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Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

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Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#81

Post by rdm_blackhole »

Pmop wrote: post #9
benjohnson wrote: post #2

Im conflicted about this - I enjoy the multicultural aspects of my own town (Seattle) but I also sympathise with this idea of having a home culture.

I'm not only conflicted. I'm annoyed. Immigration is being sold as a solution to aging and shrinking population. While opening to immigrants certainly helps solving the shrinking workfoce problem, it is nothing more than a duct tape over what is happening: people no longer want to have kids. After it's been long enough that immigrants are not even called this anymore, if we discover that young workforce is still shri…

Kids cost a lot of money. Kids change your life and not always for the better. Women who have kids also sacrifice time away from their careers and end up with significantly less money in their 401k/ pension equivalent.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#82

Post by mantas »

allemagne wrote: post #8
benjohnson wrote: post #2

Im conflicted about this - I enjoy the multicultural aspects of my own town (Seattle) but I also sympathise with this idea of having a home culture.

I sympathize with the general desire to preserve a sense of cultural identity, but ultimately any attempt to keep a society static through time will slip through your fingers. No exceptions. At some point, especially at the pace the modern world is changing, we need to ask ourselves how much better off we'd be if we stopped putting so much meaning into an idea that's ultimately just a nice momentary illusion at best.

It's not about keeping the culture static. It's about organic evolution vs drastic changes brought in from outside, resulting in cultural clashes.

The world is us. It's not a separate entity that we have to learn to work with. We don't have to adapt to XYZ. We can act in one way or another and the world will look accordingly.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#83

Post by mistermann »

Apocryphon wrote: post #79
mistermann wrote: post #75

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Impressive unpacking of a low detail, fairly innocuous comment, into a high detail, somewhat sinister assertion. What mechanism do you use to add specific details where none existed before?

The very use of the word "dysgenic" wrt human populations is a form of virtue signaling that is far from unknown to internet circles such as HN. The comment might have been overzealous about rebutting a perceived narrative, but that statement is a basis for that narrative.

Fair enough, but back to my question: what mechanism do you use to add specific details where none existed before?

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#84

Post by mantas »

rectang wrote: post #7
benjohnson wrote: post #2

Im conflicted about this - I enjoy the multicultural aspects of my own town (Seattle) but I also sympathise with this idea of having a home culture.

Is it really multiculturalism, in either Seattle or Japan? In multiculturalism, immigrants form enclaves that are durable and do not readily assimilate. That's not generally what happens in the US -- even second generation immigrant children speak English as a first language and are largely Americanized.

Multiculturalism feels more like monoculture where people have different visual features. But "multi" part ends at that.

The true multiculturalism would be to embrace different cultures to stay different. Rather than mix to become a single homogeneous global culture. The easiest way to that would be ensuring self-governance for each culture. Which is easiest by ensuring each culture has it's own state. To have it's own state, it'd be easiest for each culture to live separately geographically.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#85

Post by mantas »

Apocryphon wrote: post #32
blfr wrote: post #30

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Seems like a lack of faith in societies to properly integrate new arrivals. Yes, exactly. I have little faith in that, because it rarely happens.

Why assume modern day East Asian countries will integrate new arrivals the same way as European and North American nations do? And are you aware that international migration has been happening for millennia? All nations have people who have assimilated and integrated, to different degrees.

And lots of unique cultures were lost along the way.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#86

Post by Apocryphon »

mantas wrote: post #85
Apocryphon wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why assume modern day East Asian countries will integrate new arrivals the same way as European and North American nations do? And are you aware that international migration has been happening for millennia? All nations have people who have assimilated and integrated, to different degrees.

And lots of unique cultures were lost along the way.

Most unique cultures are likely to have disappeared by force via conquest and colonization, not through voluntary migration. And in most cases, it is the migrants themselves' cultures that get lost in favor of the host nation's culture.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#87

Post by chrischen »

GreaterFool wrote: post #18

> but it’s no longer quite right to call it homogeneous Are you sure? Japan is maybe 99% homogeneous? I live in central Tokyo and I can go on for days and days without seeing a foreigner! > it will inevitably introduce social strains Sadly, yes. I've observed this on few occasions.

If you only consider only white and black people to be foreigners. I'd say that there are a lot of Chinese and various other Asian ethnicities mixed in there that are hard to tell.

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#88

Post by chasontherobot »

GreaterFool wrote: post #43
tmm84 wrote: post #28

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I work in Akihabara. I see foreigners everyday. Even in Minato-ku I see plenty of non-Japanese people running around.

Add Shibuya (mainly around the station) and Shinjuku and you basically covered all foreigner hotspots! Those are the most non-representative areas! But go to Shimokitezawa or Gakuendaigaku or anywhere off the beaten path and foreigners will be few and far between.

Both of those places have a TON of foreigners, and neither one of them are central Tokyo either :p

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#89

Post by mantas »

TheChaplain wrote: post #49
themagician wrote: post #12

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What is the alternative? All of the “developed” nations need immigration to prevent the social systems from completely falling apart. Our entire financial system is based on increasing population growth and the young paying to support the old. There aren’t enough young people. Without immigration, pensions, healthcare, social safety nets, property values… it all implodes. We go back to 1930 where old people just die…

Kids. The primary reason as I understand it for the lack of kids is simply because it's a trap for women as it is now. Maternity- and child care leave are too short. There are extreme shortage of daycare for infants and pre-school children, forcing women to stay home and even give up on their career until the child is old enough to go to/from school themselves. And having 2-3 children pretty much kills any career.

Yet what I see around is men being against having kids. While women do somewhat support the idea.

It's definitely not a one-sided issue.

But yes, infrastructure is definitely a massive issue. I wonder what would happen if resources that Western europe countries pour into migration would be put for fixing birth rate. Push propaganda on all fronts, put shit ton of money into infrastructure, install new cultural norms...

Re: Japan Begins Experiment of Opening to Immigration

#90

Post by iandanforth »

cthalupa wrote: post #61
duxup wrote: post #24

It will be interesting to see how Japan deals with it culturally. From folks I know who lived there they said that while everyone was nice, it was always clear that they were very much outsiders.

>From folks I know who lived there they said that while everyone was nice, it was always clear that they were very much outsiders. I spend a fair amount of time in Tokyo for work, and I'd say this is accurate. My 日本語 is far from fluent, but it's frequently better than the English being spoken by random people on the street... yet it will take a good 20-30 seconds of me replying in Japanese before they'll switch away…

For people interested in this topic I can recommend "Hafu" (currently on Amazon streaming). From the blurb:

"The film follows the lives of five "hafus"-the Japanese term for people who are half-Japanese-as they explore what it means to be multiracial and multicultural in a nation that once proudly proclaimed itself as the mono-ethnic nation. For some of these hafus Japan is the only home they know, for some living in Japan is an entirely new experience, and others are caught somewhere between two worlds."

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