fireweed @ fireweed @lemmy.world

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2 yr. ago

Current Paternity Leave Uptake: Despite existing benefits, only 17.13% of new fathers took leave in fiscal 2022, a slight increase from 7.48% in 2019.

That's the real problem: it's not that paternity leave doesn't pay enough, it's that workers don't feel empowered to take the time off. Or any time off for that matter.

Interesting note: the journalist managed to avoid using pronouns entirely when referring to any non-binary individual during the entire article (with the exception of when they included quotes from others who did use the singular "they" pronoun). I wonder if this is AP standard or the journalist's preference. Either way I'm impressed; it's somewhat difficult to do in English without sounding incredibly clunky. Which is too bad, as it's not true of all languages (Japanese for instance makes it fairly easy to avoid gendered pronouns if so desired).

Meanwhile I'm over here amazed that if you replaced the ¢ with $, the menu would be instantly updated to current restaurant prices.

Yup any oil works in my experience but I've found cooking oil to be the least messy, hence that specific suggestion. But in a pinch any kind of greasy substance will do.

You don't need a specialized product (like Goo Gone several comments mention) to remove sticky residue. Any kind of cooking oil will do. I usually use a small dab of whatever is on hand (which in my house is olive oil, but avocado, canola, corn, etc would also be fine). Start with a very small amount, like one drop: a little can go a long way and it can be a huge mess if you overestimate how much you need. Rub it in with your finger and the gunk should come right up. Paper towel the rest off. Repeat if necessary. Extra bad spots might require a touch of gentle fingernail action.

To be clear: I'm far from an expert in the topic, so all I can provide is a shrug and some possible factors to consider.

One is that as much doom and gloom has been spread about Japan's socio-economic situation since the 90s, the country continued to stumble along as the world's second-turned-third largest economy. Certain problems (both economic and demographic-related) continue to persist if not worsen in Japan, but so far they haven't caused the ceiling to collapse so to speak; perhaps this indicates that these kinds of decay are much slower and lead to a gradual erosion rather than a catastrophic downfall so often implied by the media. In other words, "just keep kicking the can down the road" seems to keep these types of issues somewhat at bay for decades. So one conclusion is to look at Japan and say "clearly this type of thing isn't sustainable in the very long term, but countries can continue lumbering along even under these pressures."

However, as mentioned initially, the problems in South Korea sound way worse than in Japan: the birth rate is much lower, the cost of living much higher (IIRC), the pressure on youth to follow a specific path to success is more intense, etc. For instance, I don't remember anyone in Japan ever reported saying "my spouse and I are just having one kid so that we can put all of our time, money, and focus into preparing them for their academic and job-search success" (I don't know how prevalent an attitude this is in SK today, but I've heard it does exist). Plus there are other factors, like SK has a much smaller population, economy, and global reputation than Japan (in the '80s people in the West legit thought Japan was going to take over the world; the bubble years were bonkers like that). In other words, if SK's starting situation is worse than Japan's, and the severity of their problems worse than Japan's, they may not be able to accomplish a similar slow erosion.

Furthermore, the global situation is looking really bad. Without going into too many details (because that would be a post of its own), there are a LOT of economic and demographic and climate factors that are looking really unsustainable in a lot of countries, from housing and general cost-of-living to aging populations and infrastructure to increased instances of severe natural disasters and poor agricultural yields. Back in the Great Recession the saying I heard in Japan was: "the US sneezes and all the world catches a cold." And indeed, Japan got hit pretty hard by the Great Recession, I believe especially so because of their export-oriented economy. So what happens when not just the US, but Canada, Australia, the UK, and many European countries all seem to simultaneously be making the same scrunched-up pre-sneeze face? Meanwhile many other major economies like India are dealing with different but significant looming socio-economic issues (I am really not an expert in Central Asia, but the bits I hear about don't sound good). And then there's China, which from any angle looks like a ticking time bomb IMO. Put it all together, and it's a lot harder to experience slow erosion when the rest of the world is engulfed in a landslide.

Granted, I'm assuming that SK has and will continue to have a similar political culture to Japan, one dominated by the older generations and conservatives/moderates who are more likely to embrace status quo and half-measures than radical reforms. I'm also assuming a similar social culture, one that's not open to possible stop-gap solutions like mass immigration (although given they share the same language barrier issue as Japan, I'm not sure immigration really is the golden ticket everyone makes it out to be regardless). I think these general assumptions are fair as SK is probably the closest country to Japan in terms of cultural similarity, however SK has shown they've a bit more spice to their step (see: massive protests in recent years). Plus the 2020s have become an era of upheaval, and it can be easier to enact radical shifts in trajectory during unstable times.

In conclusion SK is not doomed, but I think they'll need to do more than Japan has simply to obtain a similar slow decline, and they'd need to pull out some near-miracle moves to get back on a healthy track.

This read like an article about Japanese youth twenty years ago. They're even replicating the hikkikomori phenomenon. That said, it sounds like things in SK are way worse than they ever were in Japan, especially considering their demographic situation. This will not end well.

Not "just"... It happened in May

Half a billion years the nautilus inhabited the oceans of the world. Time and again the living beings of Earth changed around them: emerging, evolving, and then so often vanishing into non-existence. This inevitable process seemed almost irrelevant to the nautilus, as if they resided outside the cycle. But then as if the gods themselves deemed it time to finally punish this evolutionary hubris, they emerged. The slaughter was relentless, and the once-ubiquitous nautiloids fell. Now huddled in an isolated patch of water, they hide and pray that the voracious monsters that so nearly eliminated their entire lineage will never discover a passage into their final refuge.

Inspired by this PBS Eons short video on the rise and near downfall of the nautilus: https://youtube.com/watch?v=3vQ55ToQeWI&pp=ygURcGJzIGVvbnMgbmF1dGlsdXM%3D

Judicial elections are barely even elections. Independent voting guides never mention them and news media rarely profile or interview them (or if they do it's not prominently compared to other local races). Plus at least in my experience incumbent judges usually run unopposed. I also think they have very strong restrictions on what they can/can't say while campaigning so voters can't even do their own research properly (especially for new judges, who don't have much of a track record). Basically it's near impossible to be an educated voter when it comes to judges, so maybe they're better off being appointed.

Biden is now 80 and former President Donald Trump is 77.

Literally in the article.

If Lemmy were styled after an old-school forum board rather than reddit I'd agree with you, but because profile pics on Lemmy are so tiny they're basically pointless. However they're just large and colorful enough to be distracting. Lemmy's format can feel a bit cluttered as is, and I'd rather be able to scan and quickly identify important info--such as whether a comment poster is OP--than have my eye get caught by something superfluous and purely aesthetic like a profile pic. Thus I'd rather they do away with them entirely, at least in bylines.

Then the years go on, the kid becomes an adult and begins cooking for themselves. The first meal they make for someone else they realize (1) how difficult it is to estimate when a meal will be done (2) how much work goes into cooking, especially for a whole family and (3) how hurtful and disruptive it is when the person you're cooking for decides they'd rather eat your food when it's cold and gross and everyone else has already finished eating and are trying to clean up. And that's not even incorporating the social elements of family dinner time the kid is eschewing. I didn't understand as a kid why my parents were so adamant about family dinner, but as an adult it's something I'm really glad they enforced.

For some inexplicable reason, Japan produces a lot of anti-war art. It seems the trend started sometime around the mid-20th century. Even one of Japan's biggest war franchises, Gundam, features a surprising number of anti-war themes. No explanation has been provided to date to explain why.

• Philomena Cunk, probably

Lol, Jefferson county would be the state's new liberal stronghold

Not sure the folks in Bellingham are going to be too keen on joining North Dakota. Lynden might be cool with it though. Idaho claiming Spokane would be a hilarious (and tragic) turnabout. Would Okanogan even notice becoming part of Montana? The state capitol stays at least, but losing the Seattle metro region would be a major blow to the economy. Looks like Vancouver is now Washington's largest city... And it's just a subset of another state's metro region!

You are free to disagree with my assessment.

You're absolutely correct; for the sake of the discussion I was assuming US/Western cultural standards given the Lemmy platform and English-language discussion. And I didn't mean to shame Japanese standards necessarily; I think issues like violence in the media are less of a concern in a country with low levels of violent crime for instance. However especially as a former resident of the country, I've been disappointed with Japan's general lack of progress on many social issues (such as gender norms and LGBTQ acceptance) even as many of their Western contemporaries have made great strides. I do think this is reflected in their media, anime obviously included. This isn't to say there haven't been changes to anime, but many of them appear only to placate highly specific demands of the overseas market, such as the disappearance of "female-presenting nipples" even in otherwise highly sexualized series.

Again, I've only read the manga so I don't know how they're portrayed in the anime, but:

Yuzuriha: primary purpose is motivation for the male protagonist (ala Miho Asuki in Bakuman)

Kohaku: min-maxed strength and dexterity at the loss of intelligence, wisdom, and self-initiative (and I'm sorry, but that is one ridiculously skimpy outfit, especially given her acrobatic role)

Suika: pre-pubescent characters (thankfully!) usually bypass misogyny/hypersexualization so I don't include her in my assessment

And then there are the other first-half characters, like:

Ruri: helpless sick girl (omg that shot of her being fed medicine)

Kirisame: zero self-initiative (mindlessly follows orders), and that outfit makes Kohaku look like a nun

And a bunch more that I don't remember because it's been a while since I read the series.

The first female character I didn't feel at least a little uncomfortable about was Chelsea, who I think is actually a strong character and the first (non-child) female character to be accepted into the group for her insight, smarts, and decision-making skills, AND her design is not sexualized (almost as if she stumbled in from another series). But she appears quite late in the series, hence my comment about the first half. Some of the American female characters are also okay, but not great (and again, introduced in the latter half). But even towards the end, the male characters are in nearly all the leadership positions, and the female characters are left to play support.

I don't mean to single out Dr Stone; you could do a similar analysis for most anime and nearly all shonen series. But especially given the gender imbalance in STEM, it's unfortunate to see more business as usual.

Sailor Moon is another great example: despite being a kids show it underwent a LOT of censorship changes when it was aired in the US (although much of it was LGBTQ erasure). American media has a lot of issues, but I'd consider US-made cartoons significantly less likely to contain problematic content (especially anything from the last decade, as US studios have become more focused on avoiding that sort of thing because of public outcry, whereas I don't get the impression the Japanese public cares as much).