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[penguinofhonor]

Did you know women aren't allowed to enter or touch a sumo ring?

[Neonivek]

Did you know women aren't allowed to enter or touch a sumo ring?

And yet not only are there female sumo wrestlers and female sumo wrestling league... But it is traditional for there to be female sumo.

Hmmm... When did the female baseball league come about?

Yeah Japan is just a mix between "Regressiveness" and "Progressiveness" wrapped up into one. It is why I consider them to have a transitional culture at the moment.

[Reelya]

This has been like that for centuries, sumo is a very old sport. I see that as equal to churches that don't allow female priests. Sumo is strongly associated with the Shinto religion, and therefore the rules and rituals have actual religious implications. I wouldn't say that either tradition automatically makes a judgement on relative sexism in western or eastern modern society.

[TamerVirus]

Re: Japanese economy

While it is true that the aging population along with underutilization of women are major liabilities for the overall economy, those factors probably weren't the cause of the current stagnation. Japanese economy was a global powerhouse in the 70s and 80s, even with the same lack of female workforce participation.

In fact, the current economic stagnation can be traced to inept monetary policy and mismanagement of interest rates following the massive asset, property and market collapse of the turn of the 90s. The monetary policy in place continued to support the now widely unprofitable banking institutes which in turn supported unprofitable businesses. In economic terms, "zombie banks" and "zombie firms" who were thought to be too big to fail should have failed. Furthermore low consumer confidence created a liquidity trap where spender hoard money instead of injecting it into businesses. Economic stimulus plans that tried to break free of this trap were mostly considered ineffective. Couple this with a redowntutn in the global economy in 2008 and you have the stagnation.

But while lack of women in the workforce wasn't the cause, spurring them into the workforce might be a solution, at least that's what Shinzo Abe and his economic plans have in mind. So in that essence, they are trying to bridge the gender gap

[Urist Tilaturist]

TamerVirus is right in that lack of women in the workforce did not primarily cause the slump, but kept it that way.

Abenomics (which to me as a non-expert seem to be mainly strong stimulation by quantitative easing, increased government spending and similar means) have not really succeeded. Bringing more women into the workforce did not seem a primary part of this. I would be grateful if someone more informed told me of any efforts to bring more women into work; I heard of some, but not exactly what they are.

Reelya: That engine design sounds...unusual. Turning vacuum into energy, particles or anything really is not something I have ever heard of before, or think is vaguely possible even in theoretical physics (violates conservation of just about everything). I am acquainted with the Alcubierre warp drive, but that warps space around the craft and does not turn it into anything else. Theoretical warp drives do not have the craft "riding" anything; space warps around the craft, hence the name. The craft is not actually accelerating at all. This avoids lethal acceleration on board the craft, and also avoids anything having to go faster than light; nothing can go faster than light, so the only thing going faster than light is...nothing.

Personally I would prefer for "science" fiction to just be recognised as the fantasy that it is and for all bullshit science to be described as the magic that it is. Magic is magic, however many big words it is wrapped in.

[Graknorke]

This discussion has happened before.
There is a difference between science fiction that is inaccurate and magic dressed up as science. Saying the two are the same is more misinformed than either of the two.

[Furtuka]

The point of science fiction is to feel real, not to be real. Otherwise what's the point? Even the hard science fiction series are suppose to be speculative, so its all gonna get invalidated sooner or later. It's all about the tone and portrayal.   ...also please keep in mind that you're discussing a franchise which started as a cartoon from 1974

[Loud Whispers]

You can't define what the point of any fiction is in 4 words. In any case there is a difference between hard science and soft science fiction; the latter will give you your fanciful !!SCIENCE!! whereas the former occasionally predicts real advancements in science that humanity will make correctly and is based in 'hard' science. Fanciness is thrown to the wind if it isn't real.

[Urist Tilaturist]

All going to get invalidated? Not H.G Wells' tanks, atomic bombs (radioactive weapons also predicted by Robert Heinlein), or heat rays (lasers).

Portrayal of bullshit can be as tonal as you like, still smells of bullshit. Just saying it's magic removes the lie. Even in the 1970s, people knew that vacuum could not be turned into matter or energy - conservation of everything.

Please explain the difference to me, because I am unaware of it. It's likely all just a misunderstanding.

[Reelya]

Reelya: That engine design sounds...unusual. Turning vacuum into energy, particles or anything really is not something I have ever heard of before,

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

virtual particles, vacuum energy, hawking radiation, casimir effect. Do you not have google there? Almost all the stuff you claim not to have heard of can be corrected in a few minutes.

The drive in the show is based on real proposals.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vacuum_energy#Implications

The existence of vacuum energy is also sometimes used as theoretical justification for the possibility of free-energy machines. It has been argued that due to the broken symmetry (in QED), free energy does not violate conservation of energy, since the laws of thermodynamics only apply to equilibrium systems. However, consensus amongst physicists is that this is incorrect and that vacuum energy cannot be harnessed to generate free energy.[5][not in citation given] In particular, the second law of thermodynamics is unaffected by the existence of vacuum energy.[citation needed] However, in Stochastic Electrodynamics, the energy density is taken to be a classical random noise wave field which consists of real electromagnetic noise waves propagating isotropically in all directions. The energy in such a wave field would seem to be accessible, e.g., with nothing more complicated than a directional coupler.[citation needed] The most obvious difficulty appears to be the spectral distribution of the energy, which compatibility with Lorentz invariance requires to take the form Kf3, where K is a constant and f denotes frequency.[6][7] It follows that the energy and momentum flux in this wave field only becomes significant at extremely short wavelengths where directional coupler technology is currently lacking.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Quantum_vacuum_plasma_thruster

The quantum vacuum plasma thruster (or Q-thruster) is a theoretical deep-space thruster that uses the quantum vacuum fluctuations to propel a spacecraft. Proponents contend that interaction with 'quantum vacuum plasma' is the cause for thrust produced by an experimental engine (abbreviated to "Q-thruster") proposed for use in deep-space propulsion.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hawking_radiation

In another model, the process is a quantum tunnelling effect, whereby particle-antiparticle pairs will form from the vacuum, and one will tunnel outside the event horizon.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Casimir_effect


http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alcubierre_drive

The Alcubierre drive or Alcubierre metric (referring to metric tensor) is a speculative idea based on a solution of Einstein's field equations in general relativity as proposed by theoretical physicist Miguel Alcubierre, by which a spacecraft could achieve faster-than-light travel if a configurable energy-density field lower than that of vacuum (i.e. negative mass) could be created. Rather than exceeding the speed of light within its local frame of reference, a spacecraft would traverse distances by contracting space in front of it and expanding space behind it, resulting in effective faster-than-light travel.

[Graknorke]

All going to get invalidated? Not H.G Wells' tanks, atomic bombs (radioactive weapons also predicted by Robert Heinlein), or heat rays (lasers).

I'm not sure what you're saying here. These things are magic?

[Urist Tilaturist]

No, somebody said that all science fiction would be invalidated, and these things were not.

I forgot vacuum energy, that was foolish of me, but that is about 10^-9 joules per metre cubed and is unlikely to be of much use to anyone. Quantum electrodynamics gives a vast figure - Google says 10^113 joules per metre cubed, but spaceships are not on the quantum scale. Most weird quantum effects are just too small scale to be of use to massive spaceships.

EDIT: I had no idea about the Q-drive. It still seems like a strange idea for a weapon, but I definitely need to research these things more. From the little I have seen now it looks possible, but the question remains as to how useful it would be. One of the things I love about this forum is that somebody usually gives a good correction to a mistake.

[Reelya]

Sci fi tends to extrapolate real stuff, and propose materials / substances with qualities beyond what we know (super alloys, super fuels etc). The idea of an energy-based engine doubling as a projectile weapon isn't that far fetched. Think about a magnetic propulsion system which is one long railgun going the length of the ship. You could use it to eject charged gasses out the back, thus propelling you forward, or you could use it to fire solid projectiles or ionized beams out the front as a weapon.

[penguinofhonor]

And yet not only are there female sumo wrestlers and female sumo wrestling league... But it is traditional for there to be female sumo.

Hmmm... When did the female baseball league come about?

Yeah Japan is just a mix between "Regressiveness" and "Progressiveness" wrapped up into one. It is why I consider them to have a transitional culture at the moment.

"Traditional female sumo" was mostly prostitutes and strippers wrestling for men's entertainment. Female sumo nowadays is not done on the professional level (though the amateur league seems pretty legit) and has to fight very hard against the negative perception most Japanese people have of it.

A bit heavier on the regressiveness than the progressiveness, I think. Sounds like a worse situation than most female American sports are in.

source

[Neonivek]

"Traditional female sumo" was mostly prostitutes and strippers wrestling for men's entertainment.

Go back even further and it was Shrine maidens.