> Because someone who's not a resident in Japan, and claims to be living here, is fundamentally either also abusing the system, or not actually living here.
What? No…I am not suddenly forbidden from using the English language because of visa status. What is one supposed to say? Temporarily residing?Extended vacationing?Work-visa-free inhabiting? Come on.
You’re hanging your hat on the OP’s use of the word “living”, which is so weirdly pedantic that I think you’re just looking for a reason to be upset that they had the temerity to defend the rule changes.
For all we know, OP is living here on a perfectly valid visa.
Sure. I think it's meaningful to distinguish someone staying for six months, and someone staying for years; but if that's weirdly pedantic, so be it.
(Maybe it's also a cultural difference?
My native language distinguishes between the kind of "living" somewhere where you're just "staying" somewhere and where that place is the center of your life. I would not use the "I built my life here" verb for a 6mo stay.
Perhaps I'm letting that color my English a bit more than I should.)
What’s rich about it? You can live in Japan as a non-resident and still be following 100% of the rules.
I agree with the GP. It’s their country. They set the rules. If they want to change the rules because those rules aren’t working for them, that’s their prerogative. As a USian, I’m actually sort of jealous that they have the ability to make changes so quickly.
Well, it depends a little on what OP meant by “resident” - often that gets used by expats to mean “permanent resident”, which is a pretty high bar.
But even if you just assume that OP
is here on the digital nomad visa thing, you’re effectively living here. More to the point, you’re following the rules, and it’s not at all ironic or contradictory to have an opinion that the rules can be changed by the host.
If they meant "permanent resident" when they said "resident" that'd be a pretty weird, given, you know, our 在留カード literally say "residence card" on them; but perhaps this actually common, and I'm one of today's lucky 10,000.
But if they're here on a Digital Nomad visa, then their stay is limited to 6mo with no pathway to extending this — _I_ personally don't think that qualifies as "living" in a place, but perhaps reasonable people can disagree on this point.
Yes, I knew as soon as I wrote that that someone would chime in with the English definition of 在留. I thought about deleting it since it isn’t important to the argument, but I left it in because it’s a thing I’ve heard expats say here.
Look, even if OP is just living here on a tourist visa and doesn’t have any form of residency at all, and (s)he’s still following the rules as established, it’s not even remotely ironic to say that the rules are the rules, and the host has the right to change the rules.
It would be ironic if OP did that while admitting to violating immigration law.
It’s not the point. If you’re following the rules, you can call it whatever you like. If you’re not following the rules, then it’s at least ironic that you’d be calling for defense of the rules.
It’s a weirdly motivated form of pedantry to get snarky at someone for using the word “living” when you know nothing about their situation. It’s almost like you’re looking for a reason to be upset.
Double standards. He is an immigrant in Japan but he doesn’t want immigrants both in his host (Japan) and home (UK) countries. Pretty ironic come to think of. I guess he thinks his type are “good” immigrants, others are not so much.
The UK isn't exactly an assimilation success story.
As someone with potential aspirations of moving to a different country I don't mind it if they tried to avoid that kind of scenario and to retain their state's character to some extent.
The irony comment comes across somewhat innefective and petulant when I and others i've encountered with such views hold them in spite of the effects it could have for us. I don't see the point in laughing at that any more than i see it in calling out irony when a rich person calls for tax hoops to be closed and taxation to be fair.
Yep. There was also a proliferation of Indian restaurants in the major cities, for the same basic reason. (Though I have to say that seems like a much harder road than operating a guesthouse for people from your own country, which is what I presume was the Chinese approach.)
Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”. There have been stories in the Japanese press about long-time restauranteurs being shut down by the new rules.
> Since you can bring in relatives on this kind of visa, I’ve heard the expression “One curry pot equals three people”.
Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it. The New York Times did a good podcast on how uncapped family reunification ended up being a loophole that totally overturned all the limits and compromises in the 1965 immigration reform laws in the U.S.: https://www.nytimes.com/2024/10/29/podcasts/the-daily/electi...
It's a contentious issue in Canada, too. There are legit reasons families may want to bring in certain extended family members (grandparents for childcare, etc), but it becomes a chain. Canada's elderly benefits are designed for people that have lived here all their lives, so it adds a strain to healthcare and other services.
IMO it should be immediate family (spouse and children) and then maybe one should be able to sponsor 2 others on long term VISAs. But there would still be fraud (there always will be I suppose).
> Canada's elderly benefits are designed for people that have lived here all their lives, so it adds a strain to healthcare and other services.
In Germany, the benefits are tied to contributions, and after 45 years old, having some sort of pension is a requirement for getting a residence permit.
That being said, Canada is also getting skilled workers it did not pay to raise, educate and train. It's getting a good deal, but it's not getting a free meal. Those workers will have demands too.
> That being said, Canada is also getting skilled workers it did not pay to raise, educate and train. It's getting a good deal, but it's not getting a free meal.
Canada’s moribund GDP per capita suggests they’re not getting a good deal. My aunt and uncle moved to Canada a couple of decades ago from Bangladesh. He was an electrical engineer in old country and my aunt has a college degree. Neither ever got a skilled work job in Canada. They have been living in state subsidized housing the entire time. Same story for two of my cousins. A Bangladeshi college degree simply doesn’t translate into skilled work in the west. The standards for education in Bangladesh are just very low. And I think it’s true in India as well outside the top schools.
Now, my other cousin (their son) ended up as a successful professional. So did his wife, who is also Bangladeshi. But they came here as children. So Canada paid to raise them, put them through subsidized Canadian college, etc. Supporting two extended families of Bangladeshis for decades was an extremely expensive way just to get two more Canadian-educated skilled workers.
Same situation for my family in Australia. I have several aunts and uncles there, all with college degrees. My uncle is a doctor and two cousins are skilled professionals. But they went to college/medical school in Australia, which cost Australians money. And most of the aunts and uncles never got a skilled job. So you have a dozen people receiving significant support in unskilled jobs to get three skilled workers. This is a very expensive way to deal with slow population growth.
I'm not complaining myself, but the system has broken down due to abuse (and outright fraud) of student visas, where the "students" then started working front-line retail and delivery jobs. We stopped getting the skilled workers and got a lot of fraudulent ones, and there was a path to permanent residency/citizenship, which then became a pipeline for their families.
There's been a crackdown as of late, but it's significantly impacted the perceived benefits of immigration here (and significantly increased south-asian racism). I know this problem wasn't unique to Canada (AU/NZ/UK all had similar issues) as many countries felt it was better to get these immigrants educated here where their credentials could be recognized, but they underestimated the demand via diploma mills.
> Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it.
I don’t know if I’d go that far. I tend to think it’s kind of cruel to separate families indefinitely in the name of labor, but I do see that restrictions are necessary to prevent abuse.
There’s an entire spectrum of reasonable debate here.
> Family reunification is a gaping loophole in any skilled immigration law and developed countries need to seriously limit it.
It's a huge benefit, giving more people the benefits of freedom, bringing the country benefits of more free people (including economic growth), and bringing families together.
As there is little documented downside, it's a huge win. I want people to have freedom and families to be together. What's the downside?
I have to say though, the abundant authentic, high-quality and low-cost Indian and Nepalese restaurants across the country was a real quality of life benefit for people living in Japan.
Yeah, anyone who uses taxi drivers as an example of destruction either don't know what they're talking about (because they never experienced it) or they're crying crocodile tears.
I had cab drivers nearly drive off with me hanging off the car in San Francisco, because they were far more concerned with screening my destination than, say, not killing me. If Uber destroyed that industry, it was only a net benefit to society. They created immense value, and the "destruction" was only to eliminate a layer of corrupt parasites who made money by preventing a free market (in this case, the medallion owners, but the entire industry was corrupt from top to bottom).
Not all places have corrupt taxi industries. I think they were always more expensive than Uber (but there's a reason for that, Uber's pricing is not sustainable) but in most places a taxi is just a taxi.
Don't entirely agree that a local Taxi service is necessarily costlier than Uber. In my indian city, Uber and Ola cannot compete (and have been nearly wiped out) because a local Taxi service (that now dominates the market) is very competitively priced and professionally run. They charge their drivers a fixed percentage (unlike Uber or Ola, and lower fees than them) and release their payments timely in a transparent manner. The price per km, and all extra charges (late night fees, overtime driver charges etc., permit fees in case of long distance travel, toll fees etc.) are transparently conveyed to the customer too. And there is no bullshit practice of price gauging through "surge pricing" or "convenience fees" or "platform fees" etc.
It's about efficiency not just corruption. When you call taxi dispatch a human answers and coordinates with other humans. Takes longer and they sometimes drop the ball.
So basically, you’re saying that “most places” had uncorrupt, put-upon taxi industries who simply cannot survive against Uber because Uber is anti-competitive, and it has nothing at all to do with delivering a better product?
Yeah, I don’t believe you. It sounds like you’re making a just-so rationalization for why taxis are good and Uber is bad.
In pretty much any mature taxi market Uber is as expensive (if not more expensive!) than the conventional alternative. And yet Uber survives.
Black drivers used to make pretty good money many years ago, but Uber + market externalities redesigned their systems to "fix" that (mostly through decreasing payouts and high car rental costs)
Most of the drivers providing that service split their time between Uber, Lyft and traditional corporate black car service.
Lots of posts on this topic in the UberDrivers subreddit.
You see that whenever there is value, above starvation wages, flowing to laborers, capitalists see that as a problem and reduce it. Does this seem sustainable?
Somehow only laborers get price discovered. Amazon hasn't got price discovered, not has Google, in decades. Weird. It's almost like Econ 101 isn't the whole story.
Yes, many, in fact. But more importantly, nobody is making drivers take these jobs.
The restated version of your comment is simply “I think drivers should get paid more,” which is fine, but not an argument. Everyone who has ever had a job thinks the same thing.
Uber doesn't pay the driver for their time, nor wear or insurance on their car. Uber doesn't even consider drivers employees unless legally required to. I should hope Uber's cut is a tiny fraction since all they provide is a bit of software while taking control of markets and pricing for themselves.
My trick, I just use bootstrap, ask Claude for a custom Styles following a style, palete etc. Much better experience than buying and adapting and existing bootstrap theme
> This article is misleading because it does not mention Trump or Musk or Doge
The article doesn’t mention those things because you’re wrong about both the facts and the timeline, and you’d know that, had you read the article.
> Mexican cattle imports were banned in the US in 2024 because of the screw worm. Then trump allowed mexican cattle imports in February 2025 even though the screw worm situation was not resolved.
True, but a red herring. The first cases of Mexican screwworm were in late 2024 / early 2025 [1]. The current circumstances began long before the current presidential administration (at least 2020), as TFA correctly notes.
> Then, in March 2025, Musk's DOGE cut funding for COPEG, the organization that suppresses the screw worm in Panama.
No. The funding cut was for an unrelated UN agency (FAO) not COPEG [2]. FAO does not implement the fly eradication program, per their own website [3], but partisan critics have purposely confused the two issues, which you can see an example of at [4]. They mention COPEG, then talk about the FAO issue, then don’t mention that the one is unrelated to the other, because they want the reader to confuse the two.
In fact, the administration did not cut funding to COPEG, funding $165M in FY2025, with a supplemental grant of $21M the same year [5].
I have my problems with the current administration, and certainly don’t think they’re innocent here, but this kind of fact-free political backbiting that actively confuses the issue drives me batty.
I read the article and I am right about everything other than one not very significant detail. I am probably right about that too.
It is not a red herring that Trump allowed cattle imports from mexico when it was widely known that the screw worm was in mexico. It was a very serious lapse in safety and disease prevention.
Furthermore, DOGE did cut federal funding for programs for monitoring and curtailment of the screw worm in Central America in February 2025, and your own links show that. For example your link [2] says the above sentence almost verbatim. The FAO issue is not unrelated to the to the COPEG issue. The FAO also funded programs for detection and curtailment of the screw worm in central america just like COPEG. They were probably complimentary programs.
I could not find any link that COPEG funding was cut, but then again you showed no evidence that it was not cut. DOGE insisted on secrecy and was very vindictive, so a lot of DOGE cuts are not known and there is no definite public list of DOGE cuts. Furthermore, federal employees are scared. Any cuts to FAO programs would be made public because the FAO is an international organization and their employees are not at risk of being fired by Trump. But COPEG is an US organization and everyone in there will be scared to mention funding cuts to the media.
By the way, your statement that the Tump administration funded COPEG with 165 million in 2025 and a supplemental grant of 21 million is an outright falsehood and it is a falsehood proven by your own link [5]. Your own link [5] says that the 165 million funding came in 2024, not 2025 which would make it something done by the Biden administration. The supplemental 21 million funding came in 2025 but that was for fruit flies, not screw worm producing flies, so it did not go to COPEG.
I wonder, did you not read your own links, or did you know you were saying lies and hope that nobody else will read your links.
So in summary, DOGE did cut funding for screw worm detection and prevention in early 2025. Trump did allow Mexican cattle in the US in early 2025, even though it was known that the screw worm is in Mexico. It is not entirely clear whether DOGE cut funding for COPEG exactly or whether it only cut funding for other non-COPEG screw worm detection and prevention programs, but funding for screw worm detection and prevention was cut.
> Your own link [5] says that the 165 million funding came in 2024, not 2025 which would make it something done by the Biden administration.
From the link:
> APHIS received emergency funding of $109.8 million in 2023 and $165 million in 2024 from the Commodity Credit Corporation (CCC) for screwworm response activities. In May 2025, USDA announced an additional $21 million transfer of CCC funds to convert an existing fruit-fly-rearing facility in Metapa, Mexico, into a sterile fly-rearing facility.
The Trump administration didn’t start until January of 2025.
If you don’t want to give them credit for funding the project in the current financial year, fine, but then it’s especially dishonest to blame them for “defunding” during the same time period. (Particularly when that’s not true - I cited that explicitly to show that funding was not stopped.)
> I could not find any link that COPEG funding was cut, but then again you showed no evidence that it was not cut.
Other than the part I just quoted for you? The part you obviously read, since you cited it in your comment?
Nobody is arguing with you that the current administration cut funding for FAO. They did. What I’ve shown you is that this is is not the same thing as COPEG, FAO is not the prevention program, and even if it were, the cuts were far too late to have caused a problem that began six years ago.
> I heard there was one keeping this under control. It involved transgenic flies, which sounds close to transgender. DOGE ended it.
No.
First, the problem here predates DOGE by an entire presidential administration or more. If you had read the article, you’d know that the northward migration of flies started at least in 2020.
Second, the thing you’re misremembering has no relation to this program. It was funding for transgenic animals in a completely different area of research.
You are repeating hearsay that sounds like it should be the reason. It confirms your political priors while ironically making you feel smug about your scientific knowledge. I’m not a fan of the current administration, but seeing so many people here bend over backwards to blame this on their political enemies, without even a hint of intellectual curiosity is more depressing than anything the politicians have done. Your political team can be incompetent too — and probably is!
> It confirms your political priors while ironically making you feel smug about your scientific knowledge.
You are making the same error. Other Republicans (if not Trump) indeed criticized government-funded research into the screwworm lifecycle. Denying that the party of the president has been opposed to both science and regulation on principle -- including with this particular crisis -- makes you look naive at best, dishonest at worst.
I'm not arguing that one political team is innocent. When it comes to correctly managing complex scientific problems, all politicians are reliably incompetent.
It's right there, linked in TFA. The press release provided by the GP is instead discussing funding for the "UN Food and Agriculture Organization", which is different. Apparently they also do some unspecified amount of work on the issue.
That aid money went, in part, to preventing the spread of screwworms in Central America. As of 2024, the flies were mostly eradicated in Mexico and efforts were on-going in Panama to wipe them out down to the Darien Gap. In less than 2 years we've gone from them being almost entirely eradicated in North America to infections observed in the United States.
…and the current administration is using money to do that. It’s in the article, and I’ve posted links to evidence on multiple sub threads of this thread, which you had to ignore to make this comment.
Y’all are just absolutely fixated on blaming one side for this.
Two things can be true at once: one group cut funding early 2025, and another group added funding later. The former group, DOGE, was less responsible, and the latter group, USDA, is more responsible. I do not know why I have to ignore the former group to be fair to the latter.
Yes, the screwworm problem predates the funding cut. Surely that should prompt an increase or at least a maintenance of existing funding for monitoring programs though, certainly not a decrease.
I think atoav is saying the /stupid consequence/ is the cut in funding itself, not the screwworm resurgence.
Pointing out legitimate failure of an administration is not partisan -- denying or deflecting that criticism is partisan. The current regime has slashed so many programs based on the flimsiest reasoning (including "my predecessor supported this so therefore I hate it").
I'm more than happy to acknowledge any failures by Dem leadership because I'm not a party member and even if I were I would not let that blind me to the reality of that failure.
An interesting aspect of speaking with republican family members is that they assume democrats are monolithic and will revert to that assumption once enough time has passed. Like, unable to process being told that nobody in the room watches CNN or likes the Clintons.
I think conservative's brains are wired differently, and there's studies that back that up. They tend to lack empathy, which implies they can't walk in other people's shoes so therefor their assumptions about others are based upon how they themselves think.
I don't write that to demean them, I'd like it if it wasn't so -- this comment is in no way intended to be deragotory.
That said, I think this substantiates the notion that with conservatives "every accusation is a confession", because they can only see the world through their eyes they assume everybody else thinks like them.
A problem happening eventually is expected. The point of a good program is a layered approach that admits no layer is perfect so you have backups that kick in to minimize the impact of problems. So the problem was emerging in 2022, not great but not a tragedy. Cutting monitoring means we reacted slower and our inability to play with our neighbors well means that we can't coordinate a response quickly or as effectively. Destroying our layered, nuanced policies has real consequences and this is one of them.
Screw worms existing before Trump doesn't make it a bipartisan issue. Trump cut the funding, did Democrats do too? So then no only one party ignored and actively defunded it, making it exactly a partisan issue. Good job trying to cover for trump, it's extra pathetic here
> It's already scary how easy it is to launch an MVP or produce prototypes with the latest models.
No it isn’t. The things that were hard are now harder. The things that were comparatively easy are now easier. But if you build another piece of vibe-coded crap in a world awash in vibe-coded crap, you will not stand out. Nobody cares about your unpolished, one-shot prototype, so cranking them out faster is not really helpful.
Differentiation is always a problem of effort and care, and this isn’t going to change.
In fact, when you see someone in the art world claiming that X is a "defining" anything, it usually means that they have a big collection of X for sale.
In this case, I imagine it's submarine marketing for the movie that's out.
hacker news is, though. I'd be interested to see if the same article has been posted to two dozen subreddits etc (though not so interested as to actually do anything about it lol)
What? No…I am not suddenly forbidden from using the English language because of visa status. What is one supposed to say? Temporarily residing? Extended vacationing? Work-visa-free inhabiting? Come on.
You’re hanging your hat on the OP’s use of the word “living”, which is so weirdly pedantic that I think you’re just looking for a reason to be upset that they had the temerity to defend the rule changes.
For all we know, OP is living here on a perfectly valid visa.
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