Slashdot Mirror

Whether the population is growing or shrinking depends on the family size. Once the fertility rate goes below 2.0 children per woman, the population will shrink unless immigration can sustain it.

Japan's declining population is in part due to that fertility rate of 5.10 in 1925 shrinking to 1.43 in 2013 [ref, page 36, but labeled as page 70].

The point is to continue bringing developing countries up to the more stable populations of developed countries. Then global populations rise may then trail off and stabilize.

i jsut have no tolerance for people like you who think that driving is anything less than a serious responsibility. The sooner we get people like you out from behind the wheel, the better.

Nationwide in the US, ~30% of driver fatalities involve alcohol: http://www.iihs.org/iihs/topic...

I've lived in Japan for the past 6 years, and when I first got here I was amazed that they have these long-established taxi services called "daiko", to prevent drunk driving. ( https://japan365.wordpress.com... ) If we are serious about preventing road fatalities, why aren't these services prolific in the states? Why don't we have stiffer penalties for DUIs, and lower BAC limits?

I know a LOT of "recreational drivers". NONE of them go joyriding under the influence. So if anything they take the responsibility of operating a motor vehicle more seriously than the general population. Japan is where drifting was invented, and to this day there remains a large subculture of late-night street racing. Yet the country has significantly lower fatality rates than the US: ( http://www.sciencedirect.com/s... ). Also note that, unlike the US, Japan has almost no fatalities due to intoxicated drivers ( http://www.stat.go.jp/english/... ), despite the fact that BAC limit in Japan is 0.03 instead of the US's 0.08.

Insurance rates are all about numbers, and the instant the autonomous cars surpass human safety numbers, human-driving will be over.

If that's the case, and it's all about insurance liability, why aren't motorcycles illegal or otherwise priced out of the market? Hell, why aren't sports cars ALREADY so stupid-expensive to insure that no one could afford them?

Full disclosure: I used to drift here in Japan, until I wrecked my Toyota Chaser and parted it out (a single-vehicle, low-speed accident at ~2am, on a public road only used to access a fenced-off area on rare occasions). I still own a sports coupe (Toyota Supra) that is getting upgraded to ~600hp for non-drifting fun on the streets. Last year I got a motorcycle license and bought a 250cc naked bike. I ride ATGATT (All The Gear, All The Time). Outside of computers and women, automotive hobbies are the biggest allocation of my time, and by far biggest allocation of recreational funds. Yet my insurance is CHEAP compared to what people pay in America (No argument for Liberty can silence the 30,00 dead every year from auto collisions.

What is your objective? What number of auto fatalities is acceptable? 10,000? zero?

Enjoy it while you can, we are coming for exactly people like you

Are you this vitriolic in your efforts to prevent other sources of mortality, such as suicide (42,000+ in 2014)? https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fasta...

Your post is a perfect example of why the Nanny State is so despised. You exaggerate the risk posed by some activity that you don't like (usually a position borne out of gross ignorance), and then go on a crusade to undermine people's ability to enjoy themselves by leveraging the government and other institutions to stuff other individuals back into the box of what your erroneous ideals tell you is the "approved" way of living. The sort of busybody that is active in Homeowner Associations, making everyone else miserable.

This guy gets it: ( https://books.google.com.vn/bo...)

Wow. I should have caught this post sooner. Major slashdot emergency.

Here is Japan Airlines:
http://www.jal.co.jp/

So here is American Airlines:
http://www.aa.com/

Jp Gov site:
http://www.stat.go.jp/

US Gov site:
http://www.uspto.gov/

Ugly Jp Consulting site:
http://www.e-netten.ne.jp/

Horrible US Consulting site:
http://www.bryantwebconsulting.com/

Now for some better pages:
http://www.au.kddi.com/
http://www.sony.co.jp/
http://www.vaio.sony.co.jp/
http://bape.com/ (you cannot see the JP site from the US)
http://www.capcom.co.jp/sf4/

This got world attention:
http://www.uniqlo.com/calendar/

And a typical web site gallery site will quickly help you find more:
http://www.webdesignclip.com/

So all of you who just argued for what Japanese is and what American is, you might want to give this blogger a tweet and call him out for making you think hard about the offensive stereotypes you just helped uphold.

Seriously people, if these sites look complex, its because you can't read Kanji.

http://www.stat.go.jp/English/data/handbook/c02cont.htm In 2005 this shows a growth rate of -0.01% and no growth in 2006. Added to the fact that the population is aging and adults already own functioning computers the decline of the PC market seems a little fallacious. How are the PC markets of developing nations doing? What about 20 or 30 years down the line when, hopefully, the economies of the markets OLPC have targeted mature and need to stock offices, homes and schools with PCs? Unless PCs are gone by then or are replaced by tablet-esque learning and business PCs then I think the computer industry can sleep quite calmly.

and are aiming for 18 million by 2010

And that is an interesting stat. One which does highlight the (some call fallacious) size disparity.
The 2005 census in Japan had them at 49 million households. The 2000 US census shows 105 million. Wiring up 18 million households would represent a far greater percentage of Japan's population than that of the US.

Are we really that far behind? Maybe not.

I have Verizon FIOS available, but like you, still on cable.

If this bold social experiment produces lots of isolated people...

In a country the size of Montana with a population of over 127 million people? It seems to me that the opposite would be true.

In 2002 the cost of living in Tokyo was 24% higher than in New York, 74% higher than Singapore. Statistical Handbook of Japan 2004