I’ve read a few tweets just now that made me think. America’s war on terror? Don’t make me laugh. English is supposed to be the USA’s official language, right? Then how can you mess up such an elementary preposition?
It’s not a war on terror, it’s a war of terror.
You know, they still manage to surprise me after almost three years. It is known (It is known.) that in japanese society position is the most important thing. The language mirrors that with countless levels of politeness, used according to your social position compared to your communication partner. It’s not all that easy to move up on that social ladder; you pretty much have to wait so that time will give you the honors. Or do something extraordinary to distinguish yourself in your group, but that won’t really affect your relations with lower and higher groups.
However, people love to show off, i don’t know which one of the seven sins was it, but it should be one of them. This all was triggered by that on my way to the supermarket i always pass in front of the showroom (i think) with chairs lined up in two rows, blackboard in the front, and the salesman explaining why the product is good (i guess, never been in there). The thing is, a few seats in the center of the front row have “Special Seat” (特別席) written on them. They’re different in nothing else from other seats, but i’m pretty sure they charge twice as much if you want to sit there. And why would you pay? Because sitting on a Special Seat is special. People are actually doing it.
もっとも、絶対ここ一生生きたくないということ。春のアニメのシーみたいに未来がないとしか感じれない。政治も経済も物心ついたときからずっとなんか危機っぽくやばかったけど、なんとなくいけた。しかし今のグローバルの経済危機はもう何年も続いてるしセクターからセクターへうつってるみたいだし、すでに弱かったハンガリーはさらにやばくなった。それに加えて民主化以降２０数年の政治もいいといえる政府は一度もなかった。また公安も恐ろしい状態で、俺の育った街は日が沈んだ後街を歩くさえも怖いほど。後は観光客には多分わからないが、人の話とかちょっとだけ聞くと不満、不安、短気しかみえない。収入が低くて、税金や物価が高くて、生活は安定できない。それに失業者も多くて自発的と非自発的の比率もなんか知りたくもないぐらいだ。
こんな環境には帰りたくない。家族や友だちがいなきゃ絶対一度も帰らない。「そんな国を助けるのはお前の役割やろ」と言われたことあるから言うけど、千万人の中で約６割がどうしょうもないぐらいのあほなら、残りの考えることぐらい多分できる人たちは何もできない。あほの方がいつもうるさいってこともあるし、あと考えれば人たちが違うことにたどり着いて、違うやり方を選ぶことが多いから団結が難しいしもともとハンガリー人はそんなこと簡単にできる性質じゃないし。そして世界の反対側に住んでる俺が毎日デモ行ったりできないし。（日本の方はデモに行くべきと思ったことなかったけど、もしあったら行くよ。）
I had to write a report of roughly four-five pages for one of my english classes, and this is what i ended up with. The topic is as the title says, online music piracy and its supposed and real effects on the industry. I know it’s not such a great writing, but derp.
Seriously. Considering a tiny plastic toy gun of a GI Joe figure a real threat, it seriously makes me wonder who’s the bigger threat – actually dangerous people (see Moscow suicide bomber) or the zeal of these security personnel who think they can do whatever they want just because they are airport security personnel.
Following the tweets of ioerror, Boing Boing and Cory Doctorow gives me plenty of such stories every day, though usually it’s nothing so obviously hilarious. I mean, anyone with just a bit of common sense could see that a plastic toy poses no threat. And the airport people X-rayed the package to see if they had bullets for it. Come on.
It’s again different (though not better in any way, on the contrary), when airport security are messing around with people just for the heck of it. Most of the people don’t know their rights, so they rather comply than go through a long and troublesome procedure. Also it’s a problem that usually it’s not even simple to get to know your rights. For US people, having websites as the one i linked above it might be, but i really have no patience to look up what rights i have as a hungarian in Japan. I know i should have.
It’s said so much nowadays that we must understand other cultures and must not try to convert them to our way of thinking, which might be just as strange and/or revolting for them, as theirs is to us.
This occurred to me today while reading FTW on the train. It’s one thing that in that given culture what is accepted, and it’s pretty much the way of thinking of the parent that decides how the kid is raised. But. For me, it’s one thing to understand, that it’s normal in India (according to the book, correct me if wrong) that parents would beat their kid for disagreeing with them and saying so. It might be normal in certain families that instead of talking with the kid about what’s the problem, you just take them out from their school and send them off to a boarding school where he won’t play games that much… Okay, that’s their way.
And i disagree with that, and i say so.
It’s scary how this thought is similar to how America’s preaching equality and liberty and the spread of the global culture, while it doesn’t even try to understand other cultures. It can go either to war with countries that it doesn’t like (see middle eastern conflicts) or let the multicorporations do the job by slowly infecting the said culture with the “global greatness”.
Oh no. I wouldn’t bother trying to convince a traditionally thinking indian parent that his way of raising the kid is wrong. For the simple reason that the understanding i try to enforce on myself itself is a product of my culture, so i can’t really expect others to think the same. Even if i tried to convince someone their way is wrong, they would be right to ask what makes me think mine’s better.
Magyarországon egy jelentős társadalmi probléma, hogy csökken a népesség. Ugyanakkor viszont a népszaporító tervezetek ellen mindenki azzal érvel (most nem leszek polkorrekt), hogy a cigányok úgyis tíz gyereket szülnek csak a családi pótlékért, mi lenne hát ha a kormány még próbálná is élénkíteni a szülői kedvet.
Mostanában a japánórákon is előjönnek hasonló témák, és érdekes hallani, hogy kínában úgy fékezik a további népességnövekedést, hogy eszméletlen “büntetést” szabnak ki azokra, akiknek egynél több gyerekük van. (Például az egyik kínai csaj meséli, hogy amikor ő megszületett, az 2000 yüanba került a családjának – ami most ugyan “csak” hatvanezer forint, de ez húsz éve volt.) Japánban meg pont ellentétes a helyzet, mert elöregedő társadalom, úgyhogy kevés a gyerek, úgy nagyon.
Arra gondoltam, hogy egy ilyesmi rendelet Magyarországon jót tenne: az első gyerekre kap a család valamennyi támogatást, a másodikra egy kicsit többet, a harmadikra a legtöbbet (ezzel biztosítva van a népességgyarapodás), majd a negyediktől kínai mintára egyre több “büntetés” és egyre kevesebb támogatás. Így ha valakinek van pénze rá, hogy tényleg eltartson és ruházzon nyolc gyereket, az meg fogja tudni tenni, akinek meg nincs, az megfontolja majd inkább, hogy beletegye-e az asszonyba vagy se.
Now either there’s a website there, that mysteriously acquires secret documents an dumps them for the public. In this case, the chase after the site makes complete sense, considering how a canadian presidential advisor suggested Julian Assange (from now on, the Wikileaks guy) should be assassinated, considering how Wikileaks had to move to the Amazon cloud to handle the immense ddos attacks (and yet, it’s not accessible for me right now – either Japan’s censoring me, or the site’s down) and how some swedish court issued an Interpol arrest notice for the poor guy (on basis of some apparently made-up sexual harassment charges).
Or, the whole Wikileaks thing is created by CIA. This would explain how a website could so mysteriously obtain such documents. Also, in this case too, the persecution against Wikileaks would make sense, just that’d mean that the whole world is being trolled by the CIA.
Reading the articles (mostly at Ars Technica), i really laughed out loud at parts… like where american congressmen labeled Wikileaks terrorism in a white-hot rage. This just reinforces what Cory Doctorow writes in Little Brother.
I read about Cory Doctorow’s book at SeSam’s, and then i read the book itself (downloaded for free from the writer’s website and printed for free at the university) on the ferry to China (about which later). I couldn’t really stop once i started.
It’s a youth novel centered on technology, privacy and national security. To be exact, the point where these all clash. It has plenty of nerd talk, plenty of preaching about rights and lots of dissatisfaction with national security.
Except for a few bit forced “youthful phrases”, the whole thing feels natural, though i myself couldn’t really imagine high schoolers gathering on the seashore, get drunk and then exchange encryption keys. But it somehow fits in the near future America scene of the book.
This book should totally be made compulsory. Just as lectures about sexuality are compulsory in every school, the information literacy that one can get from this book is priceless in the age we live in and it will be even more as we go on.
But it was not actually the book that left the deepest impression in me, but a sentence in the foreword, saying that our world is one where any measure, including torture, could be justified just by waving your hands and shouting “Terrorism! 9/11! Terrorism!” until all dissent fell silent.
So true.
Although i can say i didn’t learn anything really new from the book, being pretty much of a nerd before anyway, but it surely changed my way of thinking a bit and gave me a great reading experience.
Nem akarok tucatember lenni. A vasútállomáson bemondják, hogy amennyiben a következő gyorsra vár a kedves utas, a fehér háromszög jelzésnél, amennyiben a személyre, a kör jelzésnél szíveskedjenek kettesével sorakozni. Én pedig akkor fölállok a padról, végigsétálok a sárga vonal “rossz” oldalán (értsd, úristen, mindjárt beesik a vágányra a felelőtlen külföldi! vagy nem) aztán amikor beáll a vonat, valahogy felszállok. És nem arról van szó, hogy Japán szűk, és százharminc-negyven millióan lakják, úgyhogy kellenek a szabályok, mert Tokióban, ahol egy állomáson bármely időpillanatban van annyi ember, mint itt Hikonében egy év alatt összesen, és ugyan sorakoztak, de legalább nem szólítottak föl rá. Mert amíg az emberek csinálják, hadd csinálják, csak tőlem ne várják el. Biztos lesznek súlyos társadalmi problémáim ezzel a mentalitással, de köszönöm, az elmúlt húsz és fél évben (de rossz leírni) azért megvoltam vele.
Néha megijedek, hogy én is olyan kiállhatatlan ember vagyok/leszek, mint.
Amikor mondom, hogy nekem nem kellenek a tucattermékek, akkor is erről van szó. Amíg van alternatíva, nem akarok ugyanolyan telefonnal, mp3 lejátszóval, cipővel, karórával, hajzattal rohangálni, mint a fejlett társadalmak milliárdnyi embere. Egyszerűen taszít a tömegdivat, de sokszor nem érzem, hogy az alternatívák bármivel is jobbak lennének. Ahhoz meg nem vagyok elég elszánt, hogy mindent magamnak csináljak… Sajnos (?) az a kor már pár ezer éve letűnt.
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