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Why not bring in many immigrant women and have them bear Japanese children through IVF as surrogates, with eggs and sperm selected randomly from a collection of

Why not bring in many immigrant women and have them bear Japanese children through IVF as surrogates, with eggs and sperm selected randomly from a collection of healthy, successful Japanese donors? And then pay for their upbringing in government-sponsored facilities. Because there is usually more than 1 kid born through IVF, say 1.5, and about 65% of IVFs result in a life birth with usual miscarriage terms being very short, they need less than 1 million women to cover the entire shortfall.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago
why not pay to bring immigrants who can start their families without caring much about making them to bear japanese children in the first place? that sounds like you want human ovens because your own machines are outdated. That is..... uh... bad lets say i am given incentive to move to japan and start a family there, i would contribute to the workforce, the children would be "japanese" anyway because they would be born there (from non japanese parents) and the next generation would grow to be there only.
- anovikov 4y ago
  Japanese don't want non-Japanese (non-Yamato) people in there. Even 1/4 non-Yamato people face discrimination, and half-Japanese essentially have sub-human status. Even if the other half comes from richest and most civilised countries on Earth. Also seriously, no foreigners understand Japan. I don't think this is a country someone from the outside can really integrate there.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    Maybe Japanese society deserves to go extinct? If Japanese people are not willing to reproduce at anything close to replacement rate, and they are not willing to accept intermarriage with outside cultures, then the logical conclusion is that “Japan” is a cultural dead end that will eventually cease to exist. I say this as someone who quite likes Japan.
    - anovikov 4y ago
      Thing is, that is common for all "true" Asian cultures. Maybe, for all non-Abrahamic cultures even. Before demographic transition, people of all countries multiplied because they had no way around it (no contraception) and because they had to (kids used as working hands from early age and funded their parents in the old age). When demographic transition happened, in Abrahamic cultures, people still sort-of continued to multiply because it was the God's will to multiply and procreate, and fill the Earth, they saw it as sort of a sin to avoid that duty. To Chinese or Japanese, God said nothing, so they simply stopped having kids once they could stop and once they had nothing pressing them to. Only difference in our (Western) perception of China and Japan in this sense is that we see this process in China positively and Japan, negatively... That's of course cynical but true.
  - throwawaymaths 4y ago
    The hell? Japan is no USA or Canada but the discrimination isn't that bad, it's pretty on par with the rest of east Asia except maybe Singapore and certainly better than China.
    - zarzavat 4y ago
      East Asia is a big place. Taiwan definitely treats its foreigners and ethnic minorities a lot better than Japan. On the other hand, China has concentration camps for its ethnic minorities. Yes Japan doesn’t have concentration camps for Ainu, so I guess they’re doing OK?
      - hackerlight 4y ago
        > Taiwan definitely treats its foreigners and ethnic minorities a lot better than Japan. Source?
      - throwawaymaths 4y ago
        Don't know about the ainu, but Okinawans are treated well, though there were decades of language repression -- this was true of Hakka and non-han indigenous population in Taiwan too. However, gp was about foreign minorities. There have been foreign-born (Caucasian) members of the diet, for example. I guess the one thing weird about Japan is that there is some expectation of cultural erasure -- if you immigrate and you want to fully assimilate, you have to take a Japanese name.
  - jeeeb 4y ago
    Say what!? I think you have an image of Japan stuck in the 19050’s. I lived there for years and have known many people with mixed heritage, including my own children. Many choose to live in Japan because they feel comfortable there and that it is their home. Modern Japan has millions of immigrants, and is thankfully free of the weird borderline eugenics stuff you’re proposing in your first comment. Making babies isn’t an end goal. Children need to be raised in loving caring families in order to thrive.
  - PebblesHD 4y ago
    That’s a fairly uncharitable way of phrasing it. You can live a perfectly reasonable life in Japan as a permanent resident, even one of english heritage, without too much trouble from discrimination. I may not live there full time but over the years I've lived there part of the year I’ve made friends and advanced my career all the same as my native Japanese coworkers and associates. Yes, there is some juvenile behaviour from people who are prejudiced against foreigners and even mixed descent residents, but that happens in many countries including my native Australia. As with those places, the vast majority of people are perfectly agreeable and will cause you no grief. Culturally, as long as you aren’t going out of your way to be particularly individualistic, you can participate pretty much the same as everywhere else. Of course, like many older workplaces elsewhere, you’ll have a harder time if you want to be unique and stand out.
  - deleted 4y ago
    [deleted]
  - ekianjo 4y ago
    > Japanese don't want non-Japanese (non-Yamato) people in there Blanket statements are not very helpful. There are certainly people who are against immigration but there is also a large number of people who are not against it as long as it's "controlled". Nobody want open borders with no control, unless you are completely out of your mind. > I don't think this is a country someone from the outside can really integrate there. Many foreigners have had no problems living and loving living in Japan for centuries by now.
    - slaw 4y ago
      They are living in Japan for centuries and for centuries they are still foreigners.
- tcmart14 4y ago
  There are quiet a few, uh, racist Japanese. For some Japanese, the surrender during World War 2 was just to end the war, not necessarily to end their views ethnicity and race. To be clear, this isn't all Japanese. But quiet a few of these types of people have kept power in Japan for years.
- hackerlight 4y ago
  I'd prefer it if Japan had open borders. But absent this ideal scenario, that doesn't mean that "human ovens" is bad in an absolute sense. Poor people would get lots of money that they otherwise couldn't get. That is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. You only think it's bad because you subjectively dislike the aesthetics of it and you decide on the behalf of poor people that being lifted out of poverty isn't sufficiently good to outweigh your aesthetic dislike of the reason they were lifted out of poverty.
bpodgursky 4y ago
Even ethics aside, what you're describing is really, really, really expensive.
marsven_422 4y ago
[dead]
allisdust 4y ago
Because kids (and in general humans) are not robots and need love of their parents ? Instead of exploiting immigrants for their wombs, let them in like any other non robotic thinking society does.
gorwell 4y ago
There's a great book called Brave New World that explores something like that.
64bittechie 4y ago
[dead]
Turskarama 4y ago
This is showing a clear misunderstanding of the cause of these low birth rates. If IVF and government run child raising facilities was a real option then they wouldn't need immigrants to do it. Japanese women are not having babies because they don't want to, not because they physically can't. The crisis the rich world is having is that it is no longer possible to raise a family with only a single working adult, and raising a child while both parents are working full time is simply not something that everyone wants to do. It is in effect too time expensive to raise children. Ironically the solution here is to accept a drop in productivity and create a society in which people can stay at home. There is already evidence coming in that the shift to working from home has increased the birth rate in places where it has occurred. Japan needs to fix it's work culture in order to fix it's birthrate issue, end of story.
- anovikov 4y ago
  It has nothing to do with "crisis in Western societies". It happens everywhere, including in countries that saw a super massive, skyrocketing (10x+ in one generation) increase of median effective incomes. Simply called a "demographic transition": people are not having kids because they can avoid it (contraception) and because there are no social or economic forces coercing them to have kids. Kids can only meaningfully contribute to income once they finish college not at the age of 6 as before when they could start working in the field, there is a decline of influence or religion that used to force people to procreate, and finally, government pension systems, not grown-up kids, fund people in their old age. This is well-researched, started a long time ago, and doesn't need any "negative" economic explanations. Childbirth is in decline because economy gets better, not worse. Chinese per capita income increased 8.76x between 1978 (last year before one-child policy) and 2019, when (since 2016) two babies were allowed for everyone (so few people want a 3rd one it barely bears any significance anymore). Birth rate has decreased from 2.72 to 1.5 - from far above acceptable maximum to well, far below acceptable minimum. It's absurd to compare living standards in China in 1978 and in 2019. These were two completely different countries - West didn't see so much progress in maybe 200+ years. And yet, birth rate fell. One can quote authoritarianism - but well, China was even more authoritarian in 1978. That same thing is true everywhere - there isn't a single country where birth rates were on the rise, while living standards are improving at a good rate in most of the world.

2Gkashmiri 4y ago

why not pay to bring immigrants who can start their families without caring much about making them to bear japanese children in the first place? that sounds like you want human ovens because your own machines are outdated. That is..... uh... bad lets say i am given incentive to move to japan and start a family there, i would contribute to the workforce, the children would be "japanese" anyway because they would be born there (from non japanese parents) and the next generation would grow to be there only.

anovikov 4y ago
Japanese don't want non-Japanese (non-Yamato) people in there. Even 1/4 non-Yamato people face discrimination, and half-Japanese essentially have sub-human status. Even if the other half comes from richest and most civilised countries on Earth. Also seriously, no foreigners understand Japan. I don't think this is a country someone from the outside can really integrate there.
- zarzavat 4y ago
  Maybe Japanese society deserves to go extinct? If Japanese people are not willing to reproduce at anything close to replacement rate, and they are not willing to accept intermarriage with outside cultures, then the logical conclusion is that “Japan” is a cultural dead end that will eventually cease to exist. I say this as someone who quite likes Japan.
  - anovikov 4y ago
    Thing is, that is common for all "true" Asian cultures. Maybe, for all non-Abrahamic cultures even. Before demographic transition, people of all countries multiplied because they had no way around it (no contraception) and because they had to (kids used as working hands from early age and funded their parents in the old age). When demographic transition happened, in Abrahamic cultures, people still sort-of continued to multiply because it was the God's will to multiply and procreate, and fill the Earth, they saw it as sort of a sin to avoid that duty. To Chinese or Japanese, God said nothing, so they simply stopped having kids once they could stop and once they had nothing pressing them to. Only difference in our (Western) perception of China and Japan in this sense is that we see this process in China positively and Japan, negatively... That's of course cynical but true.
- throwawaymaths 4y ago
  The hell? Japan is no USA or Canada but the discrimination isn't that bad, it's pretty on par with the rest of east Asia except maybe Singapore and certainly better than China.
  - zarzavat 4y ago
    East Asia is a big place. Taiwan definitely treats its foreigners and ethnic minorities a lot better than Japan. On the other hand, China has concentration camps for its ethnic minorities. Yes Japan doesn’t have concentration camps for Ainu, so I guess they’re doing OK?
    - hackerlight 4y ago
      > Taiwan definitely treats its foreigners and ethnic minorities a lot better than Japan. Source?
    - throwawaymaths 4y ago
      Don't know about the ainu, but Okinawans are treated well, though there were decades of language repression -- this was true of Hakka and non-han indigenous population in Taiwan too. However, gp was about foreign minorities. There have been foreign-born (Caucasian) members of the diet, for example. I guess the one thing weird about Japan is that there is some expectation of cultural erasure -- if you immigrate and you want to fully assimilate, you have to take a Japanese name.
- jeeeb 4y ago
  Say what!? I think you have an image of Japan stuck in the 19050’s. I lived there for years and have known many people with mixed heritage, including my own children. Many choose to live in Japan because they feel comfortable there and that it is their home. Modern Japan has millions of immigrants, and is thankfully free of the weird borderline eugenics stuff you’re proposing in your first comment. Making babies isn’t an end goal. Children need to be raised in loving caring families in order to thrive.
- PebblesHD 4y ago
  That’s a fairly uncharitable way of phrasing it. You can live a perfectly reasonable life in Japan as a permanent resident, even one of english heritage, without too much trouble from discrimination. I may not live there full time but over the years I've lived there part of the year I’ve made friends and advanced my career all the same as my native Japanese coworkers and associates. Yes, there is some juvenile behaviour from people who are prejudiced against foreigners and even mixed descent residents, but that happens in many countries including my native Australia. As with those places, the vast majority of people are perfectly agreeable and will cause you no grief. Culturally, as long as you aren’t going out of your way to be particularly individualistic, you can participate pretty much the same as everywhere else. Of course, like many older workplaces elsewhere, you’ll have a harder time if you want to be unique and stand out.
- deleted 4y ago
  [deleted]
- ekianjo 4y ago
  > Japanese don't want non-Japanese (non-Yamato) people in there Blanket statements are not very helpful. There are certainly people who are against immigration but there is also a large number of people who are not against it as long as it's "controlled". Nobody want open borders with no control, unless you are completely out of your mind. > I don't think this is a country someone from the outside can really integrate there. Many foreigners have had no problems living and loving living in Japan for centuries by now.
  - slaw 4y ago
    They are living in Japan for centuries and for centuries they are still foreigners.
tcmart14 4y ago
There are quiet a few, uh, racist Japanese. For some Japanese, the surrender during World War 2 was just to end the war, not necessarily to end their views ethnicity and race. To be clear, this isn't all Japanese. But quiet a few of these types of people have kept power in Japan for years.
hackerlight 4y ago
I'd prefer it if Japan had open borders. But absent this ideal scenario, that doesn't mean that "human ovens" is bad in an absolute sense. Poor people would get lots of money that they otherwise couldn't get. That is not a bad thing. It is a good thing. You only think it's bad because you subjectively dislike the aesthetics of it and you decide on the behalf of poor people that being lifted out of poverty isn't sufficiently good to outweigh your aesthetic dislike of the reason they were lifted out of poverty.

bpodgursky 4y ago

Even ethics aside, what you're describing is really, really, really expensive.

marsven_422 4y ago

[dead]

allisdust 4y ago

Because kids (and in general humans) are not robots and need love of their parents ? Instead of exploiting immigrants for their wombs, let them in like any other non robotic thinking society does.

gorwell 4y ago

There's a great book called Brave New World that explores something like that.

64bittechie 4y ago

[dead]

Turskarama 4y ago

This is showing a clear misunderstanding of the cause of these low birth rates. If IVF and government run child raising facilities was a real option then they wouldn't need immigrants to do it. Japanese women are not having babies because they don't want to, not because they physically can't. The crisis the rich world is having is that it is no longer possible to raise a family with only a single working adult, and raising a child while both parents are working full time is simply not something that everyone wants to do. It is in effect too time expensive to raise children. Ironically the solution here is to accept a drop in productivity and create a society in which people can stay at home. There is already evidence coming in that the shift to working from home has increased the birth rate in places where it has occurred. Japan needs to fix it's work culture in order to fix it's birthrate issue, end of story.

anovikov 4y ago
It has nothing to do with "crisis in Western societies". It happens everywhere, including in countries that saw a super massive, skyrocketing (10x+ in one generation) increase of median effective incomes. Simply called a "demographic transition": people are not having kids because they can avoid it (contraception) and because there are no social or economic forces coercing them to have kids. Kids can only meaningfully contribute to income once they finish college not at the age of 6 as before when they could start working in the field, there is a decline of influence or religion that used to force people to procreate, and finally, government pension systems, not grown-up kids, fund people in their old age. This is well-researched, started a long time ago, and doesn't need any "negative" economic explanations. Childbirth is in decline because economy gets better, not worse. Chinese per capita income increased 8.76x between 1978 (last year before one-child policy) and 2019, when (since 2016) two babies were allowed for everyone (so few people want a 3rd one it barely bears any significance anymore). Birth rate has decreased from 2.72 to 1.5 - from far above acceptable maximum to well, far below acceptable minimum. It's absurd to compare living standards in China in 1978 and in 2019. These were two completely different countries - West didn't see so much progress in maybe 200+ years. And yet, birth rate fell. One can quote authoritarianism - but well, China was even more authoritarian in 1978. That same thing is true everywhere - there isn't a single country where birth rates were on the rise, while living standards are improving at a good rate in most of the world.