How Japan saved its biggest city from collapse – Roman Krznaric

Well, Edo period’s international trades were optimized, not restricted. Japan imported so much goods from China, Korea, Ryukyu, Ezo (Hokkaido), Thailand, Indonesia (through Chinese, Dutch, and Korean traders) throughout Edo period. Also exported to the exact countries and western countries through Dutch Eastern Indian company in Dejima, Nagasaki. Edo and the previous governments were super furious about Spanish and Portuguese missionaries/traders who sold Japanese citizens as slaves to South America and Europe. Every Japanese leaders knew what Europeans were doing in Americas and other Asian countries. They were the sharpest leaders in the world at the time (survived over 100 years of wars).

and then WWII happened

And then, they invaded China.

💪🇯🇵

amazing explanation

It's amazing what you can do when you can order peasants around and kill them for the slightest mistake.

I am a Japanese. Thank you for making such a beautiful video! We are proud of the word, MOTTAINAI.

A very creative way of romanticizing misery. The vast majority of Japanese during that period lived in utter misery, not simply poverty. Recycling was born out of necessity, not out of some deep philosophical wisdom.
Yes, much of the world was poor as well, but commerce and international relations were gradually changing how countries lived, a process that never truly ends.
Of course, there is value in being creative with what can be reused, but we should keep our perspective clear. Our current technology cannot, and will not, survive by sewing rags together. Many SciFi movies imply some marriage between highly advanced technologies and a rural, quaint life: those are just fantasies.

Close analysis of this video shows that the many practices presented as cultural are in fact merely rational. The fact that these people, who by happenstance were Japanese, and/or were by happenstance Buddhist, achieved these efficiencies doesn't confirm the notion that they achieved these efficiencies BECAUSE they were Japanese and/or Buddhist and therefore not "contaminated" by the "ev|ls" of the modern, secular, rationalist, industrialized Anglophone/European so-called "Western" world. No. They achieved these efficiencies by looking at things rationally. They used the laws of physics, chemistry, energy, and motion to make life easier and more stable. Anyone anywhere in the world who employs rationality in these same ways will achieve these same results, regardless of any allegations that their "culture" is "contaminated". The people in this video should be praised for the rational foresight they chose to exercise, without praising them for some allegedly "special" way of thinking that arose from their being Japanese, Buddhist, or otherwise "superior" to allegedly wasteful consumerist countries. There are no "special" people. But there are virtuous people (such as the ones in this video) who choose to be practical rather than special.

4:51 ah, the old same.

This was only a temporary solution and doesn't work long term. You need to trade with the outside world. If not, you become like North Korea.

Sometimes, in this rapid world, we need to remind ourself to feel enough. This history reflects how circular economy idea is somehow a feudal idea but still relevant until nowadays.

Ted-Ed is becoming a history major

This is how life would be without capitalism

4:35 Dai-MOH!?!?