oh. I meant I was planning on visiting there sometime

Is it really that they liked early Disney and TinTin so much?

mostly so I can see the nihongo's yamatodaishii and proper castles in the south of the country

Osaka Castle is cool. Nara and Kyoto are really crowded in the summer.

I would definitely visit Japan, but I would stay in the rural areas or wherever the cool castles and traditional stuff is.

The castles are usually in the town centers. The towns grew around them

There are exceptions of course

>rural areas
I'd rather not deal with a bunch of nihongo farmers who are going to yell at me in rice language

i didn't mean quite *that* rural. just not Tokyo, maybe...

I don't even like cities in places i *do* speak the language.

Go to Hokkaido

I didn't make it up there last time I was in japan and am still butthurt about it

Same here. I made it to Mt Osore which was cool, I wish I had seen Disetsuzan (sp?) and Mt. Rausu

Tokyo can be pretty neat, but i've always wanted to go to Kyoto and Sapporo

I go to Japan frequently. There’s no need for foreign workers. They have enough to do make-work things we would never do, like have 6 people direct you around a sidewalk that has been diverted around a building being constructed. Service is amazing, and it is highly functional. And yes to someone’s point earlier - having 140 million in a mostly mountainous archipelago the size of Montana would seem to justify a lower population.

They seemed pretty fine last I was there. They understand their birthrate is falling, but at least so far, haven't considered replacing themselves as an option

@ophiuchus I've heard concern trolls kvetch over talks in Japan about importing immigrants

I hope they are concern trolls, because I wouldnt be surprised if the japanese kids spoiled by a lack of our problems will decide to experiment

Honestly, a lower birth rate probably wouldn't be a bad thing for Japan. Thin the island out without anything unnatural would probably be a great thing for everyone there.

Other than tax cattle, I don't see the purpose in an ever expanding population.

Especially when these countries are importing tax drains.

There are huge (yuge) swarths of Japan that are sparsely, or completely uninhabited.

Until we have fairly stable and functional automation of production and farming, population must expand in order to support the previous generation. Not saying it's ideal - but it's how things are at the moment.

it's also a version of the prisoner's dilemma

in order to control population of the world, we must all (we is all races) take measures to limit population growth

but if even one race ignores that, then they will overpower the other identities

so if one identity is growing at tremendous speeds, in order to survive the other races have to do the same

and then we have an even larger growth rate

What's a wholesome movie I can watch tonight?

mm. I have mixed thoughts on that point - but mostly I agree.

@micbwilli watch a John Wayne western

😃

Most of Japan is not arable, so they develop up instead of out and simply import food. America is the leading food exporter and has space for suburbs (though their cultural impact is negative) so it makes sense for us to have sprawl

Man it's been years since I watched one of those. Good idea man. 😀

Speaking of westerns and the orient - anyone seen *The Good, The Bad and the Weird*?

Korean make spaghetti western style film. I found it pretty enjoyable.

@YourFundamentalTheorum Number only matter in certain types of combat. If you have sufficient placement and tech you can take on a much larger army than yourself.

I wasn't talking exclusively about combat

other types of competitive activities experience this

Oh I see. Your getting into thing like the migrant crisis as well.

@TMatthews wouldn’t it make sense if your land is not arable, to then sprawl it and not build up, as there is plenty of land that farmed and has no other use than to be enjoyed?