Have young people in Japan stopped having sex? • Hacker News Board

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#51

Post by creamyhorror » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:22 AM UTC

usernew1817 wrote: post #18

m_mueller wrote: post #14

The subject is interesting, especially because I'm married to a Japanese - but man do I hate articles that go round and round like this one. Here, have a little bit of a sociological hypothesis - but let's not go too deep for your little brains shall we? Here, have a little bit of anecdotal evidence instead. Enough of that? Alright, let's start over again. [...] Oh I'm outa time, let's end the article now, kthxbye. I…

why does saying "married to a Japanese" sound so much more awkward then saying "married to an American/Canadian"

It's as simple as:

- In standard English, "Japanese", "Chinese", etc. are now used only as adjectives and not nouns (although the noun usage used to be acceptable). So you can't correctly say "a Japanese came in" any more than you can say "a Swedish came in." http://www.chinese-forums.com/index.php?/topic/29887-grammar...

- "The Japanese" remains valid as a way to refer to the people of that nation collectively.

- "-(i)an" endings are both nouns and adjectives, so Canadians, Germans, and Ankh-Morporkians are all fine.

- "-man/woman" endings are no longer applied except where they've become idiomatic, so we have Welshman and Frenchman, but not Chineseman or Japaneseman. ("Chinaman" is, of course, derogatory.)

- For an exhaustive rundown of the topic, see "Demonym" on Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demonym

- In more academic or historical writing, you might still find "-ese" in use as a noun ending, but it sounds faintly racist and outdated: "More than a hundred Chinese up to that date had been interrogated by police." http://books.google.com.sg/books?id=Yqemz6q_nQYC&lpg=PA74&ot... (The same might apply to "-ish" words, but I'm not certain.)

-

(To throw_away) Like you, I've done my fair share of correcting Chinese speakers about this usage, too. But I've seen regular use of "a Chinese" in various older English writing, so the usage is at least historically justified, and probably slipped into older instructional texts. It doesn't surprise me that some of the textbooks used in China may not have kept up with changes in usage over the last few decades - in the first place, English teaching there was almost zilch in the past and remains very spotty today.

vvvvvv

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#52

Post by randomafrican » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:25 AM UTC

intelliot wrote: post #43

raverbashing wrote: post #28

In the midst of all, this seems to be one of the best parts of it: "Tomita says a woman's chances of promotion in Japan stop dead as soon as she marries. "The bosses assume you will get pregnant." Once a woman does have a child, she adds, the long, inflexible hours become unmanageable. "You have to resign. You end up being a housewife with no independent income. It's not an option for women like me." Great, so if a w…

Notably, it appears that prior generations had higher birthrates because women were not expected to participate in the workforce. They didn't want to and/or weren't allowed to. They were treated differently than men. A potential downside of making women equal to men is that they become more similar. They don't need each other. They don't complement each other anymore. Opposites attract, but if women are expected to s…

It's more an imbalance between social expectations and modern living.

More conservative societies see a steeper decline in birthrate as women participation in the workforce increases.

That's why France has one of the highest birthrate in Europe for instance.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#53

Post by nly » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:30 AM UTC

netcan wrote: post #38

dec0dedab0de wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think its the soft sound at the end, but I'm not exactly sure why.

I think you might be right. An/a American/Mexican/Thai/German sounds ok. A Japanese/Chinese/Dutch sounds wrong.

'Dutchman' seems to be unisex in the English tongue.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#54

Post by networked » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:30 AM UTC

adamnemecek wrote: post #4

[deleted] wrote: post #2

[deleted]

Because it suggests that there is a market for a startup that disrupts lack of sex in Japan.

The Vice documentary linked upthread suggests that such a startup would be trying to disrupt existing Yakuza business. This is possibly not a good idea.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#55

Post by thaumasiotes » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:34 AM UTC

archangel_one wrote: post #30

m_mueller wrote: post #20

Earlier quoted context omitted.

well it doesn't to me - but maybe that's because I'm not American? Why does it sound weird to you?

Does to me; I guess I think of it as either an adjective or referring to the language. While this usage is technically correct, I think I'd always say "Japanese person". I don't really have a good explanation though of why it's different to "American" or "Canadian" in that regard. Maybe just it's less common for some reason.

Personally, I don't have a problem with the form "I'm married to a Japanese" (this usage comes up a lot for me, although I'm generally referring to Chinese rather than Japanese). But if I were to avoid it, I definitely wouldn't say "I'm married to a Japanese person". I'd say "My wife is Japanese".

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#56

Post by novalis78 » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:38 AM UTC

randomafrican wrote: post #52

intelliot wrote: post #43

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Notably, it appears that prior generations had higher birthrates because women were not expected to participate in the workforce. They didn't want to and/or weren't allowed to. They were treated differently than men. A potential downside of making women equal to men is that they become more similar. They don't need each other. They don't complement each other anymore. Opposites attract, but if women are expected to s…

It's more an imbalance between social expectations and modern living. More conservative societies see a steeper decline in birthrate as women participation in the workforce increases. That's why France has one of the highest birthrate in Europe for instance.

I disagree, I think the opposite is the case. American Caucasians have a higher fertility rate than almost all Western Europeans; birth rates in France typically include recent immigrant fertility rates which are significantly higher. The arguments to avoid children are similar to the Japanese: independence, more money for consumption, etc

Disclaimer: I grew up in Germany/Austria and find the topic of Europeqn demographics quite intriguing

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#57

Post by camus2 » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:38 AM UTC

networked wrote: post #17

camus2 wrote: post #11

Who is buying all these JAV videos that make US gonzo look like Disney cartoons ? too much of it is definetly not good for the mind, especially those about v...t or o...p.....s

I don't know what "v...t" or "o...p.....s" means but consider that you might be confusing the cause and effect here: assuming that there's correlation between consuming $WEIRD_PORN and being unable to have normal relationships [1] it may not be that people become unable to have those relationships due to exposure to $WEIRD_PORN so much as that people who turn to $WEIRD_PORN were already unable to have them. This crea…

My point is about porn in general. I'm from a generation that did not have access to porn easily. today some 12 yo kids are already addicted to porn,and not the softcore stuff. There will be huge consequences.

I dont think i'm confused about causality here. If you cant get excited unless you see or do extreme stuff, you're going to have a pretty difficult libido,as in reality not that many women are willing to "perfom" these "stunts".

I dont think one needs to be already interested in extreme fetish in order to get hooked to it,the more one looks at porn the more one seeks extreme stuffs. It's like any other addiction.

> I don't know what "v...t" or "o...p.....s"

Nevermind , i was saying that japanese porn is well known for its extreme fetish.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#58

Post by thaumasiotes » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:40 AM UTC

networked wrote: post #17

camus2 wrote: post #11

Who is buying all these JAV videos that make US gonzo look like Disney cartoons ? too much of it is definetly not good for the mind, especially those about v...t or o...p.....s

I don't know what "v...t" or "o...p.....s" means but consider that you might be confusing the cause and effect here: assuming that there's correlation between consuming $WEIRD_PORN and being unable to have normal relationships [1] it may not be that people become unable to have those relationships due to exposure to $WEIRD_PORN so much as that people who turn to $WEIRD_PORN were already unable to have them. This crea…

Frankly, I think the parallel between "weird porn makes you weird sexually" and "violent video games make you violent" is pretty straightforward.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#59

Post by einhverfr » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:46 AM UTC

m_mueller wrote: post #29

einhverfr wrote: post #22

Earlier quoted context omitted.

+1, especially on wishing there were more really good social sciences blogs out there covering issues like this. One of the big problems of course is the fact that while outsiders can see dynamics of and sometimes critique cultures, such critiques are necessarily incomplete (well all critiques are necessarily incomplete but outsider ones are especially likely to be). But on your final question, I think one of the big…

1) I'm fine with incomplete arguments if there is at least some attempt at an analysis shown instead of just a meaningless collection of facts and anecdotes. In that case the engaged reader could benefit by gasp thinking about it for himself . 2) So the problem is that corporate media is politically streamlined? Yes, I absolutely think so. In Switzerland we have an interesting weekly magazine called 'Weltwoche', whic…

> So the problem is that corporate media is politically streamlined? Yes, I absolutely think so.

Hilaire Belloc in 1918 wrote a wonderful critique of corporate newspapers where he pointed out that their real customers are advertisers, and that in many cases, the cross-ownership of media by other corporations, as well as cross-board memberships meant that the corporate press would necessarily adopt positions friendly to the largest corporations. His book "The Free Press" (although very right wing) is worth reading. It totally anticipates Chomsky's critiques as well.

> I enjoyed that a lot, until the selection of articles began to appear biased to the right. I think the idea is still great - give me unfiltered opinions and analysis, instead just filter by the 'intellectual depth' if you will. It'd be black coffee in magazine form.

It is a good reason to have a robust blogosphere and read blogs you might otherwise disagree with as well as those who you agree with.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#60

Post by threeseed » Sun, Oct 20, 2013, 10:47 AM UTC

emiliobumachar wrote: post #33

Is there hard evidence that this is bad? Resource depletion is among the highest risks to civilization. Seems straightforward that severe population decline should be desired, and voluntary refraining from reproduction should be welcome. (Please don't just extrapolate the trend till extinction. See http://xkcd.com/605/ . )

It's bad because Japan has an extremely low net migration rate. For comparison Australia has 16x that of Japan. So whilst globally yes we should be aiming to reduce the total population Japan specifically has serious problems.