[toyg]

I think it goes lost that my original comment said "an" essential cause, not "the" cause. Obviously social systems are complex creatures, and isolating a factor does not mean excluding all the other ones.

> Japan was a very aggressive empire not even two generations ago

Aggressive externally but peaceful internally, which is really what we're talking about. Probably as a reaction to centuries of brutal internal warfare, since Meiji internal cohesion has been emphasized above most other things, and it has held in a way that we've not yet seen in Europe on a comparable scale.

> Germany

Interesting mention, because German practices and values were among the most significant ones "imported" under Meiji; Germany had recently made a massive social and technological leap forward, precisely the sort of thing the Japanese wanted to make (and did make), and Germans were extremely self-assured. However, Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism, like the rest of Europe, and various factions were soon clashing in the streets in the name of various ideologies, with the result we all know. I think a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization: German movements have been very, very bitey, before and after the various recent conflicts, producing (and exporting) terrorists and disruptors pretty regularly.

[rglullis]

> Obviously social systems are complex creatures, and isolating a factor does not mean excluding all the other ones.

Yet here you are, defending the idea that we would be better off by leaning heavier into bureaucracy and collective compliance as a way to "internal" peace.

> Germany lies on a cultural bedrock of fundamental individualism (...) a lot of Germans would find your "bite-less protesting" as a mischaracterization.

Great. Now try to explain Switzerland. They are not exactly known for a "love of bureaucracy" or "the (national) collective taking precedence over the individual", yet they managed to get peace (internal and external) through centuries.

Do you see my point? You are trying to attribute to "bureaucracy" something that can be attributed to a bunch of other things. It is a bad generalization and a basic fundamental attribution error. This is what smells of IYI crap.

[toyg]

> defending the idea that we would be better off by leaning heavier into bureaucracy

I think you're projecting a lot, trying to put words in my mouth and being unnecessarily aggressive.

I've been very careful not to make any judgement of superiority of this or that system throughout this thread. I pointed out several times that the Japanese experience is very unique, and in many ways probably and fundamentally unaccessible to us in the West. "We" cannot be "better off" doing this or that because "we" are not Japan; they seem to have found a formula that works for them, and it's interesting to note how the various elements interconnect in such formula. One of those elements is the somewhat-ritualized bureaucracy, and my point is that it seems to contribute significantly to the success of that model in those circumstances. Obviously I'm not advocating mindlessly trying to replicate that elsewhere, nor am I stating that bureacracy is a necessary condition for social peace - this is just a strawman you are erecting for your own personal reasons.

> Great. Now try to explain Switzerland.

Did you even read my posts above? Scale is important when comparing such systems, and I was very careful to caveat my statements on this throughout, because I knew somebody would eventually bring up Denmark, Norway, or, well, Switzerland.

The Swiss Federation contains barely 9m people, with 211 p/sqm; Japan has 125m, with 333 p/sqm. Obviously we are talking about different orders of magnitude. It's not terribly difficult to get a block assembly to agree on something (still not easy!), but getting the whole city to agree on anything is a different ballgame.

> This is what smells of IYI crap.

Any chance you could drop the gratuitous insults?

[rglullis]

> I think you're projecting a lot,

Am I?

I remember past conversations with you where you claimed that EU's bureaucracy should get credit for changes that would've happened naturally on the market. Here as well you are arguing that bureaucracy is the reason to Japan's "peace", when there are plenty of possible alternative answers.

Just as an example, you could have at least try to attribute Japanese/Scandinavian/Swiss "peace" to the relative homogeneity of their populations and their cultural oikophilia (which gets often mistaken for xenophobia). It would be a much simpler explanation for the commonalities among different people, independently of scale and independently of any silly distinction between "external" and "internal" aggressiveness.

But instead of just considering Occam's razor, you start with a conclusion and then you try to build a narrative that gives some kind of support to it.