Re: [tlug] KDDI vs. NTT for Land Line Internet Access

["Stephen J. Turnbull" <stephen@example.com>]

Lyle H Saxon writes:

 > Thanks Stephen, I can always count on you for sarcasm. ;)

Sorry, I had been watching a Beat Takeshi special on the Fukushima
genpatsu incident before I started doing email, and the amount of FUD
being spread by the antinuke folks made me cringe.

Back to the topic of "getting information," the big issue for us
foreigners in Japan, though, is that (as Karel van Wolferen put it)
truth is socially constructed.  Of course this is true in any society,
but Japanese tend to apply it to things where we would consider there
to be an "objective truth" lurking somewhere that should take
precedence over socially negotiated conventions.

This applies in a special way inside of large organizations, which
construct their own truth structures.  Mostly this works pretty well,
despite the discomfort I and other foreigners tend to feel with it.
Eg, Toyota automobiles and SONY radios received well-deserved
reputations for quality in the 70s, not "in spite of," but *because*
of corporate myths about their products that everybody in the
organization subscribed to.  Eventually KDDI and Softbank and NTT will
construct a social truth about the quality of Japanese networks and
the quality will be adjusted to that.  We just have to wait. :-)