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Robots, not immigrants: My optimism on Japan's New Political Party

anon_gipe said in #5196 20h ago: received

I spent some time in Tokyo, and got to meet some people around the newest political party "Team Mirai" (Japanese: チームみらい; lit. 'Team Future').

Takahiro Anno, the founder of the party, was a startup founder who then became a YouTuber talking about AI and different tools, how they can be used – who then turned to politics.

They brand themselves as centrist, but the interesting thing to me was their plan was not to pass bills, but the point was to win 1 (one) seat, so after they had a foot in the door, the plan was to build software for all the parties, to make their lives easy. They branded themselves as "friends" to all sides, "we're just the IT department here to help"

This initially worked and then the second part of the plan start – release a bunch of anti-corruption software. The plan was that the parties that would adopted would look good with the public, and the parties that didn't get onboard, would be seen by voters as obviously corrupt. This strategy worked.

The party went from being founded in 8 May 2025, and now it has 1 seat in the upper house (House of Councillors), it won in the July 2025 election, and 11 seats in the lower house (House of Representatives), won in the February 2026 election with nearly 4 million votes (6.9% of valid votes cast).

That lower house result was more than double the party's own pre-election goal of 5 seats. This is a remarkable trajectory.

There are many lessons here and we should keep tabs on these guys.

referenced by: >>5198

I spent some time in received

xenophon said in #5197 16h ago: received

> ... their plan was not to pass bills, but the point was to win 1 (one) seat, so after they had a foot in the door, the plan was to build software for all the parties ..

Why do they need seats in Parliament just to write software for all the parties? Couldn't any company or nonprofit do that?

Why do they need sea received

jewishman said in #5198 14h ago: received

>>5196
> This initially worked and then the second part of the plan start – release a bunch of anti-corruption software. The plan was that the parties that would adopted would look good with the public, and the parties that didn't get onboard, would be seen by voters as obviously corrupt. This strategy worked.

I'm skeptical. I have not noticed any opposition parties trumpeting their use of these tools. Maybe I don't follow Japanese politics closely enough. I can at least point out that the party that runs on corruption just won a historic majority in the Lower House, despite rehabilitating members involved with the Unification Church, or caught up in fairly recent, somewhat unpopular slush fund scandals.

Corruption is not necessarily wicked. Construction rackets, slush funds, and right-wing goons built Japan. Everyone was aware of the realities of the political system, I think (before computers, even if the nightly news wouldn't touch any scandals not involving the police, the tabloids and the left-wing rags would). But I do understand the impulse to root it out, especially if you're a person under fifty in Tokyo or Osaka, since it's one of the tools used to keep in place or force through policies that make sure your life sucks. I wonder if the underlying problems need a more dramatic solution than internet democracy.

I wish them the best.

I'm skeptical. I hav received

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