Its a bit improper to call Japan stagnant. Effectively all global populations use GDP as a measure of success, but GDP is a pyramid scheme - growth relies on th

Its a bit improper to call Japan stagnant. Effectively all global populations use GDP as a measure of success, but GDP is a pyramid scheme - growth relies on the population getting bigger, often to such a degree that stagnant per-capitas can still look like a "growing" economy just from new bodies taking up space in them. That isn't the real kind of growth that makes peoples lives better. Look at per-capita instead. Since the 08 recession Japan has had consistent 1-2% per-capita growth, despite their population shrinking. They have problems, but none of the end of the world nonsense economists have been throwing around since the 80s in response to Japan not continuing the global fiction that we can just keep adding more people to fake growth numbers like that is guaranteed to lead to real quality of life improvements, especially in the information age when it is much more important to have the resources to educate and maximize the potential of the people you do have rather than try to spread resources out over more people who can possibly outright lose access to the higher degrees of technical knowledge needed to truly advance society at this point.