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Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

theguardian.com

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Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#61

Post by emiliobumachar »

intelliot wrote: post #46
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/ . )

Is there convincing evidence that resource depletion is among the highest risks to civilization? Much of what I've seen shows the opposite: for example, China is a rising superpower largely because of their huge population. Having more people means more potential productivity, and that could lead to more prosperity. On the other hand, small countries with few people are usually able to accomplish little. Places with…

I'm counting war over the increasingly scarce resources as part of the risk, so the current influence of mildly scarce resources over politics is evidence.

I agree with your point that, from a nationalist perspective, population size is basically nation size.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#62

Post by einhverfr »

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/ . )

Well, the fundamental problem is a demographic one. In the end, the elderly are always cared for by the young so if you have a lot of elderly and not very many young, this becomes a real problem.

Ideally, the birthrate would be close to the replacement rate. Much lower and you run into very significant problems. If you want to draw down the population, a birth rate of say, 90-95% of the replacement rate would not be so bad.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#63

Post by einhverfr »

LeonidasXIV wrote: post #49
Osmium wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern is an ageing population rather than a shrinking one. Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it.

> Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it. But this will be a trend that autocorrects itself after some time, as less elder people will be there in the future. Also, the younger people if both working will create more prosperity than being married with one working and the other one staying at home. In the short term this sounds bad, but long term…

But that requires a birth rate close to replacement rate right?

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#64

Post by threeseed »

randomafrican wrote: post #50
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/ . )

We're not Pandas. Ressource depletion is only a problem if our ressource consumption doesnt evolve. And it will evolve.

Except that people will only evolve once the resources are completely gone.

The underlying problem is that sustainable products almost always have a price premium attached to them. And because the benefits of sustainability are indirect it's hard to convince people to pay more.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#65

Post by jmadsen »

LeonidasXIV wrote: post #49
Osmium wrote: post #48

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think the concern is an ageing population rather than a shrinking one. Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it.

> Too many older people, no longer working, who need care or support and not enough younger people to provide it. But this will be a trend that autocorrects itself after some time, as less elder people will be there in the future. Also, the younger people if both working will create more prosperity than being married with one working and the other one staying at home. In the short term this sounds bad, but long term…

Yes, but "the short term" is long enough to cause considerable pain to the current younger, working generations

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#67

Post by chongli »

smcl wrote: post #41
nl wrote: post #34

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm married to a Britisher (which is not used in Great Britan anyway) sounds similarly awkward. Married to an Englishman/Welshman/Irishman works, but is gender (and England/Wales/Ireland) specific. I'm married to a Scott works though. Not sure there is a general purpose word you can use to say "I'm married to someone from Britian".

"I"m married to a Brit"

Too bad you can't do the same trick with Japanese; it's become politically incorrect (even racist) to use the word "Jap".

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#68

Post by networked »

camus2 wrote: post #57
networked wrote: post #17

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 "perfo…

>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 agree, but my point was that people who see enough porn to get to the really weird stuff are probably more likely the ones who didn't care for real-life relationships already (in a society where these two things a correlated).

Edit: clarity.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#69

Post by einhverfr »

InclinedPlane wrote: post #45

Because parents and schools in the developed world have stopped raising kids and have instead opted for 18+ years of babysitting. Part of the problem is that we don't even know what we're about anymore, so we don't know what lessons and principles to pass on to our children. It's a wonder that the problem isn't far worse than it is already.

One of the major things I see though in the article is the way in which modern corporate capitalism isolates individuals and tries to place career above family.

Re: Have young people in Japan stopped having sex?

#70

Post by Morcane »

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/ . )

Are you Sheldon from The Big Bang Theory?
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