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Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

time.com

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Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#11

Post by LeanderK »

CalRobert wrote: post #7
FLT8 wrote: post #4

Why would anyone want to have kids today? Most couples in the western world can barely support themselves while getting into home ownership, let alone trying to support multiple kids and put them through college while saving for retirement. The amount of capacity left in life for good child rearing is minimal. Add to that the fact that it's looking increasingly unlikely that there'll be jobs for their children anyway…

Add to that our increasingly lonely lives and fraying communities mean much less of a support network. Parenting is also exhausting now that “go outside and play, come back for dinner” is impractical (for various reasons good or bad).

> “go outside and play, come back for dinner”

why is this impractical?

EDIT: I'm getting downvoted but I am seriously not sure. I don't have kids right now but its part of how I intend to raise them when I get them.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#12

Post by rwmj »

mvc wrote: post #10

Maybe a public service dating app makes sense. The alignment of incentives are all wrong for private dating apps. They obviously lose when you find someone and pair up so they're incentivised not to find a match.

Are there dating apps that work like recruitment, eg. it's free but you pay a fee when you get married or something like that?

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#13

Post by deidei »

> reports that said the app will require a confirmation of identity, such as a driver’s license, your tax records to prove income and a signed form that says you are ready to get married.

Not sure why someone would sign up for a dating app that is this invasive

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#14

Post by Barrin92 »

deidei wrote: post #13

> reports that said the app will require a confirmation of identity, such as a driver’s license, your tax records to prove income and a signed form that says you are ready to get married. Not sure why someone would sign up for a dating app that is this invasive

because it means you're going to get matched with people who are real, honest about their income and serious about marrying. If I was looking to date this is probably the only app I'd consider signing up for.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#16

Post by foobarbecue »

rwmj wrote: post #12
mvc wrote: post #10

Maybe a public service dating app makes sense. The alignment of incentives are all wrong for private dating apps. They obviously lose when you find someone and pair up so they're incentivised not to find a match.

Are there dating apps that work like recruitment, eg. it's free but you pay a fee when you get married or something like that?

I like the concept, but it seems impossible in practice. How on earth would the billing system work? If it's self-reporting, no one will report.

It's interesting how "honor system" can work for certain in-person businesses, but I don't think it could ever work for a dating app.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#17

Post by timr »

FLT8 wrote: post #4

Why would anyone want to have kids today? Most couples in the western world can barely support themselves while getting into home ownership, let alone trying to support multiple kids and put them through college while saving for retirement. The amount of capacity left in life for good child rearing is minimal. Add to that the fact that it's looking increasingly unlikely that there'll be jobs for their children anyway…

> previous generations are leaving them a burning hellscape full of toxic forever chemicals and microplastics that the kids will need to clean up

Please, folks, take a step back and realize that most of what you've read about this stuff in the pop media is based on extremely speculative data, usually from weak, observational studies, or small laboratory experiments in non-human animals. The threat to your life, individually, has been greatly exaggerated. You are far more likely to die of eating too much and getting too fat than whatever microplastics are supposedly doing to you.

I'm not saying that there aren't issues here, but as someone else on this thread already noted, we're living longer than ever before. To the extent that human lifespans have declined, it's largely due to the fact that we're succumbing to diseases of lifestyle that are entirely within our control as individuals.

Worry about that, not theoretical future concerns about chemicals.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#18

Post by Dalewyn »

TOMDM wrote: post #9
FLT8 wrote: post #4

Why would anyone want to have kids today? Most couples in the western world can barely support themselves while getting into home ownership, let alone trying to support multiple kids and put them through college while saving for retirement. The amount of capacity left in life for good child rearing is minimal. Add to that the fact that it's looking increasingly unlikely that there'll be jobs for their children anyway…

People are wealthier and healthier today than almost any other point in history. Better times than now are a blip in the grand scheme of things. We have a huge number of social ills that contribute towards peoples reasons for not wanting children, but wealth and physical health are not among them.

If anything, reality suggests the problem is in fact wealth. The poorest countries have the highest birth rates and throwing more money at this has produced quite literally zero success.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#19

Post by locallost »

TOMDM wrote: post #9
FLT8 wrote: post #4

Why would anyone want to have kids today? Most couples in the western world can barely support themselves while getting into home ownership, let alone trying to support multiple kids and put them through college while saving for retirement. The amount of capacity left in life for good child rearing is minimal. Add to that the fact that it's looking increasingly unlikely that there'll be jobs for their children anyway…

People are wealthier and healthier today than almost any other point in history. Better times than now are a blip in the grand scheme of things. We have a huge number of social ills that contribute towards peoples reasons for not wanting children, but wealth and physical health are not among them.

The truth is for me somewhere in the middle. Happiness and satisfaction are not absolute, they can exist only in relation to your surroundings. Thus younger people in the US might be objectively better off than people in say India, but that doesn't matter. Their surroundings are as the OP described and that dictates how they feel about the present and future day.

On physical health it's actually wrong for the US as people's physical health is deteriorating evident by the falling life expectancy.

But with all that said, the actual idea in Japan is for me pretty stupid, as I consider dating apps to be one of the reasons people are connecting less and less. The choice is too large, it's very superficial, most people want the "best" thus large number of people are out of luck.

Re: Tokyo's Government Is Building Its Own Dating App to Combat Falling Birthrates

#20

Post by foobarbecue »

FLT8 wrote: post #4

Why would anyone want to have kids today? Most couples in the western world can barely support themselves while getting into home ownership, let alone trying to support multiple kids and put them through college while saving for retirement. The amount of capacity left in life for good child rearing is minimal. Add to that the fact that it's looking increasingly unlikely that there'll be jobs for their children anyway…

> Why would anyone want to have kids today?

I'm gradually learning through experience and anecdotes that most women seem to have an innate biological drive to procreate, which is separate from sex drive. I think that's the main reason.

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