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how is this bad? with technology and automation, any nation, will need less and less people plus rent in japan is super high, and the country seem over crowde
by systems 2y ago
how is this bad?
with technology and automation, any nation, will need less and less people
plus rent in japan is super high, and the country seem over crowded
why be alarmed by low birth rate, as long as its voluntary and not caused by an endemic health concern
- soperj 2y ago> plus rent in japan Is that all of Japan? or just select cities?
- CapricornNoble 2y agoJust select cities. I had a decent bachelor pad from 2014 to 2020 that was 55,000 yen (~$550 at the time) with no rent adjustment over that time either, and I'm in an urban area of ~1 million people. Current place is ~82,000 but with the Yen getting body-slammed by the US dollar it's not that much more expensive.
- onlypassingthru 2y agoThe desirable cities with lots of jobs. OTOH, some rural towns are so desperate for people they'll give you a house for free (or nearly free). https://www.rethinktokyo.com/free-houses-japan-countryside https://www.rethinktokyo.com/free-houses-japan-countryside
- knodi123 2y agoHow is it bad? Economically, it's a burden. Older people are more expensive, and the ratio of young to old people has certain economic implications too. As you pointed out, there are good and bad aspects to it, but the bad aspects are real and not histrionic mirages.
- FeteCommuniste 2y agoFor a while I've also had the gut feeling that the average age creeping up does something to the general mood of a culture. Young people are naturally more restless, ambitious, daring, and when the median person is very "settled" in their ways and closer to death than birth I think a certain vitality is lost.
- JohnClark1337 2y agoNot only that, but the young have to support the old in their retirement. This becomes a huge problem when there are multiple elderly per young person and the young find that they are spending most of their time and effort supporting the aging population. The elderly start being seen as a burden on society.
- dingnuts 2y agoputting the problem in terms of economics isn't incorrect, but I think it can be framed in a slightly more human and horrifying way: As a fact of nature, young adults must do the hard labor necessary to keep the world operating. Historically, there have always been more of them than there were people physically incapable of doing that work: the old and very young. If there are too many old people and not enough young people, who will take care of the old people?
- sabbaticaldev 2y agowhat’s your take on AI replacing jobs?
- derefr 2y agoIt's also a political burden, in two senses: 1. directly: in a democracy where the majority of voters are 60+ years old and retired, politicians will end up seeing the old and retired as their base and pandering to them; and this will lead to them implementing policies that serve the old and retired, to the detriment of those of working age. (See: literally anything about Japan's work culture.) 2. indirectly: social mores evolve over time, but this mostly occurs within the more-flexible, still-identity-forming minds of people of young ages. You can think of "modern" social mores as viral memes that spread easily between the "young" nodes in a social network; but which won't spread to/through the "old" nodes of the network. A a "top-heavy" society, where the old greatly outnumber the young, doesn't have the mean virality coefficient necessary to allow "modern" social mores to spread and achieve fixation. This in turn means that younger generations will feel they are living in a society that is "stuck in the past", with "outdated" thinking, where they cannot affect meaningful social change, despite everyone in their own (usually generational-cohort) social circles agreeing with them.
- tiffanyh 2y agoSaid differently, many government programs for citizen retirement benefits (eg Social Security) are structured as Ponzi Schemes that require population increases over time so later generations can pay for earlier generations. If population is declining, it breaks how these programs are funding because there’ll be less n the younger generation to pay for the more people in the older generation.
- cdiamand 2y agoI think a cascading series of negative economic effects from less consumerism, leading to societally destabilizing conditions is a concern.
- idunnoman1222 2y ago[flagged]
- toomuchtodo 2y agoThe socioeconomic system is broken, not the people. Population boom only happened because women weren't empowered, contraceptives weren't wildly available. For the human, this is great, if it is their choice (we should want to support agency and autonomy imho). For the systems? Bad for them. Build better systems. If your economic system requires a total fertility rate floor above what a combination of desired and realized fertility is, you're gonna have a bad time. People will argue about the cost of caring for the elderly, sovereign debt that will need to be paid back, and so on. Well, perhaps consider the obligations you're originating and foisting on a future that may not pay for them. Comments I've written with robust citations for this thesis: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41799048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41799048 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41661724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41661724 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41225389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41225389 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41035224 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=41035224
- everybodyknows 2y ago> 83% of young korean women think of south korea as “hell” The page shows 78% of young men with same opinion. But -- what other countries do they think would be better?
- mekster 2y agoI just find it hard that these times, it's more like heaven from human history point of view. At least in there, there's no active war (there is a threat but bullets aren't flying around or you have problem acquiring food and water), and cities are moderately safe, you can buy stuff with a few clicks, many entertainments to choose from, convenient phones etc etc. And you get to take advantage of those without earning a fortune. It's so absurd to think this is some sort of hell. They don't know actual hell like past and some present people are experiencing. Why don't those people appreciate the situation they're in?
- satvikpendem 2y agoHedonic adaptation. Humans can quickly become accustomed to circumstances, rich or poor, and then they can start criticizing it. This is in fact one of the prime drivers for innovation in the world, because those that thought everything was already good enough wouldn't be the ones innovating.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago> how is this bad? It's bad when a species goes extinct. Especially when that species is humans.
- gruez 2y agoHumans aren't going extinct any time soon. The world population is projected to level off at 10 billion near 2100.
- WorkerBee28474 2y ago> Humans aren't going extinct any time soon. Soon in years, no. Soon in centuries, yes.
- gruez 2y agoBe careful with extrapolation. A few decades ago Malthus thought we were heading for overpopulation.
- WorkerBee28474 2y agoThat is a good point. And actually it's not all humans who would go extinct, it's modern urban/semi-urban more-liberal people. There are pockets of often-rural highly religious populations that are well above the replacement rate right now. Basically Kamala Harris supporters are going extinct and Donald Trump supporters will populate the future, unless something changes.
- Schiendelman 2y agoThe thing that needs to change is zoning in cities. We don't let people move into our big cities in the US the way they do in Japan. That's the only change we need.
- satvikpendem 2y agoIn Japan, it's the rural areas that are going extinct while the urban areas are increasing in population. We'll probably see the same thing in the future in the US as well.
- fwip 2y agoWhat do you mean by "need less people?" Normally, technology/automation is thought of as reducing the need for labor, but the total amount of labor needed is still proportional to the total number of people.
- lotsofpulp 2y agoOnly bad if the country has promised the old a lot of benefits that need younger people’s hands to deliver.
- red016 2y agoIt’s like asking why suicide is bad, you have a civilization without the will to propagate itself.
- dyauspitr 2y agoIt’s bad because at this rate South Koreans will literally be extinct within 100 years.
- yamazakiwi 2y agoIt doesn't matter that we increase the birthrate if quality of life is continually degrading.
- lxgr 2y agoIt's also backwards. Structure society and economy in a way that makes it appealing to have children (both in that the hypothetical parents feel safe in doing so without endangering their own quality of life, and in that they can imagine the hypothetical children to be happy too), and people will have them.
- naijaboiler 2y agoPeople that think it’s purely an economic problem are wrong. Economic and political solutions are not enough. You also need social solutions too. Like make it cool to have kids and solutions that allowa women of child bearing age to be around other women who have young children
- nasmorn 2y agoHaving children in modern society is pretty isolating. We had it very good because our neighbors have children of similar age and we could share the burdens of cooking and watching them while simultaneously also seeing other adults. If both parents work and you do all your chores you have approximately zero time to socialize outside your immediate vicinity. It takes a village but nobody has a village any longer
- bryanlarsen 2y agoChange isn't necessarily bad, but rapid change usually is. And reproduction rates that more than halve the population per generation is an extremely rapid change.
- itake 2y agoThere are many roles that haven’t been automated yet, including elder care. I’m skeptical that nurses could be enhanced by automation to the degree of them managing more patients, but with the same quality of care as they do now.
- stonesthrowaway 2y ago> why be alarmed by low birth rate Cause it signifies national decline. > as long as its voluntary "Voluntary" is such a tricky word. The low birth rate was entirely manufactured by societal norms instituted by the elites. Not just in japan, but in much of the world ( US, china, russia, EU, etc ). > and not caused by an endemic health concern Declining population is an endemic health concern. If you don't put a stop to it, the nation eventually ceases to exist.
- M95D 2y agoWho tf cares about "the nation". There's only one thing that matters: me.
- stonesthrowaway 2y ago> There's only one thing that matters: me. Right. And how your nation does directly affects you.
- lawgimenez 2y agoNot enough workforce to fund the retirees pensions is one thing.
- red-iron-pine 2y agocapitalism expects growth, and has a big ole problem when that doesn't happen. structurally we're not set up for it.
- indigo0086 2y agoBecause people make societal level choices that lead to low birth rate when things are terribly wrong with the society that demands less people for one reason or another