The Gunma Prefectural Convention – I mean,
you talk about Japan being wild in the 90s.
I don’t think those guys
ever understood what
it was going to be like to go to a
political convention for Gunma Prefecture.
Of course, there got
wild, an 88-year-old man
decided to tell everyone how
to fix Japan’s birth problem.
I’ve talked about it many times.
The government trying to get
people together awkward and weird.
The government is trying to
give people money to have babies.
Okay, it only works if you really
want to have babies in the first place.
They’ve had some solutions this guy.
He’s like, “You know what, shut up.
I’ve got this.
I’ve got it solved.
I’ve got it worked out.
You don’t need to talk anymore.
It just doesn’t mean everyone.
Shh.
Listen to the man speak.”
He said, “It’s not the
government’s job to
supplement the economic
burden of having a child.
” I mean, I guess very
technically that could
be true if the government didn’t
want people to have more babies.
So if the government wants the population
to increase, if the government wants people
to have babies, then
it is the government’s
responsibility to try
to make that happen to
try to support people in
their efforts to make babies.
Little wages in Japan have
dropped for 26 months in a row.
So, basically, inflation has gone
up, wages have been stagnant.
So your real earning
potential has dropped
every month for the
last two years and more.
So then what is a solution?
He’s saying, “Look, we’re
not giving you money.
Giving you money
isn’t going to do it.
” And I actually think partially right, I
think giving money is a good idea because
you want babies that are
born to have food and stuff.
So they survive into
being more than just babies.
So what do you do?
If men have their act together, women
will, without fail, have their children.
Even if you don’t ask,
they will think, “I want
to have a baby for the
sake of the husband I love.
” Do men ask for babies?
Like I would say, if
you took the most
traditional view of the
male-female relationship,
it’s generally the woman
who wants the babies.
I’m not saying that’s true.
I’m not saying it’s
universal, but I’m saying
it’s a stereotype and a stereotype
based on just a drop of reality.
It’s generally not the men who
are gung-ho about having kids.
I actually know a couple of
people who do guys who do want
to have kids and they want
to have more and more kids.
So 100% I know that’s
a real thing, but I’m
thinking, if we’re talking
about the population
of the country, so we
have to broad strokes,
general swaths, men don’t tend
to go around asking for babies.
They do ask for the baby making process,
but they don’t ask for babies themselves.
He’s making it sound like
having a baby’s reward,
and while I wouldn’t say it’s a
punishment, he’s absolutely not a reward.
It can be rewarding, but I
would say that comes later.
He’s also very much
in heavily implying that
money is at the issue, but I
don’t think money is the issue.
I think work-life balances the issue.
I’ve talked about this a billion times
now, so I’m very hesitant to say that
the same thing again and
again and again every week.
So I haven’t said it in a long
time, so I am going to say it now.
The work-life balance in Japan is the
reason why people are not having babies.
People are not having babies
because people do not get together.
People do not get together because
they don’t have time to get together.
They don’t have time
to meet people and form
relationships and have
relationships outside
of work because they’re
working all the time.
Therefore, they don’t
think about having kids.
They’ve created a situation where women are
so career-focused, but then give them no
support if they want to have
children as well as a career.
They don’t give enough
people enough options and
this is, again, the
government’s responsibility.
If the government
wants the population to
increase in Japan, the
government is going to
have to do something to make that happen
and I think the first thing they need to do
is put a really significant
restriction on overtime.
They have found at maximum people tend to
be able to work for about six hours a day.
There might be like,
again, unique individuals.
They can do 12, 13,
14, 15 hours of solid
work that’s really
good for the entire time.
The average person isn’t and you’re not
hiring individual rock stars all the time.
You’re hiring average
people most of the time.
So making them stay and
work late is not beneficial to you.
It’s not beneficial to the company.
It’s not beneficial to the population.
It’s not beneficial to human relationships,
which is what, at the end of the day, this
is all about, which is exactly what this 88
year old man does not understand because he
has not changed his thinking since
those wild parties in the 80s and 90s.
Previously we talked
about a Chinese man who I
think he was iron-headed
something, iron-head
dong maybe, he came to Japan from China
and he went to Yasukuni Shrine and Yasukuni
Shrine is very
controversial because it is
where soldiers, veterans
and stuff, they are
on tomb there is where
people go to pray for
them but World War
II, a lot of war crimes.
So it is seen internationally,
China and Korea
specifically, as a place that
has enshrined war criminals.
So politicians going to pray there is very
controversial internationally and whatnot.
This guy came and he said
I’m going to make a statement.
His statement didn’t match his actions.
His statement was that they shouldn’t
release water from Fukushima into the ocean.
He said, “Since you
guys are treating the
world like a toilet,
I’m going to treat this
place like a toilet and he climbed up on
like a thing that said Yasukuni Shrine like
a big pole made of stone and he peed
on it and he spray painted toilet and red.
” He went off back to
China, didn’t get arrested
and the Chinese police are saying, “Yeah,
which I actually think is a fine response.
Since there is no
extradition treaty and the
relationship isn’t
that good, I don’t see
why you would extradite
one of your citizens
back to Japan, but there
were two other people involved.
“
So you know there
was someone holding the
camera and the police want that guy
and they have all three other names.
There’s also the guy who
bought the spray paint.
That guy was arrested the other day.
Now, here’s the question.
They did in total 4.2 million
yen worth of damage to that post.
So the spray paint, I
guess they have to clean
it off, pee, I mean
you just wash it off.
I don’t see how that
comes to 4.2 million yen.
I’m not arguing because I
don’t know anything about it.
I guess trying to get the paint
off without damaging the rock
and maybe it’s marble or
something special, I don’t know.
But are they going
to lay it all on this
one guy or are they going to try to
use that to lure the other guy’s back?
Because the other
guy, the first guy, the
guy in the video said very clearly,
“I’m not going back to Japan.
” Why would I?
I went there, committed a crime,
filled it, filmed it, and stuck it online.
So yeah, it actually makes
sense that he wouldn’t come back.
I don’t think he is going to come back.
I think his friend who’s been
arrested here is screwed.
The question is, do they get the
guy who filmed it, the cameraman?
That’ll be an interesting question.
But if that guy’s smart, he’s
back in China already as well.
We have also talked about, this is kind of
like an updates of recent stories episode.
We’ve talked several
times over the last
month about the gubernatorial election
process in Tokyo where they put up posters.
The NHK party, which
is a legitimate, in its
sense party, because
it’s a real party, they’re
just not particularly
serious about the issues.
They’re not actually trying to
push things through in a serious way.
They’re there making a
mockery of democracy,
which I actually don’t
have a problem with.
It’s just I sort of think
some of the stuff they say
could be useful to actually
say in a serious way.
That’s a whole side issue.
I think underneath they
have beliefs, but they’re
not actually getting those beliefs across,
which I think is a wasted opportunity.
What they did as a party is they
bought all these spaces on these things.
So for a very limited
period of time in
Japan, you’re allowed
to put up a poster, your
election poster, as you want to
become the governor of Tokyo.
They bought up a whole bunch of extra ones
and then they sold them to just anybody.
So we had a girl who’s like a kick box or
a girl who wanted people to follow them in
social media, someone
who put a picture of
their dog up, someone
who just put up a poster
the same poster many,
many times, a woman
who’s in the NHK party,
who is a adult actress.
She put up pictures
of herself very lightly
censored in a full spread
Eagle pose, basically.
So then went out to
the people and they said,
Hey, do you think we
need to change the rules?
Not surprisingly, 76.2%
said they feel there
should be a revision
in the candidate posters
law and the rules that
govern them therein.
I mean, I actually think this has proven a
weird point in that you got to kind of take
the government stuff seriously if you
want people to actually take it seriously.
So again, I do believe
there is value to
people trying to exploit
these rules and trying
to show make a mockery
of government, but
at the same time, I’m also,
I flip flop back and forth.
I mean, also how else
are you supposed to get
anything done if you don’t
start taking it seriously?
Japan last week, I mentioned that
Japan introduced new bank notes.
There’s a thousand yen,
5,000 yen, 10,000 yen note.
There’s new ones very exciting.
I got paid last week.
I went to the bank and I got a whole bunch
of money up, did not get any new pills.
I don’t expect to
actually see one for a
while, someone’s going
to roll into the office
and be like, Hey, I
got the new bill and
everyone’s actually going to
crowd around and look at it.
I do get vaguely interested in it.
It’s only exciting for about 10 minutes,
but still, you know, it’s a new thing.
So everyone wants to see the
new thing and maybe look at the
new security features and
hold it up to the lightning stuff.
But a new run of money
means that people who
collect things like money got
a new thing to be interested in.
And I learned a little
bit about the money
system, which was
interesting on Yahoo auction.
If you go on Yahoo
auction, you can buy 1,000,
5,000, 10,000 yen
bills, but it’s auction.
So the price is going up and up and up.
Some of these are
selling for more than 40
times more than the
actual value of the bill
itself officially
collectors add value by
saying, you know, it’s
rare or I want this thing.
What do the collectors want?
So this was the bit I
wouldn’t have known
nothing about the serial number on the
first run of bills has a double a on it.
So be a and that means that is
part of the first run of those bills.
When it gets all the way
through, it switches to a B.
That’s the second run of bills and then
a C and it keeps going and going going.
Once it gets to ZZ,
so it goes through the
whole alphabet, they hit the start again,
but they change the color of the ink.
So that was another
thing I didn’t know about
if you get AA and AA
and you compare the
two ink colors, you can tell which
one came first and which one came later.
A 1,000 yen note
with 7, 7, 7, 7, 7, 7 on it.
That’s six sevens I may
have said more I didn’t count.
I count people shooting bullets in
movies, but I didn’t count the sevens.
I just read off a piece of paper.
Six sevens on in a row is
right now worth 28,000 yen.
So the serial number itself, if it’s
unique, collectors will pay for that.
This one I don’t understand,
so I’m going to go looking for it.
If you have ZZ, 555,
Z, that is worth 500,000
yen, half a million yen for a
bill with that serial number.
So should you get one
of these new bills, take
a moment if it’s still
early days and look
at the serial number,
maybe you got one of
those double A’s, maybe
you got an AA with some
unique lettering in it, you might be
able to sell that online for a profit.
I do know license plates,
like you can pay for
license plates in Japan and the
Yakuza always get dot, dot, dot, eight.
So it basically has
nothing, just a number
eight in it and those I think
are super, super expensive.
It’s funny to me that it’s a Yakuza
thing to get this license plate.
The government sells
you that license plate
for money, but then
you’re basically telling
the police, I am or I think I am a Yakuza,
which doesn’t seem like the greatest idea.
I think maybe Yakuza are not
very good criminals all the time.
Japan editors from
Kodansha went to California
and they went to a
convention, they started
speaking to up and
coming, want to be artists
like I want to be a manga
artist, I want to be a bit mean.
They want it, but they
want to be manga artists.
They would start talking
about like how do you
improve, how do you
improve your skills, how
do you improve your
art, how do you improve
your story, how do you
improve your structure,
how should your
character design reflect the
character in the book, how
does it affect the side character?
These are all really
useful, interesting stuff.
These guys obviously know
what they’re talking about.
Then they got into
Americans, spend too much
time making merch for those of you
in the audio version of the podcast.
I am now pulling my
shirt back to make sure
the chunk of McBeaf
Chest Academy martial arts
shirt I am wearing is seen
within the borders of the video.
Again, there’s a difference in the way
the world works or how the cost of living.
I don’t know specifically, I’ve never lived
in America and I certainly haven’t lived
in America in modern
times, but I’m going
to go ahead and guess
it’s more expensive to
live in most places
in America than it is to
live in Japan, Japan
has a lot of services.
Despite our earlier
story of declining wages
over the last 26 months,
if you have the same
salaries before and you live a
frugal life, you actually live quite well.
All the stories I read online though, it
is stories online, so I don’t want to make
any strong statements about
what it’s like to live in America,
but I’m betting making money is
important to survival in America.
If you want to be a
manga artist in America,
let’s just say it is
unlikely you’re going
to get a massive payday right away, so you
have to find some way to supplement your
art to make money for your art, and it seems
like the way to do that would be merch.
So I do sell chunky
beef chest t-shirts, I have
books that I am
publishing that I’m selling,
I have other things
I’m trying to do, I’m
just, I’m not trying to
be greedy, I’m trying
to supplement my income so I
can do this stuff that I want to do.
If I ever got to a point where I could
quit my 40 hour a week job and do this full
time, that would be like
a dream come true for
me, but realistically
speaking I know that’s
not likely, so I keep
the 40 hour full time job.
Some people would
say that means I don’t
believe in myself, but
I have to feed children.
I have a very realistic view
on the chances of success
in any format, podcast,
YouTube, streaming or whatever.
I know the reality
and therefore I know, I
should keep my 40 hour
a week job, retirement
could be really good for
me, because most people
who work and work and
work and then they retire,
they don’t have to do
them with themselves,
whereas I, if I just
keep doing this, I would
have a full set of
things I enjoy doing in my
free time and now it
becomes all my free time.
So then maybe it could actually be popular,
it could be one of those really old people
who gets popular on
the internet for just being
old, those people all seem
to be good at something.
I’m actually thinking about the streamers
like, there’s the Call of Duty Granny
lady, and then there’s the old guy who used
to be like a sniper in the military and
he streams, but he like
uses actual calculations
and has like a notepad and then it
starts nailing people miles across the map.
Yeah, they have skills
and the granny’s good.
She’s really good at Call of Duty.
I’m not actually good at anything.
I think now I’ve actually seen my actual
fatal flaw as to why I have to keep my day
job and it’s not because
of dedication or belief
in myself, it’s not
actually good anything.
Oh fuck, that was the saddest
story I’ve ever done in my life.
Japanese government has set a policy
on fully autonomous weapon platforms.
This has actually
come up in NATO, so it’s
not like Japan just
did this out of nowhere.
I cannot talk about
any military aspects of
Japan and not immediately start
thinking about are they developing Gundam.
As we all know, Gundam or piloted, it’s an
AI system that learns as it does combat and
connects with the pilot and then
they sort of feed off each other.
I think that’s a really interesting idea.
The movie Atlas that came out very recently
on Netflix, very mediocre movie, not bad.
I mean, people were trashing it.
These are not
terrible, it’s just there’s
nothing new or interesting
in it really, nothing unique.
Had the same sort of premise, like you had
to sink the pilot and the machine and the
AI and then working
together, you could be
a more effective fighting
machine, touch up.
That kind of stuff.
They were saying that
human control has to be
a principle and should
be maintained because
human involvement is required
because humans can be held accountable.
So once you make a machine and that machine
makes a decision and decides to like kill
an orphanage, you can’t really
hold that machine accountable.
You can turn it off,
but no one actually
gets punished, no one
has to think about it.
That does imply that
there are everyone involved
with weapons is moral, might be an issue
as far as I’m concerned, because there are
bad people and bad
people would do bad things
even with non-autonomous
weapon platforms.
Then weirdly, they got into the benefits of
autonomous weapon platforms because there
would be less human
error and they have
significant, it would
actually deal with significant
manpower shortages which ironically is
exactly what Japan is dealing with right now.
Japan’s population is shrinking.
The military is not
particularly a tractive career
path, very few people
are joining the military.
Therefore, the military
in Japan is shrinking,
is having more trouble
getting people, autonomous
weapon platforms
would actually be the
solution, but here’s where
you get them because
they’ve done manga posters in the past, and
they weren’t particularly successful, but
you could get nerdy dudes,
manga fans and whatnot.
The nerdy group is what
they’re actually going for.
When they made manga posters,
there was a target audience.
That target audience didn’t
go for the posters alone.
They did try to collect
the posters and maybe
went and collected some
military paraphernalia,
but they did not
actually join the military.
These are the people
who are like technology
and computers, and
if you sell it that way,
you will be piloting
technology and computers
and things like that
working on a computer
in your comfort zone and
contributing to the military.
That might be more appealing.
This is where the, it’s
not going to be a gun
dome, it’s going to be
more like a guy sitting
at a desk with a
bank of computers and
monitors and keyboard
and controller and stuff.
Controlling systems from afar, but he would
be in his comfort zone and probably very
effective because this is sort
of the environment he’s used to.
There is a way to make this work
if they are actually serious about it.
Here’s the last story, I wanted
to cleanse our palette a little bit.
The most popular pet names
from last year, for male dogs, for
the last nine years, the most
popular pet name has been Leo.
I guess Jeff needs to be Leo, but I think
it’s like lion, the most popular female dog
name.
Over the last year,
nine years, so these two
names have been the
most popular names for
the last nine years in a row
together, running in parallel.
Female dog name, cocco, so you have Leo and
cocco, if you have two dogs, it’s a male
and a female.
The most popular male cat
name for the last nine years.
Can you guess what it is, given
the hints that just came previously?
It is Leo, the most popular
female cat name for the
last two years, so this
one’s going to be different.
We found this interesting
because my first
thought is, I’ve heard
this name before, Luna,
which is I believe is
the cat from Sailor Moon.
Sailor Moon’s quite old,
but it’s come back in a
couple of iterations, so,
or maybe it’s still back.
I’m not watching a lot of
Sailor Moon these days.
The most popular combined
names, so this could
be male dog, female
dog, male cat, female
cat, just overall, combined
pet name in Japan
is, oh, this is where I
should have done the quiz.
I did do a quiz today because
I didn’t organize myself.
I actually had a holiday yesterday.
That actually seems to
have made my organization
worse because I do
everything set on schedules
and I took yesterday and did a
different project because it was a day off.
Did not organize a quiz.
I do need people, if you would like to join
the quiz, because it’s like a 10, 15-minute
Zoom call, we could do it on
Discord, send me a message.
I’m going to be
interested in gmail.
com, speakpipe.com,
speakpipe.com/chongandbeefchast.
I would love to have anyone who listens to
the podcast on and we can do a little quiz.
The quizzes are not meant to be hard.
We have a little chat, we do the
quiz, I tell the story, give the answer.
If we can get more people doing it,
I actually might start keeping score.
It’s going to be an engineer
in Japan versus the world.
And then when I get real serious
about those quizzes, it can be hard.
My only concern though
is we run into a story
that the person I would be
speaking to is already right about.
So that’s going to be the hardest part
of managing that if I get to that point.
But the big reveal, the
most popular combined
male female dog cat
name last year was Mugi.
I feel like there should be
some sort of flourish after
that, but I don’t know
what the flourish would be.
It’s going to turn
us up, popcorn, it’s a
pretty good name for a
pet, Fukuru, and Giorno.
I think it’s Japanese
would be Giorno, but if
I read it, it looks
Italian so I say Giorno
and I have to do the
do a hand gesture with it.
Now, surprisingly
non-emolist, Dave, best
animal pet name ever, I
mean any animal should
be called either Dave
or Stephen, regardless
of gender, I mean,
gender is irrelevant.
If you’re going to call it, if you have an
animal and you want to give it a name that
I would prefer, like a
Penelope, but then you
just can call it pen,
something like that.
But single syllable is
to me one of the more
appealing aspects of a pet
name, it should be single syllable.
And I do know from my days
working in dog food when I
read training books, it
should have a hard sound in it.
So that’s why Dave
is a good name for an
animal because the animal
doesn’t often know their name.
They hear that syllable in that tone
and that’s what gets their attention.
So when you’re naming your next pet, popcorn
would actually be really good because
the pop is probably
what’s going to get their
attention, Leo, not a great choice
because it has all kind of soft sounds.
Cocoa, pretty good,
two hard sounds in a row,
Luna, cats aren’t paying
attention to you anyways.
Cocoa, it’s the key, it’s the key,
is going to actually probably get it.
So if you’re thinking
about naming your pet,
certainly I would not
recommend using the
most popular names in Japan,
but I think it should be Dave.
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