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Comment by pokepim | Hacker News Reader

Aren’t laws in Japan constructed to be like that? Cumbersome, inefficient and thwarting meaningful progress? When we defeated Japan in WW2 we made sure that they became our “ally” and also had huge role in creating their laws and government. So this is intentional so that they are not able to surpass us ever again. Any reform will be shut down by current japanese government which was and still is propped up by CIA basically. This is what you get when you lose world war

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No. Japanese bureaucracy was always influenced by Chinese bureaucracy, which has always been ponderous and focused on "harmony" more than efficiency. The Meiji period, when they made their huge leap into industrial modernity, was the exception, not the rule.

I'd also take objection with the "surpass us" term. Japan was not "ahead" in technological terms until the late postwar period. Before WW2 they were almost on par, and largely because they made massive efforts to pilfer technology and methodologies from Western Europe. It was after WW2, when they were forbidden from military expansion, that they focused on economic development (again with massive "imports" of know-how), so much that they briefly "surpassed" the by-then-dominant US in certain fields.

>they made massive efforts to pilfer technology and methodologies from Western Europe. //

You can't steal ideas. If they took technology, duplicated it and made it better then that's a good thing.

>so much that they briefly "surpassed" //

They copied, but they got a better grade?

This sounds like a good thing, something all technology companies working in the same area should strive for, and indeed how patents (in a limited way) and open-source work : one creates improvement over the current developments.

Why would you want people spending time 'reinventing the wheel' just because they live in another country. Use the best of tech and make it better if you can.

The increase would bring it [Japan] into line with Nato countries and make it the world’s third-biggest spender on defence after the US and China.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2022/dec/16/japan-approves...

> This is what you get when you lose world war (Coughs in German) No.

They've got a much better deal than Eastern Europe, who went into the Soviets' sphere of influence for 50 years. But the US and the UK are willing to fix this by including those countries into NATO and giving the Ukrainians weapons to defend themselves (and the rest of Europe).

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