Comments by "XSportSeeker" (@XSpImmaLion) on "Was Evacuating Fukushima a Mistake?" video.

  1. Great exposition Kyle... I think it's really hard for people not familiar with Japanese culture to really understand the size of the loss there, because modern western societies don't value community as much as Japanese society anymore. Japanese urban centers are also going that way. But it's even worse than it might seen. Particularly for those small towns close to the plant. Small towns in Japan, lots of them have an entire identity to themselves, they have particular traditions, particular cultures, community practices, celebrations, etc - and there is a strong bond formed between people living there that goes a bit beyond just - everyone "knows" everyone else... And so, when you have a disaster like this happening, it's like the whole died, even in cases no one individual actually died. I hope Japanese politics listen to reason and do the right thing there, though I don't have any trust in Japanese politics these days anymore.
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  2. ​ @cfromnowhere  I'm an outsider, and not a specialist in any way in the area, so keep that in mind. I'm just a dude that reads a lot on the subject. xD But honestly? The more I hear about Japanese politics the more I think it's just a mix of corruption, bad or outdated hierarchical internal structure, and living in a bubble disconnected from Japanese people's reality... While I agree that communication is indeed different in Japan, I don't think it really comes down to only that. There are deeper problems in general, and unfortunately it has to do with politics and culture. The Fukushima-Daiichi meltdown specifically only happened because both the government and TEPCO, the electricity company that administered the plant, spent 10 years ignoring repeated warnings that an earthquake plus tsunami was possible to happen at Japan's west coast, and that they needed to move backup generators to higher ground. That's exactly what led to the disaster. You can look up for articles about TEPCO and Japanese government judgements regarding culpability in this particular point, it happened kinda recently, more than 10 years after the incident. And yet, there was no justice there. Neither government nor the company was punished. Ignoring warnings happened both because of a vertical hierarchy structure inside the company and government that meant the messaging stopped at some point because people in the chain didn't want to incur extra costs to the plant, because that would look bad on them, because they wanted to climb up the hierarchical ladder. And government also received warnings but didn't act due to being complicit to several cost cutting measures going against regulations inside TEPCO for ages, having close ties with key figures inside the company. Other examples of more recent corruption: There was the whole scandal about LDP party's ties with the Unification Church that culminated in Shinzo Abe's assassination, and only then the party admitted having ties and started distancing themselves from it. They call themselves a "Church", but it's actually a radical right wing cult, also known as "Moonies". A whole ton of people of the governing faction had direct ties with the cult. More recently, a corruption scandal that has been going on for... I think well over decades now was unveiled about LDP politicians pocketing money from some supposed charity drive schemes there, I didn't understand the whole thing, but it was just that type of very deep and very dirty corruption scheme that is closer to organized crime rather than politics. Politicians involved in the scheme are supposed to have garnered money in the hundreds of millions of dollars from this, while the whole thing lasted. Problem with all of this is that the LDP has been the only political party in power in Japan for several decades now... it has become a single party affair, Japanese people are also kinda fully disengaged with politics particularly younger generations, and so they end up doing whatever they want. It sounds like the mentality for young people around politics is that they don't want to engage because they don't have a voice anyways - it's an "old people" thing. It just so happens that the LDP faction that is currently in power, because this party has tons of factions including some that are on ideological opposite spectrums, is considered somewhere between conservative and ultra conservative. Which is what leads to these overzealous measures, particularly in regards to technical stuff they don't understand. So the logic is, if there was a nuclear disaster already, and public opinion has turned against the idea, even though it's actually a corruption and mismanagement problem, they'll just follow the FUD mentality of the crowd and not touch it, even if it's at the sacrifice of people's welfare and well being. Something like this more or less. I hope it helps. But don't trust me alone on this... there are good analysis out there to read and watch. :D
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