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I'm not sure what's supposed to be terrifying about it. This planet has way too many humans on it. We need to figure out how to cause our populations to declin

I'm not sure what's supposed to be terrifying about it. This planet has way too many humans on it. We need to figure out how to cause our populations to decline naturally until we can get the number of humans down to the point where everyone can live good, happy, resource rich lives without cooking the planet. Japan is on the vanguard of figuring out how to do that. Obviously there are difficulties involved. Not the least is dealing with the relentless march of Capitalism which requires every year be more, and bigger, than the year before, lest the whole thing fall over.

angersock 9y ago
> This planet has way too many humans on it. Don't cut yourself on that edge there, buddy.
kyleschiller 9y ago
It's not really terrifying for the rest of the world, but Japan has a huge social welfare program[0] and the world's second highest life expectancy[1], which means this generation will be tasked with providing for an aging population much larger than they are. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Japan, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG [1] https://www.infoplease.com/world/health-and-social-statistics/life-expectancy-countries-0 https://www.infoplease.com/world/health-and-social-statistic... EDIT: Better source for [0]
- toomuchtodo 9y ago
  Eh, Japan will get rich showing/selling the next first world countries in line how to provide for their elders with automation. Good for Japan because of xenophobia towards immigrants (and that cultural phenomenon is definitely not changing anytime soon), good for the US because we're broke and can't afford to keep extracting more for entitlements because we didn't save enough for it and kicked the can.
  - jordanb 9y ago
    This is exactly my point. Japan has the opportunity to chart the way forward: to show the rest of the world how to do more with fewer people and a smaller impact. To determine what an economy looks like that deals efficiently with resources and provides for its citizens without relentless growth.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - ekianjo 9y ago
      > to show the rest of the world how to do more with fewer people and a smaller impact Japan has no plan. Let's not write sentences like there is a big mastermind behind everything. Politicians are not even able to take care of the ongoing budget and pressing issues, so let's not assume they know what to do 10 years from now.
BenoitEssiambre 9y ago
Overpopulation is a problem but it is quite a stretch to blame capitalism which requires no particular growth course.
keerthiko 9y ago
> This planet has way too many humans on it. I can get behind this. but... > I'm not sure what's supposed to be terrifying about it. So, so many things. The world is not as unified as it needs to be for this to be a good thing. Population decline is Japan is a) too small to ease overall resource burden on the world, b) increasing resource burden on Japan itself, c) Japan's situation to enjoy/deal with, the rest of the world is hardly going to reward it for it. Trying to maintain a functioning economy is going to get harder with a shrinking able-bodied workforce in the near future, I would not want to be responsible for addressing that. If and when the Japanese economy collapses in the current world immigration climate, people will have little recourse too -- with their language and culture isolation so far, they'll just be stuck in their crumbling economy. One of the reasonable solutions is to increase worker mobility, and encourage economic contributors to migrate to and operate in Japan, and not worry so much about indigenous population decline. But this is a major big cultural, economic and social change to embrace, which is starting to get harder to adopt in today's increasingly isolationist rhetoric.
- ekianjo 9y ago
  > Trying to maintain a functioning economy is going to get harder with a shrinking able-bodied workforce in the near future, I would not want to be responsible for addressing that. Japan has way too much fluff in its economy: People working with almost zero productivity, or completely useless jobs (purely bureaucratic) or facade kind of jobs (folks just hired to stand around) - it's actually very good to see the worker base shrinking, it will bring a lot more focus in the long run, hopefully. > and not worry so much about indigenous population decline Japan became a major world power when it only had something like 40-50M inhabitants. You don't need 120 Millions folks in Japan to be a powerful country. Like, not at all.
  - keerthiko 9y ago
    Good points. All economies have a lot of fluff, but yeah, it would be exciting if the shrinking workforce meant a focus on optimizing the productivity of individual workers, while the country doesn't have to deal with unemployment at the same time. Really the only issue is the short period of time in the immediate future of providing current levels of welfare to the large elderly population with a much smaller still-inefficient younger workforce facing the burden of doing so. It's possible if they figure out a good short term solution, it could put Japan into a lean diet that is really good for it in the long-run. However they also run the risk of suffering some serious long-term economic damage if this rough patch doesn't go well. Way too many things can go wrong -- if the young decide to also ditch the workforce and rely on state welfare while it lasts, or are not supported enough, or the focus goes too heavily on making babies and not on optimizing economic output, etc.
krapp 9y ago
I may be wrong, and someone will point it out if I am, but I believe a lot of Japan is actually not very population dense. Tokyo, obviously, and other large cities, but the countryside is practically and literally dying out. There is still plenty of room, it's just that no one wants to live there. Even if it were the case that "this planet has way too many humans on it," which is debatable, why is that Japan's problem if there aren't even "way too many people" in Japan?
TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago
Overpopulation is not the issue so much as said population's individual resource consumption, particularly Westerners'.

angersock 9y ago

> This planet has way too many humans on it. Don't cut yourself on that edge there, buddy.

kyleschiller 9y ago

It's not really terrifying for the rest of the world, but Japan has a huge social welfare program[0] and the world's second highest life expectancy[1], which means this generation will be tasked with providing for an aging population much larger than they are. [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Japan https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Welfare_in_Japan, https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG https://stats.oecd.org/Index.aspx?DataSetCode=SOCX_AGG [1] https://www.infoplease.com/world/health-and-social-statistics/life-expectancy-countries-0 https://www.infoplease.com/world/health-and-social-statistic... EDIT: Better source for [0]

toomuchtodo 9y ago
Eh, Japan will get rich showing/selling the next first world countries in line how to provide for their elders with automation. Good for Japan because of xenophobia towards immigrants (and that cultural phenomenon is definitely not changing anytime soon), good for the US because we're broke and can't afford to keep extracting more for entitlements because we didn't save enough for it and kicked the can.
- jordanb 9y ago
  This is exactly my point. Japan has the opportunity to chart the way forward: to show the rest of the world how to do more with fewer people and a smaller impact. To determine what an economy looks like that deals efficiently with resources and provides for its citizens without relentless growth.
  - deleted 9y ago
    [deleted]
  - ekianjo 9y ago
    > to show the rest of the world how to do more with fewer people and a smaller impact Japan has no plan. Let's not write sentences like there is a big mastermind behind everything. Politicians are not even able to take care of the ongoing budget and pressing issues, so let's not assume they know what to do 10 years from now.

BenoitEssiambre 9y ago

Overpopulation is a problem but it is quite a stretch to blame capitalism which requires no particular growth course.

keerthiko 9y ago

> This planet has way too many humans on it. I can get behind this. but... > I'm not sure what's supposed to be terrifying about it. So, so many things. The world is not as unified as it needs to be for this to be a good thing. Population decline is Japan is a) too small to ease overall resource burden on the world, b) increasing resource burden on Japan itself, c) Japan's situation to enjoy/deal with, the rest of the world is hardly going to reward it for it. Trying to maintain a functioning economy is going to get harder with a shrinking able-bodied workforce in the near future, I would not want to be responsible for addressing that. If and when the Japanese economy collapses in the current world immigration climate, people will have little recourse too -- with their language and culture isolation so far, they'll just be stuck in their crumbling economy. One of the reasonable solutions is to increase worker mobility, and encourage economic contributors to migrate to and operate in Japan, and not worry so much about indigenous population decline. But this is a major big cultural, economic and social change to embrace, which is starting to get harder to adopt in today's increasingly isolationist rhetoric.

ekianjo 9y ago
> Trying to maintain a functioning economy is going to get harder with a shrinking able-bodied workforce in the near future, I would not want to be responsible for addressing that. Japan has way too much fluff in its economy: People working with almost zero productivity, or completely useless jobs (purely bureaucratic) or facade kind of jobs (folks just hired to stand around) - it's actually very good to see the worker base shrinking, it will bring a lot more focus in the long run, hopefully. > and not worry so much about indigenous population decline Japan became a major world power when it only had something like 40-50M inhabitants. You don't need 120 Millions folks in Japan to be a powerful country. Like, not at all.
- keerthiko 9y ago
  Good points. All economies have a lot of fluff, but yeah, it would be exciting if the shrinking workforce meant a focus on optimizing the productivity of individual workers, while the country doesn't have to deal with unemployment at the same time. Really the only issue is the short period of time in the immediate future of providing current levels of welfare to the large elderly population with a much smaller still-inefficient younger workforce facing the burden of doing so. It's possible if they figure out a good short term solution, it could put Japan into a lean diet that is really good for it in the long-run. However they also run the risk of suffering some serious long-term economic damage if this rough patch doesn't go well. Way too many things can go wrong -- if the young decide to also ditch the workforce and rely on state welfare while it lasts, or are not supported enough, or the focus goes too heavily on making babies and not on optimizing economic output, etc.

krapp 9y ago

I may be wrong, and someone will point it out if I am, but I believe a lot of Japan is actually not very population dense. Tokyo, obviously, and other large cities, but the countryside is practically and literally dying out. There is still plenty of room, it's just that no one wants to live there. Even if it were the case that "this planet has way too many humans on it," which is debatable, why is that Japan's problem if there aren't even "way too many people" in Japan?

TazeTSchnitzel 9y ago

Overpopulation is not the issue so much as said population's individual resource consumption, particularly Westerners'.