4 ms·

I can’t help but think this is another case where the solution is clearly known, but the solution is not culturally acceptable. Groups of humans have a frustra

I can’t help but think this is another case where the solution is clearly known, but the solution is not culturally acceptable. Groups of humans have a frustrating habit of choosing extinction over change.

kredd 3y ago
I am actually curious what is the solution you're talking about, unless you mean hardcore immigration that's most of the west using as a stopgap. I have no problem with it, but don't think it actually resolves the problem long-term.
- jylam 3y ago
  Why ? Don't immigrants reproduce and work like westerners ?
  - retrac 3y ago
    Taking a long term view, half a century or a century out, at the rate the world is currently developing, it seems possible there will be no poor countries left to supply cheap labour. Most of the world will be wealthy, except for a few basketcases mired in warlordism and economic isolation, such as Congo, Burma, or North Korea today. Such regions will certainly have still have plenty of poor desperate people - but they will not have the education, etc., that the migrating masses driving the economies of the highly developed countries do today. They will be malnourished and illiterate and no one will want them as immigrants, just as they are unwanted as immigrants today. The rest of us seem to be on track to be part of one competitive globalized labour pool.
    - smileysteve 3y ago
      > half a century or a century out Based on the animation above, a half century out, 2070; the demographic disparity is significantly less pronounced in Japan. From a US perspective going from 3.62 avg children to replacement rate (2) is much more severe than going from 2 to 1.73. *Though, this data does put an interesting perspective on european immigration and the great depression from 1910-1930. From replacement rates, 4.24 (1880) to 2.22 (1940) https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/average-number-children-per-us-family-historic-infographic.pdf https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a...
    - bluGill 3y ago
      I suspect India may want them. (though with the most population in the world they may not). I work with several people from India who moved to the US, and all noticed a major quality of life drop despite much higher income just because in India you can hire servants for $1/day, so anyone with education is used to have servants making meals, cleaning the house, driving them around, and other such tasks. In most places where someone reads this there a minimum wage laws so you couldn't hire servants so cheap. (don't ask me how someone survives on $1/day in India). The rest of us of course wouldn't know how to handle uneducated migrating masses.
  - kredd 3y ago
    Because birth rates are dropping in every single country as people get educated and etc. 2nd generation immigrants are not having as many children either after the migrate so it is simply a stopgap until every country has a birthrate less than 2.1 (or whatever is needed to have stable population). That’s why I got curious what is this magical way of fixing the population decline.
  - xboxnolifes 3y ago
    Because the assumption that the places immigrants come from will continue to have high birth rates forever is unfounded.
- blue_pants 3y ago
  What is 'hardcore immigration'? Japan doesn't have to adopt the immigration policies of France or Italy. However, implementing some form of selective immigration with assimilation programs appears to be a potential solution
  - OfSanguineFire 3y ago
    > However, implementing some form of selective immigration with assimilation programs appears to be a potential solution This would require not only legislative changes, but also a significant social shift. The broad Japanese society simply does not believe at present in “assimilation”, because it maintains such a strict in-group, out-group separation and the latter simply can never be Japanese in their view. For example, up to the end of the 20th century, Japanese would trust foreigners less the better those foreigners spoke Japanese, because a truly fluent and proficient foreigner would be viewed as confused about his/her ethnic identity or trespassing on something distinct Japanese. This has gradually changed somewhat with the influx of people from other Asian countries who work in kombinis etc., but it still shows the sort of social resistance that advocates for immigration reform are up against.
    - blue_pants 3y ago
      Indeed, immigration is a challenging path, but the problem is also serious, and I'm not aware of simpler solutions
  - thefounder 3y ago
    Why not a solution without immigration? Let's just stop pretending that we need to offshore human factories as well.
    - blue_pants 3y ago
      What are the possible solutions besides immigration? I'm not really well-versed in this topic, so I'm not aware of other solutions and am asking earnestly
oh_sigh 3y ago
I don't think everyone agrees that this is a problem. Yes, a bunch of old people eating up resources and not contributing to the bottom line looks bad on paper, but Japan is a pretty rich, heavily mechanized society. I don't think the writing is on the wall for them just yet.
- fzeroracer 3y ago
  It is a big problem because the younger generation becoming disenfranchised leads to worse outcomes all around. They can't take care of their own family because society forces them to work longer, worse hours to make up for the aging workforce. And the less wealthy older generation can't retire. Japan internally isn't nearly as mechanized as you might think because a lot of their backing technology is ancient and requires the older generation to understand how it works.
Jensson 3y ago
> Groups of humans have a frustrating habit of choosing extinction over change. How would immigration prevent extinction? Or do you mean their young should have more kids?
Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago
Right. Because the country with the 28th largest population density[0] and largest city by populaion[1] is going "extinct." Time to raise that density to 1 and make the rents even higher to save japan from extinction! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities

kredd 3y ago

I am actually curious what is the solution you're talking about, unless you mean hardcore immigration that's most of the west using as a stopgap. I have no problem with it, but don't think it actually resolves the problem long-term.

jylam 3y ago
Why ? Don't immigrants reproduce and work like westerners ?
- retrac 3y ago
  Taking a long term view, half a century or a century out, at the rate the world is currently developing, it seems possible there will be no poor countries left to supply cheap labour. Most of the world will be wealthy, except for a few basketcases mired in warlordism and economic isolation, such as Congo, Burma, or North Korea today. Such regions will certainly have still have plenty of poor desperate people - but they will not have the education, etc., that the migrating masses driving the economies of the highly developed countries do today. They will be malnourished and illiterate and no one will want them as immigrants, just as they are unwanted as immigrants today. The rest of us seem to be on track to be part of one competitive globalized labour pool.
  - smileysteve 3y ago
    > half a century or a century out Based on the animation above, a half century out, 2070; the demographic disparity is significantly less pronounced in Japan. From a US perspective going from 3.62 avg children to replacement rate (2) is much more severe than going from 2 to 1.73. *Though, this data does put an interesting perspective on european immigration and the great depression from 1910-1930. From replacement rates, 4.24 (1880) to 2.22 (1940) https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/average-number-children-per-us-family-historic-infographic.pdf https://populationeducation.org/wp-content/uploads/2020/04/a...
  - bluGill 3y ago
    I suspect India may want them. (though with the most population in the world they may not). I work with several people from India who moved to the US, and all noticed a major quality of life drop despite much higher income just because in India you can hire servants for $1/day, so anyone with education is used to have servants making meals, cleaning the house, driving them around, and other such tasks. In most places where someone reads this there a minimum wage laws so you couldn't hire servants so cheap. (don't ask me how someone survives on $1/day in India). The rest of us of course wouldn't know how to handle uneducated migrating masses.
- kredd 3y ago
  Because birth rates are dropping in every single country as people get educated and etc. 2nd generation immigrants are not having as many children either after the migrate so it is simply a stopgap until every country has a birthrate less than 2.1 (or whatever is needed to have stable population). That’s why I got curious what is this magical way of fixing the population decline.
- xboxnolifes 3y ago
  Because the assumption that the places immigrants come from will continue to have high birth rates forever is unfounded.
blue_pants 3y ago
What is 'hardcore immigration'? Japan doesn't have to adopt the immigration policies of France or Italy. However, implementing some form of selective immigration with assimilation programs appears to be a potential solution
- OfSanguineFire 3y ago
  > However, implementing some form of selective immigration with assimilation programs appears to be a potential solution This would require not only legislative changes, but also a significant social shift. The broad Japanese society simply does not believe at present in “assimilation”, because it maintains such a strict in-group, out-group separation and the latter simply can never be Japanese in their view. For example, up to the end of the 20th century, Japanese would trust foreigners less the better those foreigners spoke Japanese, because a truly fluent and proficient foreigner would be viewed as confused about his/her ethnic identity or trespassing on something distinct Japanese. This has gradually changed somewhat with the influx of people from other Asian countries who work in kombinis etc., but it still shows the sort of social resistance that advocates for immigration reform are up against.
  - blue_pants 3y ago
    Indeed, immigration is a challenging path, but the problem is also serious, and I'm not aware of simpler solutions
- thefounder 3y ago
  Why not a solution without immigration? Let's just stop pretending that we need to offshore human factories as well.
  - blue_pants 3y ago
    What are the possible solutions besides immigration? I'm not really well-versed in this topic, so I'm not aware of other solutions and am asking earnestly

oh_sigh 3y ago

I don't think everyone agrees that this is a problem. Yes, a bunch of old people eating up resources and not contributing to the bottom line looks bad on paper, but Japan is a pretty rich, heavily mechanized society. I don't think the writing is on the wall for them just yet.

fzeroracer 3y ago
It is a big problem because the younger generation becoming disenfranchised leads to worse outcomes all around. They can't take care of their own family because society forces them to work longer, worse hours to make up for the aging workforce. And the less wealthy older generation can't retire. Japan internally isn't nearly as mechanized as you might think because a lot of their backing technology is ancient and requires the older generation to understand how it works.

Jensson 3y ago

> Groups of humans have a frustrating habit of choosing extinction over change. How would immigration prevent extinction? Or do you mean their young should have more kids?

Vt71fcAqt7 3y ago

Right. Because the country with the 28th largest population density[0] and largest city by populaion[1] is going "extinct." Time to raise that density to 1 and make the rents even higher to save japan from extinction! [0] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependencies_by_population_density https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_and_dependen... [1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_largest_cities