7 ms·

Japan is a totalitarian state, with the enforcement run by individuals. If you violate social norms, including not looking or sounding Japanese enough, you will

by isykt 3y ago

Japan is a totalitarian state, with the enforcement run by individuals. If you violate social norms, including not looking or sounding Japanese enough, you will be excluded. You could become naturalized there, but you will never be Japanese, and you will never be treated as an equal.

anovikov 3y ago
I think it's only while there are few foreigners there. They will have to open up and because country is good, just lacking young population, Japanese will quickly become the minority and those issues will be solved.
- coldtea 3y ago
  Yes, it's not like a country is it's people and their culture and achievements stemming from those, and that if the "country is good" it's because of that. No, a country is just a landmass, and when "Japanese become the minority" that would be a problem solved (the problem being entitled people from outside the country wanting in).
  - anovikov 3y ago
    Well, in any case, there are only 3 ways out of it: - Japan becomes an almost empty and stateless or only having a nominal state, landmass with very little population and no functioning economy (no transport network, no electricity grid etc). Unlikely - it's climate is too good. - It gets militarily taken over as soon it's too weak to defend itself. Likely but undesirable because you don't get to pick who takes you over and that will be by definition someone hostile. - Immigration and replacement. This is the most beneficial of the realistic options. Because you get to pick the people who replaces you.
    - Shaanie 3y ago
      This assumes that the trend of a decreasing population is a fact which cannot be reversed, which seems quite defeatist.
      - fomine3 3y ago
        It's most realistic scenario. Also even if birthrate is doubled immediately, it takes 18-24 years to those people start working. Let's see birthrate forecast graph by govt https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2zKUeHVoAA3ufi?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2zKUeHVoAA3ufi?format=jpg&name=...
      - isykt 3y ago
        It’s not defeatist, it’s demography. The replacement rate for a country is 2.1. Japan’s birth rate is 1.3. Japan fell below replacement rate in 1975. Their economy faltered in the 90s and has never recovered. Add in massive urbanization and a work culture that literally has a word for “death from overwork”… yeah, a country doesn’t bounce back from that. Oh, but buckle up my friend, because Japan isn’t an outlier. It’s ahead of the curve for a majority of the world’s societies.
  - anovikov 3y ago
    Also i believe that the country is first and foremost, a landmass - with geological, hydrological etc features defining their resource base and transportation abilities and thus what they can do and what they can't, and what's optimal for them, plus a political system that is built to make the optimal use for the former. Gradual replacement of people with another can still keep all of it in place and maintain qualities of a nation from the standpoint of average consumer as more or less the same. Plus, if you invite immigrants, you get to pick the best of them, so probably you won't harm your overall population quality.
coldtea 3y ago
And why should you? Is there some automatic right that one should have about being accepted into a foreign country and culture?
- zpeti 3y ago
  Yes, that’s basically what the religion of the left believes. No one should value their own culture and history, every culture should be open to being destroyed. Except Islam for some reason. They get to keep their culture, otherwise you are an islamophobe.
  - isykt 3y ago
    Culture is merely people and ideas. Good ideas should be preserved and remixed. Bad ideas should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Promoting bullying and exclusion —- part and parcel to indigenous Japanese society — is a bad idea that should be relegated.
    - zpeti 3y ago
      If someone has good ideas, as you say good culture, shouldn’t they have the right to exclude people with bad ideas? Do you as, for example an LGBTQ culture person not have the right to exclude a Nazi? By your definitions they don’t because exclusion = bad
      - isykt 3y ago
        When I say bullying and exclusion, I’m speaking specifically about the practice as it exists in Japanese society. This practice has produced an entire lost generation called “Hikkikomori,” Japanese people who were excluded from Japanese society so completely that they don’t even leave their homes. Some of them are entirely dependent on their aging parents for their subsistence, including shelter and food. That says nothing of gay people, whose presence is tolerated at best. When it comes to foreigners, they are welcomed as tourists and guest workers, but there will always be places and aspects of society that they will never be welcome in. This is exclusion for no other reason than xenophobia. Even a person who learns the language, practices the customs, pays taxes and follows the laws will not be accepted in Japan. What you’re hitting at in your response is “The paradox of tolerance.” To arrive at the paradox of tolerance, a society has to have a sufficient level of tolerance. Japan simply doesn’t. When I say this is “bad,” I mean this is in two ways. First, it violates my principles of tolerance for good faith actors — a set of values shared broadly in the west, to varying degrees and with a lot of asterisks. Secondly, it’s bad for Japan. In a situation where your demographics are decades into terminal decline, the ability to integrate foreigners is the only option to continue to being a going concern. The breakdown of their society without foreign integration will be catastrophic.
masteruvpuppetz 3y ago
>you will never be Japanese The OP might not be, but their children / grand children would be. This is nothing new.
- glimshe 3y ago
  It will also depend on whether they look like an ethnic Japanese...
- isykt 3y ago
  Their children will be at best “hafu” (“Half”), a category all its own, and one not especially well regarded: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/japan-mixed-roots-hafu-dst-hnk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/japan-mixed-roots-hafu-d...

by isykt 3y ago

anovikov 3y ago

I think it's only while there are few foreigners there. They will have to open up and because country is good, just lacking young population, Japanese will quickly become the minority and those issues will be solved.

coldtea 3y ago
Yes, it's not like a country is it's people and their culture and achievements stemming from those, and that if the "country is good" it's because of that. No, a country is just a landmass, and when "Japanese become the minority" that would be a problem solved (the problem being entitled people from outside the country wanting in).
- anovikov 3y ago
  Well, in any case, there are only 3 ways out of it: - Japan becomes an almost empty and stateless or only having a nominal state, landmass with very little population and no functioning economy (no transport network, no electricity grid etc). Unlikely - it's climate is too good. - It gets militarily taken over as soon it's too weak to defend itself. Likely but undesirable because you don't get to pick who takes you over and that will be by definition someone hostile. - Immigration and replacement. This is the most beneficial of the realistic options. Because you get to pick the people who replaces you.
  - Shaanie 3y ago
    This assumes that the trend of a decreasing population is a fact which cannot be reversed, which seems quite defeatist.
    - fomine3 3y ago
      It's most realistic scenario. Also even if birthrate is doubled immediately, it takes 18-24 years to those people start working. Let's see birthrate forecast graph by govt https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2zKUeHVoAA3ufi?format=jpg&name=large https://pbs.twimg.com/media/E2zKUeHVoAA3ufi?format=jpg&name=...
    - isykt 3y ago
      It’s not defeatist, it’s demography. The replacement rate for a country is 2.1. Japan’s birth rate is 1.3. Japan fell below replacement rate in 1975. Their economy faltered in the 90s and has never recovered. Add in massive urbanization and a work culture that literally has a word for “death from overwork”… yeah, a country doesn’t bounce back from that. Oh, but buckle up my friend, because Japan isn’t an outlier. It’s ahead of the curve for a majority of the world’s societies.
- anovikov 3y ago
  Also i believe that the country is first and foremost, a landmass - with geological, hydrological etc features defining their resource base and transportation abilities and thus what they can do and what they can't, and what's optimal for them, plus a political system that is built to make the optimal use for the former. Gradual replacement of people with another can still keep all of it in place and maintain qualities of a nation from the standpoint of average consumer as more or less the same. Plus, if you invite immigrants, you get to pick the best of them, so probably you won't harm your overall population quality.

coldtea 3y ago

And why should you? Is there some automatic right that one should have about being accepted into a foreign country and culture?

zpeti 3y ago
Yes, that’s basically what the religion of the left believes. No one should value their own culture and history, every culture should be open to being destroyed. Except Islam for some reason. They get to keep their culture, otherwise you are an islamophobe.
- isykt 3y ago
  Culture is merely people and ideas. Good ideas should be preserved and remixed. Bad ideas should be relegated to the dustbin of history. Promoting bullying and exclusion —- part and parcel to indigenous Japanese society — is a bad idea that should be relegated.
  - zpeti 3y ago
    If someone has good ideas, as you say good culture, shouldn’t they have the right to exclude people with bad ideas? Do you as, for example an LGBTQ culture person not have the right to exclude a Nazi? By your definitions they don’t because exclusion = bad
    - isykt 3y ago
      When I say bullying and exclusion, I’m speaking specifically about the practice as it exists in Japanese society. This practice has produced an entire lost generation called “Hikkikomori,” Japanese people who were excluded from Japanese society so completely that they don’t even leave their homes. Some of them are entirely dependent on their aging parents for their subsistence, including shelter and food. That says nothing of gay people, whose presence is tolerated at best. When it comes to foreigners, they are welcomed as tourists and guest workers, but there will always be places and aspects of society that they will never be welcome in. This is exclusion for no other reason than xenophobia. Even a person who learns the language, practices the customs, pays taxes and follows the laws will not be accepted in Japan. What you’re hitting at in your response is “The paradox of tolerance.” To arrive at the paradox of tolerance, a society has to have a sufficient level of tolerance. Japan simply doesn’t. When I say this is “bad,” I mean this is in two ways. First, it violates my principles of tolerance for good faith actors — a set of values shared broadly in the west, to varying degrees and with a lot of asterisks. Secondly, it’s bad for Japan. In a situation where your demographics are decades into terminal decline, the ability to integrate foreigners is the only option to continue to being a going concern. The breakdown of their society without foreign integration will be catastrophic.

masteruvpuppetz 3y ago

>you will never be Japanese The OP might not be, but their children / grand children would be. This is nothing new.

glimshe 3y ago
It will also depend on whether they look like an ethnic Japanese...
isykt 3y ago
Their children will be at best “hafu” (“Half”), a category all its own, and one not especially well regarded: https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/japan-mixed-roots-hafu-dst-hnk-intl/index.html https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/22/asia/japan-mixed-roots-hafu-d...