While the global order was shaken in 2025, Japan still found reasons for optimism in 2025: It swore in its first female prime minister, the stock market hit record highs and the Osaka Expo was deemed a financial success. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/31/japan/society/2025-japan-news-photography/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #2025inreview #photography
Jess Mahler
boosted
12/30/2025
Too old to care
https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/16893
Check out our Store: https://store.thedevilspanties.com
#MiddleAged, #old, #OldLadies, #society
12/30/2025
Too old to care
https://thedevilspanties.com/archives/16893
Check out our Store: https://store.thedevilspanties.com
#MiddleAged, #old, #OldLadies, #society
A small but growing number of parents in China are rethinking the country’s rigorous education system and switching to homeschooling, despite a current ban on the practice. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/30/asia-pacific/society/china-homeschool-students-youth/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #asiapacific #society #china #education #eastasia #children #schools
Why the Internet Is Bad for Democracy (2005)
https://dl.acm.org/doi/epdf/10.1145/1089107.1089138
#HackerNews #Internet #and #Democracy #Internet #Critique #2005 #Article #Tech #and #Society #Online #Discourse
Sixty households hit hard by the January 2024 Noto Peninsula earthquake have had their welfare benefits terminated mainly due to income from donations, sources said Sunday. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/29/japan/society/noto-quake-donation-recipients/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #earthquakes #notopeninsula #ishikawaearthquake #socialwelfare
Japan is the fastest aging nation in the world. Now that we're closer to 2050 than 2000, how will that affect the generation now coming of age? https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/29/japan/society/japan-2050-predections-depopulation/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #depopulation #aging #demographics #teens #elderly #comingofageday #lifeexpectancy #rurallife #women039sissues
Jan :rust: :ferris:
boosted
👆
This is an example for another latent dysfunction:
Fewer (public) questions get asked on the internet and so knowledge is not spread, but contained, making it more individualized.
This also creates an even stronger bias towards older content, so people might take the shortcut and use a more established technology, instead of looking into new, less explored, but more innovative solutions.
Jan :rust: :ferris:
boosted
#AI will create a world of average - forever stuck in the past.
Jan :rust: :ferris:
boosted
In the age of #AI there will be no more room for nuance or detail.
Everything will be coarse and average.
Jan :rust: :ferris:
boosted
👆
AI Is Homogenizing Our Thoughts (June 2025):
https://www.newyorker.com/culture/infinite-scroll/ai-is-homogenizing-our-thoughts
"With the #LLM “you have no divergent opinions being generated,” Kosmyna said. She continued, “Average everything everywhere all at once—that’s kind of what we’re looking at here.”
#AI is a technology of averages: [ #LLMs] are trained to spot patterns across vast tracts of data; the answers they produce tend toward consensus, both in the quality of the writing [...] and in the calibre of the ideas."
1/2
Stickers are arguably the hottest commodity in Japan right now. And they’re not just for children — adults are splurging in bulk. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/28/japan/society/japan-sticker-craze/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #socialmedia #instagram #heisei
Around 76% of young people in Japan saw an increase in their monthly food spending compared with last year amid ongoing inflation, a survey by a nonprofit organization has found. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/27/japan/society/youth-rising-food-costs/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #food #inflation #poverty #hunger
While the government's fiscal 2026 budget bill calls for record-high spending on social security, its efforts to reduce the health insurance premium burden on the working generation are still limited. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/27/japan/society/burden-working-generation/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #health #sanaetakaichi #ldp #nipponishinnokai #budgets #debt #elderly #medicine
"Everywhere I see bliss, from which I alone am irrevocably excluded. I was benevolent and good; misery made me a fiend. Make me happy, and I shall again be virtuous."
– The monster which is his own person, and should not be called Frankenstein's monster, imho. Perhaps not even a monster in himself, but made so by society?
For decades, Israeli settlers have built outposts on West Bank land without official authorization that, in many cases, end up being accepted by Israel as formal settlements. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/26/world/society/israel-hilltop-settlers-expel-palestinians/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #worldnews #society #israel #palestinians #agriculture
The death of a former head of China’s one-child policy has been met not by tributes, but by castigation of the abandoned policy on social media this week. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/25/asia-pacific/society/china-one-child-social-media/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #asiapacific #society #china #population #onechildpolicy
The Japanese government has adopted an ordinance to enforce a revised Civil Code that will introduce joint parental custody of children after divorce, starting on April 1, 2026. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/25/japan/society/japan-joint-custody-april-start/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #civilcode #divorce #parenthood #children #japanesecourts
Policymakers are failing to help foreign residents in Japan integrate by emphasizing order over harmony, says Toshihiro Menju, a visiting professor at Kansai University of International Studies. https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2025/12/25/japan/society/menju-interview/?utm_medium=Social&utm_source=mastodon #japan #society #expats #foreignworkers #immigration #ldp