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Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

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Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#391

Post by mirimir »

mantas wrote: post #337
mirimir wrote: post #270

Earlier quoted context omitted.

It's pretty clear that the major driver is education and freedom of career choice for women. The UN has lots of data supporting that. Industrialization and changing attitudes toward children have also played a role. My paternal grandfather was a farmer. He had 20 children who survived to adulthood. By two wives, the second having been the nursemaid. As I understand it, all of the children worked. Basically as soon as…

Education comes with higher life standards. You want your kids to have their own rooms instead of whole family living in single-room shack, education for them etc. "Freedom of career" for women is more like freedom to have to work. It's hard to raise a family on a single salary. Previously, a woman would work at home and husband would work outside. Now both of them have to work outside of the house to pay for applian…

Yes, it's true that (at least in the US) greater career choice for women has come with declining real wages. So that now, both partners need to work. Some argue that effectively doubling the workforce has played a major role. Or that people just expect to have more stuff. But the power of unions to maintain livable wages has eroded over the same time frame. And maybe it's all connected.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#392

Post by rococode »

inawarminister wrote: post #221
freetime2 wrote: post #187

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work remotely from "rural" Japan. I am surrounded by rice fields and mountains, but also only a 10 minute drive or 20 minute bike/bus ride to the city center where there is shopping and night life. From there it's a couple hours to Tokyo by bullet train, which I visit a handful of times a year. There are old or abandoned houses nearby that can be had for very little money. I love being in the mountains. I get outdo…

Wait, you do this before getting an N3? How is that possible?

Not sure if this is what OP used, but the Google Translate app is nearing sci-fi levels of accuracy and speed. The conversation function is good enough that you can talk with someone while both using different languages and actually understand each other with minimal delay.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#393

Post by mikekchar »

mrhappyunhappy wrote: post #367
mikekchar wrote: post #283

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha ha. Where I live a lot is about $50K, so I sometimes find it a bit strange that people build a $2-300K house instead of living in the one that was there. But you are also right about the mortgages. Rates are super low and you can get 20 or 30 year terms. So for example even for a 25 year term , Shinsei bank is offering less than 2%: https://www.shinseibank.com/english/housing/loan_kinri.pdf It's completely insane.…

Nearly free? 58k interest on 240k borrowed over 25 years is not exactly nothing.

It is if you believe that interest rates will be above 2% in 5 to 10 years.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#394

Post by InitialLastName »

chaostheory wrote: post #291
laurieg wrote: post #261

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Japan has strict immigration policies" is often repeated, but I don't think this is tells the whole story. Some of the policies are very permissive: * If you graduated university and have a 'skilled' job in Japan, you are likely to get a visa. There is no cap on the number of these. There is no language requirement. * If you live in Japan for over 5 years continuously you can apply for citizenship, though you must r…

Yes, non-Japanese ex-pats are welcome to visit, but they are definitely not welcome to stay. Immigrants will always be foreigners in Japan.

> Immigrants will always be foreigners in Japan.

People Americans treat (arguably) worse than foreignors:

- Those whose ancestors were in North America before it was colonized

- Those whose ancestors were forcibly brought to North America more than 150 years ago.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#395

Post by inawarminister »

rococode wrote: post #392
inawarminister wrote: post #221

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Wait, you do this before getting an N3? How is that possible?

Not sure if this is what OP used, but the Google Translate app is nearing sci-fi levels of accuracy and speed. The conversation function is good enough that you can talk with someone while both using different languages and actually understand each other with minimal delay.

Yes but I was under the impression that Japanese long term work visa was only granted to those that had achieved N3 in Japanese language, seems I might be under a mistaken impression...

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#396

Post by [deleted] »

mrunkel wrote: post #372
loveyourmother wrote: post #360

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I visited your link and could not see a matching statistic. I was wrong. Police kill twice as many whites but I shouldn't have included the unarmed qualifier. > I then also had a quick look at the article for "Brett Luengo" He did attack but I think it still qualifies. I personally didn't hear of this one but a google search shows it was covered, even if not very extensively. It was picked up on national news. Even…

Given that there are 5 times as many white folks as black in the US, that stat isn't saying what you think it is. Black people are still more likely to be shot than white people. I don't think that anyone reasonable ever claimed that the police were 'wholesale killing young unarmed black males,' just that it happens too often.

[deleted]

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#397

Post by [deleted] »

jms wrote: post #281
beachy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha snap, I live in Northland and do the same. My day breaks are running around a track through the bush, body surfing when the surf is up and checking my traps. Small world.

I'm thinking of doing the same! Living in Sydney at the moment, but am an NZ citizen. Looking at Northland or Taranaki for the kitesurfing :) Could I ask you a bit more about Northland? My email is in my profile.

[deleted]

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#398

Post by beachy »

Max_aaa wrote: post #387
beachy wrote: post #100

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Ha snap, I live in Northland and do the same. My day breaks are running around a track through the bush, body surfing when the surf is up and checking my traps. Small world.

We are closer than you might think, as I am too in Northland. For me it is hiking and sometimes kayaking.

Hi Max drop me a line if you want to catch up, email in profile

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#399

Post by CM30 »

eloff wrote: post #211
pm90 wrote: post #192

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Well, this is all assuming that humanity will not expand out of Earth. If that does happen, we might actually have a perpetually expanding populace and economy. Fun times.

I think you're assuming the current decline in birth rates is due to scarcity of resources. But I don't think that's true. In the developed world food and energy are not scarce, and even land outside of major metro areas is not scarce. Population might just stabilize at some point, and then there's not much of a driver to expand off of our planet (apart from some resource mining, and other activities.)

There are plenty of other drivers to expand off Earth:

1. Backup in case things go wrong (meteor strike, end of the Earth, nuclear war, mass plague, AI/robot revolt)

2. Outright inability to live alongside other cultures and societies/groups. Just like throughout history, some beliefs will also be controversial at best/illegal at worst, and while in the past finding a unoccupied area on Earth was practical, that's not really the case now. So space it is.

3. Science/academic study. Robots are neat, but there are some things it's better to send humans for, and a fair few scientists would probably rather be out there exploring than sat behind a computer screen.

4. General boredom/tourism/whatever.

5. Environmental concerns. Not just resource mining, but let's face it... eventually a lot of environmentally unfriendly industrial processes will probably work better in a place with no atmosphere/biosphere to ruin.

Probably a bunch of other things too.

Re: Japan Is Giving Away 8M Abandoned Houses

#400

Post by chaostheory »

InitialLastName wrote: post #394
chaostheory wrote: post #291

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Yes, non-Japanese ex-pats are welcome to visit, but they are definitely not welcome to stay. Immigrants will always be foreigners in Japan.

> Immigrants will always be foreigners in Japan. People Americans treat (arguably) worse than foreignors: - Those whose ancestors were in North America before it was colonized - Those whose ancestors were forcibly brought to North America more than 150 years ago.

Historically, US immigrants have been able to assimilate time and time again. That isn't the case in Japan. There are Koreans who's families have lived in Japan for hundreds of years... yet they still aren't considered Japanese. The Japanese would rather rely on robotics instead of immigration to mitigate their problem with a dwindling population.

Yes, the US has done some horrible things in the past, yet:

1. we publicly admit them in the historical record

2. we teach these mistakes to our children in our schools as both reminders and ways to avoid them in the future.

You cannot say the same about Japan.

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