What Japan’s Covid response lacked in authoritarian nastiness, it made up for in innovative stupidity. And Japan’s experts clearly put much effort into applying their breathtakingly mediocre intellects to the vexing question of how to “stop the spread” during mealtimes. For adults, their solution was mask dining.
“What Japan’s Covid response lacked in authoritarian nastiness, it made up for in innovative stupidity.”
Oh and how!
“Unless you’ve seen people voluntarily practice mask dining in real life, you have no idea how low your opinion of humanity can go.”
A more truthful statement has never been made. Witnessed this again just Saturday as I waited down town for the 10 year old to take his cram school test.
That’s said, it is painful to read this. Parts are universally true and others are or not depending upon geography, employment of other factors. Masking between bites did catch on here in the greater Tokyo area. Well, each time the bars were allowed to reopen. It remains prevalent though not universal.
Mokushok. Arrrrrrrg! After a brief respite at the end of last school year, his school has reinstated the requirement and he is still not allowed to speak during lunch time. Masks have been optional since after GW with more and more students and teachers no longer wearing them. However, as there are many kids in the 3rd grade with either flu of Covid, that grade is once again required to wear them again outside of school they are. At least the ones we have seen out and about town. But I must include this, my train just stopped above a small playground. Looking down at it and the small kids and mothers there, I see not a single mask. This, right Faucing now, at this very moment is the first time I have observed a play ground without a single mask in 3 1/2 years. But as you said, too little, too late.
I am going to print out the study, in Japanese, and send it to my kids’ schools, the city board of education and probably to all my employers, past and present that had or still have this idiotic policy.
At the start of COVID insanity, we advised the principal at our kindergarten near KIX that we didn’t want our children to wear masks. He ignored the three page letter my wife penned which described our research and conclusions. He said he had studied also and decided, "The children MUST wear masks!"
We made a call to the local health board and they said "While we recommend children wear masks, the school cannot force the children to wear them. Would you like us to call the school for you and advise them of this?" Our answer was "Yes, please!" The result? Our children never wore masks for the entire three years! They were the only ones who were maskless in the entire school.
Sadly, the night after my son's graduation last May, the young and healthy wife of the kindergarten principal went to sleep and never woke up. She died of a heart attack at 44. You can imagine what my opinion is on her cause of death. The principal was not just a proponent of masks, but vaccines and boosters, too. He didn’t bother to get an autopsy done.
I can guess who your employer is and whether it was subject to the "vaccine" mandate. I don't want you to confirm anything, but it sounds like you've resisted. Good for you--and us--that there are people like you.
Yes, we’ve resisted. As soon as there was talk of vaccinations, I contacted my CEO and told him that I would have to quit if the company mandated the vax. He wrote back in two minutes and assured me the company would not force the vax and would not discriminate against those who didn’t get the vax. He was true to his word.
Unfortunately, most Japanese employees took the company’s "suggestion" to get vaxxed as a demand. Only a few remain unjabbed.
Very painful to read this. I’m actually glad we weren’t here during the thick of COVID so I didn’t have to subject my 7 year old to these absurd requirements. And it’s just like all governments to later deny they required it.
All governments across the world need to completely boot all the entrenched career politicians and get freedom lovers in!!
Need to, but it will never happen, if for no other reason than the fact that most of us can not help but to conflate the presciptive "should" of moral ideals with the descriptive 'is' of collective human nature. Those attracted to positions of authority in large scale governance, or any concentration of power over others, tend to be more corruptible from the start.
If all the evidence of covid madness is not scrubbed then our covid era deserves rightly to become a laughing stock on how not to to manage infection (I cannot for the life of me describe it as a pandemic). I really had no idea how easy it was for humans to regress they might as well still be living in caves fighting mythical demons and sacrificing to the Gods, it is the same mentality except they substituted the invisible demons and Gods for an invisible virus. The whole thing was a lesson in futility and my regard for humans in general has greatly diminished.
Generally agree with you Amat, about humanity in general. But as for a self-selecting few, it was much more than a lesson in futility. It was a well planned power-grab and business opportunity.
The negative consequences of people who cannot think for themselves. I am willing to give up 5% of my yearly salary to put all those wearing masks into one prefecture. Tottori would be good. The Governor is a moron so it would be appropriate. They wouldn't have to work. Perhaps their activities could be streamed worldwide for all to see.
Yup. But in many ways, what appears to be incompetent or corrupt cognitive dissonance to some of us, might, from another point of view, be very well planned and largely successful.
For example, think of your accurate phrasing of "hierarchical and conformist Japan" and stand up that stool (pun intended) with a third leg ... "uncritical compliance to authority". The corporate nation-state did not embed those three legs over night.
I mentioned over beer a book or two that sheds light on this, specifically Stephen Vlastos's "Invented Traditions of Modern Japan". His "Peasant Protests and Uprisings of Tokugawa Japan" further reinforced those machiavellian tactics.
I think we both agree that sociopathy is pretty much a universal phenomenon, part of the collective human genome, and older than the ancient god-kings of Egypt. I was pleasantly surprised you could give such a succint lowdown on the work of Jonathan Haidt the last time we met. I've mentioned Dunbar's number more than once in our chats. Mathew Crawford has put an interesting spin on it ... https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/parasocial-dunbar-hacking?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
But Japan is not unique. This is no different from the current P.M. of New Zealand claiming "nobody was forced to accept the vaccines' ... unless they wanted to stay employed, shop for groceries, keep their home and kids, etc.), or a short indictment of U.S. authoritarianism ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFr5YEVr5k4
Following my 'veneer theory of culture' instinct about "Japanese exceptionalism", as you probably well know, a top-down "suggestion" following the chain-of-command of "superior orders" (see Nuremberg Defense) is merely a euphemism for 'command'.
Another all but forgotten example of this is when former P.M. Abe merely 'suggested' all national universities drop or drastically downsize their departments of journalism and social sciences. Within a week or two, over half of the national universities complied, thus proving the oxymoron of 'educational institutes'. Here is a watered-down, 'officially approved' version of this, with the 2nd paragraph particularly relevant to medical 'mandates'.
To repeat and summarize my point, maybe the guys in power are there precisely because this was never about the science, public health, education, or even personal integrity. It has always been about self-serving power. ... those might-makes-right sociopaths playing their never-ending games of thrones.
A think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. You'd think the Ministries of Health and Education would've tried to fill this important knowledge gap, but they're obviously too busy with other stuff.
I agree, and the 2 lines you quoted from Guy's article are so funny, I nearly blew my mask off laughing at them (don't worry, Duck tape and Gorilla glue held it on safely).
Maybe the government of Japan could be persuaded to fund proper studies in to the mechanism of transmission of 'Flu like illness' by randomising the introduction of different interventions in different schools and measuring the incidence of illness. Masks v regular hand washing might be a good start. But they must randomise the intervention in order to eliminate "confounders". See 'Trust the Evidence' on Substack.
They didn't do that because they knew they'd get null results for masks/mokushoku/class closures/etc. Hell, even the mokushoku paper wasn't done by the government proper; it was put out by a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, not the Ministries of Health or Education, who clearly couldn't give a toss.
Guy,
Some excellent observations right off the bat.
“What Japan’s Covid response lacked in authoritarian nastiness, it made up for in innovative stupidity.”
Oh and how!
“Unless you’ve seen people voluntarily practice mask dining in real life, you have no idea how low your opinion of humanity can go.”
A more truthful statement has never been made. Witnessed this again just Saturday as I waited down town for the 10 year old to take his cram school test.
That’s said, it is painful to read this. Parts are universally true and others are or not depending upon geography, employment of other factors. Masking between bites did catch on here in the greater Tokyo area. Well, each time the bars were allowed to reopen. It remains prevalent though not universal.
Mokushok. Arrrrrrrg! After a brief respite at the end of last school year, his school has reinstated the requirement and he is still not allowed to speak during lunch time. Masks have been optional since after GW with more and more students and teachers no longer wearing them. However, as there are many kids in the 3rd grade with either flu of Covid, that grade is once again required to wear them again outside of school they are. At least the ones we have seen out and about town. But I must include this, my train just stopped above a small playground. Looking down at it and the small kids and mothers there, I see not a single mask. This, right Faucing now, at this very moment is the first time I have observed a play ground without a single mask in 3 1/2 years. But as you said, too little, too late.
I am going to print out the study, in Japanese, and send it to my kids’ schools, the city board of education and probably to all my employers, past and present that had or still have this idiotic policy.
Thanks again.
I thought of your son's suffering while writing the post.
The paper is in English, but here's the Japanese write up https://www.rieti.go.jp/jp/publications/nts/23e068.html
Thought I replied to this. Thanks.
At the start of COVID insanity, we advised the principal at our kindergarten near KIX that we didn’t want our children to wear masks. He ignored the three page letter my wife penned which described our research and conclusions. He said he had studied also and decided, "The children MUST wear masks!"
We made a call to the local health board and they said "While we recommend children wear masks, the school cannot force the children to wear them. Would you like us to call the school for you and advise them of this?" Our answer was "Yes, please!" The result? Our children never wore masks for the entire three years! They were the only ones who were maskless in the entire school.
Sadly, the night after my son's graduation last May, the young and healthy wife of the kindergarten principal went to sleep and never woke up. She died of a heart attack at 44. You can imagine what my opinion is on her cause of death. The principal was not just a proponent of masks, but vaccines and boosters, too. He didn’t bother to get an autopsy done.
I can guess who your employer is and whether it was subject to the "vaccine" mandate. I don't want you to confirm anything, but it sounds like you've resisted. Good for you--and us--that there are people like you.
Yes, we’ve resisted. As soon as there was talk of vaccinations, I contacted my CEO and told him that I would have to quit if the company mandated the vax. He wrote back in two minutes and assured me the company would not force the vax and would not discriminate against those who didn’t get the vax. He was true to his word.
Unfortunately, most Japanese employees took the company’s "suggestion" to get vaxxed as a demand. Only a few remain unjabbed.
Very painful to read this. I’m actually glad we weren’t here during the thick of COVID so I didn’t have to subject my 7 year old to these absurd requirements. And it’s just like all governments to later deny they required it.
All governments across the world need to completely boot all the entrenched career politicians and get freedom lovers in!!
Freedom lovers in Japan are few and far between, sadly.
Need to, but it will never happen, if for no other reason than the fact that most of us can not help but to conflate the presciptive "should" of moral ideals with the descriptive 'is' of collective human nature. Those attracted to positions of authority in large scale governance, or any concentration of power over others, tend to be more corruptible from the start.
It was gross child abuse.
Not “was”, is.
Indeed.
In the UK it was always guidance although the daily briefings by the government would have made you think otherwise.
I did try and point out that it was guidance so just say 'No!'
https://baldmichael.substack.com/p/m-is-formasks
https://baldmichael.substack.com/p/g-is-forguidance
If all the evidence of covid madness is not scrubbed then our covid era deserves rightly to become a laughing stock on how not to to manage infection (I cannot for the life of me describe it as a pandemic). I really had no idea how easy it was for humans to regress they might as well still be living in caves fighting mythical demons and sacrificing to the Gods, it is the same mentality except they substituted the invisible demons and Gods for an invisible virus. The whole thing was a lesson in futility and my regard for humans in general has greatly diminished.
Generally agree with you Amat, about humanity in general. But as for a self-selecting few, it was much more than a lesson in futility. It was a well planned power-grab and business opportunity.
You are correct at its essence it was a power grab.
The negative consequences of people who cannot think for themselves. I am willing to give up 5% of my yearly salary to put all those wearing masks into one prefecture. Tottori would be good. The Governor is a moron so it would be appropriate. They wouldn't have to work. Perhaps their activities could be streamed worldwide for all to see.
I'm not sure 100+ million people will all fit in Tottori.
You are probably correct, with all the social distancing they would do. If they stood at arms length from each person, perhaps they could do it.
Yup. But in many ways, what appears to be incompetent or corrupt cognitive dissonance to some of us, might, from another point of view, be very well planned and largely successful.
For example, think of your accurate phrasing of "hierarchical and conformist Japan" and stand up that stool (pun intended) with a third leg ... "uncritical compliance to authority". The corporate nation-state did not embed those three legs over night.
I mentioned over beer a book or two that sheds light on this, specifically Stephen Vlastos's "Invented Traditions of Modern Japan". His "Peasant Protests and Uprisings of Tokugawa Japan" further reinforced those machiavellian tactics.
I think we both agree that sociopathy is pretty much a universal phenomenon, part of the collective human genome, and older than the ancient god-kings of Egypt. I was pleasantly surprised you could give such a succint lowdown on the work of Jonathan Haidt the last time we met. I've mentioned Dunbar's number more than once in our chats. Mathew Crawford has put an interesting spin on it ... https://roundingtheearth.substack.com/p/parasocial-dunbar-hacking?utm_source=substack&utm_medium=email
But Japan is not unique. This is no different from the current P.M. of New Zealand claiming "nobody was forced to accept the vaccines' ... unless they wanted to stay employed, shop for groceries, keep their home and kids, etc.), or a short indictment of U.S. authoritarianism ... https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EFr5YEVr5k4
Following my 'veneer theory of culture' instinct about "Japanese exceptionalism", as you probably well know, a top-down "suggestion" following the chain-of-command of "superior orders" (see Nuremberg Defense) is merely a euphemism for 'command'.
Another all but forgotten example of this is when former P.M. Abe merely 'suggested' all national universities drop or drastically downsize their departments of journalism and social sciences. Within a week or two, over half of the national universities complied, thus proving the oxymoron of 'educational institutes'. Here is a watered-down, 'officially approved' version of this, with the 2nd paragraph particularly relevant to medical 'mandates'.
https://www.timeshighereducation.com/blog/japan-and-social-sciences-behind-headlines
To repeat and summarize my point, maybe the guys in power are there precisely because this was never about the science, public health, education, or even personal integrity. It has always been about self-serving power. ... those might-makes-right sociopaths playing their never-ending games of thrones.
Despite it all, cheers Guy.
Too bad it took the "think tank" so long to figure out the obvious but at least it's progress!
A think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Trade and Industry. You'd think the Ministries of Health and Education would've tried to fill this important knowledge gap, but they're obviously too busy with other stuff.
"think tank" should be 'Kan't think'!
I agree, and the 2 lines you quoted from Guy's article are so funny, I nearly blew my mask off laughing at them (don't worry, Duck tape and Gorilla glue held it on safely).
I prefer to use staples to keep my mask on. It's painful at first, but nothing signals virtue better than dried blood.
Maybe the government of Japan could be persuaded to fund proper studies in to the mechanism of transmission of 'Flu like illness' by randomising the introduction of different interventions in different schools and measuring the incidence of illness. Masks v regular hand washing might be a good start. But they must randomise the intervention in order to eliminate "confounders". See 'Trust the Evidence' on Substack.
They didn't do that because they knew they'd get null results for masks/mokushoku/class closures/etc. Hell, even the mokushoku paper wasn't done by the government proper; it was put out by a think tank affiliated with the Ministry of Trade and Industry, not the Ministries of Health or Education, who clearly couldn't give a toss.
Stupid is.
As stupid does.
Um, do workers in BSL labs wear dust masks to protect themselves against contagion?
I knew the answer to that question.
Fifty years ago.
Very sad.
It takes a stupid person to make a stupid rule.
And a fool to mind it.
Do not be a stupid.
Do not be a fool.
Dismaying, and another paper to be ignored
Agree 100%!!