While it's true a lot of people (particularly white Americans who've never experienced being a minority) will complain about minor things like just being treated differently, there are some obvious issues like housing discrimination, where you can be a incredibly high earner with a stable job, living in Japan for decades, and still be told no just because you're a foreigner. (To be fair, I think discriminating on visa length, time in Japan so far, income, job type is perfectly fine - just no reason to outright say no to all foreigners)
Small town living is kind of a different kettle of fish though. There can be lots of committees, local rules and association fees you're expected to take part in. Lots of these aren't really forced or regulated "by law", but someone from there is just expected to play into them. Lots of younger Japanese people and foreigners move there, learn about these and find them unbearable -and if you don't play ball you can be treated badly.
In rural areas though the main thing for foreigners is that you'll kind of become a town character "foreigner-san". Kind of unavoidable when you're the only foreign face many of these people will have ever met.
I think some foreigners have this dream if they assimilate enough people will just pretend they're not a foreigner anymore, which personally I think is unrealistic and silly - you are foreign. The truly happy people here find a way to integrate while coming to peace with the fact they're obviously different.
I left the UK after graduating at 21, fully intending to come back within a couple of years. Its weird watching it from the outside for 10 years waiting for a "good time" to move back and realizing that time isn't coming more and more each year.
The salaries in Japan arent great honestly, but mine, the quality of life and how far my money goes is so much better than if I lived back at the UK. Every time I go back it seems more and more people are struggling to pay for basic expenses - and even if I moved back it seems get a great salary I'd have to live in London, which I dislike.
I imagine lots of people far more talented than me must also be feeling the pull to not stay in the country too. Its festering politically and economically. Besides family there really is no benefit to remaining.
The UK cannot just "be Singapore". What happened in Singapore was a specific, unrepeatable combination of its geography, the needs of the region, the size of the country, and the culture.
To maintain its wealth today, Singapore relies on a large underclass of underpaid non-citizens. Around 40% of the country are non-citizens.
In addition, London sort of has its own Singapore(s) in the form of the City and Canary Wharf. That's great for those who work there, but it's not feasible for a country of nearly 70 million for everyone to just work in finance.
Final comment:
> Singapore did not depend on neighboring countries to climb out of 3rd world poverty
Singapore's wealth is built on trade and foreign investment. To assume that without other countries it would be equally successful is absurd.
This is true but there are many policies that the UK could copy from other countries like Singapore that would work much better than what they are currently doing
From the top of my head, might be incorrect but this is what I remember from reading about it:
1. Some of the least bureaucracy in the world to start a business. Simple + fast.
2. Some of the simplest/least laws in the world (law in general) to allow for business to succeed/be efficient. They actually started out with British law and then modified it where necessary to get to where they are now.
3. Some of the least political corruption in the world, due to a deliberately designed system against it: paying politicians very high salaries from taxes (on par with industry) instead of from bribes/lobbying (or legalized insider trading like in the US) + a dedicated secret service department tasked with keeping an eye on politicians and their corruption. Very high fines/imprisonment if caught. There's other stuff they do that could be copied.
4. Simple tax laws and low taxes in general.
5. Relatively simple worker protection laws (easy to hire and fire).
6. The best public transportation system in the world (based on my own experience and extensive travel around the world, I'm from EU).
7. Some of the best public housing in the world. Basically similar to what the UK used to have (based on a legacy UK system) before Tatcher killed it, except better thought out. It's all connected to their "central provided fund" (CPF) where everybody can save tax-free for housing, healthcare and other important stuff.
8. Tons of trade agreements with other countries. UK choses to just follow EU, which is relatively complex and limited (Brexit never happened in any practical real sense). "fort Europa"
9. Access to highly educated talent. Both local (some of the best uni's in the world) as well as from students all over (South East) Asia who can't wait to come to Singapore (highest income in the region).
This is some very general examples, the TLDR is that they went from third world country to first world within 1 generation thanks to the best leadership there can probably be.
I often hear the same non-explanations repeated about how Singapore got to wealth. "they use cheap labor" (literally every country in SEA does), "oh it's their location", "they just got lucky", "it's because they're an Island", "it's because they're on a trade route", "it's because other countries helped them", "it's because they're small". None of these make sense to me and don't explain anything. There are tons of regions and countries around Singapore who fit (some of) those criteria. All of the countries around Singapore started out as 3rd world countries when Singapore was a 3rd world country and all of them still are now that Singapore is not. The difference is leadership IMO.
Thanks for being fair-minded and giving credit where credit is due. I'm so tired of reading comments trivializing Singapore's achievements and mischaracterising it as a country.
> it's because other countries helped them
Also, this is not true. Singapore never received any handouts, save a meagre sum from Japan as compensation for occupying Singapore during World War 2. Singapore's first Prime Minister, Lee Kuan Yew, understood that such monetary gifts always came with strings attached, and that accepting them would increase Singapore's vulnerability to the caprices of its benefactors. He was adamant to avoid having Singapore held hostage.
> Singapore relies on a large underclass of underpaid non-citizens. Around 40% of the country are non-citizens.
There is nothing stopping other wealthy countries from doing this besides egalitarian values, it could take the place of illegal immigrants in agriculture in the US for example
It's a political issue. There are things the UK is good at - finance, culture/media, software and yes hardware innovation, legal services, tourism. But since the GFC especially, none of these things are considered "right" by the electorate.
Instead we romanticise unproductive legacy stuff, and an NHS which, while its staff are in many cases heroic, spends most of its vast budget cleaning up the mess of a population who thinks eating a sensible diet and enacting basic public health policy is "woke".
It's a good thing we banned indoor smoking in public buildings in the early aughts, there's no way you'd get that through in today's political climate.
Vast majority of NHS expense is keeping an aging population alive. A lot of the rest of government spending (nearly 80% of my council tax for example) goes on social care for that same aging population.
The NHS spends less per capita than the US spends on medicaid. Not less per person covered, less overall.
It’s a black hole money-pit everywhere. There is no return on spending money for people who will never be productive again.
The only way that kind of wealth transfer works is with a growing proportion of workers, but that has long not been the case in many developed countries.
The solution for all these countries (even the US) is to dismantle all wealth transfer to old people. It might be the only way to incentivize production of families that raise productive children. Or tell old people to expect declining quality of life (faster than it already is).
The west is caught in a web of its own creation. We have basically incentivized the countries to get older by taxing the young to subsidize the rich.
Unfortunately, there's no easy way for democracy to correct this. older people vote and are wealthier. Both of those mean they have large political power.
Doesn't this create a situation where the old rely on their own younger generation to support them?
And therefore inequality between older people who have families (or have families that care about them) and those that don't?
I can see this particularly being a problem for countries like the UK which has long encouraged "upwardly-mobile" people to move away from their towns of origin in pursuit of economic opportunity, leading to families being widely dispersed across a country which, despite its fairly small size, is not especially fast to travel around.
That is, if someone goes out for work instead of caring for relatives, not only do we count their work as GDP, we also count the person who has to stand in for them.
So that's a large increase in paid work done, but a minimal amount of extra wellbeing generated. Especially if, say, each of them now has to drive 45 minutes each way.
If, as you say, care is paid for by other people working, are there interventions - either state or individual - to reduce the need to consume it? Obviously some people are just unlucky, and live a long time in a state of total incapacity (hence the "dementia tax" rhetoric), is it possible to incentivise people to do things that mean they need less of it - by spending a greater proportion of their lifespan in good health, say?
Not necessarily on that last point as it's something other than a linear relationship.
There are people aged 90 who've needed 0 years of care, and others who've needed 30.
That was kind of what I meant by greater proportion.. we're all mortal, but for me personally, the idea of being utterly dependent for a long period of my later years is, to put it mildly, not something I want. As in I would literally rather be dead. I'm not saying other people should feel the same, but that's how I feel about it.
Two, three, perhaps five years at the end? Sure, that's rather to be expected. Even then, there are huge differences in quality of life enjoyed by different eldercare residents. I had one older relative in a home for his last four years, who basically had good quality of life up until the final couple of weeks. Another who was in a home for a decade+, and had almost zero quality of life from the day she went in. Not because it was a bad home, she was just too far gone.
You're not thinking like an economist :) Here's something I saw on Twitter (no source):
The bicycle is the slow death of the planet.
General Director of Euro Exim Bank Ltd. got economists thinking when he said:
"A cyclist is a disaster for the country's economy: he does not buy cars and does not borrow money to buy. He does not pay for insurance policies. He does not buy fuel, does not pay for the necessary maintenance and repairs. He does not use paid parking. He does not cause serious accidents. He does not require multi-lane highways. He does not get fat. Healthy people are neither needed nor useful for the economy. They don't buy medicine. They do not go to hospitals or doctors. Nothing is added to the country's GDP (gross domestic product). On the contrary, every new McDonald's restaurant creates at least 30 jobs: 10 cardiologists, 10 dentists, 10 dietary experts and nutritionists, and obviously, people who work at the restaurant itself." Choose carefully: cyclist or McDonald's? It is worth considering.
P.S. Walking is even worse. Pedestrians don't even buy bicycles.
>The salaries in Japan arent great honestly, but mine, the quality of life and how far my money goes is so much better than if I lived back at the UK.
In a similar situation to you apparently. Every couple of years I'll take a look at UK as well as NZ and Aus (all places I can legally work) and Japan is still the better option. Even with the yen situation and despite all the doom and gloom others write online, life is still pretty nice here.
As an NZer, jobs in Australia pay wayyyy better and everyone here seems to agree that the lifestyle is better there. Lots of NZers move to Oz to improve their life and opportunities.
The NZ economy isn't doing great.
I'm personally worried that demographics and an incoming Labour government will mean that if you have saved for your retirement our next government will simply tax your savings until you have nothing (they keep talking of a 2% wealth tax: if we go back to a 4% annual return environment that's 50% tax of your savings over time). Plus they are slowly introducing means testing or equivalents.
In the meantime, it seems your parliament is quabbling over (the limitation of) Maori rights and so on. I guess the end goal is to improve the economy but is the chaos worth it?
Not worth it. Maori rights are an intractable problem - the only way to win is to avoid the topic and punt it to a future government. I'm sure you've worked on projects sunk by a non-technical distraction so you surely understand the mechanics.
National says they (and ACT) are the business party but they seem to be mostly windbags. The NZ government traditionally screws over businesses and founders - they certainly fail to encourage businesses while producing a lot of ineffectual programmes.
I don't recommend anyone try and start a business here. Plus NZ society generally cuts down tall poppies - especially capitalists (sportspeople is the main way to achieve without approbation). Be an employee or leech on the welfare state are the usual alternatives.
The variance for most traits is higher within races than it is between them. I assume OPs point is the division into categories "black, white, asian, latino" is arbitrary, and you could easily reduce or add more groups as you see fit.
Theres nowhere in science you can look that will tell you how many groups there are and where to draw the lines between them - i.e a construct.
I agree that the pseudo races that you mentioned are quite arbitrary, but I suppose they could be useful terms in a population as the diverse the US. In less mixed contexts such as Ethiopia nobody is "Black" rather they would be called one of the 300 some odd races they have there. Likewise in China - nobody's "Asian" in China, rather they are Han or something.
There's probably a whole Venn diagram or tree to describe different races, how far up the tree we go to describe someone pretty much depends on how far away we are from them on that tree. And then there are people of mixed race - we are all human after all.
Does that have any legal basis? It sounds a lot like what Google did for their Java engine, which essentially rewrote the entire engine with the same APIs, while referencing the original source code. Didn't the courts decide it was fine?
A lot of people dislike LLMs and generative AI (fairly) and are reflexively trying to reach for tools in our legal framework, claiming it's obviously already illegal. I don't think this is going to work. Generative AI is quite obviously novel to anyone who isn't in denial - and claiming existing copyright laws are going to cover it seems like a lost cause.
We need new laws. Especially regarding deepfakes, it's shocking how many people think revenge porn laws and such are going to be enough here. Rather than just focusing on the data usage, we need more fundamental laws and rights, like the right to control representations of ourselves, like Japan has, where producing images or voice/video in your likeness is prosecutable straight out. Likewise we need laws that explicitly target data use for training that is separate to copyright.
The way LLMs are trained is obviously too similar to how humans learn, and the transformation and then output produce works that are novel based on that "learning", just like humans do. This is so fundamentally different to what copyright laws were made to cover, I find it infuriating how many people handwave these arguments away. Only in perfect 1-to-1 regurgitation does it even feel close to something copyright would be able to cover.
I'm one of the "dislikers" although the neural network stuff is itself an amazing tool in my opinion. I like to fall back on a much easier argument (IANAL and this is not legal advice), can these code generating things generate code without reading (training on) encumbered code?
Humans can learn syntax and basic programs then independent of any "similar code", humans can produce new algorithms that solve specific problems. Now sure, similar code can be searched for on the internet but the code is "attributed" and will likely contain a license. If the human copies it too closely, attribution and licensing rights come into play. The LLMs apparently just bail on attribution.
The way LLMs are trained is that they are fed an absurd amount of code, humans cannot train this way because the volumes of code to be read are too great.
Only slightly related, I have a really bad thing with dental dams, clamps, and anything blocking my mouth - I get really paranoid im going to choke and die - and start overthinking swallowing my saliva and freaking out. Especially taking the moulds for my teeth, it really feels like the back of my throat is getting blocked up by the putty, and they just leave me sitting there with it in.
My dentist would always lie to me saying "just a little longer left" (even when there was about an hour remaining) which really didnt help, and after we finished about 5 teeth worth of treatments she said she "realised" I have 3 more places she wants to do as well..
It sounds hysterical I'm sure, but I dont think she realised that several times per each treatment I'm genuinely convinced I'm about to die - like making peace with god level. I got over myself and was in a really good cycle of going because I wanted to finally fix everything, and then that extra "reveal" of another 2 rounds of treatment just broke me, I couldn't do it.
It’s still along those same lines. It’s lying or stretching the truth.
And I do believe that for the most it comes from a good place. They are legitimately trying to reduce anxiety.
When the above happened an I was trying to find a dentist I talked with my therapist about this extensively. And then the dentist I found now, talking through it was a big way that helped me.
And both of them kinda said the same thing. That this was an old trick that dentists used. Particularly on kids, but clearly not limited. And it does come from a good place.
But they don’t think about the long term damage of that. Even on a subconscious level. It wasn’t until into my adult hood that I understood why I had a fight or flight moment when I got in that chair, but I still did.
And I feel you 100% on those tools and stuff. I have gotten better, but I remember early on after finding my current dentist I needed a root canal. I told her, if I am laying 100% back and that plastic film is covering my mouth fully I am going to have an anxiety attack. She listened and worked with me on how to make it work. It still made me anxious, but yeah.
I thought after you take estrogen long enough you don't have to take t blockers or fin anyway? Once your body see's you have enough sex hormone doesn't it naturally stop T, even if the hormone is estrogen? (Sorry for the stupid question)
If you take a high enough dose of estrogen, generally referred to as estrogen mono therapy, it will knock down your T levels. But high estrogen levels have some risks as well, and different doctors have different preferred approaches. My doctor is willing to do estrogen monotherapy, but I would have to switch from oral pills to injections as the higher dosages taken orally would be hard on the kidneys. Before switching to injections, I just wanted to see how finasteride worked for me. It is okay, but not perfect.
It is hard to tell if what I am experiencing is a side effect of the finasteride unrelated to my T levels, or it is due to some reduction in the effects of testosterone because of the mechanism of action of the finasteride. If it is the latter, switching to injections and doing monotherapy to lower my T could have the same effects. The fact of the matter is the penis functions better with testosterone in my system but testosterone also leads to hair loss, so trying to get both is somewhat of an imperfect balancing act.
But hey, I'm having the best sex of my life and the people I am attracted to think I am hot as hell so I don't mind a little experimentation to see what works best! Actually its super cool what we can do with a little hormonal alchemy.
"High" E dosages enough to knock down your T are not that high at all.
Also fin won't reduce your T, it might actually increase it, and by using fin instead of duta you still produce dht.
Chances are you are still irreversiblly masculinizing if you are on a low dosage of E (including oral). Please consider an actual T blocker, and consider a suitable medication to help with erections.
Im not on a low dose, I take 8mg oral estradiol per day. It’s just not a particularly high dose, just the highest my doctor is comfortable giving someone orally. I don’t care about the testosterone in my system I only want to stop hair loss (I’m very genderfucked non-binary). It was my doctor from the UCSF Transgender Care center that suggested finasteride may have effects similar to that of reducing T (specifically a more estrogen dominant arousal style). I’m already on cialis and previously I’d take 5mg a day normally and 10mg on days where I would have sex, which is a pretty high dose. On finasteride I’ve noticed reduced erection performance even with 15mg cialis which is the most I want to take in a day (20mg is the maximum recommended daily dose).
Also I’m 39, so whatever masculinization I’m due for I suspect has all happened already.
Alternatively it might be worth trying sublingual, turning pills into stickies for extended-release direct absorption (https://stickies.neocities.org/stickies though I suspect the author dosed low), or switching/supplementing with other routes of administration (you mentioned injections).
I mean I can just ask my doctor for a higher dose. I’m currently not interested in suppressing T if finasteride works for me. I literally just started finasteride so I’m going to evaluate it until my next appointment in December and decide with my doctor how to proceed. I actually explicitly do not want to suppress my T unless doing so would result in better erection performance than not doing so and taking Finasteride. I’m extremely happy with where my body is.
Honestly it’s a little unnerving being told by strangers on the internet I should change my HRT. I’ve got a transgender doctor at one of the best Trans care clinics in the country. I get that folks are trying to help but really I’m fine.
Right. I am not trying to suppress T. I’m super genderfucked non-binary and happy with T in my system. Estrogen has done wonders for me and I’m happy with that. I only want to prevent further recession of my hair line while optimizing erection performance. If suppressing T ends up being better for that I will try it. But I just started finasteride. I have a check up in September and at that time my doctor and I have already discussed that we can consider switching to injections and higher E doses if we want to suppress T instead of relying on Finasteride.
It’s just one thing at a time, and giving it some months to balance out in my system.
Honestly I have a transgender doctor at one of the best trans care clinics in the country. I’m all set. Just wanted to share that finasteride is not always without side effects. My doctor and I can figure out my HRT.
Sorry to rant a little, but as someone who grew up with HIV in the family, this odd pressure against people who might be hesitant to sleep with someone U=U always feels uncomfortable and manipulative to me. I see it a lot around the internet.
The way I was raised, I'm the only person I trust with my sexual health. I would never trust someones word they're tested recently and have unprotected sex with them. I wouldn't trust someone saying they're on PrEP and have unprotected sex with them either. I can only trust myself. U=U is exactly the same situation.
In a zero trust mindset like that, someone telling me they're U=U only tells me they have HIV. I have HIV+ friends who struggle to take their meds at the right time every day, or forget. And I also know people who have lied about when they last took their STI screening to hookups.
I'm also sure a bunch of people would get angry if you asked a U=U person to show you their latest CD4 count or viral load proof too - so what am I to do, just trust that, unlike everyone else, U=U people are perfectly honest, and never screw up taking their meds?
The response to this is often "anyone COULD have HIV, U=U people are actually safer because they have it locked down", but again to me this is about as trustworthy as "anyone COULD have HIV, but people on PrEP have it locked down". It all relies on the trust the other person is on top of their shit.
I read this entire thread under the assumption that we are talking about long term partners here. Completely disregarding HIV, there are enough other STIs that say unprotected sex is a bad idea, so if we are talking about hookups, the person can tell me whatever they want, condom is mandatory.
Of course long term relationships don't magically shield you against STI, but I'd hope there is enough trust to share test results of any kind that are relevant to this matter if you are having the discussion about going fluid bond. And you probably know the person well enough to know if they are reliable with taking their meds on time.
I wonder to what extent is hallucination a result of a "must answer" bias?
When sampling data all over the internet, your data set only represents people who did write, did respond to questions - with no representation of what they didn't. Add into that confidently wrong people - people who respond to questions on, say, StackOverflow, even if they're wrong, and suddenly you have a data set that prefers replying bullshit, because there's no data for the people who didnt know the answer and wrote nothing.
Inherently there's no representation in the datasets of "I don't know" null values.
LLMs are forced to reply, in contrast, so they "bullshit" a response that sounds right even though not answering or saying you don't know would be more appropriate - because no-one does that on the internet.
I always assumed this was a big factor, but am I completely off the mark?
Small town living is kind of a different kettle of fish though. There can be lots of committees, local rules and association fees you're expected to take part in. Lots of these aren't really forced or regulated "by law", but someone from there is just expected to play into them. Lots of younger Japanese people and foreigners move there, learn about these and find them unbearable -and if you don't play ball you can be treated badly.
In rural areas though the main thing for foreigners is that you'll kind of become a town character "foreigner-san". Kind of unavoidable when you're the only foreign face many of these people will have ever met.
I think some foreigners have this dream if they assimilate enough people will just pretend they're not a foreigner anymore, which personally I think is unrealistic and silly - you are foreign. The truly happy people here find a way to integrate while coming to peace with the fact they're obviously different.