A Podcast to Damage your Dignity

[Music]

Got a lot of politics today.

It’s actually the,

essentially the fallout from the guy who threw the pipe bomb at the prime

minister last week.

Of course, the very first thing I said was what was his actual motivation.

So the fact that he threw a pipe bomb, it didn’t go off properly, which is a

good thing,

because there was a lot of people there, and a lot of people would have got

hurt and killed.

What was his motivation for doing it?

Now, he has not admitted to a motivation, but they’ve looked into his

background and come up with some interesting facts.

He had filed a lawsuit last year for mental distress after he was unable to

file for candidacy for the House of Counselor’s election.

So he wanted to be a politician.

He was unable to file to be a politician,

and was so upset about that, said it was

mental distress, and then he tried to sue them.

This is where we get to learn some of the requirements to be a politician.

You actually have to be 30 years old. That’s, I guess, fair.

I actually don’t think age should be part of it.

I mean, I think if your teenager goes up there and no one wants to,

a teenager to be their counselor or governor or anything,

then you won’t vote for them.

I don’t, I actually don’t necessarily, this is a good personal opinion.

I don’t necessarily agree with an age requirement.

I think it would make sense if you were over 30,

have a little life experience, maybe done some work,

but I don’t think that should be a requirement.

I actually think there should be a end point,

a retirement age for becoming governor,

because right now in America, I was noticing the prime minute.

It was just how Canadian I am.

The president, he’s in his 70s and Trump is in his 70s,

and all the guys are trying to be president in our own their 70s.

I think that might be too old.

I mean, they talk about, you know, Trump being feeble and stuff,

but I think when you have a mandatory retirement age for work,

being 60 or 65 or something like that,

that should also be the retirement age for service in public office.

I think a certain amount of youthful vitality is important.

So this is why Obama was good.

He was a young president, Justin Trudeau,

even if you don’t agree with the politics, he’s a vibrant leader,

which is, I think, important.

So the must be at least 30 years old, I disagree with that,

but I think they should have an upper limit

of how old you can be to be president,

or public office.

And this is actually the more important part.

You have to pay 3 million yen.

So if you want to run for office in Japan,

you have to put a deposit of 3 million yen.

The man’s claim was that this violates

the constitutional guarantee of equality.

And I sort of agree with that as a philosophy.

If you have to pay 3 million yen to run for office,

then only people with 3 million extra yen can run for office.

In which case, if you are of, you know, strict means,

if you’re poor, you’re not allowed to run for office, which is unfair.

I don’t know what the 3 million, it says deposit.

So maybe you get it back if you fail, I’m not sure.

But it seems interesting that I actually agree with kind of his claim.

He also submitted a letter opposing Abe State funeral.

Now I was actually against the State

funeral when I found out how much it cost.

I wasn’t against the State funeral because Abe was a prime minister.

He, whether you agree or not with his politics, he did work for the country.

And what he believed was the best way.

Whether or not you agreed with Abe’s politics,

he was doing what he thought was best for the country.

He was a state official for a very long time.

So I didn’t have a problem with the State funeral.

And then I found out how much they cost.

And I was like, the taxpayer shouldn’t be paying that much.

Abe in the government want to want a State funeral.

So he submitted a letter opposing Abe State funeral because it was forced

through and not Democratic.

So my problem with the State funeral was how much they cost because the

taxpayer shouldn’t be

footing that bill. The government wants to do that. They should find some

other source.

The family should pay for it. Donation, something like that.

Off you go.

He’s saying that the people didn’t get to vote on the State funeral.

And therefore it wasn’t Democratic. And that made him upset.

He is a failed politician.

And I think the thing is, so he wanted democracy and he says he wants to be

a politician and he

wanted things to be done right. But he’s also failed in his ideals because a

great politician or

whatnot, they would not use a pipe bomb to push their ideas through. So that

‘s the unfortunate

reality is this man has failed in two ways. He’s failed as a politician and

he’s also failed

to live up to his own ideals as what he claims a politician should be.

So since there was a pipe bomb thrown and last year Prime Minister Abe was

assassinated,

campaign speeches will only happen indoors now. So they’re not, they used to

do, this is actually

what I thought was quite sad about this whole thing. They had politicians

with the Prime Minister

very high level people out walking amongst the people, talking to people in

crowds and they were

all safe. It was all good. The secret service in Japan were primarily

trained to stop knife attacks,

which is why the home made shotgun actually worked and why the pipe bomb,

like it got really close

to the Prime Minister. The guy, the security guy I saw in the video, he

actually did his job properly.

But you know, also it shouldn’t have happened in the first place. So now

they’ve decided like we’ve

had one politician murdered another one attacked. We can’t keep going like

this. They want to create

a controlled environment for these sort of speeches. So they’re all going to

be happening indoors.

now. There will be metal detectors and every all the bags we get checked

before he can come in.

Street speeches will still happen. So what happens in Japan is these vans go

around and then they

stop and then they stand on top of the Van and they get a microphone with

these loud speakers

and they give a speech from the top of the Van. Those will still happen but.

they’re going to have a

sheet of bulletproof glass up in front of them. So I guess that’s not too

much of a difference because

the guy standing up there, he was quite far away anyways. You weren’t going

to get that close to him.

The bulletproof glass isn’t going to be much of a change, but it is sad that

we’ve had to actually

do that in a country where again a year ago, Abe, the prime minister,

whatever they were walking

around in crowds of people shaking their hands and like talking to people

and just being in and

amongst the people was really nice. They’re going to enforce like a 20 meter

space away from the Van

to make it just that much harder to get sort of leave you want to throw a

pipe bomb let’s say.

It’s going to you’re going to have to be able to throw at least 20 meters to

get your job done.

But it’s I’m a bit disappointed that’s had to happen because it’s like this.

violence is changing the

nature of politics in Japan, which is too

bad. Now on to more honestly more in the

news, Japan style news and the LDP official, so the liberal Democratic party

official. He’s up,

talking up one of his co-workers. There’s

sort of campaigns going on right now.

And he says, “Oh, I’m talking about my friend and then I start talking about

his wife and then the

rival, the rival of his friend as a woman.” He says, “I’m glad she’s not

really pretty either.”.

So he’s basically saying like, “Here’s my friend, his wife is hot, his.

competition, she’s not hot.”

So vote for my friend. He’s obviously a better person because he’s got the

hotter wife. This of course.

sexist and it’s going to piss people off. So the complaint was that his

comments damaged her dignity.

He later retracted his statement. So he made the remark and then the guy was

interviewing him and they.

said like, “Did you mean to insult her dignity? Did you mean that she was

unattractive?” He said, “No,

I totally do her.” But of course that’s not what he said. That’s actually

what I wish he said. I

wish he actually doubled down on it. He retracted his statement and he said,

“I said it inadvertently.

I retract everything. I apologize for offending the dignity of both.” So he

‘s talking about both the

rival and the man’s wife. But then he said, “Come on, she’s got a bit of a

hog face.” I just sat there going

like, “Okay, I’ve talked about this so many times. I actually think I have

to stop talking about it.”

Retracting statements. It’s not like the thing he said goes away because of

it. The apology means

nothing. I don’t get how this is acceptable. There’s almost no fallout and

no responsibility for the

dumb shit politician say. But it happens all the time and they say the dumb

shit. You just don’t

comment on people’s looks. And yet, when I think back to Trump, that’s his

whole deal. It’s commenting

on people’s appearance and their attitudes and what they’re like. So maybe

just politics have changed.

Certainly, Trump has changed the landscape of politics in America. But has.

it had an impact over

here? Because, no, because again, like five years ago, I was still doing the

Ninja News Japan.

And they were all saying racist stuff. So I guess they’ve just shifted. They

don’t say the racist stuff

out loud like they used to. They still get away with misogyny. And they’re

going to get away with that.

But now people are calling them out from misogyny. So I guess that’s going

to be on the chopping block

next. Politicians in Japan, they’re being held to a much higher standard.

Like the stuff Trump says,

he would not be able to get away with it in Japan. Like it just would not

fly. He would not be a.

successful politician. There is a group that supposed to promote gender

equality. And they had a

poster. And it was up about consent. And it had the first picture. And the

guy’s like, “Mm, she’s

into me.” And then the second picture was her going, “Ooh, I’m not into him

.” And it was about,

you know, you have to get consent before you start to do stuff to other

people. The problem is that

promotes the gender stereotype that a) men are the aggressors. Men are not

capable of reading

the signals of women. They don’t understand women. And that they are always

at fault in these sort

of sexual relations. It doesn’t suggest that the woman should get consent

from the man. It only

suggested that the man should get consent from the woman. So that is

promoting gender stereotypes.

In a group that is supposed to be promoting gender equality, they should.

know better. So the people

started complaining. So they took down the poster. And then they started

saying, “Oh, not only does it

promote gender stereotypes, it also has copied the art style of another

artist.” So they took

all the posters down. The company,

the group, the gender equality group said.

, “We apologize

publicly, so there’s your public apology.”

But then they blamed the printing company.

Not to actually take responsibility for you shit. That’s not cool. The

artist who is sort of the

one being, you know, copied in this case said that the apology and taking

down the posters is enough.

I don’t know. It’s weird that gender equality

in Japan still means gender stereotypes.

just that men should behave better.

But again, that is the gender stereotype.

that is being promoted.

Yeah, it’s almost like people don’t know what gender equality is. This is

Japan. I would say when

it comes to gender equality, LGBT rights and stuff like that, Japan is

decades behind other countries,

Western countries. Like just even the equal rights men and women still aren

‘t there. Because I mean,

that guy just got away with saying that this other politician had a hog

phase. I’ve never seen a

picture of either of them, so I can’t really comment. It’s that low-key mis

ogyny that is just a

part of Japanese culture. And people, I think they come to Japan and they

have weird expectations

of what it’s going to be like. And I don’t think they realize, there’s a

whole generation that’s

still in charge that has not changed their thinking from the 1960s. And it’s

going to take another

generation or two before it goes away. There’s a man called “Boys Over

Flowers.” I’d never heard of it.

And then I found out it has the highest circulation comic series for girls

by a single author. It’s in

the Guinness Book of World Records. But then I was like, that is a very

specific. This is one of the

things about world records. It’s how specific the world records are. So the

highest circulation of

a comic series, that’s good. Four girls, okay, you’ve now just split out at

least two so that you

split it in half. So there should be the highest circulation comic series

for boys by a single author.

That one sort of makes sense. Because if it’s

a team, it wouldn’t have the same impact.

So I was like, because it’s a world

record, I could publish a comic series for.

white 50-year-old men with beards and get 100 people to buy it. And that

would probably be the

highest circulation comic series for white 50-year-old men with beards by a

single author. Maybe that could

get in the Guinness Book of World Records. Because that is how you finesse

world records sometimes. It’s

actually get something so specific. No one else is attempted to try it yet.

But then I saw she has.

59.4 million copies of her comic in circulation. Those are physical comics.

So like if you had a

comic on like an ebook or something, that would encounter. And I was like 54

, 59.4 million copies is a

lot. It just says physical copies published. It doesn’t say bought. So could

I do a self-run of 60 million.

comics of a series that I have written for girls by me and beat that record

if I didn’t sell any?

The very interesting question because technically I think I could beat the

world record. Since we’re talking

about world records, I have the number one highest rated karaoke version of

House of Pain’s Jump

Around in Japan. So we have a switch and my daughter wanted to do karaoke

and they have a thing,

a company called Joy Sound. And they do karaoke machines. And so they have

an app where you can do

karaoke through the switch. So her and her friends came over and did it and

they were on it. Me to do

an English song and I was like, this is going to be really bad. I only know

the words to like three

songs. And one of them is jump around. That came out when I was like in my

20s. So I did it. I got like

69% or something like that. And then it goes number one in Japan. I had this

like big fanfare and

everyone was super excited. And I was like, oh wait, I’m the only person in

Japan to have ever attempted

this song. That’s how I got the world record. Are the the national record.

Now back, way, way back,

I was the, I was doing video game reviews and an app came out and it was.

called poop ride. So it was

P-O-O-P-R-I-D-E. So either it was poo, P-O-O, Pride, P-R-I-D-E or poop, P-O-

O-P, ride, R-I-D-E. And it was this.

little game where you had poop and you slid it along the floor and you had

to get it enough power to

touch the line. But you didn’t want to go over the line. So whoever got to

the closest to the line one.

Now because I was doing video game reviews, I got the earliest version of it

on release day,

had to play it for a few hours, leveled up really fast, actually came up

with some strategies for it,

wrote my article. And then as I put the app down, I checked the rankings. I

was number one in the world.

So I have held both a national Japanese record and a world record. I’ve

never gone back to poop ride

to see if that record has been broken. I do believe Mr. Warm Hands purpose

fully went onto.

the Joy Sound app and with his kids and did jump around and I do believe he

beat my score. He may be

the number one in Japan now. But I held that record for years, mid-pandemic.

So at least two years now,

I’ve had the record for I should go back and do it again because I wasn’t

even trying. Imagine if I drop.

So the Osaka court had to pay $375,000 yen. That’s like $3,000, $4,000 to a

former inmate and his attorney

because they wouldn’t allow him to wear sunglasses while he was in a

detention facility and in prison.

So at first I thought this was a Yakuza guy who and they wear sunglasses.

They just wear sunglasses

all the time. I actually have a friend who married into a family that was

sort of extended family

was all the Yakuza and they said at the wedding, one side of the room was

all wearing sunglasses the whole

time. So this is a Yakuza thing. So that’s what I thought when I read the

article of the title and then

I went read the actual thing and I was like, “Oh, it’s actually quite

different.” So this guy usually wears

light purple glasses because of a light sensitivity. There’s actually a

really famous comedian

in Japan and he wore sunglasses all the time. His name is Tamori I think.

And it’s because he had

light sensitivity to his eye. So he wore sunglasses all the time because the

lights on the TV.

shows were too bright for his eye. It’s an actually constant pain. Now they

said you’re not aware

of loud to wear glasses in prison. So they wouldn’t let his wear his glasses

but that actually means

he wasn’t able to read documents and the light was so harsh like it would

cause some physical pain

and it made everything like he was told to do much harder because he wasn’t

allowed to wear it.

This wasn’t just like because he wanted to look cool. This was essentially

prescription.

medically necessary glasses. He had to carry out his sentence without

corrective lenses as the.

way he was phrased. The detention house says you can have shades that allow

up to 25 percent

blockage. In prison, colorless glasses are only allowed if there’s a medical

reason. But it seems

like this guy had a medical reason but they didn’t allow him to wear his

glasses in prison because

they thought oh this guy wants to be cool just like my assumption. We’re

going to say no but they’re

actually like violating sort of fundamental human rights. So you got to pay

up. 4000 bucks though.

So you think about like a lot of the stories where people sue each other.

The numbers are very small.

In America, something like this would be massive. It’s because Japan is just

not as litigious. And one

of the reasons are not as litigious is because the awards are so much

smaller than in America. I bet in

America if I went to prison and they said Peter is not allowed to wear his

corrective lens. So I’m

essentially blind the whole time I’m in prison making everything more

difficult. I bet I could sue them

and I get millions of dollars. In Japan, 4000 bucks shared out with my

attorney. I mean sometimes

you got wonder if it’s even worth it. But I think a lot of times in Japan

you sue them for the moral issue.

Not so much for the money. So there’s a new Pokemon show. Now I don’t follow

Pokemon. I do remember all

the conversations about you have like a 12 year old boy who never goes to

school who goes around

battling animals. And it was a lot of memes actually when I was in my

university and later day.

Because people were talking about the lifestyle of a Pokemon master. Zero

education beyond elementary

school basically. There was a lot of jokes online and I enjoyed them because

conceptually it was

quite interesting. The new hero it’s called Liko. Liko joins the school

which apparently Ash did

and then just never showed up like went to school and then was like well I’m

going to go be Pokemon

master. Bye. And then took off for the rest of his life. Liko joins the

school but then takes lessons

remotely which I found very interesting because they’ve really updated it so

they do have the child hero

who’s going to go around and do their adventures with their Pokemon. But.

actually still technically

get education. The only thing I can think is a problem is how many hours a

day are they expected to do.

these lessons remotely. How much are they going to show without online. But

they’re actually using a

tablet again updating the technology of Pokemon. They’re they’re they’re

they’re going to wonder

if they’re going to how much they’re going to actually bother with this

showing them actually doing

this. But one of the comments I really enjoyed was I hope Liko has an

unlimited data plan because

of course they’re not going to be hanging around somewhere where there’s Wi-

Fi all the time. It’s

a bit ridiculous. But I do like that they’re showing the kids like yeah even

our Pokemon heroes they.

still have to go to school. Okay so this is a new kind of harassment. So

Japan has a billion kinds of

harassment. So there was Seku Harada which is sexual harassment. There was

Paohara. Paohara harassment.

They’re actually using the English and then condensing it into a Japanese.

Then I learned about

I forget it was Akahara which is Akachana so that means baby. Maybe I might

have that one wrong. But

anyways there’s essentially maternity harassment. So you get pregnant and

then you’re pushed out of.

your company. I found a new one through an article today called Owa Harada

and Owa Di is finished. So

Owa Harada is finishing harassment and this has to do with recent graduates

looking for jobs. So they do

kind of graduate recruitment. All the companies every year when the students

graduate they do recruitment.

cycles. And they try to get new employees. In Japan again having fewer and

fewer young people they

need the competition for companies to get more young people to join their

company is part of keeping

their company alive. The competition is quite serious. Owa Harada. Owa Har.

Ada. What Owa Harada is. It’s

really hard to switch between English and Japanese like in one word. Is you

‘ve come and interviewed with

our company. We want you to stop. That’s the Owa Di part looking at other

companies. But we want

you to make a promise to stop looking for other companies. But that is

essentially saying to the

graduate recruit person looking for a job that we want you to limit your

options and only join our

company. We want you to stop looking because what if you find a better deal

if you find a better deal

you might take that job and not our job. So they try to get them to sign

letters of acceptance saying

like here’s a letter that says I will accept the proposed job that not the

actual job. So they’re

saying we’re not going to give you a contract right now to sign. We want you

to sign this letter that

says you’re not going to look for other jobs and then later down the line we

‘ll give you a contract

which is bullshit. If you’re not signing a contract it doesn’t mean anything

because they could say

we’re going to pay you millions dollars and then the contracts get slid

across the table. It’s got five

bucks on it. But you haven’t been looking for any other jobs where you could

have also got paid

millions dollars really unfair. They also require them to attend company

social gatherings and what

they’ve done is tried to make enough of these company social gatherings that

it’s difficult for you

to go out and find other jobs. So the government’s asking companies to stop

this. Now asking isn’t a

very strong thing but there was a survey done in 2021.10% of the students

said the experienced

“awada, awada hara.” Okay I’m getting it. “awada hara.” And then 10% oh 64%

of the 10% say they ended their

job search because of awada hara. 42.3% had received demands to provide a

letter of acceptance. So almost

half the people who went out to do recruitment said like really quickly they

were like “sign this

letter saying you’re going to accept a job from us and stop looking for

other jobs.” 11.6% were

harassed persistently. Some cases say they were physically barred from

leaving when they declined

an offer. So they’re like “here we want you to work for our company.” So you

know I’m not into this.

I’m going to go now and they like lock the door and say you can’t leave

until you accept our offer.

Which is of course no way legally going to hold up but they might actually

cause you problems

if you actually like end up signing something to just get out of there. I

would say if you’re ever in

a situation where someone just like you’re at work and then your boss locks

the door and says you

can’t leave until you do something. What you do is just call the police and

you say like I would

like to leave this office and they are not letting me. When the police show

up because that’s kidnapping.

I mean a lot of people don’t think about it but what they’re doing is saying

like you are not physically

able to go where you want under some sort of dress or threat. That’s

kidnapping. It’s illegal in

every Western country, every like sort

of Western legal system I know of. So.

just call the cops and

say like “Hi I’m in this room in this building. I would like to leave and

they’re not letting me leave.”.

You probably could just put this phone

on speakerphone and they’re going to like

have to let you go. Then you could probably sue them afterwards. The most

interesting part of this

though is that there is an article 627 of the civil code. It says even if

you sign a letter of acceptance

you can back out. So even if these companies force you to sign a letter

saying you’re going to accept

the job with their company. Legally you can back out at any time and that

letter doesn’t mean anything.

I find it interesting more though that because this is such a common problem

that it’s actually written

into the civil code. So this has happened so much in the past and they’ve

had so many sort of legal

issues I assume that they just wrote into the civil code that these letters

don’t mean anything and

that you can just back out. You don’t

have to take a job you don’t want to take.

There was a man caught on camera by a passerby who sent OG SONS photo. So OG

SON is an old man in

Japanese. And what this guy does is he takes the short shorts that girls

wear they’re called bloomers.

He takes the short shorts they wear and he wears them around the station and

this guy has a Twitter

account and he’s really proud of this. He wears like Lea Tards. He’s

actually I’m going to say a pretty

fit old dude. Someone took a picture of this guy sent it to his mom and said

oh my god look what I

can see at the station. This woman posted it on the Internet and she said my

younger son sent this.

photo to me saying there was an OG SON wearing bloomers at the station. I

didn’t believe him until he

sent this photo. It’s real. It’s just sick. And then she put pictures over

his face because you can’t

publish other people’s pictures in Japan without getting in trouble and

posted the picture with what

she tweeted on the Internet. The man himself shows up to her Twitter account

and says don’t censor

my face. So this dude he’s not only doing something that’s kind of weird. He

‘s super proud of it which

I love. And then it turns out his whole Twitter account is just full of

these kind of photo. I don’t

know why but this guy is doing the thing that makes him happy. Yes it would

creep me out but at the same

time I’m sure stuff that I like creeps out other people. I know like the jud

o I do. A lot of people

disagree with fighting and like beating the shit out of other people but I.

love it. And yeah

if people said stop I wouldn’t stop. There was a couple comments and one was

three cheers to this man’s

confidence and I got to admit he is super confident. You can really sense

the sort of strong willpower

from the bloomers ojisa. I mean he’s been doing this for nearly 10 years now

. He also says some philosophical

things or tasteful things sometimes on his Twitter. Just don’t actually

commit a crime please.

I’ve seen the man’s Twitter before. He’s actually quite intellectual and

well spoken which makes his

bloomers obsession even weirder which is so true because he’s not an idiot.

He’s not a dumb guy.

He just he knows what makes him happy and he’s living that lifestyle which

again I kind of had a certain

amount of appreciation for. And then the very last comment which I did enjoy

this is what makes Japan.

Japan and that’s a good thing.

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?πŸŽ™ 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 annoyedπŸŽ™ 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 12thπŸŽ™ 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 systemπŸŽ™ 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 steerπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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 deliveringπŸŽ™ 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 butπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 putπŸŽ™ 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, didπŸŽ™ 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 beπŸŽ™ 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 myπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 overπŸŽ™ 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 notπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 muchπŸŽ™ 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 probablyπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 releasedπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 kidsπŸŽ™ 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 nowπŸŽ™ 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 conclusionπŸŽ™ 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 churchπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 sawπŸŽ™ 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 likeπŸŽ™ 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 toπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 examiningπŸŽ™ 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 thatπŸŽ™ 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 realmπŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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 richπŸŽ™ 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 governmentπŸŽ™ 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 inπŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 moneyπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 taxπŸŽ™ 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 punishmentsπŸŽ™ 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 $100πŸŽ™ 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 dollarsπŸŽ™ 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 meπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 andπŸŽ™ 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?πŸŽ™ 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 rushπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 comeπŸŽ™ 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 IπŸŽ™ 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 veryπŸŽ™ 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 thanπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 everyπŸŽ™ 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 someπŸŽ™ 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’mπŸŽ™ 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 stillπŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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?πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 backπŸŽ™ 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 ofπŸŽ™ 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 badπŸŽ™ 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 theπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 NπŸŽ™ 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 theyπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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 noteπŸŽ™ 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 itπŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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.πŸŽ™ 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,πŸŽ™ 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 electricityπŸŽ™ 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 ofπŸŽ™ 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. TheyπŸŽ™ 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 whyπŸŽ™ 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 personπŸŽ™ 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?πŸŽ™ 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.

Ignorance is not innocence

Mori is back at it again, there are a lot of smaller crimes as people just can’t seem to figure out that getting arrested for this petty stuff isn’t really worth it. 

Also, power harassment and some happy nerd news. If you are a nerd, you may want to note the names of the companies mentioned.

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