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What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

konichivalue.com

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Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#151
post #30
post #10

There is no “zero” immigration policy, this is a strawman. Controlled immigration is different from opening the floodgates. Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution.

> Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution. Because those "floodgates" for the most part have never existed and are just fear inducing rhetoric. Immigration has always been insignificant in terms of the whole population and therefore can not solve systemic problems alone.

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Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#153
post #33

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The main problem is that solutions would be very expensive and, unfortunately, politicians don't get (re-)elected to solve problems that manifest over the span of decades.

What solutions though? From my tangential experience (brother and wife live in Tokyo), there are a ton of programs that are extremely desirable from the US birthrate/childcare perspective already. Base level of 8 weeks Maternity leave , with 6 weeks ahead of birth as well. And government pays a lump sum to help cover hospital costs per birth. The community support and available activities. Seesh the only things that…

Yep I would rank Japanese QoL higher than US or Canada. Skin color aside, they can even be xenophobic to second gen Japanese born overseas like Brazil.

Living space is quite good and affordable by Asian standards, you either live in mansion which is basically fancy apartments, or ikkodate which is single family home, albeit smaller than those in north america.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#154
post #83
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also weird to admit that no country has reversed its birth rate problem, but still insist upon massive immigration being the solution. Because those "floodgates" for the most part have never existed and are just fear inducing rhetoric. Immigration has always been insignificant in terms of the whole population and therefore can not solve systemic problems alone.

The US opened the border significantly during the Biden administration and it caused plenty of issues worth worrying about. I think that is a good example of opening the floodgates. But if you mean only in terms of affecting the population numbers then prob irrelevant.

> plenty of issues worth worrying about

Such as? It looks like the country is doing much worse now that the border is closed.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#155
post #58

I am really shocked at the tone of so many of the comments here. Did HN become a breeding ground for xenophobia at some point? Has it always been that and is it just way more mask off now?

The article paints immigration as something undoubtedly negative:

> They are willing to accept a smaller economy, strained pensions, and dead rural towns as the price for keeping their core cities safe, clean, and culturally familiar.

I'll not pretend that immigration is an easy, uncontroversial and solved topic. But can we maybe not equate immigration with dirty and dangerous cities? Yes that has been the rhetoric for thousands of years, but it's most often the rhetoric of those with a dubious track record of saying true things. Trump is famously anti-immigration, why trust what he says? Since 9/11 the stereotype of a terrorist in the USA has been a brown Muslim. The facts tell us the majority of domestic terrorism is done by white christian dudes. I get that xenophobia is an emotional topic for many, but that doesn't excuse racism.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#156

You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles. The west tends to think linearly: "We're trending upwards, argh argh overpopulation, famine, death. We're trending downwards, argh argh population collapse, famine, death". Same with the perception of time. My country sees time as a line. I once had an interesting training where the instructor pointed this out. She went on to say that seeing tim…

>> You know, many eastern countries apparently intuitively think in cycles.

"a turtle that retracts its head will later extend it"

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#157
post #81
post #70

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Look back a few hundred years and you'll find that the country you grew up in, in Europe, was constantly in that situation. People moved a lot back then too. And the countries are today.. the countries. It'll be fine.

The last migration of equivalent magnitude was the Anglo-Saxons 1500 years ago... Most people did not move around much at all. An average person would be born and die in the same village, or the same region. A handful of people travelled a lot, generally merchants, sailors, and such, but they were a pretty tiny percentage of the population compared to the people engaged in subsistence agriculture.

The average person may well have lived all their lives in one village, but the minority who didn't has always been substantial, often very substantial.

Since the Anglo-Saxons, we've had numerous intense bursts of migration driven by the first and second Viking periods, the Normans, the Hundred Years War, Black Death, Border Wars, Plantations, Thirty Years War / Wars of the Three Kingdoms / the Huguenots, Plantations, Colonialism, Inclosure, Clearances, Industrial Revolution, Famine, New Colonialism, World Wars, and the Commonwealth.

Yes, the Brexit migration wave was particularly sharp, but the movements in the 1850s-60s were proportionately greater (albeit spread over a dozen years rather than just five).

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#158

They’ll find it easy to keep their homogenous culture and shared traditional values. Why would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? It’s not even a bad thing, but even if it was, it’s a fact.

The idea that Japan is a uniquely "homogeneous culture" is honestly a modern construct anyway. Japanese culture and language has been enormously influenced by colonial and migrant presence in the country, from Chinese to Dutch to British to American, and a zillion others. Just look at the language! I don't have the exact figure in front of me, but I remember when taking Japanese language courses that something like 3…

>The idea that Japan is a uniquely "homogeneous culture" is honestly a modern construct anyway.

This is a very postmodern point view.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#159
post #39

They’ll find it easy to keep their homogenous culture and shared traditional values. Why would the solution to “our people aren’t having enough babies” be “we should import different people to have their babies here”? Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? It’s not even a bad thing, but even if it was, it’s a fact.

> Why does ever single bleeding heart liberal globalist try and ignore the deep psychological truths about human tribalism? I'll bite. In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today. Or an ancestor that suffered because the locals did think that way. We honor that heritage by paying it forward, lest we be…

And yet american culture and values are from it's dominant and founding group. All other groups were expected to assimilate and join the melting pot.

>>In the US, for one, every single person has an ancestor that thanked their lucky stars the locals didn't think the way that you are recommending we think today.

I don't think you thought it through before you wrote this. As the locals, certainly didn't want what you imply and were defeated tribe by tribe.

Re: What happens if Japan takes in zero immigrants?

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How was it disproven by the New World? The countries that mixed (Latin America) are weaker than the country that didn't (USA)

The USA is pretty dang diverse, and definitely mixed. That mixing is a core part of it’s culture and history, actually. And now, the country that mixed (USA) is stronger than the Old World that didn’t (Europe). Which is to say: There is no inherent psychological tribalism that makes having a diverse country impossible or ruinous; rather, this tribalism is manufactured and spread by hatemongers. The New World is a ver…

It's culture and values come from the dominant group. It didn't really mix equally between groups. If the dominant groups will shrink and another arises the values and the culture will change.
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