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?🎙 00:00:00.000–00:00:21.360
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🎙 00:00:21.360–00:00:34.963
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🎙 00:00:35.843–00:00:55.643
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🎙 00:00:55.643–00:01:18.897
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🎙 00:01:18.897–00:01:32.377
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.🎙 00:01:32.356–00:01:45.116
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.🎙 00:01:45.116–00:02:02.396
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,🎙 00:02:02.457–00:02:19.337
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🎙 00:02:19.337–00:02:42.151
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🎙 00:02:42.151–00:03:02.131
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.🎙 00:03:02.131–00:03:17.280
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.🎙 00:03:17.280–00:03:32.560
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.🎙 00:03:32.560–00:03:58.423
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.🎙 00:03:58.423–00:04:13.106
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.🎙 00:04:13.106–00:04:32.346
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.🎙 00:04:32.346–00:04:52.528
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🎙 00:04:52.528–00:05:05.168
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🎙 00:05:05.168–00:05:17.753
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🎙 00:05:17.753–00:05:35.233
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🎙 00:05:35.233–00:05:45.798
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.🎙 00:05:45.798–00:06:00.198
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🎙 00:06:00.918–00:06:18.036
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🎙 00:06:18.036–00:06:36.396
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.🎙 00:06:36.396–00:06:50.961
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🎙 00:06:50.961–00:07:09.121
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🎙 00:07:09.121–00:07:26.007
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.🎙 00:07:26.007–00:07:41.747
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.🎙 00:07:41.747–00:08:01.079
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.🎙 00:08:01.079–00:08:14.219
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.🎙 00:08:14.219–00:08:45.099
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🎙 00:08:26.795–00:08:42.915
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.🎙 00:08:42.915–00:08:58.475
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.🎙 00:08:58.646–00:09:12.526
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.🎙 00:09:12.526–00:09:28.786
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🎙 00:09:29.763–00:09:41.003
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🎙 00:09:41.003–00:09:59.163
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🎙 00:09:59.811–00:10:14.811
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🎙 00:10:14.811–00:10:30.811
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.🎙 00:10:30.811–00:10:51.410
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🎙 00:10:51.410–00:11:06.870
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🎙 00:11:06.870–00:11:25.345
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🎙 00:11:25.345–00:11:37.005
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.🎙 00:11:37.005–00:11:51.089
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.🎙 00:11:51.089–00:12:02.209
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🎙 00:12:02.209–00:12:13.089
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🎙 00:12:13.089–00:12:23.972
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🎙 00:12:23.972–00:12:42.972
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,🎙 00:12:42.972–00:13:00.143
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🎙 00:13:00.143–00:13:19.003
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🎙 00:13:19.003–00:13:32.673
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🎙 00:13:33.353–00:13:55.513
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,🎙 00:13:55.511–00:14:08.271
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.🎙 00:14:10.351–00:14:25.311
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🎙 00:14:25.311–00:14:38.482
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.🎙 00:14:38.482–00:14:54.042
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🎙 00:14:54.042–00:15:07.216
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🎙 00:15:07.216–00:15:20.616
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🎙 00:15:20.616–00:15:36.678
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🎙 00:15:36.678–00:15:50.718
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🎙 00:15:50.718–00:16:02.538
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.🎙 00:16:02.538–00:16:16.629
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🎙 00:16:16.629–00:16:33.909
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?🎙 00:16:34.044–00:16:47.844
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🎙 00:16:47.844–00:17:04.324
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.🎙 00:17:04.324–00:17:17.304
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.🎙 00:17:17.304–00:17:34.304
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🎙 00:17:34.304–00:17:48.847
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🎙 00:17:48.847–00:18:01.567
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🎙 00:18:01.567–00:18:13.467
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🎙 00:18:13.475–00:18:29.175
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.🎙 00:18:29.175–00:19:04.155
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🎙 00:18:45.413–00:19:01.433
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🎙 00:19:01.433–00:19:14.933
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🎙 00:19:14.933–00:19:26.347
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🎙 00:19:26.347–00:19:45.227
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,🎙 00:19:45.227–00:19:57.945
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.🎙 00:19:59.745–00:20:11.585
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.🎙 00:20:11.585–00:20:39.045
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?🎙 00:20:22.533–00:20:32.773
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.🎙 00:20:32.773–00:20:43.573
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🎙 00:20:43.573–00:21:02.344
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🎙 00:21:02.344–00:21:21.384
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🎙 00:21:21.384–00:21:38.792
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🎙 00:21:38.792–00:21:55.992
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.🎙 00:21:55.992–00:22:08.280
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🎙 00:22:08.280–00:22:19.420
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🎙 00:22:19.420–00:22:48.838
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.🎙 00:22:48.838–00:23:31.618
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.🎙 00:23:04.323–00:23:18.963
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,🎙 00:23:19.963–00:23:33.883
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.🎙 00:23:33.883–00:23:50.295
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.🎙 00:23:50.295–00:24:04.295
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.🎙 00:24:04.295–00:24:17.649
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.🎙 00:24:17.649–00:24:38.649
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.🎙 00:24:38.512–00:24:52.952
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.🎙 00:24:52.952–00:25:38.952
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🎙 00:25:09.916–00:25:25.516
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🎙 00:25:25.516–00:25:38.556
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.🎙 00:25:38.556–00:25:53.108
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.🎙 00:25:53.108–00:26:07.388
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.🎙 00:26:07.388–00:26:22.915
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,🎙 00:26:22.915–00:26:37.235
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🎙 00:26:37.235–00:26:55.736
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🎙 00:26:55.736–00:27:11.536
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🎙 00:27:11.536–00:27:33.034
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🎙 00:27:33.034–00:27:46.194
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🎙 00:27:46.194–00:28:06.254
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?🎙 00:28:06.254–00:28:23.094
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.
