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I've been watching a fair amount of anime this year. I've always had mixed feelings about anime. As a rule, I don't like stylized art. I'm also not really well versed in Japanese culture, so the tropes and things that make many of the jokes and philosophical points work don't make as much sense to me. On the other hand, I've always admired the depth of plot and character development some shows can have which you don't often see in Western animation.
Anyway, with my brain fried from lack of sleep and fibro fog, I've found that anime seems to hit the sweet spot between being interesting enough to enjoy but overly taxing on my ability to focus.
One thing about it that often jumps out at me is how seriously the UN and in particular its military power is taken. In the US, the Left tends to largely ignore the UN (appreciating that it's there without paying too much attention to what it actually does) while the Right tends to deride it as a massive waste. It's a symbol of globalization (which the Left favors and the Right despises) but not really part of our lives. But in anime, it's not uncommon to see UN forces defending the people from whatever the show's enemy is, or for the world governments to come together under the auspices of the UN in order to fight some global threat.
There's a reason for that. After WWII, the Allies decided that Japan should no longer be allowed to have its own military. Instead, their borders were protected by UN peacekeeping forces. The generations since have grown up seeing the UN as a real global power with serious military might.
This had widespread effects on Japan's development. I'm not nearly qualified to go into the subject in depth. But one simple but important thing to note is that not having their own military freed up a big chunk of their budget to instead invest in infrastructure. Like being early adopters and innovators in high speed rail. And building up technological research and manufacturing, making companies like Sony, Nikon, Toshiba, and Toyota global leaders in their fields.
It shows the power of what humanity could do if, instead of wasting trillions of dollars building weapons to deter other countries from using their weapons, we put that money into something productive. If we took the resources we put into potential destruction and instead invested them into making a better world. Or if we all just understood that investment in infrastructure (and the health and welfare of the populace) is the foundation of our collective prosperity.
Sure, we still need law enforcement and protection from terrorists and other rogue actors. But imagine a world in which, say, the EU acknowledged that none of its member states wants to be at war with any other member state and they all just collectively ceded military responsibility to the UN. It would still have to be paid for, but you'd be paying for much less once you eliminate the overlap and the weapons and bases that only exist to deter each other. And then that could set the example for other countries to do the same, seeing that they're just as well protected at a lower cost. At the same time, non-member states would see this vast alliance as less assailable, which would be a more effective deterrent. (And it would give an opportunity for people from different countries to serve together and travel more broadly, which might have some benefits of its own.)
I realize it's far-fetched. But, at the same time, it's something we could choose to do if enough people decided it was a good idea.
In the US, it would eliminate a particularly large amount of waste. Currently, weapons manufacturers have gotten very good at lobbying Congress to force the military to buy tanks and planes the Pentagon doesn't even want. Campaign donations. Spreading factories across multiple key states and districts. (It's stupidly inefficient to build the gears in Kentucky and the wheels in Illinois and assemble them in a separate facility in Virginia only to be shipped over to Texas, but those strategically placed jobs get the votes to place government orders for massive amounts of the things.) We could put that money into things that would actually do us some good. If only we could get people to decide that that's what we wanted.
Anyway, with my brain fried from lack of sleep and fibro fog, I've found that anime seems to hit the sweet spot between being interesting enough to enjoy but overly taxing on my ability to focus.
One thing about it that often jumps out at me is how seriously the UN and in particular its military power is taken. In the US, the Left tends to largely ignore the UN (appreciating that it's there without paying too much attention to what it actually does) while the Right tends to deride it as a massive waste. It's a symbol of globalization (which the Left favors and the Right despises) but not really part of our lives. But in anime, it's not uncommon to see UN forces defending the people from whatever the show's enemy is, or for the world governments to come together under the auspices of the UN in order to fight some global threat.
There's a reason for that. After WWII, the Allies decided that Japan should no longer be allowed to have its own military. Instead, their borders were protected by UN peacekeeping forces. The generations since have grown up seeing the UN as a real global power with serious military might.
This had widespread effects on Japan's development. I'm not nearly qualified to go into the subject in depth. But one simple but important thing to note is that not having their own military freed up a big chunk of their budget to instead invest in infrastructure. Like being early adopters and innovators in high speed rail. And building up technological research and manufacturing, making companies like Sony, Nikon, Toshiba, and Toyota global leaders in their fields.
It shows the power of what humanity could do if, instead of wasting trillions of dollars building weapons to deter other countries from using their weapons, we put that money into something productive. If we took the resources we put into potential destruction and instead invested them into making a better world. Or if we all just understood that investment in infrastructure (and the health and welfare of the populace) is the foundation of our collective prosperity.
Sure, we still need law enforcement and protection from terrorists and other rogue actors. But imagine a world in which, say, the EU acknowledged that none of its member states wants to be at war with any other member state and they all just collectively ceded military responsibility to the UN. It would still have to be paid for, but you'd be paying for much less once you eliminate the overlap and the weapons and bases that only exist to deter each other. And then that could set the example for other countries to do the same, seeing that they're just as well protected at a lower cost. At the same time, non-member states would see this vast alliance as less assailable, which would be a more effective deterrent. (And it would give an opportunity for people from different countries to serve together and travel more broadly, which might have some benefits of its own.)
I realize it's far-fetched. But, at the same time, it's something we could choose to do if enough people decided it was a good idea.
In the US, it would eliminate a particularly large amount of waste. Currently, weapons manufacturers have gotten very good at lobbying Congress to force the military to buy tanks and planes the Pentagon doesn't even want. Campaign donations. Spreading factories across multiple key states and districts. (It's stupidly inefficient to build the gears in Kentucky and the wheels in Illinois and assemble them in a separate facility in Virginia only to be shipped over to Texas, but those strategically placed jobs get the votes to place government orders for massive amounts of the things.) We could put that money into things that would actually do us some good. If only we could get people to decide that that's what we wanted.