Japan was the future but it's stuck in the past
These Japan threads are always so fascinating to read.  When pressed, everyone seems to roughly agree on two main ideas:<p>1. Japan has extremely low levels of many of the problems that we have in Western nations.<p>2. The reason WHY they&#x27;re so unaffected by problems that arise in racially-divided societies with fluctuating gender roles, is because they are a deeply xenophobic monoculture society that restricts immigration and promotes traditional gender roles.<p>#1 plays into the common impulse on HN, Reddit, etc to dunk on the U.S. and the West in general.  But #2 undercuts that, because Japan is far WORSE than us on many of the factors for which people dunk on us.  They&#x27;re MAGA Republicans with Pokemon!<p>People tiptoe around this without really engaging with it in depth.  Either because the cognitive dissonance is too strong, or else they&#x27;re afraid of what people will think if they look at it directly rather than askance from the corner of their eye.<p>For what it&#x27;s worth, I&#x27;ll take the messiness of modern Western society.  Extreme fasciation with the Japanese way of life has always struck me as roundabout white supremacy or misogyny cloaked in a cosmopolitan facade.