Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents • Hacker News Board

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#91

Post by squaresmile » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 1:50 PM UTC

asdasdasdas5453 wrote: post #42

brazzy wrote: post #3

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That's not how economy works. There is no such thing in general as "too many people for the economy". "The economy" is the sum of goods and services produced and consumed. Everyone who lives consumes, and could easily consume more. The economy is generally limited by the ability to produce, and is generally limited by the number of working-age people to do the producing. Unemployment can be result of production being…

On HN when people discuss CS/privacy/programming the conversation is very thorough and interesting. When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic. If one wants a counter argument to "too many people for the economy" one can start here : https://www.jstor.org/stable/2523702?seq=1 "Using data from the Current Pop…

> When the discussion is about economics (the topic I have studied at uni) most comments are just plain wrong and show a complete ignorance about the topic.

I think curating a discussion board to have knowledgeable discussion about many things is a really hard task. On many professional boards, discussions about other subjects are put into an OT corner. HN doesn't split discussions into topics so I guess expectation of comments' quality carries over.

I would just make a mental note: Oh this is not about CS/privacy/programming and adjust accordingly.

I suppose it's one of the reasons one should acquaint themselves with people from a variety of backgrounds and don't run away when others are not as knowledgeable about CS/privacy/programming. Actually

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#92

Post by eru » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 1:58 PM UTC

latch wrote: post #90

eru wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I've traveled a fair bit, and every part of Japan that I've been to feels like I've timed-traveled 20 years into a better future [compared to anywhere else I've been]. Have you been to Singapore?

Yes, lived there for 4 years.

Do you think Japan is a decade ahead of Singapore as well?

If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects.

(Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#93

Post by growlist » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:05 PM UTC

tonyedgecombe wrote: post #65

growlist wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I don't understand why Western countries are not incentivising people to have children.

It won't make much difference, people aren't having children because they don't want them.

source?

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#94

Post by latch » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:17 PM UTC

eru wrote: post #92

latch wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, lived there for 4 years.

Do you think Japan is a decade ahead of Singapore as well? If anything, I always have the impression Singapore is ahead of the rest of the world in many respects. (Not in all respect. Not in cycling or craft beer.)

Yes. And I love Singapore.

I'd like to think that cities / countries of the future have lower inequality and are more self sustainable (not too much Singapore can do here, but it might become increasingly important).

I don't want to speak too much subjectively. Because I've lived in Singapore and I've only visited Japan. So maybe I just haven't seen Japan's dirty side - which was kind of what I was asking in my original post. I've heard (and seen (maid cafe)) that Japan has a sexism issue, but so does Singapore, and I wouldn't know how to quantify them.

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#95

Post by flintomalley » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:26 PM UTC

everdrive wrote: post #38

asutekku wrote: post #16

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I’ve lived in japan and believe me, what you see as a tourist does not translate into reality. Japan in general is about 10 years behind the western world and in some places even more. Sure, tourist facing areas and central tokyo are pretty nice, but that’s not the reality in most places.

What does it mean to be "10 years behind the western world" ? Are they behind in technology, values, policy? Can you give some examples? I'm not disagreeing with you, just curious for more info. (I don't know much about Japan myself.)

I've been working in the computer graphics field for 25-years, the last 10 of which (and currently) have been in Japan. Before I got here 10-years ago, I had visions of Japanese studios having cutting-edge tools, all built in-house, created to automate tasks, making production efficient.

I was extremely disappointed.

I understand that Japan has a reputation of being at the forefront of technology and, while the manufacturing sector may have had extreme advances in the 80's and 90's, those advances have fallen, with nothing really of note since. No longer is Sony the leader in electronic hardware. Toyota is no longer the leader of car manufacturing efficiency. When was the last time you've heard or read about anything innovative coming out of Japan? There's nothing "disruptive" coming out of here. They are riding on their long-past reputation of being fore-runners of tech. In my opinion, it's not so much a lack of intellectual availability here, but rather, deep-rooted cultural phenomena that has been holding this place hostage for so long.

Disclaimer: my experience is in computer graphics, so is limited to that industry. Please take my opinions with a grain of salt. But when I was jumping around different studios back home, before moving to Japan, there was always a dedicated technology team present, from small 10-person outfits, to huge 400-people studios. CG companies know that using software just out-of-the-box was not enough to produce animation profitably, so they invested in tech teams to create tools and production pipelines that would make the production process faster, reduce human error, and ultimately, make the company more money. I was blown away that this mindset was not present in most of the studios here. Most of the studios do not want to invest money into a tech team, as the benefits of technology are not exactly tangible or visible right away to the executives. There is also a deeper issue with taking pride in "doing it by hand". There are more issues, but both of the ones described above point to a pretty "old school" way of thinking.

Of course, not every person I have worked with agrees with any of the above, but the mindset is present enough to stifle innovation in my field. Where there IS innovation, it is created by non-Japanese folks. Much of this technology is quickly forgotten after being used briefly.

I live here, so I guess it can't be that bad. But I have to say that there is a particular naievety present. Even when proposed with new ideas that make sense, there is almost always push-back.

Holy cow, I could write a lot more, but I'll just leave it at this: Japan is absolutely not the technology utopia one may think it is.

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#96

Post by plutonorm » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:30 PM UTC

Broken_Hippo wrote: post #34

plutonorm wrote: post #27

They'll also get a burst of creativity. I know that whenever I am unemployed my creativity just gets diverted into the nearest interesting endeavour. One of those might have paid off and become a business. Quite likely in fact, if I hadn't had to work. I've often considered going on benefits so that I can work on my own ideas unhindered by work life. But I wanted a family more than I wanted time to pursue my other dr…

What sorts of dreams can you follow when you are broke? I mean, realistically? And creative endeavors - how are your affording these things? Are your hobbies cheap? Does the stress of non-work bother you? Were you lucky enough to have decent compensation when you were unemployed or have someone else to support you? How in the world do you "go on benefits" if you are able-bodied? Are you in a country where benefits me…

Poverty would be fine if I had the chance to work on what I want to work on. All I need is a computer for my work. I could work on mathematics, physics, I could write a novel. I could read academic papers day in day out, gorge on information. It would be wonderful.

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#97

Post by oblio » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:47 PM UTC

ginko wrote: post #81

oblio wrote: post #35

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You're awfully pessimistic and ignoring human creativity. And also human capacity for accepting compromises. When Malthus lived, there were about 1 billion people. It's hard to estimate, but I'd guess at most 10% of those were living non-miserable lives, so about 100 million people at most. Now the world middle class is 4 billion (40x) and the world upper class is probably around half a billion people (5x). I'm willi…

> You're awfully pessimistic and ignoring human creativity. And also human capacity for accepting compromises. Sure we might manage to live with 10 billion people on the planet, maybe even more. But why would we want to? I see no value in having more people on the planet. If anything it only reduces the value of each individual.

I'm not saying that I want more people (or fewer people) on the planet.

It's just a fact. We're 8 billion and we'll probably be 11 billion when we reach peak population.

> I see no value in having more people on the planet.

I have to point out that you say this as a person on this planet :-)

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#98

Post by rib3ye » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 2:51 PM UTC

giantDinosaur wrote: post #77

rib3ye wrote: post #36

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Recently I have began to wish we still used them, and I say that as a consumer and a UI designer, as I think about all the designs I have made and discarded that could have easily been solved with pen and paper. It may not scale for an Amazon-sized business, but it totally works for small restaurant.

What do you mean? You can still print at the other end if you really needed certain designs to be somewhere on paper, no?

I mean, the design never needed to be designed in the first place. We should have created some manual process until it it becomes so cumbersome to process the requests that it needs to be someone’s full time job.

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#99

Post by brazzy » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 3:08 PM UTC

gfxgirl wrote: post #80

rib3ye wrote: post #41

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Like others having lived there for a short period of time, I agree with this observation. The cultural premium on risk, that may merely inconvenience someone, is unreasonably high (by my standard, anyway). Ever have to pay a bribe to a landlord to rent an apartment as a matter of accepted business protocol? Look up "reikin". Then you'll realize why some think it's totally reasonable to live out of an internet cafe.

It's not a bribe. That's your negative spin. The positive spin is it's just 2/26th pre-payment of the rent for 2 years. You then pay 1/26th every month for 2 years, repeat when you renew your contract. Do I like having to pay 2/26th up front (2 months rent?) no. But I also would prefer not to have to put down payments on cars/houses.

If it truly were a pre-payment, it would be partially refunded when the rental contract terminates early.

Re: Japan’s lost generation is still jobless and living with their parents

#100

Post by decafninja » Fri, Oct 02, 2020, 3:11 PM UTC

watwut wrote: post #50

The American obsession over living or not with parents sounds almost pathological to me. Being jobless is issue. Long term inability to find partner is issue. But, if you don't have partner, what exactly is the reason for moving to live alone and why is focus specifically on "omg someone lives with parents"? I mean, multigenerational households were historical norm. It is not something super special that happened jus…

Completely agree. I'm a Korean American in my thirties, and most of my East Asian American friends lived with their parents until they got married, or they had to move a very long distance away for work. Several of my friends who are now entering their early 40s and are still unmarried continue to live with their parents. All are doing at least above average financially and could easily afford to move out, but they (myself included) don't see the point.

In contrast, my non Asian friends are shocked when the hear about stuff like this. It's like they cannot possibly imagine living with your parents beyond college. It's tantamount to admitting you are a failure at life.

I once lived on my own for two years in my twenties just to see what it was like. My apartment was barely 15 minutes away from my parents home. After two years, I came to the conclusion it was pointless because all I did at my place was sleep, so I moved back in. I didn't move back out until I got married many years later.

I will admit, I was not exactly a big hit with women and at least part of the reason I chose to move out back then was to see if it would improve my love life. It did not. YMMV, but many of my aforementioned Asian friends who are happily living with their parents today at an "advanced age" are also happily dating. For that matter, I was completely dateless/loveless when I was living on my own, but it ironically improved significantly after I had moved back in with my parents, culminating in my marriage.