a few cultural differences

grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
padraig (u.s.) said:
let's be clear. if you want to talk about deconstruction in terms of the politics of science - what gets funded, the overall flow of scientific research - then fine.
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Anyone got any thoughts/info on this? It's a subject I'd like to know more about.
 
nomadthethird

nomadthethird

more issues than Time mag
grizzleb said:
Anyone got any thoughts/info on this? It's a subject I'd like to know more about.
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I could write volumes on it, I wrote grants for one of the big biomedical research institutions-- one with an endowment of over $1 billion.

I know all about the politics of fundraising and how it affects science, and, fancy this, I still think naturalist epistemology beats wild speculation any day of the week.
 
grizzleb

grizzleb

Well-known member
Cheers for all that information there. I wasn't having a go at science, just curious.
 
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S

scottdisco

rip this joint please
The number of suicides in Japan rose to nearly 33,000 in 2009, a police survey showed Thursday, citing depression and economic hardships for the upturn.
The National Police Agency said the number of Japanese suicides was 32,845 last year, up 1.8 per cent compared to the year before and topping 30,000 for the 12th consecutive year. The 2009 figure was also the fifth-highest since 1978, when statistics were first compiled. The record high was 34,427 suicides in 2003.
Japan has long battled a high suicide rate. The country's suicide rate of 24.4 per 100,000 people ranked the second-highest among the Group of Eight leading industrialized nations after Russia's 30.1, according to the World Health Organization.
Men accounted for nearly 72 per cent of Japan's suicides last year, with depression and economic struggles, including losing jobs, being cited among the top reasons for suicides, the survey showed.
Japan's economy — the world's second-largest — fell into its worst recession since World War II in early 2009 amid a global economic downturn. The nation's jobless rate hit a record high of 5.7 per cent in July 2009.
The suicide rate was the highest among those in their 50s and 60s, the survey said.
While the number of Japan's suicides climbed in 2009, the government said there were encouraging signs seen from late last year. The Cabinet Office said the number of monthly suicides declined year-on-year between September 2009 and April 2010.
Japan will allocate a budget worth 12.4 billion yen ($133 million) in the current fiscal year to March 2011 in a bid to curb suicide rates. The government will fund public counselling for people saddled with massive debts and treatment for depression.
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here
 
Mr. Tea

Mr. Tea

Let's Talk About Ceps
The rise in unemployment must be pretty significant there - I should imagine a country with a work ethic like Japan's attaches a good deal of stigma to being jobless.
 
matt b

matt b

Indexing all opinion
Mr. Tea said:
The rise in unemployment must be pretty significant there - I should imagine a country with a work ethic like Japan's attaches a good deal of stigma to being jobless.
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There have been reports in the past of salary men not telling their family that they've been fired and continuing to pretend to go to work.

All about shame/keeping face.
 
M

mistersloane

heavy heavy monster sound
matt b said:
There have been reports in the past of salary men not telling their family that they've been fired and continuing to pretend to go to work.

All about shame/keeping face.
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Kiyoshi Kurosawa did a fucking masterpiece of a film about that, 'Tokyo Sonata', truly great, one of the best films I seen in years.
 
C

comelately

Wild Horses
Michael Douglas' character in Falling Down (1993) has also been pretending to go to work after being fired, effectively committing suicide in the end. That's based in LA. I'm just saying.

Although I agree with a lot of what nomad has to say, particularly regarding people studying more science and maths, and although I'm probably not doing myself any favours here - isn't a key message of The Wire that 'all the pieces matter' and that capitalism fucks up everything because it's continually causing people to ignore significant (to the viewer) contingencies?

There is a certain irony to the statement "It's an utterly asinine non-point to make and it's only ever made to shut down discussion". I don't think pomo critique was a particulaly artful thing to bring up in the context of the original discussion, but I'm not convinced that pleading the case for caring loving attention is necessarily asinine, though I would hesitate to say it is a 'point'.
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
ok here is one.

often children age 11 to 18 attend the same school in Berlin. and apparently there is ZERO bullying: the older kids leave the young ones alone completely, and is only there to help if it's needed.

this is completely baffling to me, someone who was living in America between age 11 and 18 -- name calling, make fun of clothes/hair/name/ethnicity, wedgies, tape "kick me" notes on the back, take lunch money, pushing, tripping, punching, and good old beat downs -- all usual, everyday occurances in US schools, where there is almost never more than 4 years age difference.

how is it in England? i bet the bullying is relentless.

i suppose any real exploration of causes for these huge differences would take up volumes... but still, why do you think that is? why is bullying just a normal part of growing up in the US, and is not here, at all?
 
Z

zhao

there are no accidents
nochexxx said:
am i right in thinking that it's rude to make eye contact in Japanese culture ?
that's quite the opposite here in the western world.
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now i find it rude when someone don't look me in the eye while toasting... this is for sure one of the euro customs i quite like.
 
swears

swears

preppy-kei
zhao said:
how is it in England? i bet the bullying is relentless.
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I think it just depends. My primary school had it a little bit, but in my secondary nobody really bothered apart from the odd snide remark. It was a grammar where everybody was quite academic and focused on work, though. Obviously, I imagine there are schools where it may well be "relentless".
 
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