Sorry for the double reply, but another useful perspective in this is derogation. I often forget this idea because I’m very class minded, but it’s also very important. This is the idea that a culture can be profited off of while simultaneously despising the people that practice it. In practice, this exists as a business around a specific cultural item succeeding specifically because the business is NOT owned/operated by the original cultural group. Some of the best examples of this are around Black American culture in the US. Some cultural products were only valuable AFTER they were owned, operated, and proliferated by White Americans. Which is kinda just Racism Classic™ but allowing certain useful things to cross the cultural line for profits sake.

I think you can apply the socioeconomic and derogation lenses here. Socioeconomically, Japan has been ahead of nearly every other Asian country for a long while, with only places like China and Singapore recently catching up to them. So, I think that makes it feel okay. And derogatively, I don’t think these restaurants are successful because they specifically aren’t being run by Japanese people. So that’s good on the front as well. So I’d say, yeah, overall it feels fine. However, I’m not Japanese and don’t have a wealth of additional context that might provide counter arguments.

The popularization of Black American music is indeed a complex topic in this arena. Like, obviously a lot of cultural outsiders made a lot of money off of the situation, but there were at least some benefits to the arrangement, although whether or not they outweighed the cons is perhaps difficult to say. For example, if outsiders had abstained entirely from profiting, what would have changed? Obviously more of the money made percentage-wise would’ve gone to the owning culture, but would there have been less money overall? Would it have reached the same levels of popularity? If so, it almost certainly wouldn’t’ve happened as quickly, right? These are difficult questions to answer and I’m not educated enough in this area to really offer any. So, while not worth a damn, my gut feelings is that there are at least some strong arguments as to why overall the absence of outsider profiting would’ve been better for the owning culture.

I think academically, derogation is often considered as a component. Like profiting off a culture while simultaneously despising the culture and the people who own it.

The know of cultural ownership is absolutely unravel-able in many situations, just not all. In some situations it’s exceedingly clear and in others, not. I think you’re trying very hard to find hard-and-fast, absolute rules for these situations, but they don’t exist. The keyword is nuance, nuance, nuance. Each situation is different and each situation deserves scrutiny as to whether or not it crosses the line. This is a judgement call made by each and every person.

If you really want me to engage on the specific situation of Tostitos/chips and salsa I will, so you can see the process of my scrutiny.

First, I think that as any item of culture becomes more and more diffused (ethically or not), it’s original ownership becomes diluted. Things that were once appropriation in the distant past, if done today, would not be considered as such as the context around them changes (in a myriad of ways).

So, if Tostitos started as a company today, I’d say making chips and salsa is not appropriation. But, if Tostitos was founded a long time ago, before chips and salsa were a foodstuff ubiquitous across the US and Tostitos was created by one outside of that cultural ownership, then I’d say it likely was appropriation. It also might be fair to argue that in the modern day for Tostitos specifically, “the damage has been done” and there really isn’t much fixing it, so consuming their products isn’t necessarily problematic. But this would be a point as to why identifying appropriation early on and stopping it is especially important.

As to whether I’m part the problem - for Tostitos no, but for other things almost certainly yes. I’m human and I don’t know everything, and I’ve certainly made mistakes in this area, but that’s okay. What’s important is that once I’ve learned something is in fact a mistake, I own up to it and stop making that mistake.

I think each of the described situations has a different specific answer because the topic is nuanced. As stated above, it can sometimes to be messy to say who owns some piece of culture. But beyond that, the most useful tool is an examination of socioeconomic power dynamics.

If there is a cultural group that is poor, and an outsider from a rich/wealthy group commodifies and sells their culture, while giving nothing to those people, you’d probably agree that that’s a shitty thing to do. Their culture obviously had some kind of material wealth value that they received none of.

However, if you take a situation where both parties are well off it seems a lot less shitty. Especially if the cultural group in question is already commodifying and profiting off the same piece of culture.

Enjoying other cultures isn’t appropriation. I think the line where it becomes appropriation is profiteering. If you are commodifying and profiting off someone else’s culture that’s pretty shitty. Obviously that’s not a perfectly clear cut line (who ‘owns’ culture?), but it’s a good place to start.

There is a better way! Ranked choice voting means no more voting for the lesser of two evils. Look into fo yourselves and others - vote to change the voting systems near you!

I’ve often that about that if I could design a house, I’d have a room just like this. Like there would be a section of the house that was tower like and the only way to get to the room at the top would be to take an exterior balcony-like-staircase from the second floor to the room in question - the sole room on the “third floor”.

There’s just something about a room like that that makes it fell so isolated, peaceful and serene. And the exterior access makes it feel like a little adventure getting there. Like if the weather were bad you might opt not to go there because it would mean gearing up to make the trip.

doesn’t treat its viewer as an idiot

A lot of what you said is reasonable but this is absolutely laughable. As someone entering their thirties, this is the single most annoying aspect of anime and it’s especially blatant in works aimed at teenagers. And trust me, I’m not here to hate - this stuff isn’t aimed at me and that’s okay, but claiming most anime doesn’t do this or that not virtually 100% of shonen does this is absurd.

Can someone explain this to me? Is it just a very very simple sex joke or…?

Both useful for… YOUR MOM!

I’m sorry. It honestly ruined the show for me as soon as I noticed. When I first started watching it I was so excited to meet all kinds of varied people, especially from the MCs past, but once I got to Nadeko Snake I was like, “O, it’s waifus all the way down.”

I would argue that because is a harem anime that it always has a current of fan service by definition.

Edit: Nvm, I take it back. Pandering isn’t really the same thing as fan service and that’s what I’m really talking about above.

I wholly agree with your initial sentiment, although I envision it being structured differently. I think it makes sense for a person to have a name when they are growing, especially one given to you by your parents since they are (typically) a huge part of who you are at that point in your life.

But, no one stays who they are when they were 7, or 12, or 16. By the time they’re not a minor I would argue that they’re hardly the same person. Thus, I think it should be expected and tradition for people to change their name once they truly become individuals.

And I think it doesn’t even have to be a legal thing. Parents can just be like, “think about and pick your new name” and once the person decides, they (and everyone else they inform) just starts calling them that name.

Maxwell Atoms, is that you?

It’s important to note that for this specific situation/question, percentages (i.e. “half of all wealth”) aren’t actually useful. Depending on what the actual flat numbers are, it would still be possible for “half of all wealth” evenly distributed to the entire population of the planet to not be a lot of money per person.

That being said, I looked at your linked article which actually includes the flat numbers which means you can do the math and see what an even distribution of wealth amounts to for each and every person.

That article claims that in 2022, total global wealth was 418.3 trillion. Looking elsewhere for total global population in 2022, I’m finding ~8 billion. Those numbers give us a per person wealth value of ~52K. It’s important to note that this isn’t a yearly salary - it represents the sum total of all assets each person would have. Also important to note that the population number includes children - something like global adult population would likely be more useful but I couldn’t easily find that number.

So 52K is our answer, but interpreting it is I think a very complex question all on it’s own. I have no idea if this amounts to a “modest” living or even what “modest” really means (PCs? Air Conditioning? Year round access to global fruit supplies?). I thought for a long time that if we could evenly distribute wealth that everyone could live a “good” life - but the numbers might literally not shake out for that. I still hope they do. I want them to. But I’ve never seen a clear answer. Also, this isn’t an argument against an even distribution of wealth. I think it’s ethically correct to evenly distribute wealth basically no matter what. I just don’t know if anyone knows what the lives of people would really look like in that scenario.

Jenius

Daily reminder that no individual action is lawful or chaotic.