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America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
41–50 of 79 posts
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#42This is only loosely related to the article - I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s. I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like? Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling. I understand the…
Did you visit the countryside, or the smaller cities?
A lot of Japan is getting abandoned, Akiya (abandoned buildings) are becoming more prevalent, small communities are dying out as the younger generations are forced to move to the larger cities like Tokyo to get a good living, which leads to death spirals.
And then there's the age groups skewing, as less people are born and more people reach the point where they're dying but not fast enough, who's left to take care of the older generations, or who pays taxes to maintain their quality of living?
In 2022 the population across 47 prefectures fell over 800k [1].
Sure, immigration can help combat the issue somewhat, but Japan is a homogeneous society, and at some point you'll end up having more "foreigners" than natives if you don't properly combat the internal decline in numbers.
You ask, is that what bad looks like? I gotta ask, what would constitute bad enough if not the death of all those communities that make the country. Tokyo isn't Japan, all the prefectures and the smaller towns are what make Japan Japan, and as they slowly die out, so does a big part of their culture that so many people love and brings in so much tourism and millions to consume their media, food, fashion and more.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2023/jul/26/japan-populati...
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#43Earlier quoted context omitted.
“We” will be fine no matter what. The future will still have Mormons and Muslims and evangelical Christians. Whether it has secular humanists or not isn’t our problem.
> The future will still have Mormons and Muslims and evangelical Christians. Do you want Idiocracy[0]? Because that's how you get Idiocracy [0]: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0387808/
It’s also how we got America.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#44The US will import people from other countries. We are doing it now.
There’s a limit to that because almost every other country save a few exceptions is seeing the same demographic decline.
But the US for all its faults is very good at assimilating its immigrant population. Everyone in the end becomes mostly American. No other country manages to do that nearly as well. Not countries in Europe and definitely not China or Japan.
So that means the US will have a softer landing in the transition to a post-growth economy.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#45This is only loosely related to the article - I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s. I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like? Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling. I understand the…
Adding to the other comments, one thing I have heard about projected population decline is that it tends to happen very _rapidly_. That is, even if birth rates are below replacement level, it takes a while for that number to get reflected in the bottom line population statistics, and by the time a crash in population has serious consequences, it's too late to stop it.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#46Earlier quoted context omitted.
>”It might be a good idea to, y'know, let them in and allow them to work.” There is no need to be glib. The United States already has the world’s most generous immigration policy. And, what is likely the most lenient stance towards illegal immigration and foreign labor of any developed nation.
Then why are we discussing population decline? I'm just saying, if we need more people, we know where to get them.
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Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#47This is only loosely related to the article - I always hear people talking about how disastrous a falling population is. But I visited Japan last year which has had a falling population for a while and was in a long term recession for decades, since the 80s. I gotta ask, is that what “bad” looks like? Because I thought it was a pretty amazing experience and society did not seem like it was crumbling. I understand the…
In Japan, infrastructure is centrally funded. So roads, water, sewers, schools, and police services continue even if the local population can't pay for them.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#48The article doesn't actually walk us through a comparison with other countries to show us how, exactly, the USA is worse off than other countries when it comes to handling a falling population. In Japan -- a country that is much more centralized than the USA -- closures of local services and funding cuts due to declining populations have been widely reported on for many years. In fact, there are small localities in J…
The U.S. is actually one of the best in terms of demographics in the western world. We make up for it with immigration. Most of the western world is declining much faster than the U.S.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#49If the strength of population growth, hard work attitude and morals ever come back from the 50s we'll be ok. Since the internet seems to want the opposite, I guess we're just going to burn.
“We” will be fine no matter what. The future will still have Mormons and Muslims and evangelical Christians. Whether it has secular humanists or not isn’t our problem.
You say that like those groups aren't great at producing non-religious people.
Like a third of Mormons leave the church. Ditto for Catholics. Probably similar for the rest, but I haven't looked up all the statistics.
I'd go so far as to wager that in America today most non-believers come from religious households, with second-generation-non-believers in the minority.
Re: America is uniquely ill-suited to handle a falling population
#50Earlier quoted context omitted.
“We” will be fine no matter what. The future will still have Mormons and Muslims and evangelical Christians. Whether it has secular humanists or not isn’t our problem.
You say that like those groups aren't great at producing non-religious people. Like a third of Mormons leave the church. Ditto for Catholics. Probably similar for the rest, but I haven't looked up all the statistics. I'd go so far as to wager that in America today most non-believers come from religious households, with second-generation-non-believers in the minority.
But even with that phenomenon, the world’s population of non-religious people is shrinking: https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/aug/27/religion-why-is....