> It's a lovely place to visit but I cannot understand why the HN crowd idolizes it when there's a lot of places in SE Asia that have less toxic attitudes about immigrants and women.
We must all share your values or perish? Anything short of them is unfathomable to you? And you have a deep understanding of 130m people because you've stepped foot in the country?
Japan is perishing because of the values it currently has. Pseudo-feudal society that imitates the samurai-ruled commoners who must sacrifice their lives for one zaibatsu or the other, never-ending work in which they must karoshi themselves out for the 'ganbare' principle, extreme xenophobia that even afflicts Japanese that move from one region to another, leave aside immigrants.
You definitely don't have to share his values. His values may not even be suitable for you. But you definitely must stop having the current values that you have since they are literally eradicating your society in an a case that has not been ever seen in modern age before.
Japan is doing better than most developed societies. Countries that allow more immigration may paper over their population decline, but the resulting social problems mean the cure is worse than the disease.
Doing better how, exactly? People can't retire because the retirement age is going up or there's no one to run the business. There are vast swathes of cities that have become literal ghost towns because the children leave and the parents die. The economy has become massively stagnate, quality of living is going down and the generation that they expect to support these final pillars has been checking out due to horrid working conditions.
> Japan is doing better than most developed societies
As far as I know no country including the depopulating Western European countries face the demographic crisis that Japan faces. Its a crisis at a totally different level.
Nah. If you subtract out the effects of immigration the likes of e.g. France are doing worse, and even if you don't believe that, South Korea is doing worse than Japan even in raw numbers.
Why would you subtract the effects of immigration. Immigration is how a lot of countries are getting out of the stranglehold in the first place.
And Japan cant even do immigration. That's the problem. Within at most 2 generations, those European immigrants' descendants will become integrated enough to their European countries - as it happened in countries that started getting immigrants much before others. For Spanish speaking countries, its much better - immigrants just fit into the society immediately - partly because a precedent/format already pre-existing, partly because Latin countries are pretty social and swiftly integrate anyone.
Compared to those, Japan is in an extremely worse position not only due to the lingering presence of the feudal society, but also xenophobia, overwork culture and various other factors
Japan is, however, unique simply in being at least 10 years ahead on the demographic curve compared to any other aging country, so they're a crystal ball of where we're all going.
Also, it's not meaningful to say "France is doing worse except for the immigrants", because the immigrants are there for good and they're having children, taking jobs, paying taxes, etc, which changes the equation for everybody else as well.
> You definitely must stop having the current values that you have
There it is, mask off.
I'm not Japanese but since we are making assumptions I could guess that you are a "progressive" American or from certain parts of the "Western World".
Should I be so inclined I could enumerate the many problems the west has and its own current obvious decline. Ironically you yourselves are the very source of the doomer memes.
I could further declare that your country is obviously perishing because of the wrongfully adopted woke values currently in vogue and that you must repent and adopt sharia law.
Of course that would be a monumentally stupid and outright fascist take on things as it is really not my place to dictate to other cultures that their values are wrong and they must adopt mine or suffer immensely.
If I don't gel with a society rather than sanctimoniously preaching I simply steer clear. I hope you have the good sense to leave the Japanese people alone offline.
Im not American. I have no horse in the woke/conservative culture race.
Regardless of the problems in the US, neither the US nor any other country on the planet is facing a crisis like Japan. Not even the Western European countries that have a depopulation problem. The crisis in Japan is at a level that has never been seen since the start of early modern age.
> I hope you have the good sense to leave the Japanese people alone offline.
Its hard to interpret what that even means. This is a social studies topic in which people are discussing a major phenomenon. People cant stop discussing sciences for the fear of a certain demographic not wanting them discussing it.
> Regardless of the problems in the US, neither the US nor any other country on the planet is facing a crisis like Japan.
I'm guessing you haven't followed what's been happening in eastern Europe the last few decades very closely? For example, Bulgaria has already lost about 30% of it's population since 1988 and is predicted to lose much more in the coming years.
> I'm guessing you haven't followed what's been happening in eastern Europe the last few decades very closely?
Im aware of the different demographic situations in different regions. Bulgaria and parts of Eastern Europe's depopulations are not due to endemic factors like Japan's, but due to effects of Eu which cause the youth to move to other countries for jobs and settle there. Japan does not have such a situation. It is depopulation solely out of declining birth rates.
No, all countries in EEU have fertility rates below replacement. UN population fund says 1.6 for Bulgaria but some countries (Croatia, Serbia, Ukraine) have the same as Japan (1.4). Some countries in south Europe have an even lower fertility rate (Portugal, Greece, Italy are all at 1.3). Emigration is just an aggravating factor on top of this.
Each of those countries are either countries that were affected by the 2008 crisis, or countries that are being used by the richer countries in the Eu as cheap labor sources. Even though their birth rates may be below replacement, the real crisis comes from emigration from those countries.
> For example, Bulgaria has already lost about 30% of it's population since 1988 and is predicted to lose much more in the coming years.
Half-Croat here. We have the same issue, but at least the EU is throwing money around across the board to lift up standards of living in order to curb emigration, and it's not just money either, it's as well enforcing at least a basic code of conduct for politicians. A large part that drives young people away is endemic corruption, and the metrics for that have improved virtually everywhere in the EU except Poland, Hungary and sadly Slovenia.
Japanese “work” is like DC law firms and NGOs - work can involve hoping no one notices you’re watching Netflix on your laptop to make it look like you’re staying late to benefit the company rather than engaging in performative nonsense :-)
I’d have more sympathy if they were actually productively using those long hours…
No matter if it's productive or lazy usage of your time at work, the problem is it's time you spend at work instead of at home with your s/o or outside to find one. Can't have children if you're too dead after work to have sex.
I don't think they should perish? It's a lovely place, with a lot of things to teach Americans , but they're going to have issues if they won't let foreigners get some kind of working visa to care for their aging population... I'm bad with tone, but I stand by the core of that argument.
You don't have an argument. You have a religion. The Japanese are heretics and the Swedes are pious. And yourself a self anointed cardinal.
Famously, they rejected similar sort of persons in the 16th century and closed all entry to foreigners. Let me assure you they'll successfully sort out their issues without your input.
Of course if I don't immediately concur with these very poorly made points I must be a racist and a sexist too, right? Or some weeb lover of anime and cyberpunk as also mentioned. Sorry to disappoint.
I am not at all opposed to such discussions when done in good faith by knowledgeable people. I am allergic to the phony critics who transparently play those cards to appoint themselves judge and jury. The baseless smug supriority is simply infuriating.
As I pointed out in another comment it is akin to some fundy jihadi slagging off western countries for being godless sodomite infidels and hanging all of their societal challenges on not conforming to their particular world view on how the country should run.
That is an altogether different thing from somebody with deep knowledge of the place ("I've been there" doesn't cut it) simply sharing their perspective as a nonvoter on its flaws.
Who are you to tell people in other countries what they should or shouldn't do? You just know what is best for them eh?
No, but if you fly off the handle like this at a very mild comment then you may want to consider taking a step away from the computer and calming down. As someone is just scrolling the comments yours in this thread stick out as pretty unhinged.
Very genuinely, you seem to be opposed to mere mention of either.
There was no good faith in your responses either. You accused people of positions they did not took. The jihady sodomite part sounds mostly like stream of insults.
It is not even that you would claim racism or sexism in Japan does not exists. Or that you would claim them to be good things. You just demand that people don't talk about them.
Hilarious.
> It's a lovely place to visit but I cannot understand why the HN crowd idolizes it when there's a lot of places in SE Asia that have less toxic attitudes about immigrants and women.
We must all share your values or perish? Anything short of them is unfathomable to you? And you have a deep understanding of 130m people because you've stepped foot in the country?
My friend, it is you who are the toxic bigot.