Me want the…

 It's a rainy day in Japan. I'm sitting at home in December. I'm thinking of writing a country song. It's hard to put Japan into country songs. As soon as I just start doing that, I'm like, ah, it's not really going to work out. But I could do like a soulful. Okay, I am very distracted by the fact that I heard a new... The disorganized nature of my thought pattern at the moment is being demonstrated through the word salad that is not being completed. I'm not able to finish any sentences. I listened to a two-hour podcast, Behind the Bastards, and I listened to the one on Steven Scal. 

It was actually two parts, but I listened to two hours. And there was no really new information in there. It's all stuff I'd heard before. Reaffirming my belief that Steven Scal is a piece of shit garbage human being. Fine. But there was a reggae style song. So he has a music career on the side and it's supposed to be blues, but then there's this song where it's like a reggae song. I found that to be a lot and it's kind of overwhelmed my brain. Well, actually... Yes, it's called Strut. This is featuring Lady Saut. Now you're really like, hey Peter, I came here for the Japanese news. I didn't come here to hear about your stupid Steven Scal and how much you hate him and his terrible music. I understand that. But at the same time, fuck you. You got to listen to the awful things I have to listen to. This is the only way I'm going to be able to flush this out of my head. So we're going to have to listen to some of it. All right. That's all I really wanted to get out there is that Steven Scal, it's a calling response between him and what's her name? Lady Saut a little bit. And she's like, what do you want, sir? Steven Scal. 

And he says, I want the punani. And that was it. That was enough for me. Like my brain has not worked properly since I've heard Steven Scal say I want the punani. So now I've put that out in the world. Hopefully that'll sort of like flush it out a bit. You can suffer along with me having heard Steven Scal say. I think he even says me want the punani because, of course, he has to affect do a sort of he has to do an affectation for every sort of sentence he ever says. We have some updates. Let's actually start the show. Yeah, I can't. I think we need to use Japan and this week seem to be it might just be me talking about Steven Scal saying I want the meet me want the punani. Over and over again until I just exhaust myself, I should start drinking now. It's 10 o'clock in the morning. There wasn't enough. OK, you've come here for the show. I'm here for the show. We're all here for the show. We want some updates on previous stories. I really hate you've come at the wrong time. My brain. Oh, no, we're going to do it again. Jane came. So we're going to play the Steven Scal thing. I actually put it. You don't need to see the picture. You just need to see my dumb face. I have been going for four minutes and this is supposed to be recording my show and I can't do it. I can't do it because of a Steven Scal song. Let's do it. Let's listen to that part again. He says me want the punani. Steven Scal at that time probably 60 year old gross man. He says me want the punani. He's a white guy. He's disgusting. 

He's a sexual predator. He's multiple sexual assault cases. He's a serial liar. And yet weirdly the most offensive thing about him is him saying I can sing. I don't know. This is everything. Every aspect of him. I got to cut all this out and start again. Me want the punani. I should make that my transition sound from now on. That's it. So instead of doing the. Where is it? OK, let me get the transition sound. Instead of that, it should just be this. Oh, I think my clapping my hand woke up Dave a bit. I'm sorry. Sorry, buddy. I'll settle down. I got to settle down for Dave's sake. That's the important part. Me want the punani. So I'll do like a dead serious Japanese news story, which I actually never do because I'm always here to make fun of it. I'll do a news story from Japan and then me want the punani and then change on to the next topic. I might do that for the rest of this episode. It wouldn't stick. It's only funny ones or it could be funny. And it gets like so it's not funny, but then because it happens so much, it gets funny again. Those actually are all pretty good, but it's pretty painful. All right. No, I'm going to do some ninja news, Japan. Otherwise, I'm not going to get an episode done today.

 I was thinking of doing some lunchtime drinking this. This song is ruined my brain. Ninja News, Japan fans. I want to apologize and just let you all know. I'm going to make a sound board that says me want the punani. Steven Seagal sucks on so many levels. Like, like there is no metric by which you measure another human being where he is not a total piece of shit. Lady saw the female voice in that I actually bet is very talented. And the reason she's in there. The reason she's in there is because Steven Seagal paid her a ton of money. May says she hates the punani. How can you hate the punani? Because we all know that deep down inside. I mean, that's that's it. I got to actually make the sound board so that I can I can actually just hit the me want the punani. Let's listen to a little more. We didn't actually get into that's only the intro. My my my podcast, Ninja News Japan, usually 20 to 30 minutes. I've done seven minutes now. Never having said a word yet. When the when the girls start to strut, you can look at their butt. But you shouldn't do that. So here's just throwing in a little bit of morality, despite the fact that he's just said me want the punani. Look, I don't know where my head's at. And that's that's maybe the core issue that we're dealing with here. If I can just comment on Jade's last comment, we we all love the punani. I mean, that's just that's just factual. 

Everyone when it comes to punani loving, it's like KFC. It's finger licking good. Was that gross? I'm 50. I shouldn't be saying shit like that anymore. I should be a more mature adult. But I don't one of the the fallacies of growing up and getting old. So like now I am certainly old. I'm past growing up. I'm now old. I have yet to feel like I've grown up yet. I'm going to do an Indian News Japan episode. I'm a little down about it. Steal myself. Intro song once again, let's get to start from the beginning. Let's actually do it. All right. I'm going to start from the beginning and start the whole thing again. Updates to previous stories that do not have anything to do with punani. Or Steven Seagal. We there was a story about. A group of men, gentlemen who belong to a crime group. They weren't mafia. They weren't Yakuza. This is a new form of group. They were more of a gang, organized gang. It was really interesting because they were actually orphans from Korea and China. Not them. This would be like second generation. But their parents and stuff were orphans and stuff. And they were left in this dire situation. And they had kids in Japan and they turned to crime. And they ended up organizing. So it's Yakuza is always like a family thing. This is a mishmash group of people who have come together because of dire circumstances. Actually, it would make a really good movie. I'm not kidding. They had a celebration. One of their members, senior member, had gotten out of jail. And there was like 30, 40 guys. 

They had taken out this whole restaurant at the top of this very high skyscraper. So you know that's an expensive fancy restaurant. They booked the whole place to have this party. Brawl breaks out. And they start smashing the place up and fighting. No one gets killed. I mean people get beat up but that's a fight. Five people recently were arrested. The problem I see, they were arrested for obstruction of business. Very standard Ninja News Japan end of a story. Because that is the catch all law in Japan. Obstruction of business. The problem I see is that they were, the brawl broke out at the celebration of someone getting out of prison. They've made five arrests. They're going to have to have five more parties. Which means five more celebrations of people getting out of prison. Which has exponentially increased the likelihood that there's going to be a brawl at a restaurant. Where they're having another party welcoming someone out of prison. Five more arrests. It just goes on forever. Last week we did a story about a multi-level marketing, a pyramid scheme. 

And it was a guy selling eggs. And he was saying that his eggs were special and nutritious. Vaguely implying that they were like super-powered eggs. Total bullshit. He sold you these eggs 150 yen per egg. And that's, an egg in Japan, as I said, is like 10 to 15 yen. So he's doing a hundred times markup. So all these eggs, he was making tons of money, got shut down, he was arrested. Great. This week though, egg prices in Tokyo have gone up. The feed cost, the war in Ukraine, and a bird flu outbreak has increased the price of eggs by 26.5%. So maybe I was wrong. Maybe the multi-level marketing scheme was actually a good deal. And you should have got your eggs on the ground floor. Because the price of eggs going up means that might just be our new currency. Forget cryptocurrency. Forget fiat currency. Eggs. You know in video games they always have, Fallout was bottle caps. Became the new currency. Maybe this guy saw it coming. He saw that eggs were going to be the fundamental core basis of currency in the future. And he was actually a visionary. And we, who just want the punani, we don't see the future because we're so fixated on the punani. And so that's why he has clarity of vision and we don't. 

The reason this is important is eggs are usually a standard price. So fluctuations in price for many things. There's enough buffer around eggs and enough ability to plan around eggs that the price of eggs has remained relatively constant. So the fact that the price of eggs went up suddenly is really shocking to economists. So you might not think about eggs and things like that. And the prices of things go up and down, yes. And we've recently had price increases on many, many goods. Eggs have remained stable through all of that until very recently, which is a big problem. And it's actually very shocking. And it is actually a big issue. But also, we just did a story on eggs last week. So it was kind of interesting. Okay, so this is a kind of scary story. Over the next five years, Japan wants to increase defense spending by 56%. 

And Japan has a constitution that says it is not allowed to invade or attack other countries. It's called the Self-Defense Force, as the military in Japan. They are only allowed to defend themselves. But there are some voices in the government at the moment who are saying, like, because of the threat of China and North Korea specifically, self-defense as a concept needs to be expanded. And this is where it gets really scary, because what they're saying is self-defense should include counter-strike. And what does that mean? Because North Korea shoots missiles over Japan and by Japan all the time. It's very scary until the 50th, 60th time it's happened. Then you actually stop paying attention, which is probably the worst thing, because it should be a big issue every single time it happens. So what they're saying is if North Korea wants to shoot a missile, Japan should be able to shoot it down. But then some of them are saying we should be able to hit the thing it came from. So I assume a military base. That's the counter-strike capabilities they're talking about. 

Now, this is going to be 43 trillion yen. Okay, that's the set number, right? Now, I have an ongoing theory that Japan is really just trying to make an excuse to build a Gundam, a fully functioning real Gundam. To do that, I went on the internet and looked up the resources and costs and stuff. It's, of course, already been done by someone. How much would it cost to build a real-life, active, working, functional Gundam? And they said $725 million for parts and materials. And I went and looked it up, and it's pretty accurate. 43 trillion yen easily outpaces that number, because there still has to be some research and development. Now, how are they going to pay for this? How are you just going to grab 43 trillion yen? They've actually come up with, I think, a pretty good solution. They want to use revenue from corporate taxes and tobacco. So they're saying, corporations, you're making lots of money. We're going to tax you harder and pay for defense capabilities to keep you alive and safe in Japan. Tobacco is killing you anyways, so we're going to take that money and protect you with it, which I think is an interesting idea. If they added in a tax on alcohol, alcohol is still a big thing in Japan. 

I believe that some things should be paid by these, in Canada they call them sin taxes. So that's alcohol, tobacco, pornography. They have a higher tax rate, but all that money goes into social services. So you want to do bad things to your body, you are free to do that. You have to pay a little extra, but that money goes back into society to do some good, sort of balance it out, balance out the scales, some karma. I actually think I'm really on board with that. I think they should do it for, I love my fizzy drinks, my colas, I drink a lot of bad stuff. I think they should tax that at a higher rate. I would be immediately punished by that tax, but that tax should go into healthcare, because what do sugary drinks do? They give you diabetes, they make you sick, they do a lot of bad things. Put that into healthcare to offset those costs. I think that is a fair, balanced, sensible way to do it. So Jade has just said, finally a good tax idea. I actually think this is good. I'm not a big fan of the military.

 I do think Japan should protect itself, but I think it should build giant Gundams and just make a wall of Gundams around the whole island of Japan. No one would fuck with that. Japan has been developing rail gun technology that is a technology used within the Gundam universe and the big gun on the Gundam's arm. So they want to use corporate and tobacco taxes. I think if they included alcohol, you'd have enough money like Tuesday, next week, to pay for everything. They're looking at 700 billion yen trillion. I just wrote 700 corporate and 200 tobacco, but it gives you just a scale of how much. They're looking to tax corporations at a much higher rate than tobacco. So they're going to use that a lot. Now this comes into a third story. The Japan, the United Kingdom, and Italy are all working together to develop a new fighter jet for 2035. This is the first time for Japan to do a joint venture with countries other than the U.S. So like when it comes to developing military technologies, Japan has always worked with America. This is the first time they're stepping away from America saying, England, you guys make the Triumph motorcycles. 

They're sexy. Italy, you've got the Lamborghini and the Ferraris of the world. The build quality isn't so great, but they go really fast. That's what we need. We need fast. You want the British to make the interior of the jet. The seats, the pullout T-set, that should all be made by the U.K. Italy should do the engine and the speed. Now it's going to break every time you fly it, but it's going to go super fast when it flies. So basically you're going to have to fly it, bring it back, maintain it. I think they have to do that with jets anyway, so that's not a big deal. Japan is going to do the technology and engineering, which means you're going to have a cute AI hologram woman who pops up on the console. It's like, oh, please attack that airplane over there and does something like that. I need a voice changer maybe to do the anime voice. But you can see this is an interesting it's interesting because it's a step outside what they normally do. They have very established relationships military wise with America. You're stepping away from that, trying to expand. I mean, the U.K. and Italy, man, that's a good lunch. 

I mean, you would have a really good lunch if you had someone from England and Italy and Japan together mixing up those cultures. Japan is actually going to lead development, which again, technology wise, I think that's a good idea. But it is going to end up having like weird – or maybe you don't have a hologram girl pop up in the heads up display, and the voice in your ear is going to be super annoying and hyper cute, which is actually going to like probably make the pilot sick. There was a quote. We have begun collaboration through a series of discussions on autonomous systems capabilities. Now, my final point is that the Gundam was a semi-autonomous robot. So it did have a pilot, but the AI in the Gundam was a learning computer that learned from the pilot and its experiences and put those together and then work together with the pilot to fight better. 

So we have enough money to build a Gundam. We are joining with other countries technologically to develop new technologies that will apply to a Gundam. We have already the weapons platforms that Japan is sort of developing that would go into a Gundam. I can't believe anyone is going to tell me that we are not building a Gundam. There is a truck driver shortage in Japan. One of the solutions they want to do is have drones do delivery for the mail, which is an interesting concept. Until recently, it was illegal to fly a drone over a residential area. They had to change that law to make the ability for the post in Japan to be delivered by drone. This is because of a driver shortage in Japan. I was interested in kind of the rules because they are changing the law, they are changing the rules. What happens? To fly a drone in Japan, you have to have a level four pilot license. That is required. It is a three-year renewal process. Every three years you have to renew your license. Every year you have to do a flight test. This is still not like any casual person with a drone can fly it. 

A person with a drone is still not allowed to fly their drone over a crowd. There is significant privacy concerns. That is actually the biggest issue in Japan right now. The biggest concern is about privacy infringement because these piloted drones have to have cameras. I am waiting for this to happen. Actually, having done enough Japanese news, I am waiting for someone to fly the drone into someone's window and just stare at them and then get arrested for that. Because it will be illegal. It is absolutely going to be illegal. It is going to break the stalking laws in Japan. Drone flights are going to be allowed over residential areas. I said all that. It is primarily for parcel deliveries. That is just a big important thing. That is all that story. I am waiting to see. They built these little sort of the Japanese postal systems that uses red. A lot of countries do. It has got a very cute drone. Look out for that in the future. I am interested to see how and when they actually start doing it. 

A big change. Cops in Japan are not allowed to go into... I have totally lost track of what I said. I need a little refresher. Let's get a little refresher up there. Okay, that is all I needed. A little want the punani to get myself going. In Japan, it is actually not true. I read this thing. There was a picture of some Canadian cops on the internet. They were standing around. It was a crowd. They were policing like an event, like a parade or something. They were both holding Starbucks. There was this big interesting outcry in Japan. Japanese cops would never be seen standing around with iced coffee. But then all these other people were like, well, you know, cops need to eat and drink and stuff. I mean, it is just ridiculous that they can. I thought from that, from across the country in Japan, that cops were not allowed to eat and drink on duty or not allowed to be seen. It turned out in most places it was true a long time ago. What would happen is in the rule was, I am a cop, I am in uniform and I want to drink. I have to go back to the station, change my clothes. They had like an official jacket you could take. Go to the convenience store, buy a drink, bring it back to the station, drink it, then change back into my uniform and then I go out and patrol again. But of course that is not very convenient. It would make sense to allow cops to buy drinks. But they were worried that cops standing around drinking coffee on duty would look bad and it would reduce the trust of the public that they are not actually doing their job. They are just messing around drinking coffee all day. 

There is, what is it, Oita Prefecture just said, oh, we changed the law. We changed the rule. They actually did a news story. You could actually watch a cop go in in uniform and he bought a coffee and he chatted to the, you know, this was all for the news. So he chatted friendly and then went outside and everyone was like, well, isn't it great that cops are allowed to drink? Sure, I thought that was a bigger rule. But it turns out 40 prefectures, so with this change, 40 prefectures now allow it. There is only five left that don't. You can't buy any fun stuff though. You're not allowed to buy cigarettes or beer or manga and then go sit in your cop car and just eat, drink beer and read manga all day, which is fair. But I mean, if you need some water or drink or something or a little caffeine to keep you going, that's allowed now, which I think it should have been allowed from the beginning. 

Several Japanese companies are adopting English as their official language, and this is an attempt to attract foreign workers. This is primarily IT companies that need engineers and stuff, but other companies are doing it as well. They want to have, it's a 45% increase in companies that are going to use English as their official language in the future, which is fine. They want to make all their internal documents English. They want to do all their communications in English. This is going to be really tough for the Japanese staff. They're going to have to all learn a higher level of English, so that's actually maybe good for people like myself, who's primarily source of income is teaching English. But I think the problem is they're not going to attract any IT people this way. And the reason I think they're not going to attract any IT people this way is because the problem in Japanese companies isn't English or it's primarily work-life balance. IT is already a tough business. 

Japanese IT is just worse because the work-life balance philosophy of companies in Japan is poor. So if that's the case, I don't think just them speaking English is really going to be attractive. They're going to have to bigger pay package. They're going to have to have better holidays. They have better standard holidays, but the average working day is so bad that I don't think anyone is going to really want to work for a Japanese company in that capacity, unless it's sort of like a real love passionate thing. I don't know. I'm a little thinking, basically I'm thinking they've missed what's not attractive about working in Japan. The language barrier isn't what distracts people. A smart engineer, I bet, is going to learn Japanese fairly quickly and be functional. Maybe reading, I think, is a lot harder because of kanji and stuff. But English is not the barrier. It's the why would I take this job that gives me more hours for less pay versus where I'm working now. Okay, we've got two arrests. We've got some crime news to finish off. So the man was arrested for a bomb threat. He's also suspected of 600 kidnapped threats to local governments across Japan. So this is a guy, he's unemployed, has a lot of free time, and he decides to spend his free time by threatening people about stuff he doesn't like. 

He threatened to kidnap 334 kindergartners. Now I was like, that's an interesting issue because he said the 600 kidnapping threats, say like I'm going to kidnap 300 kids, is that 300 individual threats of kidnapping or is that one threat of kidnapping applied to 300 kids? Because he's very specific. He says, I'm going to kidnap 334 kindergartners all in one statement. Does it count as 300 individual threats? Was it the actual bit I wanted to know about? I was actually looking into it. I couldn't find the answer. He sent a message to the mayor of a city. I will kill the mayor using a gun I illicitly made. Now gun legality in Japan is such that if you make a gun, it is already illegal. He did not need to specify. He did not need to specify that he had illegally made a gun. He made a gun, that's already illegal. But as you know, a few months ago, Prime Minister Abe was assassinated by a homemade shotgun. So this is really going to sort of pique the police's interest. This got them sort of off the go and off they went and they found him. He was arrested and what for? Obstruction of business. Because the threats stop people from doing work, that is obstruction of business and that is the law that you can catch everyone in. I got to start keeping count. I'm thinking up here in the corner, I'm going to keep an obstruction of business counter. And then every time I say obstruction of business, as the crime has been committed, not just every time I say it, but every time it's part of the story, it's the law you've been arrested for, we ding one on the counter. I think that actually might be fun. So that's something to consider in the future. Last one. There was a new law about pornography, which I found very interesting, not the pornography, the law. 

There's something I found really interesting about it because what they do is you have to have a written contract to do a porn movie in Japan. And in the contract, it has to include that for the next two years, if the actors within the film want that movie taken down, it can get taken down. And I actually think this is a really good idea because let's say I'm 18, 19 years old. I'm like, I'm really desperate for money or I'm in a tough situation. I make a porn movie to make some quick money. And then my life changes after that. And I'm kind of like regretting the idea of making that movie. Or I'm influenced in a negative way to make the movie in the first place. And then a year or two later, I'm like, oh, my life has changed. I really want that out of my life. I want that erased from the internet. It's in your legal contract that you can just say, I want it taken down, it'll get taken down. So sorry, Jay just said it'll always be out there anyways, but it's a good idea. I think that is actually true. Like logistically speaking, it's like the internet, you put something out on the internet, it's very hard to take it back. Like it will get copied and replaced or whatever.

But it gives them a legal recourse to at least minimize so the main source can be taken down. A lot of the videos will disappear because that'll be gone. But it gives them a legal recourse. And then of course, porn being a very manipulative industry in itself, the guys who do it, they're kind of scummy guys. Like I'm sorry, I have to honestly say that's what I believe. I think it's a manipulative industry. When I had a daughter, people always, like when you have kids, so if you have a son, a bunch of straight dudes are all going, what if your son's gay? Like you're supposed to react really negatively to that. And I was like, I mean, I hope he's happy. I don't really give a shit if he's gay or straight as long as he's happy. I made a joke. Of course, I didn't say it that plainly and sincerely. I said like, oh, you know, I hope my son does really well. We were talking kind of about double standards between having a son and a daughter. As a man who was raised in a misogynistic society, I am more protective of my daughter. But anyways, yeah, what I was saying, of course, when you have a daughter, they'll go, what if she does porn? And my thought was like, if it wasn't manipulative, I actually wouldn't have a problem with it. But like I take it down to modeling. Modeling as an industry is manipulative. S

o I'd be very wary about her doing modeling. She actually a couple of years ago said she wanted to do like one of these kids fashion things. And I was like, and it's not the kids doing fashion or the photographers or stuff like that. It is the creepy people involved in the industry that I'm wary of. If my kids aren't slightly gay, I'd be disappointed, but it's okay. I think we all got that in us. Again, I think because of when I was born and how I was raised in my life that any aspect of that has been tampered down. But I think it was tampered down to such a degree it's kind of come around where I'm super comfortable talking about dudes and penises and stuff. So I think I came around the other side. I'm clearly super heterosexual. But the idea of talking about men or a handsome man or gay stuff isn't off-putting to me anymore. I don't know if that's age or because I've just hit such a level of manliness that it's okay. But that's again a different topic. I wanted to finish the porn story. I want to finish the porn story is a phrase I didn't think I'd be using today. And oh, we did it at the same time. I clicked off so I could get the I want the punani line to go. This is now going to be a sound clip I'm going to pull from this episode and actually just make that a thing. Because let's be clear, if nothing else has been said today in the last 35 minutes, me want the punani. 

Anyways, the reason this came to light is we've had the first arrest. And something again, Ninja News Japan loves first arrests for new laws. Because is it applied the way the law was intended? Is it effective? This is kind of the interesting part of a first arrest for a new law. There was an executive of a porn company and he had seven times between August and October made seven porn movies with people without contracts. Now, three of those were uncensored, which is again also illegal in Japan, but they're uploaded to this website that's in the Caribbean. But the women weren't told that was going to be uncensored. So that's again, so you can see where this leaves the woman in a more powerful position. She said, like, I made Japanese porn. Japanese porn has your genitalia censored. You have taken that video and you've released it uncensored. Now she can say, I'm not comfortable with the genitalia not being censored. This wasn't what I agreed to. I want you to take that movie down. They have to take it down. So it does give, again, I think like Jade said earlier, it's always kind of going to be out there. But this is a case where I've found out early that this isn't what I agreed to. I'm forcing you to take it down. 

They do have to legally take it down. At least the actor in this case would have some legal recourse. And that legal recourse, at least they're going to get paid. Because if something that you don't want on the Internet is out on the Internet against your will. At least the absolute minimum is you can get paid. And hopefully paid enough to shut that guy down so he doesn't do it again. And that is... Ah, it's too slow. Why? Tell me what you really want. All night. No wonder Fernandez if I make my name. Okay. But... But I mean, that's all these guys in porn. That's all they really want. All right. I got to... That was the worst end to an Indian news drama. I've had some shitty endings to my shows. Because I don't script it. That was maybe one of the worst ones ever. But thank you for hanging out.

Hurt Everyone Equally

  • Remember that 23 year old who I was very upset with who was going to sail around the world? 23 years old has a job at a company that’s going to take six months off from his job of that company to go on a boat that he’s going to sail around the world in?🎙 00:00:00.00000:00:21.360
  • I maybe cursed him too strongly because he has given up his plan to sail around the world, which I’m not sad about. I’m not happy about it. Like I don’t want people to not achieve their dreams, but I was so annoyed🎙 00:00:21.36000:00:34.963
  • at 23 years old. I was still in university and I couldn’t take six months off anything to just dick around So he basically His plan to sail around the world he left and then immediately got caught in a storm on November 12th🎙 00:00:35.84300:00:55.643
  • And then returned back There were problems with the self-steering system and the power generation system system. So he needed to come back, figure this stuff out. And he wants to try again next year. So how do I feel? Because part of me thinks if you have a self-steering system🎙 00:00:55.64300:01:18.897
  • and you’re not really sailing around the world by yourself, I don’t know because you got to sleep. So what do you do? I actually never thought about it before. Before we had like automatic systems that could steer🎙 00:01:18.89700:01:32.377
  • the boat for you, which probably wasn’t that long ago. People sailed around the world. I guess back then you couldn’t do it by yourself. You had to do it in like at least pairs. So one person slept while the other one sailed the boat.🎙 00:01:32.35600:01:45.116
  • Yeah, it’s a weird thing. And it’s one of those problems that’s a super rich person problem. Because you have to have enough money to buy a boat. You have to have enough money to take six months off work to sail your boat.🎙 00:01:45.11600:02:02.396
  • with self-steering navigation systems. I couldn’t afford the self-steering navigation system. Never mind the boat that it goes on. Yeah, I’m weirdly bitter about this. People’s success and abilities and being rich and stuff,🎙 00:02:02.45700:02:19.337
  • usually nothing. I think maybe the combination of being so young and being able to do this is what’s pissing me off because I was never afforded any similar opportunity. in any way. I started working at like 14, I mean nine if you consider delivering🎙 00:02:19.33700:02:42.151
  • papers but we could skip by that like 1415 I started working summer jobs and I never was not in school. I wasn’t very particularly studious so maybe that counts. But I worked. I was, man, and I’m not gonna get into my work history but🎙 00:02:42.15100:03:02.131
  • I’m trying to think of the longest amount of time I have had. off and it’s got to be capped out at two weeks. I don’t think I’ve been unemployed while I looked for jobs and stuff. I don’t think that counts.🎙 00:03:02.13100:03:17.280
  • It’s certainly not in the same vein as I’m going to take time off and sail around the world. So I mean I don’t want him to not sail around the world but I do want to bitch about it. That’s it. That’s where we are.🎙 00:03:17.28000:03:32.560
  • I’m not angry at him and I don’t want him to fail, but I do want to be able to whine as much as I am. And next year, when we revisit this topic, because I will be following his career with great interest and vile vinegar, malice, I’ll complain about it again next year.🎙 00:03:32.56000:03:58.423
  • So look forward to that. Okay, I have a set of stories. And at the end of those two stories, I have a- very sort of disturbing conclusion. There’s the two parties called the Constitutional Democratic Party.🎙 00:03:58.42300:04:13.106
  • I love the Japanese political party names. They’re all very dystopian future. The Constitutional Democratic Party and the Japan Innovation Party want a law that bans donations made to organizations under the influence of brainwashing.🎙 00:04:13.10600:04:32.346
  • Even the phrasing is already like sci-fi. So I kinda like that. The ruling party wants the law that says religious organizations and corporations have to take care not to solicit donations under certain conditions.🎙 00:04:32.34600:04:52.528
  • Now, this is Japan and Japanese laws, as I’ve probably mentioned many, many times, are often purposely vague. But this is on purpose, in this case, because what they’re saying is like, you can’t put🎙 00:04:52.52800:05:05.168
  • a ban on people being brainwashed. making responsibility. So you have to punish the company. But then the problem comes up, how do you prove someone is brainwashed? Because if you walk into that person and go, did🎙 00:05:05.16800:05:17.753
  • this religious organization brainwash you, they will say, no, that’s part of the brainwashing. And in that moment, they believe it maybe years later, uh, when they’ve been deprogrammed, they will change their mind and say, yes, I was brainwashed back then. This would be🎙 00:05:17.75300:05:35.233
  • like being on drugs. When you’re on drugs, there’s actually often a very good chance that you don’t. you’re on drugs. Like, so I take let’s say medication and the medication changes the chemistry in my🎙 00:05:35.23300:05:45.798
  • brain and I am happier or more angry or something. If you said is that the medication, there might be a good chance I say no. That’s just my mood today. But then later on I go, oh, that was really different from what I’m normally like. That was clearly the medication having an impact.🎙 00:05:45.79800:06:00.198
  • Brainwashing falls into the same category. You can’t rely on the person to take responsibility for their actions in this case. So the state of mind is difficult. proof. This is aimed at the unification church. They have had a lot of things come out over🎙 00:06:00.91800:06:18.036
  • the last while. We have their influence in politics. We have accusations of brainwashing and the very sort of cult-like way they run their their group is coming to light and they’re saying like we have to cut them off. So we need laws in place to do that. They’re not🎙 00:06:18.03600:06:36.396
  • targeting them but they’re saying religious organizations are included along with corporations. But corporations don’t brainwash you like a religious organization like. That’s the first story is about the introduction of a new law.🎙 00:06:36.39600:06:50.961
  • Japanese government is probing the unification church specifically. What they want to do is remove their religious corporation status, therefore losing their tax exemption status. This is very interesting because they’ve got to this point where they’ve caused so much🎙 00:06:50.96100:07:09.121
  • trouble in Japan that this religious organization is going to lose their tax exemption status. Which is what keeps religious organizations afloat. most of the time. The government wants to come and look at their books, which is probably🎙 00:07:09.12100:07:26.007
  • the scariest thing for them to do. In conjunction with the previous law, they can say how were these donations made? What was the situation? If they kept that law vague, they can apply that law to this probe. Now they can start shutting them down.🎙 00:07:26.00700:07:41.747
  • Kishida, he’s very cautious about the probe. But his approval rate has took a huge hit recently. He’s down to like 33% now. He’s worried about basically the right to freedom of religion in Japan. You Japan’s very serious about the Constitution and its freedoms.🎙 00:07:41.74700:08:01.079
  • This came out during the pandemic when freedom of movement is part of the Constitution, but how can you then put people in lockdown? So that was one of the problems he faced with when he took over as Prime Minister.🎙 00:08:01.07900:08:14.219
  • But there are currently 22 civil cases going on against the unification church. So action has to be taken. So there’s a law and it’s the right to question law. So the right to question a religious organization.🎙 00:08:14.21900:08:45.099
  • Organization law and it was introduced after the 1995 AWM attack. So if you’re very young, you might not know. AWM was an occult and what they did, if you look up on the internet, the SARREN gas attack. There’s probably only be one result and it’s these people released🎙 00:08:26.79500:08:42.915
  • this gas on the Tokyo subway and it killed some people but it had like long-term effects on many people who were on the train, the SARREN gas. And it was one of the most deadly attacks in Japan. It was like a terrorist attack.🎙 00:08:42.91500:08:58.475
  • founder, the the on leader, their leadership, I think in total was put in prison. Some of them were executed. It was a big change in shift in some of the freedoms available to religious organizations in Japan.🎙 00:08:58.64600:09:12.526
  • Those laws that were put into place then are now being applied to the unification church. Some of the things that have come out is followers without kids are encouraged to adopt kids from other followers.🎙 00:09:12.52600:09:28.786
  • But they’ve been doing this internally. So they’ve actually been breaking a law because you need prefectural So you’d state permission For adoption, but they’ve just been like oh you don’t have kids🎙 00:09:29.76300:09:41.003
  • You have two kids give one of your kids to this couple and they do it and they don’t report it to anybody That’s against the law in Japan 750 kids have been moved or adopted since 1981 So all of that is happening and it’s all coming out now🎙 00:09:41.00300:09:59.163
  • because of these probes and the problems with the unification church and donations and taxes and money and all this other stuff. It’s all a very complicated web of things to examine. Now the disturbing conclusion🎙 00:09:59.81100:10:14.811
  • that I mentioned earlier when I started is that this is all started because of the assassination of Abbe. And Abbe was assassinated by a man who made a homemade shotgun and he was angry that the unification church🎙 00:10:14.81100:10:30.811
  • had basically screwed over his life by indoctrinating his mother. The thing is… Again, the disturbing element of this is what that guy wanted was focused, brought to the unification church. He assassinated Abbe, Abbe was not actually part of the unification church.🎙 00:10:30.81100:10:51.410
  • He did give a speech. And his grandfather was apparently the guy who brought the unification church into Japan. So there was a relationship there, but he wasn’t like a member. And so the guy was looking for a high level unification church member to assassinate saw🎙 00:10:51.41000:11:06.870
  • Abbe’s a target of opportunity and took it and killed him. But that has been what has brought all this attention about the unification church to the media. In a very awful and dark way, he was successful. So he’s like🎙 00:11:06.87000:11:25.345
  • I’m gonna assassinate someone and bring the unification church to the forefront and everyone’s gonna look at it and that is exactly what’s happened. And it sets a very scary precedent for anyone who wants something brought to🎙 00:11:25.34500:11:37.005
  • media’s attention. I don’t know if it would be, I don’t know how you express it properly. The problem going forward is if it happens a again and again and again, each time it happens, it’s going to lose impact.🎙 00:11:37.00500:11:51.089
  • So the fact that this was the first one, very impactful. The second, the third, the fourth, it will actually have less impact. So then you have to get more creative in your way of bringing attention to a problem.🎙 00:11:51.08900:12:02.209
  • Certainly violence is not the way we would prefer it done. I think that’s pretty fair across the board. But it was a conclusion after looking like they’re putting laws into place, they’re examining🎙 00:12:02.20900:12:13.089
  • them, they’re going to take away their tax exam status. They’re looking at things that have happened since the 80s in this organization. That’s a lot that’s happened and it’s all happened because this guy assassinated that🎙 00:12:13.08900:12:23.972
  • bay. Since we’re talking about taxes, I mean, this is, this is why you come to a podcast to have those deep tax oriented conversations because everyone loves shooting the shit about taxes. It’s weird the stuff I get interested in because I actually, you know, in the political realm🎙 00:12:23.97200:12:42.972
  • and very interested in how taxes work and you hear about taxes in other countries, you hear about like you’re like, anyways, I come from a socialist democracy. I do have a buddy. leave in socialism to a degree where I am very oriented towards high taxes, high services,🎙 00:12:42.97200:13:00.143
  • but you have to get the services for the high taxes. The problem is when you pay high taxes and you get no service back. Japan, the Japan National Tax Agency has said that this year, 83.9 billion yen has been an undeclared taxable income has happened. Basically rich🎙 00:13:00.14300:13:19.003
  • people have been trying to hide their money with the current default. deflation of the yen The money isn’t worth as much. They’re trying to keep as much as they can to themselves and keep it hidden away from the government🎙 00:13:19.00300:13:32.673
  • This is 72% up and it’s the highest number since 2009 So 83.9 billion yen in taxable income that has been undeclared 72% higher than previous years there are now currently 2,227 cases of the Japan National Tax Agency looking in🎙 00:13:33.35300:13:55.513
  • to people’s finances. This is primarily Japanese rich people making investments overseas and then not declaring the money they make off those investments. So if I make an investment, let’s just say,🎙 00:13:55.51100:14:08.271
  • I just buy a stock market, which is a broad band of stocks. And it’s all American. So I invest in the American stock market, not the Asian one. It goes up. So the yen goes down and the dollar goes up.🎙 00:14:10.35100:14:25.311
  • And then because all my money is now in the. American stock market in dollars, I’ve made a ton of money if I pull that money out. I’m supposed to declare that income. And basically these rich people who have the ability to do that are not because the money🎙 00:14:25.31100:14:38.482
  • still sort of floating out there in the stock market. But that means this taxable income isn’t coming back into the tax system, which means, you know, services suffer because they’re not getting the money they’re supposed to get.🎙 00:14:38.48200:14:54.042
  • And when they say tax the rich, there is a burden there and I think it should happen. Japan is trying to tax the rich fairly. I don’t think again they’re going out of their way to like hurt anybody but tax🎙 00:14:54.04200:15:07.216
  • people try to hide the rich people try to hide their money the tax people are trying to get that money back. They’re not trying to get more. This does happen probably in every country. Something I think it was Sweden. Sweden’s punishments🎙 00:15:07.21600:15:20.616
  • are based on your income. I think it’s Sweden is one of these sort of Nordic countries. So basically if I’m driving I’m speeding and I get pulled over by a cop and I get a ticket. And I have like let’s say I have a very mediocre income. I get the average ticket. So it’s like let’s say $100🎙 00:15:20.61600:15:36.678
  • It’s because I was I was being a bad boy If a rich person in like a Ferrari is speeding which is far more likely because they have a Ferrari It will be measured to their income so it could be up to like thousands and thousands and thousands dollars🎙 00:15:36.67800:15:50.718
  • There was a story of like a guy you got a hundred thousand dollar Ticket because he was so rich But I mean that’s the only way to have an impact on rich people is to have the pun is so a hundred dollars for me🎙 00:15:50.71800:16:02.538
  • It hurts $100 for an incredibly rich person means nothing so they can just keep speeding because they’re just going to get these $100 tickets. Their system is it has to hurt for everybody equally so the relationship has to be equal.🎙 00:16:02.53800:16:16.629
  • It took me to a, oh my God, taxes are so much fun because we’re talking about money now. I did read a thing and it was, so let’s say I’m walking and I drop one yet. Now if I’m going to hurry, it is not worth my time to stop pick up that one yet and🎙 00:16:16.62900:16:33.909
  • So let’s say I have to catch a train. It’s not worth one yen for me to stop. So I was just like, you know what? Just let it go. I’ll drop the one yen move on What the the story I read was it was a long time ago. What is the equivalency of Jay Z?🎙 00:16:34.04400:16:47.844
  • What does Jay Z have to drop to? Equal me dropping one yen. So like it’s not worth his time to pick it up And I think I remember correctly the number was a hundred and eighty seven dollars So basically Jay Z he could drop a hundred and eighty seven dollars and if he’s in a rush🎙 00:16:47.84400:17:04.324
  • It actually isn’t worth his time to stop and pick up a hundred and eighty seven I’m related to Japan or news, but when we get talking about money or taxes and stuff, I mean, that’s actually there’s a lot of interesting stuff in there.🎙 00:17:04.32400:17:17.304
  • So don’t, you know, don’t stop those tax conversations. Have fun with it. Twitter. I actually don’t want to talk about Twitter. I don’t want to talk about Elon. I’m waiting to see. I’m one of those people who’s really waiting to see.🎙 00:17:17.30400:17:34.304
  • Will Twitter, which in the social media landscape has been an institution, will it actually? fail because it would be really interesting to see my space. Someone was said to me the other day this would be a great opportunity for my space to come🎙 00:17:34.30400:17:48.847
  • back but Twitter my space is more equivalent to Facebook Twitter is more equivalent to something else that’s so you need something else so I think it was mastodon and hive are the two main competitors who are up and coming as I🎙 00:17:48.84700:18:01.567
  • think it was last episode I said Twitter has a massive presence in Japan and Elon Musk has taken notice and he said Elon said that all you know everyone says that Twitter is very America-centric it’s actually very🎙 00:18:01.56700:18:13.467
  • Japan-centric because roughly the same daily number of users in Japan is in the US, despite Japan having won the third the total population. So percentage-wise, a much larger significant number of people in Japan used Twitter than🎙 00:18:13.47500:18:29.175
  • in America. But in total, they’re very similar numbers because you have 76.9 million users in the US and 58.95 million users in Japan. Elon’s declaration, which is completely unreasonable. Oh, sorry.🎙 00:18:29.17500:19:04.155
  • that clear. That’s about one third the population of Japan uses Twitter. It’s not one third the population of America uses Twitter. So he’s so Elon statement based off this was he wants Japanese numbers and Japanese usage in every🎙 00:18:45.41300:19:01.433
  • country which I think is a very unrealistic goal. I don’t think that’s gonna happen especially because every country has their own sort of social media environment that they prefer that fits what they want. Twitter for some🎙 00:19:01.43300:19:14.933
  • reason clicks with Japanese. these people, it’s not going to click with every culture around the world. And again, the company may be dead soon. Am I willing to make a prediction? I am because if I’m🎙 00:19:14.93300:19:26.347
  • wrong, it does not matter. The way it’s been going, like I Facebook, I actually thought would have been dead almost completely by now. I thought Facebook would have been like my space, but it’s such a large infrastructure for so many people. That’s why it’s still🎙 00:19:26.34700:19:45.227
  • alive. That’s why it’s still going despite it’s dying. It’s just dying slower than I expected. So the death of Twitter should probably mimic that. It should be dead, but slower than you expect. Because he’s fired so much staff,🎙 00:19:45.22700:19:57.945
  • usage is going to become worse. And that’s what’s good. So right now you have the people who are like, I’m looking for an alternative, I don’t like Elon Musk. Then you have people who are like, the functionality has worsened.🎙 00:19:59.74500:20:11.585
  • I’m gonna go look for something that’s more functional. That’s gonna be the next group that bails. And then the young people coming up who are going to be, because if you have a social media company.🎙 00:20:11.58500:20:39.045
  • What you want more than anything else is young people. They’re going to look at something else. They’re going to look at Twitter and go look. All these people have already bailed on Twitter. Why would I start now?🎙 00:20:22.53300:20:32.773
  • And that’s where the company is really going to die. So it’s really, I guess we’re looking at the next generation. It’s not, I was thinking like two, three years, but it’s probably more like five, maybe six, and then Twitter will just be a wasteland.🎙 00:20:32.77300:20:43.573
  • It won’t be anything anymore. I could probably afford to buy it. Five mayors went to a meeting. So in Tokyo apparently they have a meeting. It’s a bunch of mayors. from all over Japan. 900 mayors of cities attended this event in Tokyo. This has actually scaled back🎙 00:20:43.57300:21:02.344
  • over the last two years because of the pandemic. This year it went back to normal. So I guess the pandemic is finished, although we all know it’s not. This kind of attitude and behavior is really weird to me. Like, we got to treat the pandemic like it’s still happening to actually get rid of🎙 00:21:02.34400:21:21.384
  • it. I think the problem is now people are acting like it’s over. So it’s just going to keep going. going, unfortunately forever. A weird side issue of the pandemic is I wanted to grow a beard, but I have found that if I let my beard grow while wearing a mask, I get really bad🎙 00:21:21.38400:21:38.792
  • skin. So I can’t grow a beard again until we stop wearing masks. But I now I’m getting to the point where I think we are going to be wearing masks for years and years and years. I don’t feel like I’m going to ever go into work without a mask on again. I walk to the🎙 00:21:38.79200:21:55.992
  • train station without a mask on because I live in the countryside, but on the train I wear a mask and then once I’m in the city again, I wear a mask. So that’s most of all day when I’m outside of the house I’m wearing a mask.🎙 00:21:55.99200:22:08.280
  • Anyways, five mayors went to get some food after this event in Tokyo. They all got COVID and they held brought it back to their cities because the pandemic isn’t over. I think anyone who’s listened to Ninja N🎙 00:22:08.28000:22:19.420
  • Englishphyillonia under those new laws. So this is the first arrest ever in Japan of someone taking online tests for companies. So if you want to join a company in Japan, they probably have some aptitude tests or skill tests or general knowledge tests that you take online. That’s how they🎙 00:22:19.42000:22:48.838
  • filter out some applicants. So this guy has he’s been asked, this was very specific. He’s been asked to take the tests for 300 people over the last six months. That does not mean he took the test for 300 people. He’s.🎙 00:22:48.83800:23:31.618
  • He’s had 300 requests. How many he’s actually done was not included in the information, so I can’t make a strong statement on that. As little research as I might do for Ninja News Japan, I do want the things I say to be relatively accurate.🎙 00:23:04.32300:23:18.963
  • This is the first arrest of illegal production of electromagnetic records. There’s that. Electromagnetic seems out of deal. I think you would just say digital, but whatever. So what he’s doing, he’s taking a test,🎙 00:23:19.96300:23:33.883
  • and that creates a record. in the system for the company, but that has been falsified. So he’s committing a kind of fraud. Arrested. I did have the secondary question of, let’s say I want this job.🎙 00:23:33.88300:23:50.295
  • I have my associate take the test for me, essentially the aptitude test. I go in to do the job. What happens then? Because I didn’t pass the aptitude test. I may not have the aptitude for the actual job.🎙 00:23:50.29500:24:04.295
  • This is a fake it until you make it kind of situation. If it’s technical knowledge that I don’t have, it’s going to be very clear that I do not have that technical knowledge. And that’s where it sort of falls apart.🎙 00:24:04.29500:24:17.649
  • And I think maybe they’ll figure out really quick that you didn’t pass the test. We have had a series of animal attacks. Most of the other animals, it was monkeys and stuff. We had dolphins. Now it’s gotten to be almost exclusively boars because we have two wild boar stories.🎙 00:24:17.64900:24:38.649
  • One, quite light, a boar was running around Nagoya sort of the outskirts of the city and there were 10 people sort of having a picnic and the boar charged at the 10 people and the cops had been out looking for the boar.🎙 00:24:38.51200:24:52.952
  • They’d actually heard reports of the boar doing his damage. So a cop stood in between the people and the boar that was charging drew his weapon, aimed at the boar and said, I’ll shoot you. The boar.🎙 00:24:52.95200:25:38.952
  • Realizing that the police officer was dead serious turned tail and ran Police officer did not discharge his weapon It was really interesting. So I’m assuming it was actually the stance in the shout that made the Borg of note🎙 00:25:09.91600:25:25.516
  • Not worth it versus him knowing what a gun was unlike us had seen a gun before But I don’t know how smart wars are they seem to be like see stuff in charge He saw something he was like odds big and it’s not backing down. I’m not charging. This isn’t worth it🎙 00:25:25.51600:25:38.556
  • That seems like more realistic to me But but In Kanagawa Prefecture, Bohr comes down out of the mountains into a town, starts charging people all over town. It actually hurt two people on record.🎙 00:25:38.55600:25:53.108
  • Knocked a guy down, and you get knocked down in the street by a Bohr that’s like 80 kilos, that’s big. That’s, I am currently 87 kilos. I’m six foot tall, I’m 87 kilos, that’s like maybe close to 200 pounds.🎙 00:25:53.10800:26:07.388
  • This is a Bohr that’s one meter long, so almost half my height. And… like lengthwise, if I was lying to, that’s hard to explain. Anyways, it’s one meter long, but it has the same masses me, but I’m like all fat, it’s all muscle.🎙 00:26:07.38800:26:22.915
  • Yeah, that’s a big animal knocking people over. So you’re getting hurt. It got into an elementary schoolyard, like the field area. Animal control showed up, and they had these electric prods, and they were hitting it with the electric prods,🎙 00:26:22.91500:26:37.235
  • but it wasn’t actually doing enough to stop the bore. So this dude comes out, I had a Pokemon joke in that. is very ineffective, but I’ve already passed that moment. This is I should maybe script better? Because yeah, I had in brackets, it’s very ineffective. It’s so like electricity🎙 00:26:37.23500:26:55.736
  • type. I guess the boars earth type and electricity type would be weak. I guess explaining the concept doesn’t do much what I could have just done the joke. But welcome to the life of Chung with beef chest where I have really good ideas and then explain them instead of🎙 00:26:55.73600:27:11.536
  • doing. Anyways, guy comes out. He’s part of the animal control group. He has a spear, like a full-on traditional big-tipped two-meter-long spear and he runs the bore through and he kills it. Which is like really hardcore. Normally they would use a gun. They🎙 00:27:11.53600:27:33.034
  • would have a rifle or a shotgun and they would shoot the bore. You know it’s not particularly nice but it’s this bore is running around hurting people so I kind of see both sides. There is a point that has been brought up multiple times is no one has explained why🎙 00:27:33.03400:27:46.194
  • this guy has a spear. Now he is part of animal control. So, he would have the spear for animal control, but defies the explanation of why do you have a spear for animal control instead of a shotgun or rifle like every other animal control person🎙 00:27:46.19400:28:06.254
  • would have? No answer. Because who’s going to walk up to the guy who just killed 80 kilo boar with a spear and start questioning his methods. Because it’d be like, do you want the boar out there running around?🎙 00:28:06.25400:28:23.094
  • Do you want the boar running around? to deal with me and the spear. Those are your choices. So it is a sad animal had to be killed, but an interesting side point is the animal is then taken to a facility cleaned and the meat
    from the boar is then given to local restaurants to serve. So the guy who speared the boar could go to a restaurant and eat the boar he speared, which is I don’t know if that’s the circle of life or just what you get for being such a badass and having a spear and killing an animal with it.