After reading this, I assume there must be at least 1000 complaints about me at the police station. I have gotten two in person. One on a bicycle past me from behind and reported me to the police officer on the corner. He complained that I had berated him for the face diaper. I didn't recall berating that particular "man" because it is hard to pinpoint when you do it at least 100 times a day. I wish I had more people to join me in the berating. It's a lonely road. And my throat hurts from making all the sheep noises.
Glad to see you following what's happening here in Japan. Between the sociopaths and their zombie-recruits, a few sane people can be found. Just got back from a GREAT beer / lunch chat with Kitsune and like-minded Ana. Hope to get a couple of Guys (hint-hint) in on the next one. Now if we could just divert one of those save-the-planet Davos jet flights over here with you on it, we might make one of those nearly forgotten traditions out it. What was that called? Oh, yeah. A 'party'. 😃
Yeah, I finally got round to watching it this week. Now if the EU parliament was a useful institution, it would do something to stop similar things happening again. But it isn't, so it won't.
Guy Gin, I’d like to get in touch properly. I wrote the recent article quoting you in the Daily Sceptic. I’ve been trying to get as much skeptical material into the mainstream press as possible over the last three years, with occasional success. I think we can probably help each other. I’m based in Tokyo. email me at pbp19@hotmail.com if interested.
Hi to both of you. Kitsune, Ana, and I are also in Tokyo, and just returned home from a 4 hour 'lunch' at TGIF, Ueno. Kitsune is especially well informed (and with military-medical certification involving masking) ... but our chat today spanned the gamut from divide-and-conquer identity politics to implied comparisons of Desmet and Lobaczeski regarding the dark-social dynamics underlying so much loony epiphenomenon. If you guys ever find the time to share info while socializing, there's substack, but I am also at GroundhogdayAgain@proton.me, and Kitsune has an encrypted mail account at proton as well.
If you guys have some time for beers, I'll be in Tokyo at the end of August for about a week. It would be great to get together in person and expand our network of similar-minded folks here in Japan. I will send a note to both of you - here is my email as well - dclingwall@protonmail.com
No offense intended but does every expat living in Japan produce a Substack? I subscribe to every one. I'm constantly talking to people in person about masking and related Covid issues in Japan. People look at me as if I'm insane. (Living in the Midwest USA).
Hi Jim. No offense taken. Both Kitsune and Ana said they enjoyed the conversation because among colleagues, both Japanese and Western ex-pats, so few are willing or capable of talking about this scandemic ... particularly in a land of "imposed (faux) harmony" and embedded compliance. Japan is also not a land of 2nd chances. Both Ana and I have worked with groups aiding the homeless here, and some of these guys just made a wrong move at work, lost their job ... and with losing that identity in Japanese society, many of these men's own family abandoned them. Japan is a great place to visit. But for long timers (40 years here) the "veneer theory" of culture applies well ... civilization and culture as a paper thin layer separating those few who exist only to impose their will on others, and those who depend on the rules and rituals of that veneer to navigate everyday life.
Petty office and academic politics over here are every bit as much as the dog-eat-dog mind-set in the West. There is a great book by a Japanese insider from a few years ago that explains a lot of it ... I still have a copy ... https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Juzo-Itami/dp/4770018487
I think that living and working in Japan can be quite isolating, (I did it for a year) so I understand the need for a safe place like this for open discussion. I live in Scotland now, and even here, we still have a passive majority and many people who have no energy for a fight.
The zero-COVID holdouts in the West are generally wearing high-quality masks or respirators (and all end up getting infected anyway, mind you), but it's rare to see anything other than cloth or surgical masks in Japan, which makes it completely obvious that it's not about infection control. That mentally ill man harassing the women in Sapporo had his nose hanging out from his cloth or surgical mask all the while he's shouting. Doesn't he know #COVIDIsAirborne?!
His mask is filthy too. And in answer to your question, no he probably doesn't know that. The "experts" over here didn't recognize airborne transmission until 2022, so most people still think any old dirty rag will work because it stops droplets.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, temperature will reach 35°C today, and I can see roughly 50 to 60% people are still masking outdoors. It's been three months since the government here relaxed nearly all masking requirements.
I am just speechless.
If they can manage masking under this weather, they will probably carry on for at least another decade.
Outdoor masking in suburban Tokyo is probably about 50% overall too, higher for older people and lower for younger ones. I suspect more people will unmask as the weather gets hotter, but the only thing dumber than wearing masks in the heat is wearing masks in the rain, which is still common here. How resistant to reality must you be to think wearing a soggy rag on your face will benefit your health?
My interest in Japanese culture means I read every article you write with great interest. We wore masks for the first 3 months, a long time ago. But we wore 3M rubber half face masks with two P100 cartridges that DO work. Of course we quickly realized there was no need for masks of any kind and stopped wearing those two. Unfortunately for the Japanese people wearing a mask causes one to continually rebreathe exhaled pathogens and the mask become moist inside within 5 minutes and you're now breathing through the top and sides of the mask.This applies to N95s. Splash Guards, which are given out in every US medical facility but not required to be worn, are splash guards, not masks. They were designed such that surgeons won't be splashed in the face with bodily fluids while performing surgery.
I feel so sorry for the Japanese people and despise the Japanese government the same as my own. We've been tortured and murdered and this entire project was a US DoD global dosing experiment.
Guy Gin, you're a magnificent addition to Substack!
I think I'll read it right now. I like despising my government, particularly on Wednesdays at 7am with the windows open and the cool morning air flowing through the house, a glass of ice cold water and big, fat organic blueberries that are as sweet as sugar. Glad I came and read your response. Now I'm guaranteed a wonderful day! Thank you Guy Gin, as always!
Is that a wearily optimistic conclusion? Or an optimistically weary one?
Of course there is a lot of mindless compliance and gullibility around but I still think that there are things that are worth trying to understand. For example, last week I was in a meeting with 5 other people. One other was showing her face. She spent 10-15 minutes apologizing and making up excuses. The result? All the others revealed their faces for the next two hours or so. The meeting drew to its conclusion leading to four of the others to deface in order to make the short walk to their own - private- offices. These are not stupid people but they persist in behaving stupidly. It is sad. But it’s curiously fascinating too. No?
"These are not stupid people but they persist in behaving stupidly. But it’s curiously fascinating too. No?"
Absolutely. Hell, it's one of the main reasons I'm still writing this blog. Because of the way the Japanese view non-conformist behaviour, mask-wearing is rational self-interest for many people regardless of how they personally feel about it. But that creates a large-scale coordination problem in which many people want to unmask, but daren't be the first one.
I have been in Japan (mainly Tokyo) for the last three weeks. My sense is masks are starting to fade but very, very slowly. When I arrived school children in the street were 100% masked but now it feels more 70/30. On the underground after about 10pm people seem to loosen up and it is about 50/50 maybe even a majority unmasked. Outside I think sometimes it gets close to 50% unmasked. So it is very slow but I do think there is progress. And people copy each other so maybe the tipping point is not far away.
I did have a very nice chat with a (masked) businessman on the Shinkansen. When we got onto the subject of Covid I asked him why he was still masked and he explained there was still Covid about. And when I asked for how much longer he would continue wearing a mask he just laughed and looked a bit embarrassed and didn’t answer.
The other day I went to a children's (sumo) event in which my daughter was participating. The event was held inside a gymnasium. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that more than half the crowd was not masked. There were very few masked staff members. Of the two hundred kids (aged 6 to 8) taking part in the event, only two were masked. There was a festival outside, in front of the gymnasium. Hardly anyone was wearing a mask. In the park next door, where we went to play with the kids, almost all the parents and their children were not wearing masks.
The most masked population in Japan is middle and high school students. It's quite depressing because they can't take off their masks at all. They're too psychologically scarred to do so.
We went for a picnic with a friend and her children. She wasn't masked and neither were her children. When we went to the supermarket to do some shopping, she took out her mask, but immediately gave up wearing it because my wife and I weren't masked. When I saw that, I said to myself that from now on I was going to encourage people close to us to stop wearing masks.
We have to act; we don't really have a choice anymore. We have to take the lead, show courage, otherwise nothing will change.
Yep. That Mass Formation Psychosis thingy. But in our chat today, one thing we agreed on is that corporate nation-state achieved its goal with the NPIs. Even though Japan is already a heavily authoritarian-compliant culture, (therefore less violence was necessary than could be found in Australia or Canada), the predatory class managed to nudge the sheeple through fear into such non-science and nonsense, that the next fear-driven nudge will be even more 'efficient'. Just waiting for the hammer to drop.
Do you think it's even more crazy in Japan because people have used masks and gloves in the past? ( Is there a history there? I don't know I just remember being there for a bit in the 90s and some people wore masks or gloves). In Australia the fear campaign worked brilliantly and the same reason 'Covid is still around' is used by quite a few people. My mum was speaking with a 90yo friend in a retirement home and she won't go and have a cup of tea in someone else's unit now because 'Covid is still around'. So sad.
JMHO, but among other classes, I used to teach comparative culture in Japanese colleges. I don't know if it is 'more crazy' but the Anna Karenina Principle seems to be at work here. Cultures (rather than Corporate Nation-States) can be compared to families, each similar in their successful strategies of dealing with social dynamics, and each unique in its dysfunctions.
But the co-ordinated sociopathy behind this plandemic was not something I had anticipated, and Laura Dodsworth's book "A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic" helped me get a handle on it ... particularly through the lens of behaviorist psychology.
but out of curiosity, just ran a question through GPT4 about surveys of cultural comparison and got the following ...
"Comparative surveys of cultural values, such as egalitarianism and authoritarianism, can provide valuable insights into the diverse ways of thinking and behaving in different societies. Here are some noteworthy cross-cultural surveys and research projects:
World Values Survey (WVS): The WVS is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and their social and political impact. It covers a broad array of topics such as democracy, religion, gender equality, and the environment.
European Social Survey (ESS): The ESS is an academically driven cross-national survey conducted every two years across Europe. Its measures of egalitarianism and authoritarianism are used widely in social science research. While it's more regionally focused than the WVS, its methodology is thorough, and its findings can provide a useful contrast with non-European societies.
Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory: Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, developed this influential theory of cultural dimensions. It includes measures of power distance (which relates to attitudes towards hierarchy and authority) and individualism vs. collectivism (which can influence attitudes towards equality and rights). Though Hofstede's model has been subject to various criticisms, it continues to be widely used in cross-cultural studies.
Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values: Shalom H. Schwartz, an Israeli social psychologist, proposed a set of universal values that can be used to describe cultural differences. His model includes measures of hierarchy and egalitarianism.
GLOBE Study: The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project is a large-scale study of cultural values, leadership behaviors, and organizational practices in more than 60 societies. Its measures include power distance and in-group collectivism.
These surveys and studies all have their strengths and limitations, so it's important to use them judiciously and critically. It's also important to remember that cultural values are complex and multifaceted, and cannot be fully captured by any single measure or index."
Still trying to figure a lot of this out, and not liking what I am seeing about the nature of the small percentage of sociopaths pushing the disruption, and the large majority of people falling for it.
Thanks! Lots to chew on there. I have been meaning to read Laura Dodsworth's book, she was one of the first brave ones to get a book out if I remember correctly.
YES! I love that book. She showed she was willing to put in the persistent legwork to follow up legitimate questions for those bureaucrats and behaviorist psychologists making their nefarious plans.
Off the top of my head, my only critique is that I can't remember if she had given a good background on the post-Nuremberg behaviorist experiments of Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram ... especially the Milgram experiment. And to a lesser extent (some questionable research practice), Philip Zimbardo. But then again, the book would have been much longer and less accessible to the target audience.
Maybe those who go abroad on a trip and witness that nobody wears a mask will lead the way when they return to Japan? The other possibility is it's a stinking hot summer and people get fed up with being unable to breathe properly. Oh to dream!
For our part here in rural Hiroshima, things are slowly becoming more and more 'full-smile visible'.
We just had our daughter's sports festival last Sunday, and unexpectedly positive sights were everywhere. No teachers masked, only one student masked (out of about 50 children), and perhaps 10 percent of the couple hundred or so family and friends were masked. My wife and I (who have been unmasked for the entire scamdemic) were happily surprised for the first time in a while. On regular school days, my daughter's grade 1 class has no more masked children (6 students) and an unmasked teacher (not sure about the other classes).
Here at the university (agricultural campus, where they allegedly understand both the chemistry and physics of molecular/particle movement), where I have been battling everybody as the only unmasked person these past three years, the blindly compliant, disturbingly-weak professors are still about 70 to 80% masked, with the students at somewhere around 60%. Thankfully in my classes, the number of masked students is down to about 20 to 30% - depending on the class. Granted, my class has been the one acceptable 'mask-free' place on campus during the scamdemic (at least for the dozen-or-so times I have been able to get away with in-person classes prior to April).
Have a great weekend, and all the best for an evermore mask-free Kanto region!
I fell in love when I was over there while in the military and studied/used the language a little bit. It would have been nice to settle down over there but now it looks like I dodged a bullet.
After reading this, I assume there must be at least 1000 complaints about me at the police station. I have gotten two in person. One on a bicycle past me from behind and reported me to the police officer on the corner. He complained that I had berated him for the face diaper. I didn't recall berating that particular "man" because it is hard to pinpoint when you do it at least 100 times a day. I wish I had more people to join me in the berating. It's a lonely road. And my throat hurts from making all the sheep noises.
Keep up the good work, Guy Gin.
Thank you for standing against the mask.
Likewise. It's a dirty job but I am glad I am not alone in the fight. Keep on rockin'.
I am glad that I am not alone, too. Cheers!
Hi Transcriber,
Glad to see you following what's happening here in Japan. Between the sociopaths and their zombie-recruits, a few sane people can be found. Just got back from a GREAT beer / lunch chat with Kitsune and like-minded Ana. Hope to get a couple of Guys (hint-hint) in on the next one. Now if we could just divert one of those save-the-planet Davos jet flights over here with you on it, we might make one of those nearly forgotten traditions out it. What was that called? Oh, yeah. A 'party'. 😃
Great article.
Have you watched the video of Dr David Martin talking at the UE about the origin of Covid ? That’s a fucking MOAB.
In sum : Covid has been created 56 years ago ; the Pfizer vaccine in 1990, etc…
Must watch !
https://rumble.com/v2qfnt0-i-am-in-shock-this-really-just-happened-dr.-david-martin-exposes-the-actual.html
Yeah, I finally got round to watching it this week. Now if the EU parliament was a useful institution, it would do something to stop similar things happening again. But it isn't, so it won't.
Guy Gin, I’d like to get in touch properly. I wrote the recent article quoting you in the Daily Sceptic. I’ve been trying to get as much skeptical material into the mainstream press as possible over the last three years, with occasional success. I think we can probably help each other. I’m based in Tokyo. email me at pbp19@hotmail.com if interested.
Just emailed you. Hopefully it didn’t go straight to your spam folder.
Hi to both of you. Kitsune, Ana, and I are also in Tokyo, and just returned home from a 4 hour 'lunch' at TGIF, Ueno. Kitsune is especially well informed (and with military-medical certification involving masking) ... but our chat today spanned the gamut from divide-and-conquer identity politics to implied comparisons of Desmet and Lobaczeski regarding the dark-social dynamics underlying so much loony epiphenomenon. If you guys ever find the time to share info while socializing, there's substack, but I am also at GroundhogdayAgain@proton.me, and Kitsune has an encrypted mail account at proton as well.
Just emailed you now.
Hi Steve, Phil, and Guy,
If you guys have some time for beers, I'll be in Tokyo at the end of August for about a week. It would be great to get together in person and expand our network of similar-minded folks here in Japan. I will send a note to both of you - here is my email as well - dclingwall@protonmail.com
(btw, I am already in contact with Kitsune)
Have a good one, guys.
Cheers,
Dion
Cool. Let's hope we can meet up.
No offense intended but does every expat living in Japan produce a Substack? I subscribe to every one. I'm constantly talking to people in person about masking and related Covid issues in Japan. People look at me as if I'm insane. (Living in the Midwest USA).
LOL,
Hi Jim. No offense taken. Both Kitsune and Ana said they enjoyed the conversation because among colleagues, both Japanese and Western ex-pats, so few are willing or capable of talking about this scandemic ... particularly in a land of "imposed (faux) harmony" and embedded compliance. Japan is also not a land of 2nd chances. Both Ana and I have worked with groups aiding the homeless here, and some of these guys just made a wrong move at work, lost their job ... and with losing that identity in Japanese society, many of these men's own family abandoned them. Japan is a great place to visit. But for long timers (40 years here) the "veneer theory" of culture applies well ... civilization and culture as a paper thin layer separating those few who exist only to impose their will on others, and those who depend on the rules and rituals of that veneer to navigate everyday life.
Petty office and academic politics over here are every bit as much as the dog-eat-dog mind-set in the West. There is a great book by a Japanese insider from a few years ago that explains a lot of it ... I still have a copy ... https://www.amazon.co.jp/-/en/Juzo-Itami/dp/4770018487
Cheers Jim!
I think that living and working in Japan can be quite isolating, (I did it for a year) so I understand the need for a safe place like this for open discussion. I live in Scotland now, and even here, we still have a passive majority and many people who have no energy for a fight.
The zero-COVID holdouts in the West are generally wearing high-quality masks or respirators (and all end up getting infected anyway, mind you), but it's rare to see anything other than cloth or surgical masks in Japan, which makes it completely obvious that it's not about infection control. That mentally ill man harassing the women in Sapporo had his nose hanging out from his cloth or surgical mask all the while he's shouting. Doesn't he know #COVIDIsAirborne?!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oSf4H3CM-CM
His mask is filthy too. And in answer to your question, no he probably doesn't know that. The "experts" over here didn't recognize airborne transmission until 2022, so most people still think any old dirty rag will work because it stops droplets.
Meanwhile in Hong Kong, temperature will reach 35°C today, and I can see roughly 50 to 60% people are still masking outdoors. It's been three months since the government here relaxed nearly all masking requirements.
I am just speechless.
If they can manage masking under this weather, they will probably carry on for at least another decade.
Outdoor masking in suburban Tokyo is probably about 50% overall too, higher for older people and lower for younger ones. I suspect more people will unmask as the weather gets hotter, but the only thing dumber than wearing masks in the heat is wearing masks in the rain, which is still common here. How resistant to reality must you be to think wearing a soggy rag on your face will benefit your health?
My interest in Japanese culture means I read every article you write with great interest. We wore masks for the first 3 months, a long time ago. But we wore 3M rubber half face masks with two P100 cartridges that DO work. Of course we quickly realized there was no need for masks of any kind and stopped wearing those two. Unfortunately for the Japanese people wearing a mask causes one to continually rebreathe exhaled pathogens and the mask become moist inside within 5 minutes and you're now breathing through the top and sides of the mask.This applies to N95s. Splash Guards, which are given out in every US medical facility but not required to be worn, are splash guards, not masks. They were designed such that surgeons won't be splashed in the face with bodily fluids while performing surgery.
I feel so sorry for the Japanese people and despise the Japanese government the same as my own. We've been tortured and murdered and this entire project was a US DoD global dosing experiment.
Guy Gin, you're a magnificent addition to Substack!
Peace & Love,
JP
Thanks as always. If you want to despise your government even more, here's a good article from two weeks ago ICYMI. https://www.theamericanconservative.com/our-man-in-tokyo/
I think I'll read it right now. I like despising my government, particularly on Wednesdays at 7am with the windows open and the cool morning air flowing through the house, a glass of ice cold water and big, fat organic blueberries that are as sweet as sugar. Glad I came and read your response. Now I'm guaranteed a wonderful day! Thank you Guy Gin, as always!
Peace & Love,
JP
Is that a wearily optimistic conclusion? Or an optimistically weary one?
Of course there is a lot of mindless compliance and gullibility around but I still think that there are things that are worth trying to understand. For example, last week I was in a meeting with 5 other people. One other was showing her face. She spent 10-15 minutes apologizing and making up excuses. The result? All the others revealed their faces for the next two hours or so. The meeting drew to its conclusion leading to four of the others to deface in order to make the short walk to their own - private- offices. These are not stupid people but they persist in behaving stupidly. It is sad. But it’s curiously fascinating too. No?
"These are not stupid people but they persist in behaving stupidly. But it’s curiously fascinating too. No?"
Absolutely. Hell, it's one of the main reasons I'm still writing this blog. Because of the way the Japanese view non-conformist behaviour, mask-wearing is rational self-interest for many people regardless of how they personally feel about it. But that creates a large-scale coordination problem in which many people want to unmask, but daren't be the first one.
I have been in Japan (mainly Tokyo) for the last three weeks. My sense is masks are starting to fade but very, very slowly. When I arrived school children in the street were 100% masked but now it feels more 70/30. On the underground after about 10pm people seem to loosen up and it is about 50/50 maybe even a majority unmasked. Outside I think sometimes it gets close to 50% unmasked. So it is very slow but I do think there is progress. And people copy each other so maybe the tipping point is not far away.
I did have a very nice chat with a (masked) businessman on the Shinkansen. When we got onto the subject of Covid I asked him why he was still masked and he explained there was still Covid about. And when I asked for how much longer he would continue wearing a mask he just laughed and looked a bit embarrassed and didn’t answer.
I agree with you.
The other day I went to a children's (sumo) event in which my daughter was participating. The event was held inside a gymnasium. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that more than half the crowd was not masked. There were very few masked staff members. Of the two hundred kids (aged 6 to 8) taking part in the event, only two were masked. There was a festival outside, in front of the gymnasium. Hardly anyone was wearing a mask. In the park next door, where we went to play with the kids, almost all the parents and their children were not wearing masks.
The most masked population in Japan is middle and high school students. It's quite depressing because they can't take off their masks at all. They're too psychologically scarred to do so.
We went for a picnic with a friend and her children. She wasn't masked and neither were her children. When we went to the supermarket to do some shopping, she took out her mask, but immediately gave up wearing it because my wife and I weren't masked. When I saw that, I said to myself that from now on I was going to encourage people close to us to stop wearing masks.
We have to act; we don't really have a choice anymore. We have to take the lead, show courage, otherwise nothing will change.
re: "We have to take the lead, show courage, otherwise nothing will change. "
Yes, I see it this way, too.
Maybe it just needs to hit a tipping point.
Yep. That Mass Formation Psychosis thingy. But in our chat today, one thing we agreed on is that corporate nation-state achieved its goal with the NPIs. Even though Japan is already a heavily authoritarian-compliant culture, (therefore less violence was necessary than could be found in Australia or Canada), the predatory class managed to nudge the sheeple through fear into such non-science and nonsense, that the next fear-driven nudge will be even more 'efficient'. Just waiting for the hammer to drop.
Do you think it's even more crazy in Japan because people have used masks and gloves in the past? ( Is there a history there? I don't know I just remember being there for a bit in the 90s and some people wore masks or gloves). In Australia the fear campaign worked brilliantly and the same reason 'Covid is still around' is used by quite a few people. My mum was speaking with a 90yo friend in a retirement home and she won't go and have a cup of tea in someone else's unit now because 'Covid is still around'. So sad.
Hi LL,
JMHO, but among other classes, I used to teach comparative culture in Japanese colleges. I don't know if it is 'more crazy' but the Anna Karenina Principle seems to be at work here. Cultures (rather than Corporate Nation-States) can be compared to families, each similar in their successful strategies of dealing with social dynamics, and each unique in its dysfunctions.
But the co-ordinated sociopathy behind this plandemic was not something I had anticipated, and Laura Dodsworth's book "A State of Fear: How the UK government weaponised fear during the Covid-19 pandemic" helped me get a handle on it ... particularly through the lens of behaviorist psychology.
I used "Hofstede's Cultural Dimension Theory" as a starting point in the course, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hofstede%27s_cultural_dimensions_theory
but out of curiosity, just ran a question through GPT4 about surveys of cultural comparison and got the following ...
"Comparative surveys of cultural values, such as egalitarianism and authoritarianism, can provide valuable insights into the diverse ways of thinking and behaving in different societies. Here are some noteworthy cross-cultural surveys and research projects:
World Values Survey (WVS): The WVS is a global research project that explores people's values and beliefs, how they change over time, and their social and political impact. It covers a broad array of topics such as democracy, religion, gender equality, and the environment.
European Social Survey (ESS): The ESS is an academically driven cross-national survey conducted every two years across Europe. Its measures of egalitarianism and authoritarianism are used widely in social science research. While it's more regionally focused than the WVS, its methodology is thorough, and its findings can provide a useful contrast with non-European societies.
Hofstede's Cultural Dimensions Theory: Geert Hofstede, a Dutch social psychologist, developed this influential theory of cultural dimensions. It includes measures of power distance (which relates to attitudes towards hierarchy and authority) and individualism vs. collectivism (which can influence attitudes towards equality and rights). Though Hofstede's model has been subject to various criticisms, it continues to be widely used in cross-cultural studies.
Schwartz's Theory of Basic Human Values: Shalom H. Schwartz, an Israeli social psychologist, proposed a set of universal values that can be used to describe cultural differences. His model includes measures of hierarchy and egalitarianism.
GLOBE Study: The Global Leadership and Organizational Behavior Effectiveness (GLOBE) project is a large-scale study of cultural values, leadership behaviors, and organizational practices in more than 60 societies. Its measures include power distance and in-group collectivism.
These surveys and studies all have their strengths and limitations, so it's important to use them judiciously and critically. It's also important to remember that cultural values are complex and multifaceted, and cannot be fully captured by any single measure or index."
Still trying to figure a lot of this out, and not liking what I am seeing about the nature of the small percentage of sociopaths pushing the disruption, and the large majority of people falling for it.
Despite it all, Cheers LL
Thanks! Lots to chew on there. I have been meaning to read Laura Dodsworth's book, she was one of the first brave ones to get a book out if I remember correctly.
YES! I love that book. She showed she was willing to put in the persistent legwork to follow up legitimate questions for those bureaucrats and behaviorist psychologists making their nefarious plans.
Off the top of my head, my only critique is that I can't remember if she had given a good background on the post-Nuremberg behaviorist experiments of Solomon Asch and Stanley Milgram ... especially the Milgram experiment. And to a lesser extent (some questionable research practice), Philip Zimbardo. But then again, the book would have been much longer and less accessible to the target audience.
Yes, in Japan in the 1970's I often saw people wearing masks when they had a cold.
Maybe those who go abroad on a trip and witness that nobody wears a mask will lead the way when they return to Japan? The other possibility is it's a stinking hot summer and people get fed up with being unable to breathe properly. Oh to dream!
Part of the problem may be that the number of Japanese going overseas is still only a third of what it was pre-pandemic: https://twitter.com/profjonny/status/1662245061982146560
It doesn't escape everyone's notice that the rest of the world has moved on, though: https://twitter.com/sxzBST/status/1637978335295725568
Hi Guy Gin,
Thanks for the update, fella. Great work always!
For our part here in rural Hiroshima, things are slowly becoming more and more 'full-smile visible'.
We just had our daughter's sports festival last Sunday, and unexpectedly positive sights were everywhere. No teachers masked, only one student masked (out of about 50 children), and perhaps 10 percent of the couple hundred or so family and friends were masked. My wife and I (who have been unmasked for the entire scamdemic) were happily surprised for the first time in a while. On regular school days, my daughter's grade 1 class has no more masked children (6 students) and an unmasked teacher (not sure about the other classes).
Here at the university (agricultural campus, where they allegedly understand both the chemistry and physics of molecular/particle movement), where I have been battling everybody as the only unmasked person these past three years, the blindly compliant, disturbingly-weak professors are still about 70 to 80% masked, with the students at somewhere around 60%. Thankfully in my classes, the number of masked students is down to about 20 to 30% - depending on the class. Granted, my class has been the one acceptable 'mask-free' place on campus during the scamdemic (at least for the dozen-or-so times I have been able to get away with in-person classes prior to April).
Have a great weekend, and all the best for an evermore mask-free Kanto region!
Oh wow.
I fell in love when I was over there while in the military and studied/used the language a little bit. It would have been nice to settle down over there but now it looks like I dodged a bullet.
Wow!