Joe McReynolds @McReynoldsJoe Twitter profile | Pikagi

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Joe McReynolds

@McReynoldsJoe

8,379

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Japan urbanism: Emergent Tokyo (2022). China-US NatSec: China's Evolving Military Strategy (2016), China's Information Warfare (2024). 摸着石头过河, learning as I go.

DC, NYC, CA, Tokyo

https://t.co/jE1MeBHAle

Joined March 2011

Don't wanna be here? Send us removal request.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

4 months

I've lived a lucky life. Occasional hard spots, but overall? Just fantastically lucky. And yet a half decade ago, moving to Tokyo with a vague dream of studying the megacity, I never imagined luck like this. Grateful beyond words to everyone who's decided to give our book a read!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

One trick I learned from Tokyo that helps for understanding any city: when you come across a charming small biz in a sea of generic chains, ask them about their relationship with their landlord. For example, this is the fantastic Alabaster Bookshop, near Union Square in NYC...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

The story varies but the trend is clear: a city w/ unconventional small landlords is a city that's friendlier to idiosyncratic small businesses, the sort of spots that don't turn a big profit but that collectively make a place feel like a *place*, not a generic everywhere/nowhere

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

They have a landlord with a motive other than strict profit and loss; the co-op has a stake in the area and likes the idea of having a bookstore downstairs. Alabaster isn't just one more line item on a spreadsheet to them. Talking to other small biz around NYC, they all have...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

The #1 source of these unconventional landlord relationships in Tokyo is banned in most of our cities: under Japan's zoning, homeowners can put nearly any small biz in the bottom floor of their rowhouse, by-right! Any retiree who owns their house is a potential small biz landlord

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

And often, they're not looking to get maximum return on their space, they'd just like something nice downstairs for the neighborhood they live in and care about. It's a completely different mindset from a large commercial real estate company that results in a different townscape.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

If we want cities that feel organic and spontaneous and real, the quickest way to get there is to give people the freedom to do things with their homes other than just live in them. The endless worry about property values that leads to restrictive zoning kills urban spontaneity.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

A story about how their unconventional relationship with their landlord that allows them to survive. Maybe their family has owned the building for ages. Maybe the landlord grew up in the neighborhood and wants to keep the old flavor alive. Sometimes it's just "bored rich people."

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

So, in a neighborhood like that, businesses like Alabaster that defy that consensus tend to stand out. I was talking to the staff about the business, and I asked them, essentially, "why are you here instead of a Chipotle?" -- the answer? A co-op owns the building above them.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

In Tokyo, if you have a two story house in a residential neighborhood, *by right* you can put a restaurant/bar/boutique/workshop inside the ground floor of your house! Gives the backstreets a totally different feel to walking through a US neighborhood with nothing but residences.

@PaprikaGirl_JP

Paprika Girl

@PaprikaGirl_JP

2 years

Today on my morning walk to get fresh bread for breakfast, I passed a very tiny home bakery near my house. I love these tiny businesses in the suburbs that people run from their living rooms! I’ll be coming again. (The lemon pie is divine!)

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

And if you're in NYC, check out Alabaster Bookshop! So much great stuff in their stacks, including a solid architecture/urbanism section. 🙂

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Alabaster is in a part of town that is, shall we say, "generically bougie." The dining & retail here aren't actively *bad*, but they're generic w/ no history or connection to the neighborhood, interchangeable with every other place, only here b/c a profit loss calculation says so

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@AlexYablon This, *plus* the ability to set up fun little ideas (businesses, or things even less formal than that) in cheap/free spaces. Cheap living, cheap creating. That's the formula. Many ways to get there, but you don't keep anywhere weird without it.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

Tokyo is an interesting counterpoint to this! Not a lot of old architecture in most of the city. But the intimate *layout* of Tokyo's old school neighborhoods, designed for human-scale community rather than cars, makes for a magical city. "Vernacular architecture" is nice, but...

@culturaltutor

The Cultural Tutor

1 year

Do you ever feel that older cities are just more interesting than new ones? Well, it isn't just because they're old. It's because of something called "vernacular architecture"...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@fortenforge Don't cut yourself on that edgy take

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Since Japan is closed off to foreign tourism right now, the streets of Kyoto that are normally absolutely thronged with people are eerily quiet and peaceful. A version of Kyoto I'll probably never see again in my lifetime once Japan reopens.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@3Maccc @aardvarsk What often happens in your 30s is, you move in the direction of what you truly want for yourself, not what others expect. For an introvert, maybe that's relaxing at home. For me as a hyper-extrovert, it's flying to see different friends every other weekend b/c that's my joy 🙂

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Btw, if anyone reading this would like a beautiful and informative book that explains why Tokyo works the way it does, and what cities around the world can learn from it - with tons of cool visuals and infographics - you're in luck, I just co-wrote one 🙂

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@ElieNYC When I heard about the farmers swapping recipes for putting poison in their food supplies that the Russian troops would be stealing, I knew this was going to end very badly for whoever thought the Ukrainians would just roll over and accept their new overlords

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@mtgDAO This is seriously the kindest (and most justified) C&D letter towards a fan project I've ever seen. Please for the love of god accept this and move on.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

7 months

@dieworkwear 100% correct! And your health care is cheap, and you get mom-and-pop tax breaks, and folks can easily reach you by transit, and zoning means your workshop can be anywhere. For anyone who'd like to bring this vibrancy to American cities, a shameless plug:

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Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

Emergent Tokyo: Designing the Spontaneous City

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 month

@bunburyoudouuk @AsianDawn4 In other words, Asian Dawn is blatantly lying about the video in order to stir up racist animosity.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

Arfiya did it!!! History made, both globally and in Japan. She's now the first Uyghur elected official holding national office in any of the world's democracies, and she's going to be a progressive force in the LDP.

@nhk_news

NHKニュース

1 year

元議員と新人のあわせて7人の争いとなった衆議院千葉5区の補欠選挙は、自民党の新人で公明党が推薦する英利アルフィヤ氏の初めての当選が確実になりました。 #nhk_video

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Home cooking for the local public is also way less regulated. The little grandmas in the neighborhood selling tasty bento lunch boxes for 5 bucks each aren't dealing with some giant bureaucracy. They just cook, people trust in it, and things work out okay.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@qingqingparis @JoeBiden

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@eliweisss The term "omotenashi" literally just means hospitality. This is lazy orientalism, not cultural insight.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@DreemerNemesis @OliverJia1014 Time to update the meme I guess

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Plenty of little economic incentives help you along the way. If you run it as a small biz, you can keep a share of the sales tax you collect, and get income tax breaks. Cheap universal health care means you're not screwed without a 9 to 5 job. Liquor licenses? A minor formality.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@noahsloss Various sorts, yes! A) keep sales tax you collect up until a certain amount of sales, b) write off most/all your income taxes unless you're pretty successful, c) universal health insurance, d) liquor licenses etc are an easy-peasy pittance (booze makes more microbiz profitable)

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

This is Arfiya Eri, one of my oldest friends, running for an at-large seat in the House of Councillors, the Japanese senate. The first Uyghur election candidate backed by a major party anywhere in the world. Beyond making history, let me tell you a bit about her, what she's like.

@eri_arfiya

英利アルフィヤ【衆議院議員(千葉５区: 市川市・浦安市)】

2 years

昨日、自民党本部で行われた比例代表公認候補者追加発表記者会見に参加し、ご挨拶をさせていただきました。冒頭のご挨拶部分をシェアさせていただきます！ #えりアルフィヤ　＃自民党＃参院選 #参院選2022

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

Another thing I love in Tokyo that would never fly in American cities: bars that are literally just a tin shack in a back alley with two seats inside

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

...if we have to focus on one thing, I'd rather we focus on how we lay out our neighborhoods -- how we make them walkable, how we allow local mom-and-pops to thrive -- rather than pining for an architectural past that simply isn't coming back. For example, in our book we talk...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@alexisohanian Every possible shred of evidence we have suggests the industry is moving in the opposite direction. Compare Diablo 4, out this week, to Diablo 3, which allowed 'play-to-earn' and mostly infuriated the fanbase. Turns out people like their hobbies as hobbies, not as side hustles!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

...about "Pocket Tokyo" neighborhoods, where modern offices on the main streets surround an inner block with dense older housing and labyrinthine alleys. The inner neighborhood feels intimate and walkable, full of mom-and-pops that the office workers can patronize during the day.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@JordanUhl She's not a clear communicator but this seems like a misreading of her clear intent -- that since the Senate GOP won't sign off on 2k, this is just grandstanding by Trump that will delay the stimulus. That's debatable logic, but she's clearly not mad about the idea of 2k checks!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

And if your neighbor doesn't like the idea of living next door to a bar? Well, you talk it out. A tiny 6-seat bar isn't going to get rowdy, and if it did, the neighbor could escalate complaints to the local block council or even the cops. In practice, big incentive to compromise.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@JoyceCarolOates somebody's mad she didn't see the cat

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Zakkyo buildings! The buildings that make up Tokyo's iconic 'neon nightlife' that you see in the movies. Buildings where every floor has its own little micro-businesses, full of delights and secrets, instead of mainly the ground floor having public uses like one sees in US cities

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@Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦

2 years

Monday open question: What are the 1-5 most cyberpunk elements of our modern world?

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@franzsch2 @MattZeitlin These outfits were pretty normal even then (at least in Cali), it was more the contrast with how they were dressed for the rest of the movie I think?

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@dklmarxist ...yes? The Soviet Union was a brutal dictatorship, and any leftist worth their salt (aka not embarrassments like Parenti) spoke forcefully to that reality at the time.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Xinjiang is trending on Twitter again, which inevitably means the CCP's influence ops botnets spin up to push the "actually, everything is fine, nothing to see here" narrative, but this latest batch is even more transparent than usual:

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@Noahpinion Ayyy, Japan inheritance tax discussion fun time! The tax has fluctuated over the postwar period, at present it's relatively mild - first ~250k exempt then starts at 10%. But in the postwar past it's sometimes been massive and required you to pay the whole thing up front, which...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

We've got a plane sitting on the tarmac (not Kabul). Got over a hundred Afghan refugees - AMAZING civil society activists - nearby, ready to fly to safety. But we currently have *no country* willing to accept the flights. Why? Best guess: the world hates refugees. So they wait.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@MazMHussain Americans, in general, are not nearly as skeptical of the rich as they should be. There's a critical mass of Americans for whom wealth seems to infer expertise, IMHO in large part because they imagine themselves becoming wealthy, and so they take the rich as aspirational figures.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

The joys of working at an open-source intelligence collection org: one of my co-workers has been steadily mapping another co-worker's apartment, using the pictures he posts in our group DM of life with his cats

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@salimfurth I'm doing a thread, hold your horses :p

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@DSA_Intl_Comm What "exacerbates the war" is Putin thinking he has the arms advantage to win. Sending arms to Ukraine for self defense is the principled anti-war position.

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@diepthought Really dug @ourobororoboruo 's piece in this vein

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Not All AAPI Art Is #AsianExcellence. I Can Say That and Still Be an Ally.

It’s been a hard year for Asian Americans. U.S.-China trade tension and racist scapegoating over the Covid pandemic has led to a sharp spike in anti-Asian sentiments in…

stopasianhate.medium.com

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

So when I had dinner at Dersou in Paris in July, I was craving a creamsicle (don't judge me) & asked them to make me a "creamy and fruity" cocktail, and it was one of the best things I've ever had! ...friend just went back, discovered they added it to the menu named after me 😭

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@FrostRaven73 @PoliticsInsider "I've suffered, so I don't have sympathy for anyone else who's suffering" is not a great way to approach the world

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@rabonour @JakeAnbinder I don't think it's a fetishization -- I think informality in urban life really does fill a meaningful psychological need! The issue here is that we're so starved for it in most American cities, such that we'll seize on even the most basic interactions in search of that feeling

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

11 months

This is a thing I constantly hear from folks who don't speak Japanese and are only engaging with the slice of Japan that speaks English. It skews your perception - if you came to the US and only interacted with John Kerry's family you'd think we were all an aloof monoculture too!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

The Afghan evac effort is making real progress, but catastrophe is looming. If we keep to the 8/31 date for withdrawal, v likely most of the Afghans who worked with us will be left behind to suffer or die. We need a full court press on our politicians: evac until the job is done.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@BeijingPalmer seems like a lot of people on twitter define 'communism' as a cross between "the world will finally work the way I personally want it to" and "an identity that can hopefully shock the well-to-do parents I'm rebelling against, since sex and drugs don't scandalize the olds anymore"

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Joe McReynolds

3 years

There isn't a number, the goal is to *not* sacrifice any lives, because deterrence didn't fail, b/c our defense commitment shifted the PRC's cost/benefit of resolving disputes diplomatically versus resolving them militarily. (Jeet is discussing the Senkakus, for anyone wondering)

@HeerJeet

Jeet Heer

3 years

@Noahpinion How many American lives would you sacrifice for these disputed islands -- 100? 1000? 10000? 100000? More?

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

4 years

Out of all the different signs you see on bars in the Golden Gai microbar district of Tokyo telling you who is and isn't welcome, this one is my favorite. 😂 (The substance of the sign: English: "Members Only" Japanese: "...is not our policy")

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@ShangguanJiewen ...he says, connecting to the free internet through a VPN because the country denies him basic human freedoms

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@Noahpinion ...has been a major shaping force on Tokyo's cityscape. To pay an up-front inheritance tax, heirs would divide up an urban lot and sell off part of it, which is how you get narrower and narrower lots and a 'finer-grained' cityscape that makes Tokyo so charming. So for those...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@wesyang (sounds like somebody down the chain is exaggerating for effect based on what we know of the stats, but even if it's only half that, the more erosion of the gender binary the better off we all are)

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@Noahpinion ..asking Noah "why does it matter," it's had an impact both on the national level for reducing disparities of wealth and concentrations of wealth/power across generations, but also shaping Japan's cityscapes in cool ways that we now reap the benefits of. Yay for inheritance taxes

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Joe's Haunts in Tokyo, a continuing series: the Shosen Grande bookstore, the largest railway/transit-focused bookstore in the world! Note well - their top floors are the transit goodness; their basement is 100% porn. Clientele are thus a unique mix of transit nerds and perverts.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@AlisonBechdel

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@ericeidelstein

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Joe McReynolds

5 years

Under Chinese law they literally do not have that option

@AP

The Associated Press

5 years

BREAKING: Founder of Huawei, trying to allay security fears, says company would deny government requests for customer information.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@SciEdHenry @jdesmondharris I liked how my boss always put it, when he was going out on a limb for us... "I'm not breaking up the band." Sets a more reasonable standard than 'family,' but speaks to the fact that he was thinking about the team beyond just dollars & cents, and demonstrated it w/ his choices.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

8 months

@ericriveracooks Eric, I mostly love your stuff, but as a) someone who researches Japanese restaurant culture professionally and b) who's spent a ton of time in Australia, Australian hand rolls really are a unique thing unlike what you get in Japanese hand rolls *or* in supermarket sushi...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

Arfiya's had an incredible career - the Bank of Japan, the United Nations - but the connecting thread is that she's spent her adult life trying to build a more just world. For the Uyghurs, for women in Japan, for anyone treated unfairly. Her platform is...

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@found_anon @reproutopia

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

Amazing how many lives @what3words has saved over the past week. When Afghans are in need of rescuing, it's been by far the easiest tool to get their location in a hurry. No idea who built it or for what purpose, but what a godsend.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

4 years

""Biden has referred to Chinese President Xi Jinping as a “thug” and vowed to lead an international campaign to “pressure, isolate and punish China.” His campaign has also labeled China’s actions against Muslims in Xinjiang “genocide” – a step further than current policy""

@KennedyCSIS

Scott Kennedy

4 years

China unlikely to find Biden a soft touch | Reuters

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Joe McReynolds

1 year

@BrotiGupta The Act of Killing. No other documentary has done quite what they did.

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@noahsloss And during Japan's COVID lockdowns, my understanding is that bars/restaurants got a flat ~600USD a day to comply -- that's nothing for Applebee's, but more than the average microbar was pulling in during normal operation! Helped many spots survive.

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Joe McReynolds

3 years

After a journey of years... seeing your book become real is an incredible feeling. 🙂

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Joe McReynolds

6 months

@AConcernedPare2 @dieworkwear Which "urban hellscape" 15 minute city are you referring to?

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

11 months

"Japan is a conformist country" is a thing that people tell themselves as a consolation prize for why we don't have the great things that they do. "If we tried that here, it wouldn't work, because we're just so much more free spirited and individualistic, you see." But in fact..

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@David_Benger @isaiah_bb Eli Valley is a pioneer of the Jewish American diaspora discourse! his stuff is generally pretty great, if a bit on the nose sometimes. Here's an essay Eli wrote for Jewish Currents that goes deep into the thinking behind his work:

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Joe McReynolds

17 days

America: obsessed (rightfully) with Japanese beef Tokyo subway ads:

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

11 months

...most of the stuff we love about Japan could work here too, if our public policies supported it. That means political battles over zoning, over health care, over transit. A city where you can set up a tiny pub for $2k startup cost gets more tiny pubs, this isn't rocket science!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

11 months

Tokyo has *ten times* as many bars and restaurants as New York City, by a conservative count. And far more often than in NYC, the person behind the counter is an owner/operator marching to the beat of their own drum & creating a physical space that embodies their personal vision.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@Noahpinion I love that internet photosleuthing on that thread reveals that this photo was taken in like 2017 and she's just a retro enthusiast. The past lives on as subculture!

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@RnaudBertrand @WillBugya Glad you've established a precedent for who the Taiwan Strait belongs to then! And the Uyghur Autonomous Region. And the Indian Sea. 😂 Thank you for your vocal support of separatist movements!

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@czapary The ATVs are fine! They add character to U Street. A huge part of why residents complain about them is that they're associated with young Black kids, and there's tons of racism in the surrounding community. DC has only had 6 ATV-linked deaths in 30 years, safety isn't the issue.

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Joe McReynolds

1 year

@mnolangray And this is only a small portion of Tokyo's rail network. 🙂 Here's the map with all the lines:

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Joe McReynolds

2 years

@hellobeatrix Wait, where in Melbourne? I'm going to be stopping by Melbs on the way to Tokyo in July 😁

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

When you don't give high-achieving kids a 'lane' of some kind in public schools, they'll go private and the public school system suffers as a result of their exodus, plain and simple. We can argue about how to design that lane, but taking it away won't improve anyone's outcomes.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

Every time I took a one-hour UberX from my DC house to my VA office for as low as $7 in 2018, I'd daydream some Venture Capitalist had just lit a small pile of money on fire for my benefit. RETVRN to $20 bonobos pants on 80% off sale, and better-yet-half-the-price JetBlue flights

@ParikPatelCFA

Dr. Parik Patel, BA, CFA, ACCA Esq.

1 year

I miss the good old days when Uber and Airbnb were private companies that subsidised customer prices at the expense of VCs

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

The serendipity of Tokyo strolls: Jiyucho ("free town"), a little shop in the Kuramae backstreets that encourages you to write letters to yourself a year from now, relax, maybe swap a book or two. The sort of place that doesn't exist to make a profit, but makes a city feel alive.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

The thing that makes cyberpunk cities in Blade Runner or wherever feel so much more compelling than our own cities isn't the future tech! It's the feeling they convey of possibility and urban exploration, a city where not everything is same-y fast casual dining and chain retail.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@ElbridgeColby Bridge, either you support equal human rights for women or you don't. If you don't, you don't have a place in this discussion.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

11 months

""Many great cities become museums of themselves, their lack of new development an homage to their glory days. Tokyo refuses to do this. In a country that is aging and economically stagnant, Tokyo pushes ever forward into the realm of its own possibilities.""

@Noahpinion

Noah Smith 🐇🇺🇸🇺🇦

11 months

Tokyo is to the early 21st century what Paris was to the early 20th -- not the world's financial hub, but its artistic and cultural heart. Not the center of the world, but the world's greatest city.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@wesyang So, I'm Jewish, but for all intents and purposes in an office, white privilege. I work in imho a fairly 'woke' office. I feel zero discomfort/tension on this front! I hear people on Twitter saying "it's so uncomfortable to be a white guy rn" and it feels like a dispatch from Mars

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

4 years

@lukeisamazing

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

We didn't 'abandon' anything -- China abandoned the previous détente around Taiwan, by moving towards an increasingly militaristic posture and beating the war drums, even in response to Tsai's cautious and moderate approach. We're reacting sensibly; PRC choices have consequences.

@Dalzell60

Michael D. Swaine

2 years

I have been told that Ratner’s speech was approved by the White House. So this was no DoD statement, much less Ratner riffing. The US has now abandoned the 1 CN policy that has kept the peace in the TW strait 4 decades n placed us on a path 2ward conflict.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@wesyang Awesome

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@noUpside @Noahpinion "I handled the lack of APs by attending a fancy private school, why do we need APs" is the education equivalent of

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McCain’s Economic Plan For Nation: 'Everyone Marry A Beer Heiress'

McCain pointed to his personal success in marrying a wealthy beer heiress to prove how the plan could benefit every American.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

@Noahpinion Judging from the range of replies, strong consensus that a luxury belief is mainly "something other people believe that I find annoying"

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@mattyglesias To be honest: I've been reading your stuff for 15 years or so. I like a lot of your stuff! But feels like lately you've been bitten by the Nate Silver bug of "every idea I might toss off unformed at a party is worth a tweet," and I wish you'd hit pause a bit more and take it slow

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

2 years

This tweet is interesting, but for an unexpected reason: it's a window into the Twitter Grifter economy. People like this who posture like they're doing big things, aiming to go viral with 'relatable' tweets -- always with a GoFundMe link attached -- but when you investigate...

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@criticalurban @mnolangray $77,000 fee for a fourplex means less affordable housing happens, not more.

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

1 year

@ad_mastro My golden rule of any home construction/reno project: no matter how much you're paying, show up at least semi-regularly to supervise the work yourself, or you'll wish you had down the road

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@McReynoldsJoe

Joe McReynolds

3 years

@EsotericCD @MaisonDeSnark Hi Jeff, I study the Chinese military for a living, you're getting all the important stuff wrong here.

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