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Immigration is not the solution. It's a workaround. I fail to see how replacing Japan population with immigrants from Africa or South-East Asia would save J

Immigration is not the solution. It's a workaround. I fail to see how replacing Japan population with immigrants from Africa or South-East Asia would save Japan.

cycrutchfield 3y ago
Replacing?
- Anon_Forever 3y ago
  Yes, replacing. You're replacing native Japanese with foreigners. That is by definition replacing.
  - bt4u 3y ago
    [dead]
  - shadowgovt 3y ago
    It really depends how you define what a people is. Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. Genetically, who cares. Culturally, that's up to the people.
    - bongoman37 3y ago
      Outside of a few places like the US, people care a hell of a lot about the genetics. Try putting Africans in India, or Japanese in China, and so on, there is no such thing as the melting pot in the vast majority of the world.
      - hnbad 3y ago
        They don't care about genetics. They just dislike specific groups of people. Which ones is largely arbitrary and has more to do with history than genetics. Some places also have a much narrower "in-group" than others, again largely as a result of history. In some cases the "in-group" doesn't even include all the groups of people that historically live in the same territory, e.g. present-day China has significant undertones of Han nationalism or India with Hindu nationalism, despite both countries being geographically huge and ethnically diverse. In the moment, aside from historical preconditions, the largest factor to how narrow this in-group is and how strong the dislike towards those not in it is, is mostly a matter of perceived scarcity and danger. As every good business owner knows, the best way to distract an employee from how small their share of the profits is, is to dangle a more desperate group in front of them as a scapegoat. Give someone your scraps, then make them deathly afraid others want to take it away from them, and they won't dare to ask for more (or solidarize with others against you - racism was one of the biggest cudgels against unions in the early 20th century US before simply framing unions as communist became an option).
    - Anon_Forever 3y ago
      >It really depends how you define what a people is. Not at all, not unless you use some Orwellian tactics to completely redefine what an ethnic group is. >Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. A geographic area is not a "people" nor an ethnic group. Shoving more people into the landmass we know as Japan may be good for the economy of the landmass, but it won't be good for the ethnic group we call the Japanese. >Genetically, who cares. Common ancestry is one of the core attributes of ethnic groups. The Japanese people and ethnologists care >Culturally, that's up to the people. "If we replace the Japanese with Appalachian Whites, it's up to the people to decide if they're being replaced or not." Yes, you made my point for me: if you replace the Japanese with foreigners, they are being replaced. QED.
      - shadowgovt 3y ago
        > "If we replace the Japanese with Appalachian Whites, it's up to the people to decide if they're being replaced or not." Basically true. An awful lot of Americans, for example, don't see it as "replacement" when people from Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Spain, or wherever come join them. Their cultural identity isn't defined very tightly at all by who their parents were. This is not universally true in the country, of course, and some of the larger political fights are over this notion. If Japan feels much more strongly that ancestry matters profoundly, well, that's going to be a rub for them moving forward. But beliefs are malleable and it will ultimately be up to them.
        Anon_Forever 3y ago
        >Basically true. Not at all, not unless you use some Orwellian tactics to completely redefine what ethnic replacement is. >An awful lot of Americans, for example, don't see it as "replacement" when people from Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Spain, or wherever come join them. Just because there's a large group that's delusional or willfully ignorant to what's happening doesn't make it true. An awful lot of Americans think men can get pregnant, or climate change isn't anthropogenic or happening at all. They're being replaced whether they bury their head in the sand or not. >Their cultural identity isn't defined very tightly at all by who their parents were. Of course it is, just like it is in Japan. Your common ancestry and common ancestral grounds are core attributes of what we call ethnic groups. >This is not universally true in the country, of course, and some of the larger political fights are over this notion. As covered above, it's true whether one side believes it or not. No doubt it's become a large political fight from what I've seen. I agree with you there. >If Japan feels much more strongly that ancestry matters profoundly, well, that's going to be a rub for them moving forward. We do. Many countries in Asia and around the world do, which is why many of them (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) are ethnically homogeneous.
    - mbg721 3y ago
      Japan is something of an extreme example to pick.
      - cycrutchfield 3y ago
        It’s the favored example of white nationalists for some weird reason.
        wherethoug 3y ago
        [flagged]
        cycrutchfield 3y ago
        [flagged]
        thefounder 3y ago
        If only japanese would be white...
    - thefounder 3y ago
      I guess by your definition native americans were not replaced either. Genetically, culturally or bullshitically....
      - hnbad 3y ago
        Replaced? No. For the most part native Americans were murdered. Some, quite blatantly, sometimes with literal bounties being set on their heads but more often than not just like a regular "pest" or "dangerous wildlife". Others, more indirectly, through famines brought on by destruction of their food storages or culling of their hunting grounds. And even more died from plagues. They were also repeatedly strongarmed into contracts which were then broken after they had held up their end of the bargain. And of course there were many cases (as recently as the last century) where their children were forcibly removed and placed into Christian boarding schools to "kill the savage, save the child". I know you probably like to use all of these things as fanciful metaphors to support your argument that "natives" (white people or the Japanese) are now being "replaced" by (incidentally Black and brown) immigrants but these weren't metaphors, these were the real deal. By alluding to these things as metaphors you're masking the real scale and character of these historical atrocities.
deleted 3y ago
[deleted]
famouswaffles 3y ago
Africans wouldn't be heading to japan anyway. It is a bandaid sure but it's a bandaid worth literally decades of time. There's a reason doctors put bandaids on wounds. It's kind of too late anyway.
- thefounder 3y ago
  >> Africans wouldn't be heading to japan anyway. Why not? Poor people go wherever they can/where they are allowed if the host country is rich.
  - famouswaffles 3y ago
    Most Africans who have the resources to migrate are spoiled for choice when it comes to countries to migrate to. Colonization making English and/or French an official language of about 50 African nations means there are about a dozen options that present basically no language barrier and much smoother cultural assimilation than East Asia in general. I'm not saying no African at all would go to the region. But they'd be near the bottom of the list even with comparable policies.
    - dragonwriter 3y ago
      > Colonization making English, French an official language of about 90 African nations 90 out of 54 is quite a high percentage.
      - famouswaffles 3y ago
        My bad. Should be 45 to 50 between English and French. Either way, I'm sure you understand the point.
    - thefounder 3y ago
      The real issue is the cost/barrier to entry. I'm pretty sure Japan would be full in 4-5 years if they would open the gates(i.e a free border with the world). It's not like the immigrants are looking for cultural assimilation. Maybe their children but that's not a sure thing either. You can see that in Paris and London where even the 2nd or 3rd generation is still living within the same "communities" with little cultural assimilation. With enough mass immigration you may see a reverse assimilation.
hnbad 3y ago
What are they replacing anyway? Genetics? The US is literally a nation born out of immigration and any "racial distinctiveness" in Europe has more to do with the limited means of transport leading to geographical inbreeding than some metaphysical legacy of pure bloodlines. Not to mention that most of Europe experienced various migration waves all the way back to the first migrations that resulted in Europe being settled by humans at all. Japan has been trying to keep up its strategy of just being extremely racist post-WW2 and it doesn't look like that got them anywhere. Culture? You literally can't look at most nations' cultures without also considering the cultures of their neighbors that influenced them. As much as ethnonationalists like to pretend otherwise, for any continental culture the grouping of what aspects are specific to that "nation" have more to do with its history of government than any shared identity. Germany for example was barely a coherent concept before the 19th century. Japan being forced to spend most of its history navelgazing and sitting on its thumbs because it consisted of a bunch of islands doesn't make its culture any more special or worth preserving than any other and most of what you imagine when you think of Japan today is the result of being repeatedly carpet bombed and literally nuked after trying to do an imperialism to the point of voluntarily acting as a vassal to its victor: Westernization had less to do with immigration and more with global trade and trying to cargo cult the nation that wiped the proverbial floor with it. Heck, the only example I can think of literal replacement is far-right Israeli settlers moving into houses of Palestinian families after their expulsion without even giving them enough time to clear out the fridge. That's literally replacement: residents of one culture and ethnicity are forcibly removed from their own homes and replaced with residents of another. But again, that's not what's happening with immigration and it's not what you're complaining about. If you're truly concerned with a loss of culture and every distinctiveness being washed over until all that remains is a homogeneous grey soup Disney can fill in a tin and sell to you, the problem isn't immigration but commodification and tourism. Instead of dishonestly grandstanding about native Americans you should be looking at Hawai'i where Americans bluntly annexed the kingdom, cut up the land to sell it off to American hoteliers and the very rich, and then sold off cheap immitations of the native culture so middle-class tourists could have an "exotic" experience as a piece of escapism. Forget about "national identities". Places used to have identities. Every city, every town used to have a distinguishing character that was the result of its geography and history, like the rings of a tree telling the story of past seasons. Then big box chains stomped out the local businesses and undercut the competition by making it up in volume before ramping up prices again once noone else was left. And with nobody left to perpetuate the culture now that the only means of production was commerce and commerce was owned by the same big companies, all that is left is the same, market researched, focus group tested, mass produced, grey soup that is served everywhere. At best you can hope your local history is interesting enough that Disney picks it up as a novelty so it can use it as the backdrop for its umpteenth retelling of a story some dead guy wrote before copyright became a thing. You don't seem to genuinely worry about losing culture. It sounds more like you just don't like "foreigners" to live around you. If you are truly concerned about loss of culture, look at preservationist projects. There are for example linguists who go out to communities in Europe who speak endangered languages so they can be recorded and studied. There are people who form activist groups to get local sites on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites so it becomes easier to find funding to maintain them. There are groups who learn and teach endangered arts or crafts so the knowledge isn't lost when a profession is no longer deemed economically useful. There are people who use spare rooms to run donation-funded private museums to preserve local history. But here's the thing: culture changes and evolves over time, especially at the intersection. Life isn't static and neither is history. If you demand that immigrants "assimilate" you are literally asking them to give up their culture to preserve some kind of shrinkwrapped carbon copy of what you think yours is. But even if left to its own devices, your culture would change over time. What happens with immigration is not replacement of culture but a merger. Culture is a river, not a pond. No matter how much commodification tries to tell you otherwise by trying to sell it to you in a bucket.

Immigration is not the solution. It's a workaround. I fail to see how replacing Japan population with immigrants from Africa or South-East Asia would save Japan.

cycrutchfield 3y ago

Replacing?

Anon_Forever 3y ago
Yes, replacing. You're replacing native Japanese with foreigners. That is by definition replacing.
- bt4u 3y ago
  [dead]
- shadowgovt 3y ago
  It really depends how you define what a people is. Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. Genetically, who cares. Culturally, that's up to the people.
  - bongoman37 3y ago
    Outside of a few places like the US, people care a hell of a lot about the genetics. Try putting Africans in India, or Japanese in China, and so on, there is no such thing as the melting pot in the vast majority of the world.
    - hnbad 3y ago
      They don't care about genetics. They just dislike specific groups of people. Which ones is largely arbitrary and has more to do with history than genetics. Some places also have a much narrower "in-group" than others, again largely as a result of history. In some cases the "in-group" doesn't even include all the groups of people that historically live in the same territory, e.g. present-day China has significant undertones of Han nationalism or India with Hindu nationalism, despite both countries being geographically huge and ethnically diverse. In the moment, aside from historical preconditions, the largest factor to how narrow this in-group is and how strong the dislike towards those not in it is, is mostly a matter of perceived scarcity and danger. As every good business owner knows, the best way to distract an employee from how small their share of the profits is, is to dangle a more desperate group in front of them as a scapegoat. Give someone your scraps, then make them deathly afraid others want to take it away from them, and they won't dare to ask for more (or solidarize with others against you - racism was one of the biggest cudgels against unions in the early 20th century US before simply framing unions as communist became an option).
  - Anon_Forever 3y ago
    >It really depends how you define what a people is. Not at all, not unless you use some Orwellian tactics to completely redefine what an ethnic group is. >Geographically, it's obviously not replacement. "People lived here, now people live here" is just continuity. A geographic area is not a "people" nor an ethnic group. Shoving more people into the landmass we know as Japan may be good for the economy of the landmass, but it won't be good for the ethnic group we call the Japanese. >Genetically, who cares. Common ancestry is one of the core attributes of ethnic groups. The Japanese people and ethnologists care >Culturally, that's up to the people. "If we replace the Japanese with Appalachian Whites, it's up to the people to decide if they're being replaced or not." Yes, you made my point for me: if you replace the Japanese with foreigners, they are being replaced. QED.
    - shadowgovt 3y ago
      > "If we replace the Japanese with Appalachian Whites, it's up to the people to decide if they're being replaced or not." Basically true. An awful lot of Americans, for example, don't see it as "replacement" when people from Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Spain, or wherever come join them. Their cultural identity isn't defined very tightly at all by who their parents were. This is not universally true in the country, of course, and some of the larger political fights are over this notion. If Japan feels much more strongly that ancestry matters profoundly, well, that's going to be a rub for them moving forward. But beliefs are malleable and it will ultimately be up to them.
      - Anon_Forever 3y ago
        >Basically true. Not at all, not unless you use some Orwellian tactics to completely redefine what ethnic replacement is. >An awful lot of Americans, for example, don't see it as "replacement" when people from Mexico, Canada, El Salvador, Spain, or wherever come join them. Just because there's a large group that's delusional or willfully ignorant to what's happening doesn't make it true. An awful lot of Americans think men can get pregnant, or climate change isn't anthropogenic or happening at all. They're being replaced whether they bury their head in the sand or not. >Their cultural identity isn't defined very tightly at all by who their parents were. Of course it is, just like it is in Japan. Your common ancestry and common ancestral grounds are core attributes of what we call ethnic groups. >This is not universally true in the country, of course, and some of the larger political fights are over this notion. As covered above, it's true whether one side believes it or not. No doubt it's become a large political fight from what I've seen. I agree with you there. >If Japan feels much more strongly that ancestry matters profoundly, well, that's going to be a rub for them moving forward. We do. Many countries in Asia and around the world do, which is why many of them (Japan, South Korea, Taiwan, etc.) are ethnically homogeneous.
  - mbg721 3y ago
    Japan is something of an extreme example to pick.
    - cycrutchfield 3y ago
      It’s the favored example of white nationalists for some weird reason.
      - wherethoug 3y ago
        [flagged]
        cycrutchfield 3y ago
        [flagged]
      - thefounder 3y ago
        If only japanese would be white...
  - thefounder 3y ago
    I guess by your definition native americans were not replaced either. Genetically, culturally or bullshitically....
    - hnbad 3y ago
      Replaced? No. For the most part native Americans were murdered. Some, quite blatantly, sometimes with literal bounties being set on their heads but more often than not just like a regular "pest" or "dangerous wildlife". Others, more indirectly, through famines brought on by destruction of their food storages or culling of their hunting grounds. And even more died from plagues. They were also repeatedly strongarmed into contracts which were then broken after they had held up their end of the bargain. And of course there were many cases (as recently as the last century) where their children were forcibly removed and placed into Christian boarding schools to "kill the savage, save the child". I know you probably like to use all of these things as fanciful metaphors to support your argument that "natives" (white people or the Japanese) are now being "replaced" by (incidentally Black and brown) immigrants but these weren't metaphors, these were the real deal. By alluding to these things as metaphors you're masking the real scale and character of these historical atrocities.

deleted 3y ago

[deleted]

famouswaffles 3y ago

Africans wouldn't be heading to japan anyway. It is a bandaid sure but it's a bandaid worth literally decades of time. There's a reason doctors put bandaids on wounds. It's kind of too late anyway.

thefounder 3y ago
>> Africans wouldn't be heading to japan anyway. Why not? Poor people go wherever they can/where they are allowed if the host country is rich.
- famouswaffles 3y ago
  Most Africans who have the resources to migrate are spoiled for choice when it comes to countries to migrate to. Colonization making English and/or French an official language of about 50 African nations means there are about a dozen options that present basically no language barrier and much smoother cultural assimilation than East Asia in general. I'm not saying no African at all would go to the region. But they'd be near the bottom of the list even with comparable policies.
  - dragonwriter 3y ago
    > Colonization making English, French an official language of about 90 African nations 90 out of 54 is quite a high percentage.
    - famouswaffles 3y ago
      My bad. Should be 45 to 50 between English and French. Either way, I'm sure you understand the point.
  - thefounder 3y ago
    The real issue is the cost/barrier to entry. I'm pretty sure Japan would be full in 4-5 years if they would open the gates(i.e a free border with the world). It's not like the immigrants are looking for cultural assimilation. Maybe their children but that's not a sure thing either. You can see that in Paris and London where even the 2nd or 3rd generation is still living within the same "communities" with little cultural assimilation. With enough mass immigration you may see a reverse assimilation.

hnbad 3y ago

What are they replacing anyway? Genetics? The US is literally a nation born out of immigration and any "racial distinctiveness" in Europe has more to do with the limited means of transport leading to geographical inbreeding than some metaphysical legacy of pure bloodlines. Not to mention that most of Europe experienced various migration waves all the way back to the first migrations that resulted in Europe being settled by humans at all. Japan has been trying to keep up its strategy of just being extremely racist post-WW2 and it doesn't look like that got them anywhere. Culture? You literally can't look at most nations' cultures without also considering the cultures of their neighbors that influenced them. As much as ethnonationalists like to pretend otherwise, for any continental culture the grouping of what aspects are specific to that "nation" have more to do with its history of government than any shared identity. Germany for example was barely a coherent concept before the 19th century. Japan being forced to spend most of its history navelgazing and sitting on its thumbs because it consisted of a bunch of islands doesn't make its culture any more special or worth preserving than any other and most of what you imagine when you think of Japan today is the result of being repeatedly carpet bombed and literally nuked after trying to do an imperialism to the point of voluntarily acting as a vassal to its victor: Westernization had less to do with immigration and more with global trade and trying to cargo cult the nation that wiped the proverbial floor with it. Heck, the only example I can think of literal replacement is far-right Israeli settlers moving into houses of Palestinian families after their expulsion without even giving them enough time to clear out the fridge. That's literally replacement: residents of one culture and ethnicity are forcibly removed from their own homes and replaced with residents of another. But again, that's not what's happening with immigration and it's not what you're complaining about. If you're truly concerned with a loss of culture and every distinctiveness being washed over until all that remains is a homogeneous grey soup Disney can fill in a tin and sell to you, the problem isn't immigration but commodification and tourism. Instead of dishonestly grandstanding about native Americans you should be looking at Hawai'i where Americans bluntly annexed the kingdom, cut up the land to sell it off to American hoteliers and the very rich, and then sold off cheap immitations of the native culture so middle-class tourists could have an "exotic" experience as a piece of escapism. Forget about "national identities". Places used to have identities. Every city, every town used to have a distinguishing character that was the result of its geography and history, like the rings of a tree telling the story of past seasons. Then big box chains stomped out the local businesses and undercut the competition by making it up in volume before ramping up prices again once noone else was left. And with nobody left to perpetuate the culture now that the only means of production was commerce and commerce was owned by the same big companies, all that is left is the same, market researched, focus group tested, mass produced, grey soup that is served everywhere. At best you can hope your local history is interesting enough that Disney picks it up as a novelty so it can use it as the backdrop for its umpteenth retelling of a story some dead guy wrote before copyright became a thing. You don't seem to genuinely worry about losing culture. It sounds more like you just don't like "foreigners" to live around you. If you are truly concerned about loss of culture, look at preservationist projects. There are for example linguists who go out to communities in Europe who speak endangered languages so they can be recorded and studied. There are people who form activist groups to get local sites on the list of UNESCO World Heritage sites so it becomes easier to find funding to maintain them. There are groups who learn and teach endangered arts or crafts so the knowledge isn't lost when a profession is no longer deemed economically useful. There are people who use spare rooms to run donation-funded private museums to preserve local history. But here's the thing: culture changes and evolves over time, especially at the intersection. Life isn't static and neither is history. If you demand that immigrants "assimilate" you are literally asking them to give up their culture to preserve some kind of shrinkwrapped carbon copy of what you think yours is. But even if left to its own devices, your culture would change over time. What happens with immigration is not replacement of culture but a merger. Culture is a river, not a pond. No matter how much commodification tries to tell you otherwise by trying to sell it to you in a bucket.