> But everyone is out shopping, partying, drinking, eating out all the time. Onsens, arcades, karaokes, izakayas. Yes getting those services means someone has to work.

Spot on.

I really like Substack as media and I think has been a great complementary in terms of depth; but this article does not have any difference of any slop from mainstream media.

Pick one topic, place some term (like late-stage capitalism, social-democracy, democracy), pick-up 2 or 3 bad poins, and build a narrative, and sprinkle some ~hyperlinks~ references that sustain and voilà: now you have some in-depth analysis with a audience craving for it even when everyone knows that is super simplistic and reductionist, does not converge on what books and history says, and with a politically charged piece.

All those articles you will never see any kind point of positivity being conceived; it sounds always written by some hypercritical, rational, politically charged, and hyper-contemporaneous in a sense that is not space for nuance and understanding that no simple thing per se can explain a very complex phenomena.

For God sake, those guys received 2 nukes 80 years ago and they managed to raise again, and in the meanwhile my country during this time only have 55% of people with sewage.