Lived in Japan. I think world will come to realize that Japan's past is also the world's future.
Having a sovereign language has allowed it to avoid so much brainrot in our culture today.
それは、翻訳行為が高価である限りにおいてのみ機能します。
(That 'free' is also 'mediocre quality' does not help when the problem is 'brain rot': viral memes still be viral)
Not that your point isn't actually a good one - we do now often see the worst of US-made culture war toxoplasma (in all stages of its lifecycle) being imported wholesale into European cultures where it is barely relevant to local circumstances, which I would squarely blame on sufficient English skills and superior production value of anglophone politics.
I kinda assumed so — I kept changing the English until the English-Japanese-English round trip translation wasn't wildly wrong, but the fact I had to says how far Google Translate has to go before it's actually good.
California & San Francisco: All of their problems are foreshadowing what is going to happen in other parts of the US; all of their strengths are also coming to other places.
Even within San Francisco, is Valencia St the future or past of tony Chestnut St?
When you think about bad shit happening, and then how we only seem capable of reactive, rather than proactive politics, seems obvious. Problems have to become catastrophic before anyone deals with them, and all the problems left are the ones are small, but growing.
The biggest difference was the US was able to leverage white collar immigration to develop a substantial lead in the computing industry by the mid-90s.
SK is probably going to hit a similar bust like Japan's soon (they're basically following the same cycle as Japan except with a 25-30 years lag)
Every country can chart its own way. South Korea is both more healthy innovation wise and less healthy demographically, right?