Personally (and ironically), I wouldn't usually think of museums if I'm looking for something non-touristy. Walking through a museum, reading and looking at things that've been laid out in a specific order for me to consume, just feels like reading a website. Unless it's a unique exhibit, there's little interactivity, and while things can certainly be learned, I often wonder if I couldn't have learned them just as well from a book.

That's not to say I'll never go to a museum; I stumbled into a small science and technology museum near the imperial palace gardens, for example. But the bigger a museum is and the more lists it's on, the more I'd assume it's touristy. The Tokyo National Museum being "a standard destination for foreign visitors" is exactly why I'd shy away from it. (Why the general public would follow that trend for museums but not for other tourist destinations, I don't know.)

There is an actual difference between those two words. GP said he lives in Tokyo "at the moment." Immigrants intend to settle permanently; expats move places temporarily and will eventually either move on to somewhere else or go back home.

Expats can turn into immigrants, but one who "knows deep down they don't belong" is less likely to.

That’s traditional outlook, but it doesn’t hold ground anymore. A lot of people considered immigrants are staying somewhere temporarily, for a few years. Most of all in comes down to people not wanting to label themselves as immigrants, because they have some prejudices against this terminology. Quite common it comes down to a person with European background labelling himself as an “expat” or “relocant”, and people from Asia, Africa, Latin America, Middle East (except Israel) as “immigrants”. In the end, from point of view of host country, they are all the same immigrants that live in the country based on the same documents, e.g. resident permits, but people labelling themselves as “expats” may often support local anti-immigrant policies, not realising it will hurt them as well.

> Free speech can exclude criticism of foreign nations (like Isra-l)... So I reject this culture claim that you are defending and do not accept that these conservatives have America's best interests in their heart.

Do not pretend like liberals were on a different page than conservatives on that issue before the election. Support for Israel was happening under Biden and would have continued under Harris; Trump's the one who did a bait-and-switch with pretending he'd be more neutral until he got in. And conservatives have been called antisemitic by liberals far more than the reverse.

> American culture is immigrant centric.

What does this mean? Because to me, it means we don't have a culture and never will have one. What does immigrant-centric mean to people who are born not immigrants, besides getting out of the way for the next generation on its way in?

It was only under the current admin that permanent residents were detained, and American citizens were doxxed openly (I agree that deans of colleges were fired and students at Ivies doxxed by Ackman and his cronies during the previous admin). All because criticism of Isr-el. And sure, both parties are pro-Isra-l and always will be (at least until lobbying is eliminated or America-first lobbies are the only ones allowed). Hell, an op-ed written by a lady got her detained a la Gestapo. As to your second point, much of America continues to be defined by immigrants. Tesla is the best selling auto maker, and Elon an immigrant is behind it (who overstayed and was illegal for some time as a matter of fact). Chobani yogurt. Nvidia was founded by an immigrant. I could go on. I'd argue conservatism is getting in the way of the next generation, by hindering growth. Tourism in the US is down 22%. Those hurting are American businesses, and small ones in particular

The question is, do you think it's fine for the same line of "Japanese supremacy" thought to apply in Japan, and if so, why do you think it's different?

> If I remember correctly, gaijin is just how you say 'foreigner' in standard Japanese.

I think this depends on tone. It is a literal translation, but I don't think you have to call someone non-human for it to be rude.

> I can imagine that people in, say, the United States wouldn't be very happy if I went around and only spoke Dutch.

We do have a large amount of people (and an increasing number of businesses) who think it's fine to only speak Spanish.

> Perhaps not in... whatever random place got featured in some anime, or whatnot.

When I went last year, two of the random places I went because they got featured in some anime were some of the most authentic-feeling experiences I had.

One was a small town on the east coast near a beach; a lot of it felt like a ghost town (I barely saw any locals, let alone tourists). I was able to go and respectfully visit a really nice shrine while being able to keep my distance enough that I knew I wasn't bothering anyone. I also found a cool aquarium I didn't know was there, and I'm pretty sure I was the only foreigner I saw/heard while visiting it.

The other was a less-deserted but still small area outside of a less popular city. There was an island I wanted to go onto that I couldn't, but I improvised and found a beautiful hike to a summit overlooking it instead. While I was walking up, I had at least two elderly folks say hello to me in Japanese, and a pair of young children walking with their mom say hello in English (way more unprompted interaction than I got just walking around in any of the cities, aside from employees advertising things).

So just because a place was featured in an anime doesn't mean it's necessarily a tourist trap. Just don't go in expecting the place to be entirely defined by that (and it also helps if it's been at least a few years since said anime was popular).

Japan closed their borders to tourists during COVID. If it's as simple as you say, then they can do it again.

They won't because you couldn't get a majority of their populace to agree with you, which doesn't necessarily mean it's incorrect but does at least mean it's not simple.

The ones who are going to heed your advice to minimize their existence are not the ones who need to hear it, generally. That mentality just punishes thoughtful people and will not reach the vast majority of the ones you believe are a problem.

Living an examined life and choosing actions in tune with your conscience is its own reward, not self-denial.

Staying home is not the only alternative to participating in the most destructive acts of overtourism.

I understand you're not the same person as the one who started your side of this argument, but you can't just jump from "there's not really an ethical way to be a tourist in a foreign country" to "I was only talking about overtourism, stop being extreme."

If self-denial is rewarding to you, that's your business. You don't decide with vague statements what's rewarding to others.

There are so many great options for exploring the world. Even in your neighborhood all it takes is a novel perspective to discover something new, and the same is true elsewhere.

Are there no mountains to climb other than Everest? Is there no way to experience a mountain other than scaling the summit?

Why must considering how you impact your surroundings mean “self-denial”? Why can’t it mean choosing amongst abundant riches and savoring the very experience of choosing?

> A matcha place I like only lets you order from the real menu after you’ve unlocked enough visits from a punch card.

What's the "fake menu" you have to order from before you unlock the real one? Or do you just have to swing by but aren't allowed to order anything? Compared to the others, it's hard to think of how this would necessarily help the business, aside from possibly disincentivizing people who are uncaring enough that their traffic would be bad but still care enough that they won't go there if they can't order something specific.

> Avoid neurodiversity bias. For example, avoid the terms "sanity check" and "sanity test",

This one seems a little much. I've used this term in work writing within the past week (not in official documentation, but I do also write official documentation). I tried to look up what the acceptable alternatives are (since Section 4.6 doesn't specify one for that rule), but it seems most possible alternatives already have other, distinct meanings: https://english.stackexchange.com/questions/282282/near-univ...

I usually use "smoke check/test" or "smell test", but if you have a specific context in mind, maybe I can give you a different alternative phrase I use or two.

Definitely not something I'd force onto others either though.

> "smell test"

There are a lot more people who would fail that test and be offended when pointed out. That group includes some forms of mental illness as well.

Don't people who "fail a smell test" and get offended do so because they they think it's a propestourous claim they're failing it? It's kind of the opposite situation, cause wouldn't that make them not take it on themselves by default and thus not wish for the nonuse of this phrasing?

Are we just disregarding the differently-abled people who have a diminished sense of smell? /s

Then those people are unreasonable, and need to adjust their outlook. It is neither healthy for them, nor fair to others, to take such great offense at harmless words.

Sounds like victim blaming to me; who are you to decide what is healthy or fair for someone else, or what words are offensive or harmless?

Because I can guarantee there's words that would make you upset if they were used against you. I mean this thread is because someone had an emotional response to "inclusive language", they zoomed right in on it and ignored every other aspect of the thing, even calling for the whole section to be removed.

How is that different? I don't understand why people get so upset about inclusive language. Those people are unreasonable, and need to adjust their outlook. It is neither healthy for them, nor fair to others, to take such great offense at harmless words.

> I mean this thread is because someone had an emotional response to "inclusive language", they zoomed right in on it and ignored every other aspect of the thing, even calling for the whole section to be removed. How is that different?

Great, you win, it's not different. The person getting upset at "inclusive language" is on the same level as the one getting upset at "sanity check" because everyone's offended by something and therefore all offense is equal. What now?

Nice try turning it around, but no, you didn't find a gotcha. You just tried to argue two opposites ("no amount of offense is unreasonable" and "the people I disagree with are the unreasonable ones") at the same time. You acknowledged there's a line and failed to address its location.

But words evolve, and we do actually change which words we use. We've been doing it since... forever. And, somehow, people still manage to act surprised when it happens. As if it's their first day on Earth.

There's a lot of terminology around just mental illness that we have decided to leave in the past. And, a lot of it is for good.

One benefit of changing our language is we get a second chance. We can be more specific, more fine-grained, or more accurate. For example, sanity check is vague. If it's a bound check, we might say bounds check. That's more accurate. If it's a consistency check, we might say consistency check.

We want our language, particularly in technical pieces, to be both inclusive and precise. What I mean is, we want it to include every thing it should, and nothing it shouldn't.

For example, in Medical literature you'll often see the term "pregnant person" or "pregnant people", or even "people who may be pregnant". At first glance, it seems stupid. Why not just say "women"? Women is imprecise. There's a variety of people who would not identify as a woman who may be pregnant. If they get, say, a form with that verbiage they might mark "no, I'm not a woman". But they SHOULD mark "yes, I am a pregnant person" or "yes, I am a person who may be pregnant". It doesn't even just include transgender individuals - it also includes people born intersex, or people born without a uterus who do identify as a woman. There's women who may be pregnant and women who may never be pregnant, just as there are people who do not identify as women who may be pregnant. The word "woman" is then imprecise, confusing, and includes people it shouldn't, as well as excluding people it should.

Yes, they evolve but only if wider society accepts it. And in this case, most people don't consider that it's reasonable to change the phrasing.

This way leads to people writing blog posts about firing workers they don't employ because they used gender non-neutral language in technical posts.

> And in this case, most people don't consider that it's reasonable to change the phrasing.

You're positing an opinion as statistical fact; the reality is that most people do not care.

I think wider society has accepted it. For these terms in medical literature, they're already in use and have been for decades now.

This isn’t medical literature. What will you do when someone writes how they want and won’t conform to your opinion?

Nothing. I'm just explaining why words evolve and why we choose to use more precise language. If you want to be more vague I certainly won't stop you.

"Pregnant woman" is more precise than "pregnant person" or "pregnant female“. Pregnant woman specifies the gender as well as implying the sex (female or intersex, since males lack a uterus), while "pregnant person" only implies sex and "pregnant female" specifies the sex but not the gender.

"Pregnant person" is the least specific, "pregnant woman" is the most specific.

It's less accurate for the reasons you listed: it includes gender, which isn't always accurate and is unnecessary.

The problem is that there are trans men who exist, who may be pregnant. If asked if they are a woman or a woman who may be pregnant, they would answer no, which is incorrect in the larger context.

Pregnant people is naturally a superset of pregnant women, so pregnant women WOULD be more precise, if the advice applied only to pregnant women, which it almost never does. So that means we should almost never use pregnant women, as it's inaccurate.

Specificity should not be sought in the face of inaccuracy. For example, "brick house" is more specific than "house". So if I said "I live in a brick house", that should be better right? No, because it's wrong - I live in a wood house.

Per my original comment: "we want it [terms] to include every thing it should, and nothing it shouldn't." Pregnant woman doesn't include everything it should.

> people born without a uterus who do identify as a woman

Those cannot get pregnant. What's the point here? It's obvious that the phrase "pregnant woman" does not imply all women are pregnant.

The point is as stated - "women" does not mean the same thing as "pregnant person" or "person who may be pregnant", which are both more precise terms. Both forwards and backwards.

Meaning yes, not every woman can get pregnant, but also not every pregnant person may identify as a woman. Suppose an intersex person born with a uterus who is pregnant but has lived their entire life as a man.