it is considered weird to take in
| someone else's child.
|
| Office life is 50% time spent correctly pandering to your
| bosses feelings, and they have made so little effort to
| include women in the workforce and make parenting
| compatible with a good job that nobody wants to have
| kids.
| qwertox wrote:
| I've been taught to respect the elders. But now I've seen
| that there are enough of them which aren't honest, good
| people, but only know how to present themselves in a positive
| light, while looking down on the ones they live with.
|
| I now stand neutral against them: they may be good, they may
| not be. There's nothing in their age which makes them deserve
| more respect than the one younger people deserve.
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| So do you respect 12-year-olds as much as you respect
| 25-year-olds? Do you respect the opinions on work and adult
| responsibilities of a 23-year-old as much as those of a
| 35-year-old? Do you trust the professional judgment of a
| junior engineer as much as that of a senior engineer?
|
| Older people, in general, know more and have better
| judgment than younger people.
| anthk wrote:
| Not in Japan.
| piltdownman wrote:
| You're conflating age with wisdom - a common fallacy when
| charisma is valued over education, leading to
| Septuagenarian Heads of State ruling on partisan lines
| rather than Technocratic and egalitarian governance.
| ConspiracyFact wrote:
| Age correlates with wisdom. It's not a fallacy. I don't
| claim that every person is wiser than all people younger
| than him.
| lazide wrote:
| All you know about an old person is they've lived - and
| survived - longer than someone who is not so old.
|
| That can have a lot of different meanings.
| Tade0 wrote:
| It used to be that elders were few and far between, as the
| population pyramid was, well, a pyramid.
|
| The other day I joked in conversation that I raise my
| daughters to disrespect the elderly - particularly my
| generation in the future - as considering the fertility rates
| ( _worse_ than in Japan) in the region, there will be plenty
| of elderly compared to younger generations.
|
| I'm only half joking really. My own parents are reaching the
| age at which they would use some help every now and then. I
| have two siblings, so it doesn't take huge individual effort
| from any of us.
|
| Meanwhile I'm the only one there who has children and most
| likely that will remain the case. Should they feel any
| obligation to help my siblings once the time comes?
| ramblerman wrote:
| You can teach them whatever you want, but the model of the
| world you give them is also what they will pass on to their
| kids.
|
| "Family is a burden, and screw old people" doesn't seem
| that conducive to a good society.
| tankenmate wrote:
| I get the sneaking suspicion that this might be a case of
| Poe's law.
| Tade0 wrote:
| I'm going more for "screw _just_ old people ". Nowhere in
| my parenting there's even a mention of family being a
| burden - well, the younger part at least.
|
| Anyway, again, half-joking here - I'm not actively
| pursuing this approach, just not nudging them towards the
| traditional one.
|
| I spent some years in Italy, where the younger
| generations are absolutely squeezed by the presence of a
| huge population of elderly. It went to such bizarre
| extremes where my one Italian friend not only doesn't own
| a home being in his 40s now, whereas both of his divorced
| parents each have their own properties, his salary is
| lower than his father's pension. Kids are of course out
| of the question.
|
| My country is speedrunning this same scenario and the
| only thing preventing it from happening now is
| considerably lower life expectancy compared to Italy.
| gwervc wrote:
| That's the same thing in France, where on average a
| retiree has a higher pension than a worker. Workers whose
| one third of gross salary goes to pensions, then at least
| another of net salary is paid for rent to live in a
| property often owned by the previous generation. It's
| very depressing environment to live in.
| carlosjobim wrote:
| Every social norm will be exploited until it becomes a
| threat to existence. Right now the olds are exploiting
| their protected status to outright exterminate the
| younger generations. I will be down voted because the
| truth is too bitter for most to swallow. This happens
| close to all of us and isn't some bogeyman
| foreign/domestic politician or other convenient
| scapegoat.
| lynx97 wrote:
| I believe some resentment towards the elderly is
| unavoidable given the circumstances. Its unfortunate, but
| understandable. Looking at my own family, my mother
| inherited the family property after my father died. She
| has never had any officially payed job since her 30s. In
| the last 40 years, she has only lived off pension, and
| hasn't put anything back into the system. Meanwhile, I
| have worked 25 years straight now, and still don't have
| enough money to buy a decent apartment in the city where
| I work. I am guessing the perceived unfairness of this
| "pyramid" is going to make a lot more people unhappy in
| the future. Certainly, compared to my mother, my life
| feels like I am a drone. Not being female is a huge
| disadvantage these days. I mean, a pension for being
| married to a man who died? Alimony when the spouse
| leaves? All things males can only dream of. And, the
| incentives are all wrong. My mother didn't take on any
| official jobs because she would loose some of the pension
| she gets. So, its better to just suck every drop of blood
| you can out of the welfare state, instead of thinking
| about how the system actually works and that it needs
| people to put in effort so that others that _really_ need
| it can take things out...
| chgs wrote:
| If my wife dies first I get half her pension, if I die
| first my wife gets half my pension.
|
| If we divorce assets are spread equally. Kids complicate
| things a bit, the person who owes the kids get paid by
| the other one. As I have a far more flexible job (I do
| after school care etc) it's likely I'd keep the kids and
| thus would be paid child support.
|
| Things suck for the "young" (sub 45 nowadays). Despite
| what Andrew Tate and his ilk tells you this is nothing to
| do with gender. It's to do with every increasing
| ownership of the wealth by the wealthiest.
| lynx97 wrote:
| First of all, great that you seem to have a relatively
| equal situation. It reads like your wife is actually
| working. Good for you.
|
| However, your accusation is totally wrong and uncalled
| for. I know the name, but I have never read/heard
| anything from the Tate brothers. In fact, my opinion
| about female priviledge in our society stems purely from
| my own experience, in particular my mother. This is
| something I'd like to have (make and female) feminists
| understand. All I need to be resentful of female
| priviledge is my own mother and her spite and her totally
| lack of humility. Much of backlash towards feminism is
| self-inflicted. We don't need hateful men to tell us what
| to think about female priviledge. All we need is our own
| eyes. Not all women are shining examples of rationality
| and empathy. Maybe feminists should start by working
| on/with the bad apples in their own circles.
|
| Fact is, my mother owns way more then I do, despite
| actually only having worked roughly 5 years in her whole
| life. All she owns was built up by men in the family of
| my father. And she inherited everything, including the
| priviledge of not having to go to work. If I could, I'd
| step into her shoes every day. And she doesnt even
| realize her priviledge, which is insulting.
|
| This is just one example of the elderly spitting on the
| young, sometimes without even noticing. This tension is
| going to increase in the future even more.
| dpatterbee wrote:
| This sounds like a personal issue you have with your own
| mother that you are desperately trying to extrapolate
| onto the rest of society. Taking one selfish woman and
| using it to demonise all women and even the concept of
| feminism is quite silly.
|
| > Much of backlash towards feminism is self-inflicted.
|
| Self-inflicted by non-feminists?
|
| > We don't need hateful men to tell us what to think
| about female priviledge.
|
| But you're going to do it anyway.
| chgs wrote:
| The sad thing is there are actual issues and there is a
| kernel of truth to the feeling that men are discriminated
| against in some cases (as of course are women - and let's
| not go anywhere near transgender people) and life isn't
| blind to gender - especially when it comes to custody
| decisions, but also in areas like justice and crime (are
| jail populations 50:50?), educational outcomes (boys do
| worse than girls), mental health (check suicide figures)
|
| Sadly posters like this do so much damage to equality
| discourse that it's unlikely to ever equalise until this
| vitriol is lost in the past like the prejudice to left
| handed people was.
| johnisgood wrote:
| "Screw old people" is a common theme in hospitals and
| ironically, elderly homes.
| jorvi wrote:
| I mean, the model the current soon-to-be old people
| (boomers) operated on is exactly "screw everyone coming
| after me", so considered on the whole they deserve every
| bit of cold shoulder.
|
| That doesn't mean that every boomer is bad of course, so
| if you have good (grand)parents, be good to them!
| lotsofpulp wrote:
| I prefer to frame it as "help the younger generations"
| rather than "screw old people".
|
| I saw my parents, especially my mom, waste their youth
| taking care of two people who lived to near 100 years
| old, and I don't want to see my kids waste their time and
| resources on me.
| taway1a2b3c wrote:
| You want someone else's kids to do it?
| chgs wrote:
| > "Family is a burden, and screw old people" doesn't seem
| that conducive to a good society.
|
| Great for GDP though
| halgir wrote:
| > Should they feel any obligation to help my siblings once
| the time comes?
|
| Absolutely not, but hopefully your siblings will have been
| positive enough presences in your children's lives that
| they will want to of their own accord.
| huijzer wrote:
| I think society hasn't figured out the incentives for elders
| currently. In private settings it's fine, but in the work
| context I've seen few incentives for >50 year olds to support
| younger generations. To the contrary, many of these people
| fear losing their job just before retirement so choose risk-
| averse behavior. At the same time, unlike in the village, the
| juniors are not their relatives so that is also not
| incentivizing any positive behavior.
|
| And yes there are of course very nice people who are the
| exception, but from what I've seen they are truly the
| exception. As Charlie Munger put it "Well, I think I've been
| in the top 5% of my age cohort all my life in understanding
| the power of incentives, and all my life I've underestimated
| it. And never a year passes but I get some surprise that
| pushes my limit a little farther."
| msluyter wrote:
| Saying this as a rather old person myself...
|
| I have a theory that, wrt knowledge, the relative advantage
| of age has been at least partially eroded by rapid
| technological advancement. In traditional/tribal societies,
| prior to the 20th century, wisdom actually accumulated with
| age, because the pace of change was slower. Wisdom &
| knowledge could be passed on from generation to generation.
|
| Now, wisdom and knowledge become obsolete quickly. Many
| things you knew 20 years ago are outdated. The ICE engine you
| learned how to fix as a kid is now computer controlled, or
| has been replaced by batteries. Your optimistic/open/friendly
| mindset now makes you easy pickings for online scammers.
| Hell, even your family's secret cherished muffin recipe is
| spurned by your grandchildren because it has gluten or
| they're vegan or keto or whatever.
|
| All this is just a take, but when I look at voting patterns
| in particular, I find myself pessimistic that the elderly are
| wiser than average.
| baxtr wrote:
| I think this is true from a pure knowledge perspective but
| definitely not from a wisdom perspective.
|
| Old people have -through their experience- gained a tacit
| wisdom that can be very helpful when considering life
| choices.
| rjbwork wrote:
| The craziest and stupidest things I hear regularly are
| from older people. There are broad swathes of old people
| that, not having been raised to be skeptical about media
| consumption on the internet, are entirely credulous about
| all manner of insane dis/mis-information.
|
| That said, it's also something I'm seeing with younger
| people as well.
| baxtr wrote:
| PS: Also, don't forget that especially elder women help
| with children a lot.
| mlhpdx wrote:
| Isn't it weird how "old people" are so much like other
| people? The insecurities, hopes and so on? It's like
| stereotypes just don't work or something.
| svnt wrote:
| Be careful extrapolating too much from the emotional
| maturity of one generation where an unfortunately large
| majority was lead poisoned as children.
| DrillShopper wrote:
| Elder and middle millennials are just about equally as
| poisoned, and we're all full of microplastics
| ethbr1 wrote:
| > _...but when I look at voting patterns in particular, I
| find myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than
| average._
|
| Wisdom like 'It's harder to build something than it is to
| tear it down' and 'Change carries its own risk.'
|
| The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for Trump
| on the basis of returning things to the way they were...
| and then Trump staffed his administration with young
| ideologues who are determined to upset the traditional
| order.
|
| Midterms will be curious.
| TeMPOraL wrote:
| People group together uncorrelated concerns way too much
| in politics. I guess it's necessary side effect of the
| "us vs. them" mind virus.
|
| > _The irony is that older people overwhelming voted for
| Trump on the basis of returning things to the way they
| were... and then Trump staffed his administration with
| young ideologues who are determined to upset the
| traditional order._
|
| There isn't any irony there. People heard promises of
| some X and Y and Z returning to the way things were, they
| voted accordingly, and then their candidate proceeded to
| go against them on A, B and C. This is only surprising if
| you believe there's a strong ideological correlation
| between all these things (there isn't), and that parties
| and their leaders act according to their purported
| ideologies (they don't).
| ethbr1 wrote:
| It's not {X,Y,Z} vs {A,B,C}.
|
| It's {X,Y,Z} vs {X,Y,C}.
|
| That portions of the investment community threw in behind
| Trump and are now shocked (shocked!) that he has bigger
| priorities than keeping the market pumped is absolutely
| ironic.
| Der_Einzige wrote:
| Counterpoint: The only people who voted for Harris more
| than Biden were old white people (especially old white
| women).
|
| The biggest shift towards right wing authoritarianism from
| a demographic perspective is among the young (specifically
| young brown/black men in America). This is happening
| globally at a rapid and unprecedented pace.
|
| Get ready for a conservative, violent, radicalized youth. A
| Clockwork Orange but with 4chan like characteristics.
|
| I'm not pessimistic about Boomers anymore. They're becoming
| teddybears as they age.
| mrexroad wrote:
| > radicalized youth
|
| Two of my teenage sons play sports and at times it feels
| like all content consumption roads eventually lead to
| "manfluencers"[0]. If they're watching content on lifting
| techniques, sports discussions, or gaming--not uncommon
| topics for teenagers--the recommendations are riddled
| with rabbit holes into the so called manosphere.
|
| [0] https://www.psypost.org/rejected-and-radicalized-
| study-links...
| dfxm12 wrote:
| Knowledge changes. I don't think wisdom necessarily
| changes. Maybe this is a philosophical discussion, but I
| think that is once of the key differences of knowledge and
| wisdom. However, I do think it is false that people
| _necessarily_ accumulate wisdom with age. I know wise and
| unwise people of all ages, including people who _think_
| they 're wise only because they're old.
|
| _when I look at voting patterns in particular, I find
| myself pessimistic that the elderly are wiser than average_
|
| Don't stop there, look at the US elected representatives!
| Washington is, from a lot of angles, a gerontocracy, and I
| don't think anyone would consider it "wise". The world has
| passed a lot of these folks by and even aside from that,
| their stubbornness to not step aside has in cases meant
| that they predictably die in office, so their seats go
| unfilled for a while, leaving people unrepresented...
| treis wrote:
| I'm not sure that's accurate. If I think of the crazies
| in Washington they're almost all (relatively) young.
| no_wizard wrote:
| The median age of the House is 57.5 years old and the
| Senate is 64.7[0]
|
| Its really not great. There's very few representatives
| that have any life experiences of someone in the 30s or
| 40s. I'd argue that makes them out of touch on a host of
| very real, very pressing issues.
|
| The other thing to think about is the age of those with
| the levers of power. Its one thing to be elected as a
| House member or to the Senate, its a whole other thing to
| sit on key powerful committees, be the leader of the
| party in the respective chamber etc. and _the most
| powerful folks_ in congress trend into the 60s+
|
| [0]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-
| reads/2025/01/16/age-and-g...
| neutronicus wrote:
| Old people are also just a lot more numerous, relative to
| young people, than in previous eras of history.
| zambachi wrote:
| I disagree on the advantages of wisdom as these days I'm
| thinking the opposite:
|
| 1) Lack of wisdom leads to reinvention of the wheel. How
| many programming languages are there only now doing things
| the same way as 30 years ago? What is novel versus an
| unnecessary re-invention?
|
| I started studying Tcl code from back in the late '90's and
| honestly was surprised. Hell, many people don't even know
| what macports is even though homebrew isn't much but an
| attempt to reinvent macports with a "cool" spin.
|
| 2) Societal language and general problem solving skills are
| deteriorating. Language, and mathematics evolve ever so
| slowly, and yet emphasis on their importance is reduced in
| favor of the whims of technological advancement.
|
| I would rather hire someone with the slow-developing,
| traditional skills, than the new-age fads.
|
| In addition, with the advances in AI the only people worth
| hiring will be the ones with traditional education--and the
| wise, classically trained among our elders will be evermore
| important.
| bamboozled wrote:
| I find many "elders" I know think climate change is a hoax,
| solar power is dumb , transsexuals are evil, immigration is
| silly etc, basically they hold extreme views and it effects
| my ability to trust their word or opinion.
|
| I'm not sure if technology is to blame, I think social
| media is probably part of their corruption, Fox News too,
| but yeah, the lack of interest in their opinions is mostly
| self inflicted and I feel they choose to believe in
| nonsense because it's fun to hate things.
|
| What technology _has_ done is give me access to lots of
| knowledge and wisdom and now I don't have to put up with
| all the cruft to get what I need.
|
| Some elders in my life are more balanced and I enjoy
| seeking their opinion and wisdom and leaning on their
| experience for all sorts of things.
|
| One exception for me is that in Japan, even opinions are
| considered to be potentially offensive so elderly people
| are careful with their words. I've very really interacted
| with an older Japanese person who just spits rhetoric and
| conspiracy theories. Japanese even are careful to make a
| statement like "this is the best chocolate I've tasted",
| It's much more common to say "I think this is wonderful".
| akudha wrote:
| There was a news article few months ago, about waiting times
| for healthcare (in the UK, if I remember correctly). One govt
| official commented something like older people having to wait
| longer to see physicians is "not a priority". I was stunned
| reading it, didn't even know how to react.
|
| It is nice to read articles like this. I wish more humans
| looked at other humans beyond their youth, looks and their
| net worth
| InDubioProRubio wrote:
| My dad got a guy assigned to his farm once from the
| unemployment office once. Guy was in third generation
| unemployed. Tried to bribe himself out of shovelling shit,
| but my father wouldn't take the money. The tales a 90 year
| old person made redundant by society and thus avoiding
| society must have to tell. Stay a while and listen..
| emmelaich wrote:
| I hope the people don't get too much pressure to up their
| stats.
|
| > _The rarity of a card isn't based on fantasy stats -- it's
| tied to real-world contributions. The more actively the ojisan
| engages in volunteer work or community service, the higher the
| chances of their card being upgraded to a shiny version with a
| glossy laminated effect._
| bitwize wrote:
| I'm a bit reminded of the cards Harry and Ron find in their
| chocolate frog packaging, each of which features a picture of a
| famous wizard, some historical, some contemporary like Albus
| Dumbledore. The kids had a chance of actually meeting some of
| the heroes pictured on their cards.
| mtillman wrote:
| Apparently there are trading cards for everything now:
| https://divorceddads.shop/
| bananatron wrote:
| I was surprised this wasn't mentioned in the article - I
| assumed this is what they were talking about.
| briandear wrote:
| For real. This is the best thing I've seen on HN in a long
| time. My kids are very into these card collections/games and I
| told them about it and they thought it was a great idea to put
| "normal" people on these cards. Super great story and concept.
| Japan isn't perfect, but some amazing things come from their
| society.
| MichaelRo wrote:
| >> We wanted to strengthen the connection between the children
| and the older generations in the community.
|
| Holly molly, that's exactly what I was suspecting when reading
| "Japanese" and "middle age". Kinky schoolgirls are not enough,
| now they distribute their "business cards" directly to
| children.
|
| Of course this is satire but nonetheless, bring up the
| downvotes! :)
| Griffinsauce wrote:
| I get the joke but man, for once I'd like something to just
| be wholesome full stop.
| 4ggr0 wrote:
| > Since the card game went viral, so many kids are starting to
| look up to these men as heroic figures.
|
| per usual, women just exist :) men get to be heroic elders,
| women are footnotes, merely assisting men to become heroes.
| ComboSoftware wrote:
| way to add a negative twist... there's no reason an expansion
| or separate 'obaasan' set couldn't be made
| frereubu wrote:
| I kinda get where you're coming from, but the comment is
| about the fact it _hasn 't_ been done, and there's no
| reason why it should be a separate set.
| klipt wrote:
| Elderly men are more vulnerable to suicide die to lack of
| social connections. So it makes sense for a project that
| fosters social connections to prioritize men.
|
| It's about equity, not equality.
| jmknoll wrote:
| This is such a cynical, keyboard-warrior take. Why do you
| feel the need to drag down someone else's positive and
| impactful contribution? No one is stopping you from creating
| a card game with women as the heroes.
| Wurdan wrote:
| The article makes it clear that this was the passion project
| of Eri Miyahara, Secretary General of the local council and a
| woman herself. Though I'm sure you had noble intentions with
| this comment, it ignores the professional judgement that led
| her to create this game and turns her efforts into "merely
| assisting men to become heroes."
| awongh wrote:
| My takeaway of the cool dynamic at work here is that
| universally (but particularly in Japan) no one wants to be seen
| promoting themselves. Especially for older people they've done
| so many cool things, and are currently doing cool things now
| that they're retired and have free time, but socially it's a
| bit awkward to just ask, what cool and interesting stuff can
| you tell me about.
|
| And the physical / game medium helps connect
| intergenerationally as well. But actually I could see this kind
| of trading card dynamic working in other situations like
| business networking or speed dating or something.
| svilen_dobrev wrote:
| > increased cross-generational interaction
|
| cross- _class_ interaction too.
|
| in ~2012 i was in Tokyo, and by chance was (also) invited to
| someone's birthday.. The guy was working as pizzeria-waiter,
| and has invited.. all his usual clients to his birthday - in
| his small apartment, with "everyone brings some food they made"
| instead of gifts. My friend was a client.. so i landed there
| too. That was the most bizarre mix of people there. Some were
| just mom-and-pop. Some were millionaires. And everything in
| between. Most were japanese, but also from about 3-4 diff.
| countries. And everyone talking with everyone else as equal..
|
| a very interesting cross-section - and should i say glimpse-of-
| future - of society.
| neilv wrote:
| The Oregon Graduate Institute (or maybe just the CS&E dept.) once
| made trading cards of the professors, to promote STEM to area
| children.
| stevage wrote:
| This is a stupid idea that couldn't possibly work. But it did?
| tomcam wrote:
| MY TIME HAS FINALLY COME
|
| Wait I'm actually elderly
| xrd wrote:
| The whole point of this is that we've reached breaking point with
| the ridiculous attempt to replace everything with a digital
| experience. It is fitting that Japan, which was arguably the
| place where the digital revolution really took off, should be the
| first place where it is rejected.
| williamtrask wrote:
| Feels like a portal to the alternate universe we could have with
| modern technology but no mass media.
| xyzal wrote:
| s/mass/social/g
| iamwil wrote:
| > Seeing this, the game's creator decided to take it to the next
| level. New rules were introduced, allowing the cards to be used
| in actual battles. The objective isn't to defeat the opponent's
| card but to outplay it based on the characters' skills and
| abilities.
|
| Anyone have an idea of how the gameplay works? How do you
| "outplay" your opponent?
| tomxor wrote:
| This can only end one way...
|
| In an animated tv show depicting middle-aged man battles by
| community-service-dance-off. May include flashing images.
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| My prediction is isekai.
|
| Middle aged man with lousy card stats gets isekaied, and ends
| up with ridiculous stats hidden on the back of his card.
| rat87 wrote:
| It already aired
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/From_Bureaucrat_to_Villaines.
| ..
|
| > A bureaucrat named Kenzaburo Tondabayashi is killed by a
| passing truck after saving a boy and is reborn in the Otome
| game Magical Academy: Love & Beast as its villainess, Grace
| Auvergne. Due to his politeness, he makes Grace's personality
| change into a more kind person and even becomes friends with
| the game's heroine, Anna Doll, whom the original Grace is
| antagonistic towards. Meanwhile, Kenzaburo's original body is
| revealed to have survived, but he is stuck in a coma. His
| wife and daughter discover that he is trapped in the game and
| attempt to help him complete it in hopes of getting him out
| CoastalCoder wrote:
| Oh my.
|
| I'm starting to think there's a Rule 34 of Isekai.
| adastra22 wrote:
| This is unexpectedly brilliant and heart warming. Thank you for
| sharing.
| teleforce wrote:
| I think AR or augmented reality games like this trading cards is
| the future of gaming, but this one is offline AR rather than
| online.
|
| One of the best game I ever played is the text based souvenir
| game shopping game on Windows 3. I can't recall the name of the
| game now since it's more than 30 years ago, but it's about
| shopping souvenirs using London Underground Tube. You have a semi
| realistic time constraints like train schedules, your flight
| schedules and of course list of souvenirs items to shop. This is
| totally offline since there is no Internet available at the time
| but it's very engaging nonetheless.
|
| My proposal for the modern version of the game is to use real-
| time train schedules (with delays, ticket discounts, etc) that
| are available publicly on the Internet for many metropolitan
| cities in the world for examples Tokyo, London and Berlin
| [1],[2],[3].
|
| Imagine you can have a real-world realistic in-app in-game items
| purchases feature that you personally can buy in the game and
| delivered to you or anyone you fancy of giving souvenirs except
| that you only virtually went there.
|
| [1] A real-time 3D digital map of Tokyo's public transport system
| (2023 - 103 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=37829061
|
| [2] Live map of London's Underground system:
|
| https://traintimes.org.uk/map/tube/
|
| [3] Show HN: Ubahnchen - Animated subway map of Berlin (2020 -
| 102 comments):
|
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=32647227
|
| [4] Berlin train info:
|
| https://www.vbb.de/fahrinfo
| kzs0 wrote:
| Ngl that kind of pulls the fun out of it
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| As someone who got back into mtg recently, nah. I think
| physical games are going to hang around because there's just
| something different between playing games with friends on
| discord versus assembling at one of our houses to play.
|
| Humans are social creatures.
| teleforce wrote:
| I'm not proposing substitute physical games (do you meant
| real games like football?), this just augmenting computer
| games with real-time data.
|
| You can even become a virtual personal shopper to interact
| with real clients, and getting paid as well.
| throwaway743 wrote:
| All they need now is some irl sujimon!
| bitwize wrote:
| These aren't middle-aged men, they're straight-up old.
|
| "Ojisan" means something like "gramps". Though given how youth-
| oriented Japanese culture is, I suppose it could refer to any man
| 35 or older.
| redwall_hp wrote:
| Ojisan (ozisan) is roughly "uncle." Ojiisan (oziisan) is
| grandpa.
|
| Same with obasan (obasan) for aunt and obaasan (obaasan) for
| grandma.
| ph4evers wrote:
| Fantastic idea. Curious if this works in my town as well
| DeathArrow wrote:
| You can try it.
| avodonosov wrote:
| I would add some obasan - the female counterpart of "ojisan"
| xyzal wrote:
| > Kids have started attending local events and volunteering for
| community activities -- just for a chance to meet the ojisan from
| their cards. Participation in town events has reportedly doubled
| since the game launched.
|
| Kids involved in community seems to be the best result
| dreamcompiler wrote:
| Reminds me of this old SNL skit:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pzo73jYl3Ew
| fmxsh wrote:
| Why only men? Women don't exist in any important role in their
| society?
| josfredo wrote:
| I share your sentiment, I don't believe that important women
| don't exist there. Surely there has been some kind of bias
| here. Does anyone else agree?
| avodonosov wrote:
| https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=43618143
| DeathArrow wrote:
| Trading cards cather to young boys. They look up to men.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Why are so many comments getting hung up on this?
|
| If the (presumably) male at the community center had painted a
| portrait of the three older buddies he had in the community,
| would you all be asking "why does that painting only have men
| in it?"
|
| I agree that they should do women next, given the unexpected
| popularity of what is presumably a pet project - but it's not
| hard to understand the very simple & obvious reasons why the
| first set of cards didn't feature women.
| fmxsh wrote:
| Imagine boys and girls could have their own gender being
| represented and they would compete with each other in that
| card game, or if it's not like "Magic: the gathering", at
| least interact around arguing who is better. But here, girls
| are completely excluded from any such interaction, like:
| "Nope, you don't exist." Girls, who should they look up to?
| Having both, it allows both genders to choose whom to admire.
|
| I actually do not see the obvious reason. Maybe I missed
| something. My take is Japan has what some would call a gender
| stereotypical view. What is surprising to me is how a whole
| gender is excluded from something that creates much fun
| interaction and play. It feels surprising especially also
| when the project is supposed to represent a community. I
| almost feel bad pointing it out, because the project is so
| wholesome, but it's simply what I see.
|
| I have a European lense, and I am sure I am not aware of many
| things of their culture. But, I am struggling to see how it's
| not a blunt confirmation of typical western feminist
| critique. Of course, Japanese society may have another
| cultural framework to rationalize it, where any such critique
| wouldn't even be recognized to be rational. That, in itself,
| reflects a possible large discrepancy in cultural views.
|
| (edit: I don't think the creator did any wrong, I think they
| acted within their frame. Maybe the product wouldn't be as
| successfully otherwise. My inquiry is at the level of culture
| and it's undercurrent of values dictating what's successfully
| and to what degree an artifact is based in cultural values
| and re-affirm those, well transcending mere artistic choice
| and artistic appreciation which should be free.)
|
| (edit 2, psychoanalysis: the artist framing males within
| cards... Males being looked up to... The artist
| psychologically in perhaps a Lacanian sense, is "looking up"
| to expressions of the mighty, assertive phallocentric values
| constituting society. The artist mediating societal core
| views by making this artifact, enacts those values by
| admiration, and mediates those values to the right
| population, boys, who by their mere gender, are both the
| protectors and the representations of society's core view. I
| suspect Japan is a phallocentric society more so than not.)
| babuloseo wrote:
| I NEED TO GO TO JAPAN NOW.
| deadbabe wrote:
| Makes you think, if your life was reduced to a trading card,
| would anyone want it? For most, probably not.
| DeathArrow wrote:
| I like the idea. On one hand it promotes usung heroes, people who
| did good for their community. On the other hand it helps
| establishing role models.
|
| It's better if kids have these people as role models than random
| rock stars or movie stars.
| blixt wrote:
| I remember as a young kid living in Norway, there'd be the
| "russefeiring"[0] around May where students finishing their final
| semester will don a brightly colored overall and cause mayhem in
| the town. I remember getting shot a lot with water guns. Anyway,
| one thing that is pretty fun about that tradition is that the
| students print cards for themselves with a picture and fun facts
| etc and hand them out to all the little kids, and we'd trade them
| between ourselves to have the whole collection of students.
|
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Russefeiring
| chenhoey1211 wrote:
| "Japan has always had deep subcultures around games, cards, and
| character design -- but what's new is how global social platforms
| amplify them. It feels like TikTok is acting as a cross-cultural
| layer over local fandoms. Could this become a driver for new
| forms of cross-border cultural products?"
| nanna wrote:
| Ojisan as in O.G.san as in Old Gangster san?
| zeristor wrote:
| Erm, are there some for middle aged women to?
|
| Three months after loosing my Mum one realises and appreciates
| what a huge amount she did for so many people.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| The comment here are a perfect example of how this could not
| exist in the west without some shitstorm trying to destroy it.
|
| I guess continuing to ignore 3/4:1 male suicide rates is one
| "solution" to mitigate demographic aging..
|
| https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gender_differences_in_suicid...
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| Yeah Japanese culture is very, very different from the West.
| But it also comes with its own set of problems and challenges.
|
| As a gay guy I've always thought about the topic in your last
| sentence; I agree that male problems (suicide rates,
| expectations, hypermasculinism etc) get largely ignored, in
| part due to a tightly integrated hierarchy of social rules and
| expectations - men (ignoring feelings, emotions, trying to be
| tough all the time) women (reliance on men,
| encouraging/supporting hypermasculine behaviours).
|
| I find it both interesting & sad the way that heterosexual (&
| bisexual, etc) male behaviour completely changes (often for the
| worse) when a woman walks into the room. I don't see this as
| much at all in the opposite scenario, though I won't say that
| gay men don't sometimes exhibit the same aggressive behaviours
| that straight men often do.
|
| It's just sad to watch men not care about certain aspects of
| themselves that are deemed weak, and that society has no value
| for men not attached to a family unit (hence the suicide rate).
| Also look at rates of homelessness - women are more likely to
| be taken in/given much more leeway by family etc than men are
| as a man down on his luck is a "problem" aka useless. It's the
| same with calling for women to be forced into drafts the same
| way men are - heterosexual response to that is staggering - the
| same frequency as the response I get as a man if I say I
| _don't_ want to fight in a war (aggression, being called a
| coward, the vitriol received for being a "draft dodger").
|
| I know why it is the way it is, though and unlike many others I
| never forget that we're all still just animals at our very
| core.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| >get largely ignored, in part due to a tightly integrated
| hierarchy of social rules and expectations
|
| I think this might change in the future when men realize the
| social contract reward for it has been reduced to rubble.
|
| >male behaviour completely changes (often for the worse) when
| a woman walks into the room
|
| I observed this many times and disliked it to the point of
| acting the reverse (disinterested) which ironically resulted
| in the opposite outcome at least temporarily. I think it
| certainly applies to women too but is just less observable
| because its more passive instead of active. The standard of
| the average men is also a lot "lower" (actual average)
| compared to women's to get active.
| fennecfoxy wrote:
| >I think this might change in the future when men realize
| the social contract reward for it has been reduced to
| rubble.
|
| That's a great point but I don't think it ever will. Said
| social contracts are dictated by our underlying biology and
| whilst we may adjust or tweak them over time the
| fundamentals of them will stay the same. But who knows,
| maybe I'll be surprised and the higher order social rules
| will completely overcome the lower order animal rules.
| akimbostrawman wrote:
| If there will be a change it will be driven by technology
| for better or worse. Maybe not change but replace, robot
| and ai companions come to mind.
| foobahify wrote:
| "Rural Japan" checks notes. Pop 1.7M
| ashdnazg wrote:
| More like 10000 [1]
|
| [1] https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kawara,_Fukuoka
| iimaginary wrote:
| Wow! What a fantastic idea!
| fedeb95 wrote:
| the idea is great by itself. However it highlights a big problem
| in today western society.
| rsynnott wrote:
| > The more actively the ojisan engages in volunteer work or
| community service, the higher the chances of their card being
| upgraded to a shiny version with a glossy laminated effect.
|
| In systems like this, where artificial scarcity is seen as having
| value, making the cards _more common_ for good works seems like a
| perverse incentive; clearly, the best approach is to be Victor
| Meldrew, so as to have a rarer card.
| rampatra wrote:
| This is such a wonderful thought. A great way to recognize the
| efforts put up by people in the community that often goes
| unnoticed and unappreciated.
| einpoklum wrote:
| How come the men on the cards have Magic/Mana Points (MP)?
| uxp100 wrote:
| I don't think "middle-aged" is quite the right translation.
| nonethewiser wrote:
| OK, Row 2 Column 2 has to be a mashup of George Bush and Barack
| Obama right?
|
| https://www.tokyoweekender.com/wp-content/uploads/2025/03/oj...
| ddingus wrote:
| I love this! I did not expect to love this.
|
| Wow.
|
| The cards are exemplary. Any Ojisan[0] featured on a card should
| feel honored. I looked at the cards shown to us and immediately
| was struck by the artists ability to both see the beauty in these
| fine people and deliver it on the card in a compelling, clearly
| respectful way.
|
| And the motive! It is simple and noble: Elevating Town Fathers in
| the eyes of those for whom they often serve.
|
| The idea is pure,[1] uncluttered by unnecessary detail and
| expectations. The only real complication came from the kids, who
| naturally wanted the game aspect to make the whole thing fun!
|
| Of course they did.
|
| Humans being beautiful. That is what this is and as much as I
| want this sort of thing where I live, I know it would not be this
| organic thing of beauty and that makes me sad. I am not sure
| enough of us here have what is needed.
|
| I am definitely sharing today. What a delightful story!
|
| [0] Capitalized because local heroes
|
| [1] Pure is the word I use in this context. There may be better
| ones. Please share.
| parabyl wrote:
| Although I think "pure" is alright to use in this context, I
| would probably have gone with "beautifully simple".
| ddingus wrote:
| Not bad. That could work, but still the sentiment remains a
| bit elusive.
|
| Yours does nail a couple strong elements to it.
|
| It seems almost noble, or just is a celebration of quiet
| nobility. That is a part of it too.
|
| I feel this is one of those times we would learn Germans have
| a dead on word like they often do.
| bombcar wrote:
| Wait, what does Japan know that 79 year old men are middle aged?
| scotty79 wrote:
| I thought it was a joke like https://divorceddads.shop/ It turns
| out it's something way more wholesome.
| atmosx wrote:
| There are fundamental differences between Asian cultures and
| Western ones, particularly in how they view the individual versus
| the community, and the relationship between the young and the
| elderly. In many Asian cultures, the community is often placed
| above the individual, while in the West, individualism tends to
| take precedence. These perspectives have evolved differently over
| time, and each has its own advantages and drawbacks--there's no
| single "correct" way.
|
| That said, it would definitely be more challenging to implement
| this kind of community-first mindset in the U.S. or Europe.
| jsrcout wrote:
| I love this so much.
| jdoliner wrote:
| > Middle-aged man trading cards Examples are Mr. Honda (74), Mr.
| Takeshita (81) and Mr. Fujii (68). Japanese are just built
| different I guess.
| insane_dreamer wrote:
| "Middle-aged man ..."
|
| also:
|
| "It features Mr. Honda (74), ... Mr. Takeshita (81), ... Mr.
| Fujii (68)"
|
| Is this the new "middle-aged" in Japan?
| jandrese wrote:
| They should have called these Salarymon cards.
| woodrowbarlow wrote:
| i think it would be interesting to allow each Ojisan to be in
| charge of distribution. some would freely hand out their cards to
| any who ask, while some might be more "stingy", awarding cards
| only to youth who impressed them. the game designer could
| periodically restock the Ojisan's supply and each generation of
| cards could be mechanically rebalanced to reflect the observed
| rarity.
| IronCoder1 wrote:
| Fascinating cultural phenomenon blending traditional trading
| cards with modern social media. Clever use of QR codes linking to
| biographical data. I wonder if future versions could incorporate
| digital signing and verification on the blockchain to create
| provably scarce digital collectibles. Potential model for other
| innovative physical-digital crossovers.
| Jolter wrote:
| Your last idea there seems like it's totally missing the point
| of these oji-san cards. It's about connecting people to each
| other and forming community, not about scarcity, value or any
| other economic term.
| jimnotgym wrote:
| The life expectancy in this area is impressive. Middle-aged men:
|
| Mr. Honda (74) apparently expecting to live to 148
|
| Mr. Takeshita (81) about to buy a high-powered motorcycle,
| perhaps
|
| Mr. Fujii (68) has a new sports coupe and is on very good terms
| with his secretary, his wife has noticed
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