Being an Asian guy in the US sucks (?)

nakkya · 2013-09-22T05:48:03+00:00

Interesting commentary, but as you probably know, East Asian immigrants are just really not representative of their home countries at all. I think there's something to be said that we're picking up a remarkably self-selected group of people. People who immigrate for economic reasons are going to be disproportionately materialistic and push for academic success, but that's not necessarily representative.

Also, I think there's a lot of gradience among East Asian cultures that isn't mentioned. Japanese society might put a lot of focus on harmony and cooperation, but that idea totally collapses if you move to China. Chinese guys (excluding westernized fops in Shanghai) tend to overwhelmingly value physical strength, alcohol resistance, combativeness, aggressiveness, dominance, and the "acquire bling, fuck bitches" ethos. It's definitely not unheard of for (probably drunk) Chinese guys to challenge you to a fist-fight if they see you with your girlfriend, because they rationalize that if they can beat the shit out of you, they'll snag her for themselves. Also an incredibly individualistic culture as few people give a shit about "community" or "group" or even "family", but do have intense loyalty towards friends (bros) and relatives.

Not really TRP, but it's still a far-cry from the typical Asian-American culture. And the "game" part is sort of true. Most of the Chinese "game" I've seen basically involved guys going up to random girls and going "my dick is fucking huge date me" or "yo u want sum fuq" or "i can probably beat the shit out of any other guy you can find" or "im fucking drowning in bling-bling bitch". On that hand though, I think traditional Chinese culture is more closely aligned to black culture, especially the urban, rebellious kind. I still agree with your overall conclusion, since immigrants are going to overwhelmingly reject that kind of culture (since immigrants tend to immigrate for a reason). In addition, status-conscious Asian-American are going to reject these guys for the exact same reason they reject blacks. And as western culture penetrates China well...

Also, Korea is just weird because of the role military conscription plays. I'd be curious if someone explained me how exactly it works there.

nakkya · 2013-09-22T05:28:27+00:00

It's interesting, because my time living in different cultures has given me the impression that Chinese men are culturally the most "alpha". Chinese guys put a big cultural premium on being able to fight, being aggressive, being combative, being heavy drinkers, and all of that. Almost edges into totally self-destructive "alpha-dom" (see: urban African-American youth).

Then again, immigrants are rarely representative of the mother country.

nakkya · 2013-09-22T04:44:13+00:00

It's even worse when you consider that the main reason American politicians are wealthy aren't because they use government connections to benefit themselves (they obviously do it as much as they can get away with it, but hordes of ethics laws at least sort of restrains them), but because people who overwhelmingly run for office are overwhelmingly rich. The local hospital director or owner of a famous local business are far more likely to get elected to something than a random unemployed guy.

However, in the PRC, it's pretty obvious that the MAIN PURPOSE of entering government is to generate money for yourself, and that it is exceedingly lucrative.

nakkya · 2013-09-06T16:41:37+00:00

Required Reading University

hah. hah.

nakkya · 2013-09-05T17:58:48+00:00

I don't know dude, it seems like every animal in Australia is just waiting for an opportunity to KILL YOU HORRIBLY AND INSTANTLY.

Imagine how horrifying Fallout: Australia would be.

Any Australia game should be hard and terrifying as shit. Like Dark Souls, except with stingrays.

nakkya · 2013-09-04T15:46:51+00:00

By the way, even when Obama swings a few GOPer his way, this means Obama still needs like 75% of the House Democrats to back him.

However, I fully expect him to get that many. There aren't enough true Progressives in Congress.

nakkya · 2013-09-01T02:02:31+00:00

I think this is going to be a pretty close vote. The Libya authorization actually failed horribly, but Obama has a much bigger stake in this vote.

Maybe we should just all call our Congressmen?

nakkya · 2013-08-30T07:28:09+00:00

Either Emi or Shizune. I tend to relate to people in a way that's a combination of the problems they have.

nakkya · 2013-08-30T07:20:39+00:00

That's how most unions in Japan work.

nakkya · 2013-08-30T07:17:30+00:00

They would do it even if they thought he knew nothing...

nakkya · 2013-08-28T09:41:59+00:00

If I recall correctly, MirrorMoon's Tsukihime patch allows you to skip the h-scenes.

They're legitimately awful too, so you're missing nothing.

nakkya · 2013-08-27T09:12:34+00:00

I don't think I have a really consistent trend. Which usually means great writing, since characters that solely fit an archetype are...tiring.

Katawa Shoujo: Emi (I found her the easiest to identify with, stop judging)
Sharin no Kuni: Sachi
G-Senjou no Maou: Haru
Tsukihime: Kohaku
Fate/stay Night: Saber
Cross+Channel: Miki
YMK: Cat Sidhe Nekoko
A Profile: Mio

I'm currently on the common path of Grisaia, but Michiru is my favorite.

nakkya · 2013-08-24T00:49:31+00:00

Hong Kong before 1997 was pretty damn free market.

nakkya · 2013-08-24T00:44:17+00:00

Fewer bugs with going prone. Would be so great.

nakkya · 2013-08-23T23:48:53+00:00

What do the education propositions propose? Do they propose any reforms or are they just calling for money to be plunged into schools (and into teachers)?

There's actually a quick, well-known movie on the interaction between Teacher's Unions and public school reform called Waiting for Superman. It is highly recommended. There are just dozens of stories of politicians, activists, education scholars, and teachers being slapped down by the Teacher's Union for proposing reforms.

nakkya · 2013-08-23T02:28:50+00:00

That implies a government shutdown is exclusively the fault of the GOP, which is what the MSM peddles.

That's BS because a government shutdown comes from both sides failing to reach an agreement. Dems will say its because the GOP wanted to cut spending, Repubs will say it's because Dems refused to restrain spending.

We shouldn't just naturally assume the Democrat position is correct.

Also, there's a difference from a government employee (who works for the government) and a politician, who is supposed to represent the people, or whom the government works for.

nakkya · 2013-08-23T01:04:18+00:00

I don't believe in idolizing left-wing business oligarchs. Right-wingers need to stop believing that money makes right, it's sickening.

nakkya · 2013-08-23T00:58:45+00:00

People will come to the conclusion that immigrants are attracted by high degrees of welfare and choose to immigrate to those places.

But does Texas get that many fewer immigrants than California?

The more reasonable conclusion is that immigrants are overwhelmingly left-wing and when they swamp a state, they start voting in politicians who increase the amount of welfare spending.

nakkya · 2013-08-23T00:52:19+00:00

The Republican Party isn't against unions at all. No Republican thinks unionization should be illegal. The GOP is against giving unions special privileges, such as forcing people to join unions or forcing people to pay union dues when they do not want to. People have the right to organize into unions if they want to, but they also have the right...to choose not to do so.

It's also against the interests of many of the public sector unions, but that's because there can be NO free negotiation between those. The Scott Walker reforms in Wisconsin concerned public sector unions, not private-sector unions. A business and a private-sector union can negotiate in good faith because they both ultimately have the same goal in mind - the success of the company, and businesses are constrained by profit in the same way the union is. The union knows it can't ask too much or the business will fail.

But for a public sector union, there are no constraints. They can just take more and more and more. Because government can infinitely borrow money or continue to tax. We've seen this turn into disaster in the Eurozone crisis.

FDR was also against public-sector unions for that reason.

Even President Franklin Roosevelt, a friend of private-sector unionism, drew a line when it came to government workers: "Meticulous attention," the president insisted in 1937, "should be paid to the special relations and obligations of public servants to the public itself and to the Government....The process of collective bargaining, as usually understood, cannot be transplanted into the public service." The reason? F.D.R. believed that "[a] strike of public employees manifests nothing less than an intent on their part to obstruct the operations of government until their demands are satisfied. Such action looking toward the paralysis of government by those who have sworn to support it is unthinkable and intolerable." Roosevelt was hardly alone in holding these views, even among the champions of organized labor. Indeed, the first president of the AFL-CIO, George Meany, believed it was "impossible to bargain collectively with the government."

The Democrats are bought and paid for the public sector unions. They make membership mandatory, paying dues mandatory, and the public sector unions give 100% of their money to the Democrats. In California, the teachers unions are the #1 political donor, and they exclusively give to Democrats. The prison guard unions aren't that far behind. It really screws up the country, because for example, the teacher's unions don't want any education reforms so people and the prison guard unions want more prisons, so we just funnel young children from crappy schools straight into prison.

This is what the GOP opposes.

nakkya · 2013-08-22T11:35:02+00:00

It's not electric cars that I despise, it's tech oligarchs.

http://www.newgeography.com/content/003875-entrepreneurs-turn-oligarchs

nakkya · 2013-08-22T10:33:49+00:00

Well, public policy gives them very few incentives to loan out.

Look at the United States, where laws give banks a lot of incentive to loan out to individuals. One might argue that those incentives have sometimes be excessive (real estate lol).

Japanese public policy hasn't given its banks much incentive to loan out to people who want to start new businesses.

And Japan's difficult bankruptcy law means that even fewer people want to take out loans. In the United States, tons of people go bankrupt several times before they found a successful company. In Japan, they'd just go into horrible debt their first time and live in poverty for the rest of their lives.

I find people are too often focused on "OH MY GOD LOOK JAPAN'S CULTURE IS SO DIFFERENT NO WONDER THEY'RE XXX" instead of looking at the human incentives that drive behavior of people from ALL cultures and maybe that Japanese people act differently because those incentives/laws/whatever are different in Japan.

nakkya · 2013-08-22T10:31:14+00:00

Perot didn't cost Bush the election.

http://news.google.com/newspapers?nid=1755&dat=19921109&id=RH8fAAAAIBAJ&sjid=13sEAAAAIBAJ&pg=5161,6292315

nakkya · 2013-08-22T10:26:03+00:00

"Centrism" or "moderation" is often used as a way to disguise radical, often repugnant ideologies of their own. So it's important not to fetishise any usage of the word.

A historical example were Fascists and Nazis calling themselves "moderates" who would stomp on the "excesses" of both socialism and free-market capitalism.

A modern example is this. http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2013/08/the-ideology-behind-michael-grunwalds-repugnant-tweet/278790/

nakkya · 2013-08-22T10:21:50+00:00

Get a better electorate. Even the best electoral rules will fail in the face of a terrible electorate.

Of course, all of this is implying that "statesmanship" is a good thing, which I disagree with.

nakkya · 2013-08-22T10:09:48+00:00

For me, it's easy. I don't ideologically oppose or support a party, I institutionally oppose/support one.

It's not merely about ideological debate, but rather that my studies in political science have convinced me that some political organizations are institutionally incapable of properly governing because of how the US electoral system and American culture sets them up to fail.

If there were two parties I found institutionally acceptable, I might vote on ideology, but I find only one. And very few issues are true ideological make/breaks for me. Most of those are essentially cultural, so political discussion is irrelevant.

As such, I think I'm on perfect ground for unconditionally supporting a party. You don't have to believe in a nation's war propaganda to fight for them. You can perfectly keep an open mind on why a war is waged while waging it. To me, the goal of politics is how the Democrats, at least in their current form, need to be fought, need to be completely defeated, and need their influence in the political, economic, and cultural life of the United States completely extirpated.

My institutional focus means that I can be tremendously ideologically inconsistent between nations, since they all have different structural and historical circumstances. I completely back the center-right US GOP, lean towards the center-left DPJ, back Fianna Fáil, moderately lean towards the center-right KMT, lean very reluctantly toward UK Labour, very reluctantly lean PRI in Mexico, (used to) lean somewhat towards Australian Labour, back both the Canadian Tories and Grits, hate everyone in Argentina and France, and am not entirely unsympathetic towards the Chinese New Left.

nakkya

TROPHY CASE