Outside a train station near Tokyo, hundreds of people cheer as Sohei Kamiya, head of the surging nationalist party Sanseito, criticizes Japan’s rapidly growing foreign population.
As opponents, separated by uniformed police and bodyguards, accuse him of racism, Kamiya shouts back, saying he is only talking common sense.
Sanseito, while still a minor party, made big gains in July’s parliamentary election, and Kamiya’s “Japanese First” platform of anti-globalism, anti-immigration and anti-liberalism is gaining broader traction ahead of a ruling party vote Saturday that will choose the likely next prime minister.
I think we should at least warn them; perhaps they don’t have enough information to connect that outcome to their currently preferred policies. I.e. they don’t actually “want to enact policies and cultures that would lead to their disappearance”. Preventing persons from unintentionally harming themselves seems like a good thing.
Preventing persons from harming others (unintentionally or not) seems like a moral imperative. And, I think there are probably SK citizens that don’t consent to the current policies that will be harmed.
But, at the end of the day, I don’t have any action items. I see it mostly as a cautionary tale to drive my own policy preferences.
Welcome to the era of Misinformation
Why do you think we are here? getting people to vote against their own benefit is how we get Billionaires and eventually devolve into fascism before we step into another WW
Yeah, the hostile information environment is … tough. But, until we figure out how to navigate it, we won’t have a truly global society, and I’m not sure that separate, non-hostile communities/associations/syndicates are a stable configuration.
Critical thinking skills are part of that, but exercising them as a defense in that environment is not something you can sustain indefinitely. Everyone needs time to rest and everyone is going to make mistakes.