4 ms·

They ain't making babies - ignore that they may or may not be producing value via online work. That's 541k individuals and rising that are not going to reprodu

• pragmaticjj 10y ago
  I don't see how this is relevant. Nobody is having babies in Japan, especially the shut-ins. Immigration is "the simple solution" if the only thing you care about - selfishly - is that your retirement and pension benefits are being paid out.
  • TkTech 10y ago
    I guess I wasn't clear, I was responding to imaginology not the parent thread. It's a problem that's suddenly gaining more interest in Japan because they aren't making babies. Getting more babies is a political platform that a lot of people are currently riding. Hikikomoris and NEETs are an easy, growing trend you can point to and say "this is why we aren't making enough babies, they need to do their part, our system is fine they're just lazy".
    • pragmaticjj 10y ago
      Shut-ins and NEETs are the last people you'd go to in order to improve demographics of any country. These are the people who generally avoid social contact much less talk to members of opposite sex. I don't follow Japanese politics, but implicating NEETs in their demographic problems seems completely out of touch.
      • aninhumer 10y ago
        I think TkTech is pointing out that it's politically expedient to blame a group of people that everyone already dislikes for the problem, not suggesting it's a sensible approach.
        • TkTech 10y ago
          Yup.
  • fma 10y ago
    Japan has a cultural problem where women near/over 30 are not wanted. Men needs to be from a top company, otherwise no woman wants them. Cultural norms says it's taboo to nor marry anyone that is not Japanese. When I was dating my ex, who is from Japan, a major part for not settling down with me was because I am not Japanese. She moved back to Japan, couldn't date anyone due to her age (late 20's). She ultimately dated/married a Japanese American and moved back to the US with him. I would imagine her husband being born and raised in America - could care less that she is 29.
    • kardashian007 10y ago
      Japanese society has mostly memetically accepted the cancerous idea that sex and love are bad or not for them. It's a lack of individual courage and unreasonable standards which result of, or are the consequence of, soft population control, whether intentional/not, collective/individual and necessary/not.
      • nikdaheratik 10y ago
        And now you are an expert on a society with hundreds of millions of people that dates back thousands of years. And you can diagnose all of its problems and report back to us. Good thing we have you adding to the conversation.
• stale2002 10y ago
  Sucks for them. Maybe they will get over their xenophobia and start letting in immigrants once their problems get bad enough. Racism is both bad AND stupid, and I think it is hilarious for them to be suffering the consequences of their stupidity.
  • Bakary 10y ago
    Aren't being yourself xenophobic by castigating them for having different values? Theit system has a number of problems but it also has a number of advantages. Besides, the countries who do let in immigrants are less xenophobic but not by a wide margin.
    • kardashian007 10y ago
      That same meek, SJW, intellectual slut-shaming "logic" is also used to accept and defend multiculturalism where persons come to occupy, spread their values and stay separate and not integrate with the society which welcomed them. That's anti-social, a priori. Plus, we don't accept canabalism or 6-year-old brides and say "that's their culture, we cannot judge it and must do nothing."
      • nikdaheratik 10y ago
        Yeah, you're totally right. Pointing out that it's not that terrible if a society's largest problem is that many of its young males are depressed is exactly the same as endorsing cannibalism or underage marriage. You clearly have won the internet for today.
    • 2almalki 10y ago
      eh Canada is a good example. We're a country of immigrants
    • stale2002 10y ago
      So culturally relativism basically? I'm xenophobic by denouncing xenophobia? Xenophobia is just another cultural value and if I disagree with it them IM the xenophobe?
• guard-of-terra 10y ago
  > the simple solution to that is immigration. That doesn't work so well in Japan, which while perfectly polite to visitors is in many places extremely homogeneous and they like to keep it that way In many countries we're seeking to repel this "simple solution" that is destroying us but are not allowed to. Japan seems to be the only country in charge of themself.
• FuNe 10y ago
  Why is not reproducing a problem (to anyone but the Japanese who are against immigrants) ? On a global scale, with almost all ecosystems in decline and a looming climate crisis, not reproducing/falling birth rates is a blessing for everyone.
  • 67726e 10y ago
    The social services and retirement funded by taxes is pretty much a pyramid scheme of sorts. Supporting a large population of retirees requires an even larger population of working tax payers. Otherwise there is going to be degradation and cuts to services.
    • r_smart 10y ago
      This is the big elephant in the room that I don't see many people talking about. All of those social programs are set up with a huge assumption of exponential population growth. When that doesn't happen, they risk collapse. You can try to fix it with immigration, but often they end up dragging on those same social programs, at the very least in the short term. Their kids might not, but do we have that kind of time?
    • MicroBerto 10y ago
      ...so we (as in society and the press) implicitly blame and shame the people who didn't cause the problem in the first place for not contributing their fair share to other peoples' problems. That's a nice ironic load of bull right there.
• calcifer 10y ago
  > With a TRF of 1.7 TRF?
  • erroneousfunk 10y ago
    Total Fertility Rate. Mean number of children, per woman, in the population. According to the CIA World Factbook, it's actually 1.4 for Japan, as of 2015. You need about 2.1 for population replacement, because of factors like premature death.
• douche 10y ago
  And immigration is going so well in other places.