He’s saying what you’re attributing to “a specific lack of willpower” now has scientific backing that disagrees. Your take is old school and misinformed if the current science is correct. I personally haven’t done research on the subject or read many studies but Adam Ragusea, a YouTube food science journalist covers this concept in one of his vids and several podcasts surrounding food science and (in my case) the drugs coming down the pipeline to regulate body weight touch on the research as well.

If housing is an investment (“a nest egg”) then the people and policies that support it as an investment will stand directly opposed to people and policies that want housing to be affordable and a right.

Housing cannot be an investment vehicle akin to stocks in a society that meaningfully values housing for everyone as an objective to strive for.

It’s just a weird concept in general despite being wholly believable. I don’t blame you nor think you’re wrong or right. Just a hilarious and sad picture, a societies main hall for political dialogue being an endless feed of algorithmically addicting content. Idk, just a boring dystopia kinda thing.

Oof, if Instagram’s comment section is where we’re having political discussions these days that’s disheartening. There’s clearly a need for a town square application for these sorta things.

This is such a shame. I just moved to Germany and I haven’t had much time to engage in politics but it seems a fundamental misunderstanding of the solutions we need is still present here (possibly with the help of destabilizing countries like Russia or China who seem to have strong misinformation campaigns running online).

Guess I need to accelerate getting involved with my local politics as soon as possible. What social platforms do Germans use to communicate about politics? I used to post on Facebook for Americans, and obviously reddit was a good place to have small conversations, but is there any place I can directly address conservative talking points in a public forum. The fact that young people are voting far right tells me we’re losing the digital battle more than anything.

I’m swapping to Linux finally because of it. Few things are black and white but these things do have effects and some additional percentage of users are shifting over because of it.

Surely if that statistic is true it can’t mean that on average after solar panels are installed people are taking more energy from the grid. I imagine it’s also pretty easy to single out individual groups, like software engineers or something, who on average might use more electricity or reverse that and say people who use more electricity on average are more likely to get solar panels installed.

I only bring this up because sustainable energy initiatives, even individuals installing a handful of panels, should be praised. There’s nothing better we can do right now than clean up our energy generation (and maybe go vegetarian? Lol).

This was a fantastic read and is getting me to move over to 7zip from .rar at least. Thanks for posting!

Add in an office for a publicly owned rail system.

I think part of convenience is name brand recognition. I don’t know how you took a heartfelt compliment and made it hostile, but the reality is I grew up knowing what Google was and using it as a verb. Gmail was an obvious and convenient tool to pickup.

I just found out about Protonmail, or at least heard of it for the first time that it broke the barrier of not-caring into carrying. I imagine user numbers reflect that pretty readily.

That’s all I’m saying. I’m not saying Protonmail is worse in anyway, please don’t assume I am. It’s okay to like a product and admit it’s flaws, in this case the only flaw I’m suggesting it has is being less known than Gmail and even then only for me and my small corner of the world.

Thank you for this recommendation, I’ll look into switching. It’s a slow process of moving towards less convenient but more private services but your comment has moved the needle for me at least.

My last Japan trip was 4 or 5 years back and spent time in multiple big cities with an express train pass. I think I budgeted a grand for the flight, a grand in food and hotel and spending a week. But with inflation being what it is I’d want to rerun the numbers based off of what flights and hotel/hostels I could find and assume 1k for just food and fun per week. I think there are active data sheets online that talk about the average cost of eating out in Japan right now.

You want to visit for “a few weeks” so I’d say plan for 2k + flight + hotel/hostel + train tickets/pass. I’d bet you spend less than 4k total for that time.

I like to visit 1 major city every 4-7 days, I normally do travel in, 5 days, travel out. So two weeks would let me see 2 major cities and a couple day trips or 3 shorter stays at 3 major places. Some cities are cheaper than others which is something to consider and how you eat out also dictates your budget more than anything. You could eat in Tokyo for dollars a day at gas stations or you could splurge on sashimi every night and find yourself burning money by the fist full.

I’m a big foodie so that’s where the 1k per week comes from.

Without data, take media reports as sensational by necessity. France’s problems may not be as bad as they seem (I would assume they’re not) and France’s problems don’t automatically translate to other countries like Japan.

To wrap this back around to your main post, travelling to Japan shouldn’t induce fear at any step. It’s a safe country with low crime rates and few health problems for tourists.

This is a great write up, thanks for sharing!

Again, don’t be. I don’t have data off the top of my head, but I’d wager Japan has shockingly few cases of bed bugs in their tourist sector.

“Most countries” is a hell of a stretch in my opinion. I’ve traveled to something close to 20 popular countries and only needed a visa for China when visiting, Singapore when studying, and Germany when moving there.

Here’s the official list and I’d wager a guess that more than 75% of native US Tourist Traffic goes to these countries.

You shouldn’t be scared of hotels. If you’re getting a reasonable room you’ll have an entirely normal experience. If you cheap out, then you are taking a risk in exchange for money.

But if you’re going to travel internationally, you should default to not afraid. It is by and large safe out there. Be smart, but not media-sensitized.

Like I said, it’s got pros and cons. Hotels are good too.

Hey, this is an exciting first step in planning your trip. I’m 27 and have traveled a lot on my own and with friends, if you need any advice or have any questions feel free to PM me.

1. Get your passport - this let’s you leave your country and enter others. Depending on your country you may need to get a visa but assuming you come from the US you don’t need a Visa (if a passport let’s you enter into your native country, a Visa let’s you enter and stay in a foreign country under certain conditions).
2. Book a flight through something like Google flights, no need to go through any company besides the airline’s.
3. Book housing - if you’re going alone and packing light I would highly recommend a hostel. Hostels are shared rooms where you sleep in the same room, share bathrooms, etc. If you’re a light sleeper you may not like this, it will cause you to interact with other tourists which can be a pro or a con, and when you leave stuff in your room It’ll need a lock (no issues in my experience but I also wouldn’t bring 2 grand of electronics and lock them in the room). The main benefit is it’s cheaper for individuals. Eastern hostel culture is way better than western, and Japan has some of the best in my experience.
4. Pack your stuff. You need clothes, but you can do laundry there if that interests you so you don’t need too many clothes. You need a way to get japanese currency. My card let’s me pull money out of international ATMs, you can also bring US dollars and convert it there in the airport, but Japan mostly takes card in my experience.

That’s the bare necessity. I got to stop now but like I said, I’d love to help past that.

Depending on where you’re going transportation can be handled entirely by public transit. Don’t get a car.

I moved to Germany from the US this year. There is subsidized public transit, universal healthcare, minimum vacation time, a heavy union culture, strong renter-favored laws (although capitalist for profit housing is still an ever growing plague).

As others pointed out, the terminology isn’t a great tool for debate without an agree upon definition. But yes, I would move to a country that cared about people over profits.