The Monday Read: From the R to the J to the G

Do we need to sit down and talk about a midlife crisis which is starting?

I’ve been playing with AI a bit recently (Google’s Gemini, ChatGPT 3.5) and even though the hype seems to be dying down in the media, these things are getting better and better.

I watched Daniel Priestley talk about it in this (really good) interview:

This morning I read Scott Galloway’s take on how AI is driving tech layoffs and profits: Corporate Ozempic

And then today I got ChatGPT to write a grime track for me:

(Verse 1) Yo, RetireJapan, making moves so grand, Stacking yen, living lavish, in demand. From Tokyo to Osaka, we expand, Counting profits, watch us rise, take a stand.
(Chorus) RetireJapan, on that financial plan, Bull market flow, building wealth, understand. No 9 to 5, just success firsthand, Living large, flipping yen, in command.
(Verse 2) Shibuya lights, neon dreams, we’re the kings, Investing smart, crypto gains, hear the cha-chings. From the Nihon Exchange to overseas strings, RetireJapan lifestyle, breaking through rings.
(Chorus) RetireJapan, on that financial plan, Bull market flow, building wealth, understand. No 9 to 5, just success firsthand, Living large, flipping yen, in command.
(Bridge) Riding high like Mount Fuji, no stopping now, Diversify the portfolio, making heads bow. RetireJapan legacy, we avow, Financial freedom, we proudly vow.
(Verse 3) Land of the rising sun, we’re the rising ones, Compound interest, our journey just begun. RetireJapan, see us under the sun, Retiring early, we’ve already won.
(Chorus) RetireJapan, on that financial plan, Bull market flow, building wealth, understand. No 9 to 5, just success firsthand, Living large, flipping yen, in command.
(Outro) RetireJapan, hear the success symphony, From the Tokyo streets to the endless sea. Financial freedom, the legacy decree, RetireJapan, that’s the life for me.

It’s… not that bad? Only took around a second to create it too. Incredible.

I really have no idea what work and society are going to look like in a decade’s time, but it is probably worth trying to learn how to use these things before they end up using us.

RetireJapan TV

We talked to the fount of wisdom Ziv Nakajima-Magen this week on RetireJapan TV, mainly about investing in real estate in Japan.

You can check out the show on YouTube or in podcast form!

Daniel’s Money Tip February Challenge

We have a challenge for you. This comes from this week’s RJTV episode (starting around the 1:25 mark). Basically make a list of all your subscriptions (both monthly and annual) and see how much you are paying, then try to cancel as many as possible.

Next month on RetireJapan TV I will go through my numbers, and we’ll see how much money we manage to save collectively as a community.

I think we will easily hit 5m yen a year in savings if enough people do the challenge, but can we hit 10m? Or more? Find out next month!

YouTube

Thank you for your support of the RetireJapan YouTube channel. We are growing quite strongly this year, and it is largely down to your help and support. We are currently at 4,144 subscribers, which is pretty incredible.

This week we published a video about whether it is worth saving and investing small amounts of money. Hope you find it useful!

How much did you save when you started saving and investing?

The Forum

The Forum is doing well (33,351 posts so far). Excitingly, we now have over 2,000 registered members (2,083 currently). The forum rules are here. In essense, they are:

  1. Be nice
  2. Ask any question you like
  3. Only answer questions when you have relevant knowledge or experience

Here are the latest active threads:

This week’s links

  1. This drives me mad. We could be so much more comfortable and use so much less energy if we had minimum insulation and building standards: Insulation blues
  2. Oh, goody. Last year was miserable enough… Preparing for the hottest year Japan has ever seen
  3. I get the feeling this is another one of those visas no one is going to use: Japan launching new visa for digital nomads but will it be enough to solve its economic woes?
  4. I don’t really drink alcohol any more: Japan draws up guidelines on alcohol consumption
  5. Through a newcomer’s eyes: I bought a house in Japan for less than $45,000. I live in the peaceful countryside close to every convenience, and everything’s cheaper here
  6. I still don’t like this. Don’t see the need, and don’t like setting a precedent to have extra punishments for foreign residents (above and beyond existing legal penalties): Japan considers revoking permanent resident status of tax dodgers
  7. Airships seem like a no brainer. Lots of interesting context: Are Airships Finally Making Their Comeback?
  8. I really like Craig Mod and love how he runs things: Five Years of Memberships
  9. This free documentary is great (YouTube): Being Japanese Part 1 of 2 | Full Documentary
  10. I kind of agree: The Most Overrated Things in Personal Finance
  11. This is probably necessary, but I think they need penalties too: Tokyo to draft ordinance to curb harassment by customers
  12. I enjoyed this, and not just because Tokyo won: So what makes a city more walkable?
  13. I like the random thoughts at the end: The Solution For Too Much Screen Time
  14. I’m not in the slightest bit interested in this goal: Creating Generational Wealth

What do you think? Anything interesting in there?

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13 Responses

  1. AI will most definitely become the norm in every industry, because no industry passes up saving money/increasing profit.

    I’m happy having nothing to do with it. There are serious effects from reading AI text, viewing AI art, and most of all, using AI to make things for us. It’s crazy to think otherwise, much like the mind of a person who only reads books is attuned differently than a person who only views Tik Toks. What effect? No idea, but I think it will have to do with the deadening of imagination and complex thought, the way video has deadened attention spans.

    I’m not a Luddite, I just think it will be a net gain economically for humans, and a major net loss culturally. It’s here to stay though, no argument about that.

    1. Yes, I am very ambivalent about the desirability of AI taking over vast swathes of our cultural landscape, but regardless of that it is happening.

      And I would rather have control by understanding it than relinquish control by letting others understand it.

      But I definitely get where you are coming from.

      1. Initially, it will be small, but many, productivity gains.
        People won’t necessarily immediately lose jobs but fewer people will be hired to do the automated tasks.
        Then the jobs we do will change because they will be differently informed, but the jobs will still exist. However, the new ones created will be different.
        AI is limited by how well-informed it is based on historical data. AI tools are all predictive, even generative AI. If you ask it a question it finds previous examples from available sources and provides the next most likely answer.
        So, human creativity is not at risk, until the inputs change in some manner to solve this.
        You can likely see a trend in the ‘how well-informed’ and ‘differently informed’ parts of the above thinking and derive your own outcome (joke intended).

  3. Please restart telling us what books you have read recently. I have enjoyed many of the books you have mentioned. I think our book tastes align.

    1. Aw, thanks! I didn’t think anyone was interested (only ever had complaints about that section). Will restart it next week 🙂

  4. #7 — I wonder if you could somehow live on an airship in the same way that some folks live on boats?

    And not always on an endless journey, but by being tethered somewhere–like a boat docked in a harbor.

  5. Just stopped my DAZN (sports) subscription yesterday. That’s 30,000yen a year saved. Crazy thing is you could get it for about 12,000 5 years back, then it went up to 20,000 and now it’s gone up again to a price that I just can’t justify paying. Very unfortunate. I don’t have any other movie streaming subscriptions at the moment but I wouldn’t be against paying about 1000yen a month for one.

    #5 – Always interesting reading these kinds of things. A lot of what he says is true- having the space and place to enjoy nature but still being a convenient distance away from entertainment that you desire is perfect (for me anyway). But he does seem to be relying on his USD. A Big Mac cheap in Japan?? I was just talking with a friend last week about how we can’t afford McDs much anymore as it is so expensive now. People always say NZ/Aus/USA etc are more expensive but you have to remember it’s all relative. Much higher wages in those countries… and rising. We all know about salaries in Japan…

    1. Yeah, #5.

      I guess as a retired web developer in Japan, you have the freedom to dress as you want…

  6. That was a great video interview with Daniel Priestley. Lots of useful stuff and not just the AI stuff. Not sure about the rap song though.

    1. Oh, I’m a huge fan. Just devour everything he puts out.

      Don’t think the rap video is going to happen just yet 😉