What do you think is best to protect Japan Culture, or any culture?

[Buffalobiian]

There is a lot to be gained by being self-reliant on your own country's products and manufacturing power.

There is also a lot to be lost. Each country is unique. Their level of technology, population size, land mass, natural resources all factor in as to what they do best. It is probably possible that every country could develop in such a way that they can support their own without trading, but that would mean producing some products in inefficient ways.

Sealed exonomies like that defy the basic axiom of economics: to best satisfy our infinite wants with finite resources.

As such, the idea of wanting to be self sufficient is not enough to compensate for the lost resources in achieving that. Hence the globalisation trend.

[Animeniax]

True, but one solution to the issue of finite resources is to use imperialism to get what you need to be self-sufficient.

[Dark Dragon]

True, but one solution to the issue of finite resources is to use imperialism to get what you need to be self-sufficient.

The Europeans tried that by taking over other countries and turning them in colonies. The end result was various wars fought by different imperialist country over territories which ended up weakening these countries and eventually led to rebellions by the colonies over time.

If Japan choose to become an Imperialist again, it would have to deal with other major power in the area (China, Korea and Russia) because it would be naive to think that those countries will just stand by and let Japan slowly accumulate territories and grow stronger. This will lead to rising tension between those countries as they fight over territories and of course wars will be the end result under those situation (see WWI).

A good fictional example is the Empire of Britania from Code Geass. In that case, Japan was taken over and turned into a colony so the Empire could have access to the resource that was available (Sakuradite) and the Japanese became 2nd class citizen within their own homeland. It is easy to suggest Imperialism or from my interpretation "Lets take whatever we want through the use of force" without considering the consequences and negative effect it will have on everyone including the Imperialist.

This thread was made for the purpose of discussing the protection of a cultural identity from foreign influences that could potentially erase everything that was there originally with Japan being the example(at least that was the impression i got). Somehow this got turn into a "Japan can preserve its own culture by stomping all of the weaker countries in the face" and who would have the right to decide which country gets to keep its culture while another country cannot because it is "useless".

A culture grow and evolve through interaction with other cultures because that is a natural process. It's very easy to blame Mcdonald or whatever for social problems such as obesity but that is a matter of personal choice and the high Obesity rate in America is the result of many different factors. Government officials will rarely ban companies from going into their country because they bring in revenue which will benefit everyone as a whole.

Every culture has its positive, negative and those within the society that do not agree with the majority. It is possible to kick those peoples out for not agreeing with the majority with the "If you don't like it here, leave" mentality but that would be running away from the problem rather than confronting and solving it. The idea of preserving a culture the way it is without any significant changes by isolating yourself from everyone and becoming self sufficient through conquest of other countries is contradictory.

[Animeniax]

Yesterday I further did my part to protect and preserve the culture of Japan. I was talking to this white guy who likes anime and he said he wanted to visit Japan and hook up with one of my yellow sisters (my words not his). Evidently he thinks Japan is like Thailand where you can wave a 5 dollar bill around and get all kinds of skanks' attention. He's also a big fan of Naruto and other anime, and thinks the Japanese are all cute and cuddly like the characters in anime.

So in the guise of giving him some travel tips to the promised land, I pretty much rained on his parade, telling him all the bad stuff he'd experience if he went there and what a terrible time he would probably have, him being a loud-mouth westerner and all.

[Sapphire]

You must be proud of yourself.

[Animeniax]

I wouldn't have posted the above otherwise. I think in a way I helped him as much as I helped the Japanese. If he goes over thinking Japan is a certain way, when he inevitably finds out what it's really like, he'll be upset, and take it out on the Japanese. I've seen it happen. It happened to me, in a manner. This way, I spare both him and the Japanese from this guy's own stupidity. It's win win baby.

[Kraco]

Without knowing your exact words it's impossible to say for sure, but likely you did him a favour if he indeed was so delusional. I haven't visited Japan but I doubt one should treat it any differently as a tourist than any other country. However, if he changes his own attitude, he would probably have good time there. I hope you didn't damage his image so much that he doesn't realise that. I'm sure the Japanese enjoy money spent by the tourists just as much as any other nation.

[rockmanj]

Well, actually, I do kind of agree with that; you shouldn't be going anywhere with incorrect preconceived notions about any place. That guy should have done some research at least. I don't know, but yea, that guy sounded like an idiot (sadly, not all that uncommon).

[Animeniax]

Not to generalize, but this guy isn't your usual anime-loving fanboy nerd type. He's a thick-neck, country-boy, truck driver type (his actual profession btw), the kind of guy who typically goes to Thailand to find a wife (no offense to anyone from Thailand, but the prostitution is getting out of hand there). Since I have no affection for the Thais, he can feel free to continue going there, and leave Japan and the other peoples of southeast Asia alone.

I didn't say anything untrue, and I hardly exaggerated, but I pointed out how few English speakers there are, how crummy the taxis are, how expensive stuff is, with the weakness of the dollar and stuff normally being more expensive in Japan, and how it's completely not like in anime. He seemed a little upset, but also determined to "get some Japanese p*ssy" as he so eloquently said. Makes it so much easier to defend what I did.

[Buffalobiian]

Haha, I was wondering if you were over reacting when you discouraged him, but if he said that, he really does need to be set straight before he goes. They things he says makes me lol though.

[Buffalobiian]

Apparently Ani has some like-minded folks in Japan who feel the same way.

In the Eroge industry anyway. (safe to click)

http://www.dannychoo.com/post/en/206...s+Blocked.html

The issue hasn't been in the news much lately, but if things like Shana and other such "lolli" material also get bombarded, we will only be able to obtain these in Japan, remembering that news about the unlawful acts of not owning, but importing/transporting "obscene" material across borders.

At least this site thing has a proxy work-around.

[David75]

The guys at minori are totally dumb, they are not preventing foreigners to access their website, they are preventing machines connecting from outside Japan to access their website.

The difference is huge, because even Japanese can't access this website from abroad.