What is Digg?106 Comments
- sat0shi, on 06/29/2008, -0/+53The problem here, and why this Akiba killing spree has much more of a social impact (note: this is not the same as being a "tipping point") is due to the fact that these murders were triggered by a BIG problem that has only recently started to affect Japanese society. Before only a few years ago, Japan had hardly any large class distinctions. Sure, there were really rich people and not-so-rich people, but there were hardly any poor people to be found. Almost everyone was on an equal playing field... and during the "bubble" period in the late 80s/early 90s, it seemed like almost everyone was rich. Nowadays, with the economy slowing, prices rising, and salaries staying the same, we are starting to see a distinct emergence of classes in Japanese society. We refer to this as a 格差社会 here in Japan, and there have been many debates about it recently.
This may not seem like a big deal to Americans, who have had a distinctly divided society for as long as I can think of, but here in Japan it is a big deal. This, coupled with the fact that people are clearly divided into two groups: 負け組 and 勝ち組 (losers and winners) makes for a bad situation in my opinion. The guy behind these Akiba killings repeatedly stated in his message board posts that he felt he was in the "loser" group and despised all of those people who were "winners." It sounds emo, but the fact is that people really DO know which group they belong to. People will even tell you straight up which group you belong to. Basically, this is akin to people saying "you have no value to our society" which eventually causes people to snap, as was the case in this situation. - LittleDas, on 06/29/2008, -14/+62Another pic of suspect Tomohiro Kato.
http://i176.photobucket.com/albums/w179/kingpoopa8 ... - peagle, on 06/29/2008, -2/+34300? In the near infinite pool of crazy-***** moonbat population of the intratubes, that seems pitifully small. I expect more than 300 people are currently downloading albino midget amputee beastiality-scat porn.
- sschepis, on 06/29/2008, -2/+27Not that we Americans are any happier, but in my experience, 21st century Japanese culture has created a whole class of disaffected, lonely, angry, depressed people - it's what happens when you wrap your entire identity around your career to the exclusion of everything else.
- h0us3dj, on 06/29/2008, -8/+32be on the lookout for ninjas, samurai warriors, and little Japanese men with knives
- alpharaptor, on 06/29/2008, -2/+26those crazy japanese, always looking for the newest trend...
- hassanchop13, on 06/29/2008, -4/+26this is....sparta?
- SundayBrunch, on 06/29/2008, -9/+29Here's my gay death threat.
YOu piece of *****, I'm gonna take you out for nice dinner.
then take you home like the bitch you are, light some candles bend you over and then ***** you in the asssssss. - sat0shi, on 06/29/2008, -1/+18He didn't, and that was the problem. He was a 派遣社員 or "contract worker." Basically, a temporary worker. He had been working all across Japan for a couple years before he committed these murders.
Just for some perspective, 派遣社員 are treated like here. You may be doing nearly equal work for a company, but you get paid way less, get absolutely no benefits, and are looked down on by nearly all of your co-workers. However, despite all this some young people recently prefer being a temp worker as opposed to a 正社員 (salary worker) due to the freedom it gives them. Once you become a salary worker in Japan, you are expected not to quit... EVER. Well, until you retire anyway. A lot of young people want the freedom to move jobs and learn different skills, but this is not how it works. It is possible to change jobs once or twice, but the more you change the less willing new companies will be to hire you, due to the fact that you are perceived as a "flight risk" to them. - smashfest, on 06/29/2008, -2/+17think up your own mass murder scenario. copycats!
- newsound6, on 06/29/2008, -1/+16Uh oh, Get a hold of yourselves Japan, or you are just asking for tightened government internet regulation.
- sat0shi, on 06/29/2008, -0/+13Unfortunately, the Japanese media (and most older Japanese people) are not willing to look at the underlying source of this violence. The very interesting thing to note here, is that when various media outlets polled Japanese young people in their 20s (the same generation as the Akiba killer), a fairly large percentage (I almost want to say a majority, but I have forgotten the exact numbers... they were high) either sympathized with him or at least understood what may have driven him to that point.
This has particularly frightening implications, and as we can see by the 300 or so cases since then there are others that share his plight. Obviously something is going on in Japanese society that hasn't occurred in the past. The question is how will Japan deal with this situation as the economy and class division is likely to continue for a while now. - fxu1989, on 06/29/2008, -1/+13Alright, you got me...
- iDoraemon, on 06/29/2008, -3/+15THIS...IS...TOKYO!
Yeah, I thought this headline was related to 300 the movie at first. Damn that number. - sat0shi, on 06/30/2008, -0/+11Maybe so, but if you choose to you can clearly see the class divisions. I used to live in South Carolina, and just going to Wal-Mart you could see people who were obviously living comfortably, and some people who look like they couldn't even afford to have running water in their homes.
Although class division has started to become a problem here in Japan, it still is not as clear as it is in America. In all my years of living here, I have never seen someone who looks "poor" anywhere (Well, maybe way out in the country... but they are only "poor" because they choose to provide for themselves instead of working in a company for a salary. These are almost always people of the older generation.)
Sure, there are homeless people, but it seems to jump straight from homeless to upper-middle class. This has to do with the fact that if you choose to sell your soul to a company here, you're almost guaranteed to be upper-middle class given a few years.
Interesting story... A man that works at the company where my wife works is extremely incompetent, and often causes many problems in his division. When he is out of work due to illness, apparently work gets done faster and more efficiently because he is not there. The interesting thing is that he makes over $100k a year. This is because he has been at the company for 25 years or so. Older, larger companies in Japan still use an old system called 年功序列 which basically means the longer you work there the more money you get paid regardless of ability. Luckily, this archaic system is slowly being phased out as newer companies start up and more foreign companies enter Japan.
Probably the most frustrating thing about running a large company in Japan is that you cannot fire workers due to the unions. Unless a worker does something extremely out of the ordinary, they cannot be fired. Of course, this is why most people choose the life of a salaryman as they never have to worry about being laid off as workers in America do.
There are many problems in Japan's working society (although, there are many problems in all societies) that are going to have to be looked at in the coming years. It will be interesting to see how things turn out. - jcims, on 06/29/2008, -0/+9Thank you for posting that. In the US, there seems to be an unwillingness to recognize the forces that drive individuals to violence, only the means by which that violence is perpetrated.
- lazerflesh, on 06/29/2008, -2/+10Even *talking* about class struggle in America will instantly label you as a communist and cut you off from society. In America you are expected to be ignorant about certain things to get along.
Don't ever even think about uttering the words; capitalism, proletariat or bourgeoisie.
At least that's the way it is here in Illinois. I can't imagine what it's like in the southern states. - donatj, on 06/29/2008, -0/+7I was in Akihabara that day, there were camrea crews everywhere but we had no idea what was going on, didn't speak the language. Find out later on the news that we missed it by half an hour.
Makes you count your blessings.
Heck of a way to spend your first time out of the USA, heh. - linuxwarz, on 06/29/2008, -1/+8Sounds like another "deathnote" going on.
- mozert, on 06/29/2008, -1/+8They’re going to try to make you afraid of Tokyo.
..But wait, did I mention it is in Japan? - SteveThePlank, on 06/29/2008, -7/+13Haha, that 16 year old girl is a ***** idiot, along with all the others that think they can't be traced at all.
- inactive, on 06/29/2008, -0/+6Take a look at this about Japan's Internet suicide clubs,1 person commits suicide every 15-20 mins.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/programmes/newsnight/40 ... - quaxon, on 06/29/2008, -3/+9As a proponent of gun rights in America i wholeheartedly disagree. I think for america since guns are so rampant and most criminals have them or have a way of getting them then everyone else might as well have guns as well. But place like japan that have such tight gun control where guns are almost non-existent is ideal. I guess a simpler way to say it is either the majority should have guns or no one should have guns at all.
- burrgrinder, on 06/29/2008, -0/+5Is the midget in a superman costume? We might be looking at the same page right now!
- sat0shi, on 06/29/2008, -0/+5Not quite.
- Thrilltone, on 06/29/2008, -3/+8Why don't they just round them up?
I'm sure Chris Hansen has the transcripts. - DiggzDE, on 06/29/2008, -0/+5Found it: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neomugicha_incident
- Jaliyl, on 06/29/2008, -1/+6Its an epidemic, they are even in Mexico and Russia.
- EmperorAwesome, on 06/29/2008, -1/+6Wwwwwow. I thought the corporate lifestyle here was evil enough. I can't believe it gets so much worse.
- Sil369, on 06/29/2008, -2/+7THIS....IS....TOKYO!!!!!!!!
- ZenMojo, on 06/29/2008, -12/+17Solution: legalize gun ownership. That should help^.
- LittleDas, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4After about the 50th ASCII picture of Picard, I just gave in. Embrace the inevitable, friend.
- FoxOrian, on 06/29/2008, -1/+5This will seem a little given,
but I think the suicide rates would shoot up sharply if they did. - DiggzDE, on 06/29/2008, -0/+4Not true. They started following 2channel and arresting people for threats since early 2000's. There was some incident involving 2-channel back then and some killer (props to anyone who can dig it up cuz I'm too lazy to). It seems that they focus on 2-channel for a while after an incident occurs and then drop off in keeping track of it. Then when something happens again involving the internet, they start focusing on it again.
- sat0shi, on 06/29/2008, -1/+5No... Trust me, Japanese people have no trouble killing themselves without guns.
- j1337, on 06/29/2008, -3/+7It should be noted that the press and police never bothered to check or count internet death threats until after the Tokyo Killing Spree. I've been seeing death threats on 2-channel for years, and this is the first time I've heard about police actually doing something about it.
- Haoie, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3That was very insightful.
I'll add that it's also a similar situation, society wise, in quite a few other Eastern Asian nations, such as South Korea. - petebert, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3maybe they make handguns legal to defend themselves from the knife wielding people
- beowulflee, on 06/30/2008, -0/+4Oh hi. I hadn't realized Digg became diggchan.
- crazytaxi, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3japanese culture reached it's zenith somewhere around the "godzilla" period. All downhill since... unless you count hello kitty, bathtub girl or tentacle porn.
- unwiseone, on 06/30/2008, -0/+3We've got a goddamn Laughing Man Incident on our hands here.
- noahhoward, on 06/29/2008, -0/+3It's the axe gang!
- diskopo, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2This is madness.
- UnWeave, on 06/29/2008, -2/+4As opposed to... Everyone else's US? ***** off.
- donatj, on 06/29/2008, -1/+3Well it would certainly *decrease* knifings.
- cathl, on 06/29/2008, -1/+3Guns can't really be banned. Even if somehow the world got together and decided to totally ban the manufacture of firearms and ammunition, a sufficiently motivated individual with some plumbing parts, tools and common chemicals could make a gun themselves. They might even be inclined to sell some of the guns they've made. This technology has been around for hundreds of years and it is not at all complicated.
- Misinformant, on 06/29/2008, -2/+4Sentence them all to fight each other to the last man on a deserted island and televise it.
- inactive, on 06/30/2008, -2/+4Japanese make die hard capitalists. It's slowly destroying them from within. They live to work, not to live.
- hpcjosh, on 06/29/2008, -0/+2KIRA!!!....should had known.
- DarkoKun, on 06/30/2008, -0/+2Way to make us otakus look bad!....... Oh wait
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