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People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

english.kyodonews.net

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Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#61
post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

None of the countries you mention have ages old strong own culture to preserve really (except first nations but for various reasons their culture is not US or Canada culture). So Japan's policy is not unreasonable. You can become a proper Japanese if you want to (are willing to culturally integrate), it's just that not many people do. Without it you'd be trading off death of country for death of culture. Contrast to…

> have ages old strong own culture Modern Japanese culture has its roots almost entirely in the 19th century and the post WW2 era.

This is nonsense. "Post WW2" describes current modern Japanese culture, not its root. The root goes way back to hundreds/thousands of years BC, they continuously lived on those exact islands and spoke a similar language all that time. Unlike US or Canada which are a new amalgamation of English/French/Spanish/German/Jewish/AA/Native/whatever cultures without any single root. Not to say US or Canadian culture is worse or better, just there's objectively less to worry about not ruining something age old and unique.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#62
post #16
post #13

I always find it weird that people lament population decline. Japan still has a lot of people. Sure, that number is going down now, but you can’t look at the trend and extrapolate that number down to zero. And as the population declines, the number of resources per citizen increases. So people may be better off than before. The largest dangers to Japanese society lie in the transition period, where many elderly peopl…

The problem is that the transition period is not a transition period, as long as the birthrate is too low the population will continue to be age-heavy, and that will always be a problem. As for resources, Japan's resources are of the type which need people to work them (seafood, rice, other agriculture, and industry). So a population decline just makes it worse. They already have problems with rice fields, even with…

In theory, isn't the problem actually that older people are unable to work? What if we are on the brink of reversing the aging process, thus bringing the elderly back into the work force? OK, I understand it sounds a bit dystopian.

I'm just thinking there might be more solutions to consider than "make more children". Automation, robotic assistance, age reversal etc.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#63
post #21
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let in more immigrants while still maintaining their culture. Impossible.

Not impossible. Other countries could. Also remember that culture is a living thing, it's not static. It changes and adjusts and adapts and incorporates. My little hometown was just us "natives" in my childhood, now at the other end of time it has people and languages from more than a hundred countries, and we're all "natives" to this town. Very different from before, but much more interesting and I don't feel we hav…

Heterogenous cultures all end up looking kind of the same. Chaotic, disorderly, no common rules, little common ground. Like New York City or London or Toronto. Great for people who like novelty. But utterly different from Tokyo, or Salt Lake City, or other places where cultural homogeneity enables a sophisticated set of shared rules and norms.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#64
post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> If it is going to enter a state of perpetual decline, then it is doomed, full stop There's nothing about the types of decline we are seeing that imply they are perpetual. I think these declines are a positive alternative to having decline roman empire style whenever we get too close to a political stalemate in resource allocation.

The Roman empire was unsustainable though since it was built entirely on exploitation. Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them. Also the collapse occurred in parallel with climate change and plague which were responsible for most of the population decline.

> Turns out paying the barbarians to leave you in peace is significantly cheaper than the taxes for the army (by the end almost entirely staffed by the same barbarians) to protect you from them.

If you do not want to pay for your own army you will be paying for someone else's one.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#65
post #33
post #26

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You have to look at why the birthrate is low. People are working themselves to (nearly) death, and the worsening demographics is not helping. It's hard to commit to have three children (which is what everybody will have to aim for if the birthrate is to hold or grow) when you go to work in the early hours and come home after ten PM (or later, as people I know do), and when salaries haven't actually increased since fo…

Japan's issue isn't even just working which only happens in so called black companies, the real issue(s) are tied to archaic tradions, norms and attitude. Like how japan like most of Asia is so fixated on materialism with even marriage still being heavily influenced by it (hence why theres a lot of dysfunctional marriages in japan).

The people I know who would come home way after dark never worked for black companies, it's common to work that way in almost every area. And in education too - at my stepson's university the students were expected to stay in the lab until midnight, just to "show effort". Totally crazy. Anyway, I'm glad to say that both my stepchildren married for love, not for anything parent/family-related. As far as I can tell the younger generation is quite different from earlier generations - which weren't all that bad everywhere either. However, the working conditions have not changed as much.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#66
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let in more immigrants while still maintaining their culture. Impossible.

Japan already has significant ethnic Korean and ethnic Chinese minorities. And Japanese culture has absorbed a great many influences from both Korea and China over the last 1000 years, so I doubt some more Korean or Chinese immigrants would make any great long-term difference to Japan's culture. It would just be more of what has already been. How many individuals from those ethnic backgrounds might actually want to e…

Those countries hate Japan and have declining populations too.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#67
post #63
post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not impossible. Other countries could. Also remember that culture is a living thing, it's not static. It changes and adjusts and adapts and incorporates. My little hometown was just us "natives" in my childhood, now at the other end of time it has people and languages from more than a hundred countries, and we're all "natives" to this town. Very different from before, but much more interesting and I don't feel we hav…

Heterogenous cultures all end up looking kind of the same. Chaotic, disorderly, no common rules, little common ground. Like New York City or London or Toronto. Great for people who like novelty. But utterly different from Tokyo, or Salt Lake City, or other places where cultural homogeneity enables a sophisticated set of shared rules and norms.

I don't know about that. In my experience, with smaller places I'm familiar with, the cultural input only enriches, there's no degradation (though I am of course aware of certain areas of certain countries where they failed to handle immigration correctly and created isolated ghettos - that never goes well. But it does not have to be that way).

"sophisticated set of shared rules and norms" - I don't know what that's supposed to mean. I definitely get a bad feeling from a sentence like that though.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#68
post #4

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> let in more immigrants while still maintaining their culture. Impossible.

Japan already has significant ethnic Korean and ethnic Chinese minorities. And Japanese culture has absorbed a great many influences from both Korea and China over the last 1000 years, so I doubt some more Korean or Chinese immigrants would make any great long-term difference to Japan's culture. It would just be more of what has already been. How many individuals from those ethnic backgrounds might actually want to e…

Both are now become rich and they have same problem (now even more advanced)

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#69
post #44

Earlier quoted context omitted.

You couldn't pay me to live in France, it's a **hole. I know that's a low-effort comment, but it's important for some people to know what opinions others have outside of their "rainbows and butterflies" worldview.

I think you are simply the kind of people France do not need so that is fair. We have enough xenophobes.

Come back to me after you've had an anonymous referendum on the matter in France. For all we know, this "xenophobe" fits right in.

Re: People aged 80 and over top 10% of Japan's population for first time

#70
post #57

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Most of the issues are the consequences of racism and far rights politics and supporter, not immigration.

Are they? Even if it were the case, there are a lot of people in Europe that simple don't want or like black/brown people and people of other religions. Most people I interact with that trust me enough to open up to me say as much. They're just being bullied and gaslit by niceness and the media.

> They're just being bullied and gaslit by niceness and the media.

They are just stupid and called for that. That is not bullying.

What do "other religions mean"? Anything but christianism? Christianism came in europe from immigration duh.

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