Fun fact: Brazil has the largest Japanese diaspora in the world (larger than US): https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_diaspora
TIL after wondering why Brazil was one of the prominent contributors of foreign workers in Japan.
Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
91–100 of 285 posts
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#92Earlier quoted context omitted.
The very use of the word "dysgenic" wrt human populations is a form of virtue signaling that is far from unknown to internet circles such as HN. The comment might have been overzealous about rebutting a perceived narrative, but that statement is a basis for that narrative.
Fair enough, but back to my question: what mechanism do you use to add specific details where none existed before?
I can't speak for the commenter, but it could be a simple yet rigorous heuristic of seeing a particular buzzword used in certain conversations, reading the context statement that the buzzword is employed under, and matching that statement to a particular ideological narrative that is often prevalent in discussion circles such as HN.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#93Earlier quoted context omitted.
If successful people are having fewer kids than unsuccessful people then haven't we created a dysgenic system?
This view is popular, even if in jest like "haha Idiocracy was right guise!!" but in real life it smacks of eugenics and the Divine Right Of The Rich. Success correlates well with things like wealth, education level of your parents, early-age nutrition, and other things that can be considered "inherited" in a way, but children of poor and "unsuccessful" people can become financially and socially important as well, it…
Even assuming that genetics have absolutely no role in success (a bit unlikely I think), culture is a real thing. Plenty of people will admit they had a huge advantage because their family discussed finance at the dinner table when they grew up, or growing up the child of a business owner.
It's hard to imagine there being no negative side effects to the successful portion of the population shrinking at a faster rate.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#94Earlier quoted context omitted.
>Anyone who espouses cultural purity is simply ignorant of culture. There's a difference between gradual assimilation of cultural elements over hundreds of years, and flooding a country with change on the scale of a generation. It's perfectly reasonable to want to preserve what amounts to a cultural identity by limiting cultural influx. >Anyone who espouses cultural purity is simply ignorant of culture Nonsense. The…
The ancestral post of this thread is bemoaning supposed cultural deracination in Japan because of changes to immigration policy. It is hysterical to presume that the Japanese are about to flood their country "with change on the scale of a generation". > does not mean that it is not itself pure By what metric is a culture pure? How can information be pure? How far back in the timeline do you want to gauge purity? And…
Japan is an extroardinarily unique place. Even Australia, NZ, the UK and America have not just lot in common when you compare them to Japan, but a surprisingly lot. Japan really does have its own culture and identity.
The Japanese have always wanted to protect their culture, identity, and economy, going back to where n Perry shot off a cannon to get them to open up the West's plans.
As a foreigner who loves Japan, I think there is a stretch between letting particularly interested individuals enjoy to the country--which is already possible--and opening itself up economic migration--which is what Western countries now experience.
Look at Singapore. It's such a god damn hell compared to Japan even though on paper they should be doing better.
There is really no other place like Japan on earth, it will be sad to see it homogenize with the rest of it.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#95Earlier quoted context omitted.
The ancestral post of this thread is bemoaning supposed cultural deracination in Japan because of changes to immigration policy. It is hysterical to presume that the Japanese are about to flood their country "with change on the scale of a generation". > does not mean that it is not itself pure By what metric is a culture pure? How can information be pure? How far back in the timeline do you want to gauge purity? And…
Japan is an extroardinarily unique place. Even Australia, NZ, the UK and America have not just lot in common when you compare them to Japan, but a surprisingly lot. Japan really does have its own culture and identity. The Japanese have always wanted to protect their culture, identity, and economy, going back to where n Perry shot off a cannon to get them to open up the West's plans. As a foreigner who loves Japan, I…
Again, it seems highly dubious that opening up to economic migration means the same set of policies used everywhere, and the same results everywhere.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#96So sad. Another ancient unique culture to be blended and homogenized into the global mass of undifferentiated Starbucks society. At least the megacorporations will get the cheap labor and undifferentiated consumers they want.
What is the alternative? All of the “developed” nations need immigration to prevent the social systems from completely falling apart. Our entire financial system is based on increasing population growth and the young paying to support the old. There aren’t enough young people. Without immigration, pensions, healthcare, social safety nets, property values… it all implodes. We go back to 1930 where old people just die…
Ultimately the global population is going to level off for one reason or another. Immigration is a temporary fix.
Alternatively, you can keep going with exponential growth, if you can find a few more planets to put people on.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#97So sad. Another ancient unique culture to be blended and homogenized into the global mass of undifferentiated Starbucks society. At least the megacorporations will get the cheap labor and undifferentiated consumers they want.
Taking HN threads into nationalistic and racial and ideological flamewar is not allowed on HN, and we ban accounts that do it. If you have something thoughtful and substantive to say, that's a different story, but please keep the cheap battle rhetoric someplace else.
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#98I was in Tokyo a few years ago, went back recently and I noticed the changes described in this article too. Every sign and menu are now in Japanese/Chinese/English. Waiters, salesclerks, metro station assistants now speaks English. And every 7-Eleven, Starbucks, etc… seems to employ foreigners instead of Japanese people (mostly from countries like Vietnam, Philippine, Thailand and India tho), who speak English perfec…
A lot of this is most likely in preparation for the 2020 Olympics. Especially the street signs.
Its made Tokyo way more easily navigable though, especially combined with Google maps. :)
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#99The Bloomberg article exacerbates the bigotry many Japanese have against their own fellow citizens. In the caption of the first picture: "She’s not all Japanese, but she was Miss Universe Japan 2015."
Yes, she is "all" Japanese. She grew up in Japan, with her Japanese mother, attending Japanese schools. This is the subtle bigotry toward people who are "half" (as they're called in Japan) rather than "dual". Many Japanese will always consider them "less Japanese" or outsiders.
She had dual citizenship because of her father. When asked which citizenship she would she would choose, she said, 「もちろん、日本を選ぶわ。自分では、私はとことん日本人だと思っている。そう、１００％日本人よ。肌の色の違いは、その人となりとは全く関係ないはず」
"Of course I will choose Japan. I think of myself as thoroughly Japanese. 100% Japanese. It should have nothing to do with heredity, with a different skin color."
https://www.sankei.com/premium/news/150429/prm1504290022-n3....
Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration
#100I thought it might be useful to add a comment mentioning what the changes are in layman's terms. Prior to the recent change, everyone working in Japan was a "skilled" worker. There was no language requirement and essentially anyone with a degree was eligible. This didn't cover manual labour jobs etc. But at the same time, many young people were out working in convenience stores, fast food restaurants etc. Turns out t…
The absolute fastest way to PR is through Highly Skilled Foreign Professional Type 1 visa. PR after a year. That's incredibly fast. Type 2 visa after 3 years IIRC. The difference between 1 and 2 is the number of points one scores.
The points calculation table can be found here: https://www.juridique.jp/visa/hsp.php
It seems that if you have a master's degree from top 300 universities, passed N2, aged under 30 and have high salary (10M yen+) you can easily get 100 points. Type 1 visa only requires 80 points and guarantees permanent residency in one year.