The culture too... Japan is at times the most capitalist and alienating culture possible.

A Japanese friend tells me that on the contrary Japan culture can be more like Socialism. not much individualism, strong social security network, high tax, strong government controls, low social mobility, lots of barriers to entrepreneurs. It's just that technology and blinken lights make it seem modern and capitalist to westerners.

None of those things are socialism. Socialism is the direct control of industry by the workers communally.

Well if you want to nitpick, isn't what you describe communism instead?

Some people use socialism interchangeably with communism, e.g. libertarian socialists are the same as anarchist communists. Others, like Marx use socialism to mean a society where both capitalist and communist modes of production coexist in a transitory condition.

In any case, the element I described is necessary for it to be called socialism, and it doesn't exist in Japan at any significant scale. The welfare state is not socialism and this is not a nitpick.

> The welfare state is not socialism

You keep using that word, yet I do not think it means what you think it means.

> Some people use socialism interchangeably with communism

Well some people also believe credit and debit cards have no fundamental difference. That they believe it doesn't make it true.

You said yourself something about "the direct control of industry by the worker". That is unequivocally a communist concept. Reforming a capitalist society to those ideals through democratic process is socialism, but the end goal is a communist equilibrium.

Post transition "socialism" has no meaning and no identifying properties: it is a transformative process by opposition to "true believer" anarchist/communist's grand revolution schemes.

So tell me again how Japan is reforming itself into communism?

> So tell me again how Japan is reforming itself into communism?

You know for someone acting so smug and combative you've completely missed the point of my remarks. It wasn't me who was claiming that Japan is socialist in any way. Whatever floats your boat tho.

I must confess I realised that a couple hours after writing it. I apologise for coming across as smug and missing the point entirely.

This whole "socialism==communism" thing upsets me.

It's cool. To be quite honest all of these words are so charged and poisoned that it's hard to use them and successfully communicate with someone whomst doesn't share the same frame of reference.

That's subjective. I still remember that time Fox News did a documentary on euthanasia.

I personally don't think Japan is weirder than living in the US or Saudi Arabia. If you want to live in a completely different culture you have to adapt.

That is how many “Eastern” people feel about “Western” culture.

I have Indian coworkers who struggle with English, and on top of that we have 0 shared cultural background.

No media, no games, no shared experiences. It’s drudgery trying to come up with a conversation topic.

Game of thrones? Haven’t seen it. Latest games that came out? Don’t play them. Building an app? Nope no entrepreneurship. Dating? Nope arranged relationships, or no relationships.

It’s impossible and I hate every second I’m forced to deal with these people.

Jeez, must be real hard on you... while I'm sure they're delighted to be working with someone who only ever tries to relate to them based only on their own personal interests.

I have an idea, how about starting a book club with your coworkers in order to create a shared culture?

I recommend Dale Carnegie's How to Win Friends and Influence People