This weekly roundup thread is intended for all culture war posts. 'Culture war' is vaguely defined, but it basically means controversial issues that fall along set tribal lines. Arguments over culture war issues generate a lot of heat and little light, and few deeply entrenched people ever change their minds. This thread is for voicing opinions and analyzing the state of the discussion while trying to optimize for light over heat.
Optimistically, we think that engaging with people you disagree with is worth your time, and so is being nice! Pessimistically, there are many dynamics that can lead discussions on Culture War topics to become unproductive. There's a human tendency to divide along tribal lines, praising your ingroup and vilifying your outgroup - and if you think you find it easy to criticize your ingroup, then it may be that your outgroup is not who you think it is. Extremists with opposing positions can feed off each other, highlighting each other's worst points to justify their own angry rhetoric, which becomes in turn a new example of bad behavior for the other side to highlight.
We would like to avoid these negative dynamics. Accordingly, we ask that you do not use this thread for waging the Culture War. Examples of waging the Culture War:
-
Shaming.
-
Attempting to 'build consensus' or enforce ideological conformity.
-
Making sweeping generalizations to vilify a group you dislike.
-
Recruiting for a cause.
-
Posting links that could be summarized as 'Boo outgroup!' Basically, if your content is 'Can you believe what Those People did this week?' then you should either refrain from posting, or do some very patient work to contextualize and/or steel-man the relevant viewpoint.
In general, you should argue to understand, not to win. This thread is not territory to be claimed by one group or another; indeed, the aim is to have many different viewpoints represented here. Thus, we also ask that you follow some guidelines:
-
Speak plainly. Avoid sarcasm and mockery. When disagreeing with someone, state your objections explicitly.
-
Be as precise and charitable as you can. Don't paraphrase unflatteringly.
-
Don't imply that someone said something they did not say, even if you think it follows from what they said.
-
Write like everyone is reading and you want them to be included in the discussion.
On an ad hoc basis, the mods will try to compile a list of the best posts/comments from the previous week, posted in Quality Contribution threads and archived at /r/TheThread. You may nominate a comment for this list by clicking on 'report' at the bottom of the post and typing 'Actually a quality contribution' as the report reason.
Jump in the discussion.
No email address required.
Notes -
I have spent the past 5 months traveling between the US Midwest, California, Japan and Thailand. I believe the economies of the US and Japan (along with the bulk of the other “rich” countries) are very dysfunctional compared even to poor countries like Thailand.
I. Food and Services
Food in Thailand is extremely delicious, healthy, and very cheap. I am sure the average Thai person eats a healthier diet than the average Japanese. Japanese food is extremely dated in nutrition and food trends. It is so to such a degree that I suspect it’s a sort of fashion or cliquish refusal to update rather than a lack of knowledge or interest. (South Korea next door has a very modern and nutritious food culture- eating healthy is significantly easier there than in Japan.) Thai foods feature a great variety of vegetables, fruits, meats and seafoods. Before I visited Thailand, I imagined that maybe they would be behind on trends or stuck in the past, since they are poor, but the opposite is true. You can find the trendiest foods in Bangkok- anything from the latest Korean baked craze, to Dubai chocolate bars and parfaits and ice cream cones, to Burmese tea leaf salad. They have it, and you can have it delivered within an hour for pennies.
Why is Thailand so trendy compared to Japan or the US? Basically, it is too expensive to take risks in rich countries. Thailand is a poor country but their economy feels incredibly healthy. Their money converts to pennies outside the country, but inside money trades hands so easily that anything feels possible. Food delivery and rideshares are so cheap because housing is so affordable that they can afford to live on such little money. Cab rides in rich countries are very expensive, because we have to pay for insurance, the pensions of drivers, and so on.
The quality of hotels has declined drastically in the US. I typically stay at mid-range hotels and rarely do I find that maid service is provided more often than once every three days. Hotels that charge $20 a night in Thailand provide maid service every single day. Why can’t Americans afford to pay someone to clean a room?
Airbnbs in Japan, fraught with regulation, are so bad. The apartments are old and cramped and dark and expensive. I am currently paying about $50 a night for an old build in a random part of a random city, and while the host is very kind, talkative, and helpful, it is also twice as expensive as the luxury airbnb I stayed at in Bangkok a month ago with a chic pool, gym, library, and dirt cheap food within walking distance. By the way, airbnbs and hotels in the midwest are incredibly expensive lately- why is it cheaper to stay in a room in a literal castle in Europe than a crappy hotel room that smells like weed in Ohio?
II. Airline Flight
I hate the cramped cheap seats on long flights. This time I flew from California to Japan and upgraded to a full-flat seat on Zipair, a low cost Japanese airline owned by JAL (Japan Airlines.) This 11 hour flight cost me $1515. I am not really going to complain, because it was great to have the extra room and I managed to sleep a bit. But the amenities on Zipair are shockingly meager. I asked for water early in the flight and she told me I had to order a bottle from the in flight service on my phone which they didn’t make available for another hour or so. There was no food provided, your only option was to order a few packaged snacks like Pringles from your phone.
A month later I flew Tokyo to Bangkok on Thai Airways. This 7 hour flight cost me only $301. I sat in the cheap seats in the back, but it was an empty enough flight that I had an entire row to myself. They provided multiple delicious meals and snacks throughout the flight. It felt significantly less cheap than the Zipair experience.
By the way, I am concerned that the cost of international airline flight is far too cheap. The first time I traveled internationally was when I was in middle school around 2001. I believe my round trip flight between the US and London was about $1200 at that time. The inflation calculator I just checked said that’s the equivalent of $2190 today. I just checked google flights and the same round trip costs only around $491 today. The incredibly cheap barrier to entry of international flights seems like an obvious problem leading to more illegal immigration and erosion of local culture than I’ve ever seen anyone point out before.
III. Conclusion
You may be thinking- ok, this guy is rich in Thailand and poor in the US, of course he is going to have a merrier view of the Thai economy. But when I look at charts like this I am in the 95th percentile of wealth for my age, in the US. I am frugal with my money, yes, but I would like to be able to afford a life on par with or better than that of my father at the same age, and I’m not sure I can.
————
I have to add a caveat. Whenever I am in Thailand I can never quite shake the feeling I’m about to get sick or get in some terrible accident. I don’t feel unsafe: people are very kind, and it’s not the same kind of fear that I feel in, say, the ghettoes of the US, which are truly scary. But buildings in Thailand don’t seem up to code, food safety is sometimes lacking (at least enough to fuel a constant anxiety in me) and my experience with the health care system (after passing out in a northern Thai hospital a few years ago) makes me know I must acknowledge the downsides to the “healthy economy” I admire in Thailand and be somewhat grateful for the safety standards and tradeoffs we make in rich countries. But I can only imagine that as the rest of the world catches up, the decline of the post WWII rich economies will continue to progress.
What the heck is your definition of healthy????? Do you just think that being "trendy" means it's better in health and taste? Japanese food is amazing. You are probably the only person to visit Japan and say the food is shit. I mean it's not to everyone's personal tastes but how can you honestly call it bad?
Korean food is amazong too, but the korean food I know is cooled by grannys and old men in tiny restaraunts. I see nothing modern about that. And I also fail to see how it's any healthier than Japanese food.
I suspect OP is American and that this comment was specifically centered on the rarity and high cost of fresh fruits and vegetables, at least when compared to the US, Taiwan, Singapore, or any of the Southeast Asian countries.
I will go to my grave believing that US food quality is absolute trash tier to anyone who's ever eaten abroad. Asian cuisines in general do a much better job of incorporating vegetables into their dishes instead of relegating them into a bland, boiled mush to be tolerated rather than enjoyed. The only solution Americans seem to have found is to throw them raw into a bowl and coat them in syrup. The salad has thus become the central example of "healthy" food in the minds of Americans, because its competition is the grease soaked slop that comprises the bulk of the American diet.
There are other elements that go into a "healthy" meal, but if your definition is built on the common US conception of healthy = raw greens and fruits, that's not something you'll find in Japan. SE Asia will have more of that for climate/agricultural reasons and Koreans have a toxic culture of tripping over each other to be the first to chase after whatever could be the next trend (the constant boom-bust cycles of trendy specialty shops are a meme there; the movie Parasite had a reference to this with a character having lost money on a Taiwanese cake shop that likely went over a lot of heads abroad) so there are probably more "modern" and salad style shops there. Korean meals also tend to be served with an array of side dishes that often include raw vegetables.
Fruits and vegetables are cheap here in America too. We call it “shoplifting.”
Food anywhere else is surely more healthy than ours. But I find American food is more tasty and agreeable to my palette than a lot of other ethnic foods simply because I was raised on it. Chinese and Mexican food I have a very weak spot for. But I have idea who the hell coats raw vegetables in syrup. That sounds disgusting.
I believe that was intended to be a disparaging euphemism for salad dressings.
When you know people that put ketchup on burritos, this one doesn’t come far out of left field.
Definitely had me fooled.
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link
More options
Context Copy link