## Metadata - Author: [[Ellie]] - Full Title:: Japan Is What Late-Stage Capitalist Decline Looks Like - Category:: #🗞️Articles - URL:: https://oceandrops.substack.com/p/japan-is-what-late-stage-capitalist - Read date:: [[2025-12-30]] ## Highlights > The average American, unfamiliar with Japanese social norms or cultural history, likely thinks this is some reflection of premodern Japanese values or ritual suicide traditions. *It’s not.* > Karoshi directly parallels emerging American trends in burnout-related deaths and mental-health collapse. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt5bdchbx3daggtv1acd3n)) > *Call me a harlot*, but I see sex as being a normative prosocial behavior. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt713ytf19z31g6mg66fbp)) > The “no-dating” rule that these groups and their labels enforce are meant to maintain the illusion of availability and sexual purity to lonely men. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt7w4tezdzyjjqt39cxq7t)) > Parasociality emerges because real relationships require stability and time investment — neither accessible to the average Japanese worker. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt860appd5vt84ckh5p8tt)) > Japan isn’t a quirky outlier – it’s simply a society that started its capitalist decay earlier. And that decay looks surreal. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt99fn4ndgpy6e7d4hze36)) > In a functional society, basic human milestones are incentivized. You want to form relationships, get married, buy a home, and plan for the future. In late-stage capitalism these same milestones become financially punishing and logistically impossible. ([View Highlight](https://read.readwise.io/read/01kdqt9h48ny2rw5wja838ef3k))