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Japan's Population Falls At Fastest Rate Since 1968
An anonymous reader quotes a report from Reuters: Japan's population, excluding resident foreigners, fell at the beginning of this year at its fastest pace since comparable figures were kept in 1968, highlighting the demographic challenge to economic growth. As of Jan. 1, the number of Japanese people fell by a record 308,084 from a year earlier to 125,583,658, marking the eighth consecutive year of declines, government data showed Wednesday. The number of births fell 2.9 percent from the previous year ago to 981,202, the lowest since comparable data became available in 1974. People aged 65 or older accounted for 27.2 percent of the total population, the highest ratio on record, while the ratio of those aged 14 or younger fell to a record low of 12.7 percent, the data showed. The number of registered foreign residents increased to 2,323,428, up 6.9 percent from a year earlier, according to the data.
This has really got to do with Japanese women's roles in society and opportunities.
Japanese society says to Japanese women you can either have a child or a career . Seems Japanese woman are choosing a Career.
The times are a changing my friend.....
Those results are skewed down by inclusion of millennials who often have zero or negative testosterone when they are self-identifying as female.
Who ... wants to live in such close proximity to that many people?
Apparently 13.5 million people do.
You can lead a horse to water, but you can't make it dissolve.
It's not a problem when it's peaceful... but it means the death toll gets crazy high whenever a radioactive monster or space armada attacks the city.
#DeleteChrome
The natural end result of psychopathic capitalism, https://www.anabolicmen.com/st..., the endless rabid dog, eat rabid dog (sane healthy dogs do not eat each other) stress cycle. The whole of government and society orientated to exploitation of the majority to feed the insatiable psychopathic greed of the minority, produces the stresses which cripple the long term outcome for those societies. Why they fuck would you choose to feed your children to the fires of psychopathic capitalism, just say no, seriously what do you lose, stress and worry until the day you die for children you force into a self destructive system that will endeavour to prey upon them (seriously that is the current goal, prey upon as many others as possible to be celebrated and worshipped by main stream media), this versus well, nothing but something close to living your life as an overgrown teenager until the very end, just don't 'believe' the marketing, spend big to reproduce or die 'er' 'um' forgotten (like so what and like it wont happen anyhow), no support from children (like they will even be able to afford it, no full time employment, no home ownership) or the happiness of your children (watching them die in for profit wars, see them bankrupted by health care costs and most likely living a life of poverty). Billion of years of past and billions of years of future, either life is worth more than a mud monkey experience (serving the greed of those more anti-social than your are) or why play the fucking game.
Chaos - everything, everywhere, everywhen
In all practical aspects, Japan does not need to worry. Japan is one of the most crowded and densely populated areas in the world. Even with their existing problems, this is an advanced economy who can pick and choose how to manage their own country. If Japan thinks that they need people, then: 1. Japanese diaspora: Japan can always invite people with Japanese background to come, to study or to live in Japan from other countries. 2. Japan can attract top scientific talents to their research institutions. There is still a lot of talents all around the world who will come if scholarships are offered. 3. North Korea. Sooner or later there will be a ton of refugees from this country. If Japan thinks that they are fine with the natural decline in population, the following will be observed: 1. Less pressure to the infrastructure 2. The average population will be richer, more educated. 3. Poverty and Crime should be reduced to zero Is there a particular reason for Japan to worry?
Why do you think they're called *grand*fathers?
Sorry to blow your mind, but the USA is BEHIND Japan on penis size:
https://www.pri.org/stories/20...
It's not like Tokyo is going "holy shit 13 million people is not enough! More births please!"
Sorry your gerbil died man.
Have you seen Tokyo's population? That city could definitely use a decrease. Who the fuck wants to live in such close proximity to that many people?
I found it more tolerable to live close t that many people than to live close to any other people, including my own. The Japanese nature is ideally suited to living in close quarters. Even though it's not overall a crowded country - it's all small villages and unpopulated wilderness when you go out of town - they enjoy living close to each other.
Keeping the population under control along with the immigration. What's not to like? Maybe they won't have to pay those gentlemen to stuff the riders into the subways anymore.
It's not a problem when it's peaceful... but it means the death toll gets crazy high whenever a radioactive monster or space armada attacks the city.
This is why you need to upgrade to Tokyo 3 first. Tokyo 1 and 2 just don't cut it.
*Nothing* happened in 1968. That's when they started keeping detailed records of the population growth rate. Things were a mess in the post war years, so it took them a while to get back on track.
As a father of 2 kids, I've performed my evolutionary duty. :-) However, there are plenty of younger people in the US who aren't, and in my opinion they're being somewhat rational. Having kids is a big risk unless you just don't give a crap -- they cost a lot of money and you have to be much more careful about maintaining your income and savings than if you were on your own. Millenials are also skipping traditional adult rites of passage like marriage, house-buying, etc. that lay the groundwork for a family. Plus, those that do have kids are having fewer, later. Generally, people are less religious, have heard of birth control, and are less worried about child mortality, therefore less inclined to have "spare" children.
Japan has a few things that are really slowing their birthrate - almost zero permanent immigration, a very slow economy for the last 20 years, a traditional society that says women can have either children or a career but not both, and a reputation for a workaholic culture. People are just so busy spending their lives at work so they can keep their jobs that having a family comes second. This is a big reversal from the 1980s/1990s...I remember growing up hearing that Japan was taking over the world. MBA programs were toying with the idea of making Japanese language study a requirement if I remember correctly. This is similar to what China is doing now, but China has the population to sustain it in my opinion.
We in the US could be headed down this road too. Imagine if we close the borders and enter a period of economic stagnation. Couple this with the trend towards unstable employment, the gig economy, etc. Back in the 50s/60s, a man could count on being employed for life by a large US company and would take on the risk of a family, kids, house, car, etc. Now (IMO) we've let the pendulum swing too far back in favor of employers and removed any loyalty/stability either side had to the other. Hopefully people will realize that they want stability again once this Second Dotcom Bubble bursts and takes many of the sharing economy employers with it.
And don't compel them to assimilate or work! That'll take care of Japans problems!
Have you seen Tokyo's population? That city could definitely use a decrease. Who the fuck wants to live in such close proximity to that many people?
I found it more tolerable to live close t that many people than to live close to any other people, including my own. The Japanese nature is ideally suited to living in close quarters. Even though it's not overall a crowded country - it's all small villages and unpopulated wilderness when you go out of town - they enjoy living close to each other.
That's because Japanese culture, in general, understands manners and social graces. Things Americans wouldn't think twice about are major faux pas in Japanese society.
Americans seem to think that if they are kind to a stranger, if they yield, if they voluntarily allow someone else to be first ... if they say "excuse me" and actually give the other person a second to move instead of immediately invading their personal space like it was not a polite request but a warning ... if they decide that blocking high-traffic doorways, hallways and other narrow shared public spaces might be rude ... if they show any sort of respect to another person especially one they don't know, who is not their boss in any way ... well then they lose at least ten points.
Americans don't think of these things as common courtesy - that was a generation or two ago. Now, Americans think of these things as acts of subservience, a tacit admission that someone else is better than you. They have confused self-centeredness with individuality. So they think that "who will take your shit without serious challenge" is the real measure of self-hood and significance. Ask any American who has ever worked a job in retail. So it's no wonder that Japanese are better at living closely together with less (though certainly not zero) stress overall.
The real issue with Americans is they're generally so very provincial. They tend not to have personally experienced foreign cultures and don't think much about multiple ways to do things. This is a major flaw because the whole American Melting Pot concept is based on conscious awareness, not mindless obedience from lack of other known options. Plenty of cultures other than the Japanese can highlight this, it's just that this one was on-topic.
If you want to have a replacement rate of 2.3 children per woman some women will need to have at least 3 kids. I'm lucky, my ex and I had excellent educations and very good jobs. However in Canada having more than 2 kids is in many ways an exception and there are lots of little things that are surprisingly biased against families larger than 4. I've seen in some cities that are more dog friendly than kid friendly and when they do have facilities or policies for small children it is for one child. So if most western countries require a woman to start a career before having children then the number of women having them will go down, if women are discourage from having their first child until after 30 it gets worse and if you make it difficult or almost weird for women to have more than 1 or 2 children then it's pretty much mathematically impossible to maintain a population without large amounts of immigration.
Also at some point our health care system started spending the majority of its money on people in their last 18 months of life. There are a lot of other wealth transfers from the young to older generations, house prices, government debt... There is likely some tipping point were the share of the economy that is given to 18 - 30 year olds becomes so small that they don't feel secure enough to start a family. My suspicion is that most western countries crossed that point a while ago.
Maybe if we started respecting and encouraging other people's culture rather than always invading and destroying they would flourish. Our arrogance is totally destructive.
I love stacking my barbecues in the shed at the end of summer - you can't beat a bit of grill on grill action.
It's really only the big end of town that worries about population decline.
Japan is horribly expensive to live in, and the Japanese would rather have a smaller population that let hordes of foreigners in.
The youth growing up can't afford to own their own home of any decent size, and so they've given up on home ownership and spend all their money on frivolous things. Having a family is not on anyone's bucket list, and abortion is rife.
Japan was ahead of the curve until the west finally caught up.
READY.
PRINT ""+-0
I've had sex with a couple Japanese guys and I was very pleasantly surprised. When in Tokyo, I was also quite surprised by average height walking around town, I expected to be tall at 5'9" (around average in the US) but not so much.
Old people are known for dying - but older and older as technology improves. It's not at all a problem that will literally die out, as in the next 20 years we are probably looking at a 2x life extension for anyone under 60 today.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Because the Rape of Nanking was such a respectable display of humility and positive culture.
Please tell me liberal academia isn't churning out people with this degree of self-loathing and gullible stupidity.
Not sure how yet, but somehow robots will be involved in the solution.
Table-ized A.I.
You do realize Japan is quite xenophobic?
While there's definitely some truth to this, a large part of it is also that Japanese tend to be much passive aggressive. So, the whole subway groping phenomenon is so pervasive that basically nothing is done about it. And those who want to raise awareness? They use kawai imagery because even anti-groping messages have to be cube.
Talk about pot calling the kettle black. Japan is massive provincial, xenophobic, sexist, and generally peaceful based upon a system of mindless obedience. The American Melting Pot concept is not base on conscious awareness as much as constant exposure which happens in cities but not most of rural America. This does not translate into wholly self-centeredness but there's definitely a lot more of it and more awareness of it in American tourists--consider how few Americans leave the country and see how much that creates a huge bias.
In any case, the Japanese crave cities like a lot of people crave cities: it's the best place to have a sustainable career with a substantial income. It's why the East/West coasts in the US have so many people. The main difference is that in the US the vast majority of the rest of the space is wide, open space. In Japan, it's mountains. It's little wonder a greater percentage might cluster around cities that have been heavily leveled/terraced. The other major point, of course, is having 125 million people in so small a space,
regardless.
You spend your entire school life studying your ass off. You aren't supposed to do much outside of school except study. Having a relationship is discouraged to the extreme.
Then you get a job where you work 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. You have no time to actually meet someone so the odds of having a relationship are slim. Added bonus. Your boss will treat you like shit. Everything you do will be criticized. I guess it's some mistaken belief that you'll work even harder.
On the unlikely event you find and marry someone at work, she has to quit her job and have babies. You get to keep working 12 to 16 hours a day, 7 days a week. So if, by some miracle, you have children, you'll never see them.
No wonder young people are rejecting the entire social system and hiding from the world or committing suicide.
-- Will program for bandwidth
Sorry that you picked up the evil Dr. Bronner's soap off of the shelf.
My neighbor, Robert Klark Graham, founder of the 'Nobel Sperm Bank' had a favorite slogan: "The smarter you are, the more children you should have." He would publish that as an advert in various Mensa publications. I attended some of his talks which were always uplifting and positive, but I never heard him mention the corollary to his slogan. (i.e. 'what about other people?')
In any case, we seem to have got that obvious evolutionary lesson backward. Certain populations reproduce like bunnies while the smart people are frugal in that sense. Where will this trend take us?
...omphaloskepsis often...
Seven and three quarters inches here and that is without Cialis.
Article is a FUD piece. Americans are the best hung in the world. Germans are the least. Ask me how I know.
Have you always been an illiterate moron, or is this a result of the regular beatings your mother gives you for being fucked up?
This went to a very dark place, fast.
The old people will die off. Problem solved.
If they don't, then clearly the economy, infrastructure, etc. is there to support them at the same (or higher) ratio as before. So what's the problem?
We need fewer people on this planet. We're well over 7 billion now. Even 1 billion would be sustainable and very resilient.
You are a fucking nutcase.
There folks is the opinion of a Consumer Sucker destined to live their life perpetually in debt so they can have the life the advertisers tell them they should have so the companies can sell them ever more shit they don't need to keep the money train rolling.
I only please one person per day. Today is not your day. Tomorrow isn't looking good either. - Scott Adams
While there's definitely some truth to this, a large part of it is also that Japanese tend to be much passive aggressive.
That is strongly related. If decency standards don't allow people to openly go for what they want or show anger or otherwise be "not nice", passive aggressiveness is logical consequence.
I'm with you on that one. My parents watch me struggle day to day with short term contracts, inability to buy a house, student debt, so little pension it's laughable...
Why in fuck's name would I want that for my own kids? That's just fucking selfish. If YOU really feel concerned about the Future of the Human Species, get yourself a second hand pooper, plenty of them to go about.
And die miserable and be forgotten? Who gives a shit, and that's why we have places like Dignitas.
b0ndaegi is g00d f0r y0u
The actual goods and services consumed by pensioners will still be produced by the contemporary work force. The funding is just bookkeeping. If the number of consumers vs producers are too far off then at least one of the sides will suffer, no matter how you stack it.
Unless productivity per man-hour suddenly shoots up. It just might, but that's a pretty scary bet.
There is also a downside to a savings-heavy approach: a greater portion of the economy is owned and governed according to the interest of pensioners, at the expense of the rest of society. Might not always be what you want.
But it's funny you mention Sweden - the Nordic countries are an interesting contrast to Japan: There it is common for women to have both children and a career, thanks to generous maternity and paternity leaves, and comprehensive subsidized daycare. The birth rate is still a bit shy of balanced, but they are nowhere near heading for the scale of problems that Japan or even Italy are facing. Does require quite a fair bit of taxing, though.
sudo ergo sum
They seem to be the only country that's adapting to mineral and energy depletion. Other countries will have a rude awakening in a couple of years.
thegodmovie.com - watch it
Actually the population of Tokyo(as well as surrounding prefectures such as Kanagawa and Chiba) is actually increasing, but that won't last forever, the countryside is running out of young people to send to Tokyo. Now why the Japanese government doesn't give 2 fucks about how bad the economy is outside of Tokyo is beyond me
Monstar L
Because all people are exactly the same, and Somalia is exactly the same as Japan.
Right on the money! ;-)
Don't know why you're getting shit.
But seriously, Japan just beat the rest of the world to the endgame of the current system. And hey, this isn't the first time in history where people say "fuck it," and quit. I'm right there with those evil people refusing to breed, pretty much for the reasons you put down. Once the power structures at large become visible in all walks of life, you feel the cage, and unless you can find a way to ensure security (or you are one of the few with true power/influence), children become a gamble for yours and their future.
Does this really sound that cynical or unrealistic? I really hope every parent out their succeeds, and I do think having a family/village would be fun -- but if you have to work so much to get ahead that you can't spend time with your kids, what's the point?
luckyo, i agree, it would be nice if the general public could "concentrate" and responde to the issue. period.
> It should go OK as long as they don't let Christians in. They want people who want to support and be part of the society. Cristians are mandated by their belief to undermine non-Christian societies and when they have sufficient numbers take over.
While to certain extent this is true there is a big difference between what all but a tiny minority of Christians would want. Firstly very few of them oppose secular democratic governments. They would be happy to convert all the non-Christians that they can, but still have a secular government employing people of all faiths and representing everyone. Secondly all but a few support equal rights for all, whatever religion. They would not want non-Christians to be unable to testify in court against Christans, nor would they want to prevent non-Christians from building or maintaining places of worship, or worshiping in public. They would not see expression of another faith as blasphemy, punishable by state law.
Also they would not want non-Christians to be subject to a punitive tax to make them feel subdued, nor believe that they should be killed if they did not accept the inferior treatment. On a personal level, very few would condemn Christians for having non-Christian friends apart from befriending them in order to convert them (though I have met a number of Christians who only seem to befriend non-Christians for this purpose themselves)
Oh for fucks sake, quit it with this nonsense. This whole "exploitation of the majority for the minority" fits any form of government. Do you think the common man lived any better under the various feudal systems that predate the modern capitalist economies? The same holds true for all of the communist systems that were tried as well, with huge disparities between the proles and the party leadership, with the only difference being that everyone was poorer. At least in western capitalist countries there's some form of social mobility where a poor immigrant like Andrew Carnegie can become wealthy and powerful. Medieval peasants didn't go around becoming lords unless they found a sword in stone.
People are having fewer children because we're so productive and good at keeping them alive, there isn't as much incentive to spawn half a dozen or more for extra farm labor. Household productivity is likewise vastly improved to the point where women can work part or full time outside of the house without the household falling into complete disarray so most of them don't want to sit around being a baby factory either. And its a good thing as well. The world doesn't need even more people when we haven't figured out how to make sure that the ones we have are all at a reasonable baseline and not committing various atrocities towards one and other.
The rest of the world could learn from their example and allow the earth's population to drop naturally.
Instead everyone falls back on knee-jerk beliefs that
- We need exponentially growing economies, which require exponentially growing populations, which are impossible to sustain on a finite planet
- Going to Mars will somehow alleviate overpopulation on Earth
- Populations are leveling off, which isn't related to the problem that we are over the planet's carrying capacity, drawing down and depleting resources
- Too few young people won't be able to support older ones, despite increases in productivity that allow 2% of the population to do what used to take 25%, to use the example of farming
- Lowering the population means eugenics or racism
- Human nature [insert opinion about human nature]
- Fusion or some other technology will save us (without population control it extends the overshoot leading to collapse)
- etc
All of the above beliefs are demonstrably wrong. There's no reason we can't allow the population to decrease without hurting anyone or any economy by simply having fewer children. Everyone would live in a world of more abundance per person. There would be as much culture as before and the species' chances of survival would increase.
The challenge is doing it. Step one is disabusing ourselves of the above beliefs.
That's what happens when you don't adopt the metric system.
const int one = 65536; (Silvermoon, Texture.cs)
SJW, n: "Someone I don't like, and by the way I'm a fuckwit" - AC
You nailed it.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
He is being moderated down because most people are indoctrinated to take offense at anything critical of capitalism, no matter how remote that criticism is.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
This doesn't at all surprise me. I have a stepson (for the moment) who seemed to apparently never hit puberty at all. He's nearly 30 and he has the body and manners of a prepubescent child. He did grow so he's taller but otherwise he just never seemed to grow an Adams apple or much in the way of body hair. His muscle mass never much increased and his bone structure on his face stayed child like. Eventually he went to a doctor and was told that he produced almost no testosterone at all. His decision? Become a female. Makes no sense to me because there's nothing even remotely feminine about him or his personality. Given a choice between taking testosterone (among other things) and becoming a man he opted to go through a hell of a lot more than that and be a woman.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
The best part about it is every generation that arrives at this tired ass trope thinks they uncovered the great conspiracy of our world.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
It is a result of the central bank reallocating purchasing power from productive capital (the source of young people's wages) into assets. As a result, young people can't earn enough money at their jobs to buy property and start a family. This is the case EVERYWHERE that CBs have adopted zero percent interest rate policy.
This is the OPPOSITE of capitalism. More like a form of extra-psychopathic socialism or fascism. Steal from the poor to give to the rich.
So don't act like Japan did during the early 1900s?
plz2lrn2humorkthx. the world has enough hate.
I look at the state where I live (Connecticut), and I see a place where all of the manufacturing and office jobs continue to disappear and keep getting replaced with low wage service jobs. We're quickly getting to a point where the only people left will be a handful of wealthy retired business owners and their families, and a bunch of poor folks offering services for these people.
So, yeah, I'm not really interested in having a bunch of kids knowing that they will likely end up washing the dogs and manicuring the nails of millionaires.
People are having fewer children because we're so productive and good at keeping them alive, there isn't as much incentive to spawn half a dozen or more for extra farm labor.
I suppose that having no children at all is a subset of having fewer children.
But we are become so productive that going out of existence is the goal? I'm guessing that personal productivity is not the only reason for negative population growth.
There are many reasons that people might decide not to have children, or even avoid entanglements with the opposite sex. Google "Dried Fish woman" and "Herbivore man", both social changes in Japan. Here's the Wikipedia pages for the herbivore men, couldn't find one for the dried fish women, probably poltically incorrect for them to have one.: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
That might be the future for Western societies.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Maybe if we started respecting and encouraging other people's culture rather than always invading and destroying they would flourish. Our arrogance is totally destructive.
It was truly terrible how America, with no provocation at all suddenly decided, "HEY!, let's go and destroy teh culture of Japan. They haven't done a damn thing to us, but that's pretty suspicious, and no doubt.
The historical record is clear. America, for no reason whatsoever, decided to attack the most pacifistic country in the world, that being Japan. A massacre indeed, as Japan had no navy or army, and was completely defenseless.
Seriously, at some level, self loathing and self hatred becomes indistinguishable from insanity.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
My post is incomplete I guess. I should have elaborated and said that he's chosen to take hormones and pursue gender reassignment (the whole thing, eventually leading to surgery). It's not about "in my eyes". He's opted to try and become something he isn't that will take an enormous amount of time, money (that he doesn't have), and lengthy medical procedures instead of simply trying to get his hormones in order and continuing life as the male that he was born as (albeit one with clear deficiencies in testosterone production). I hope that makes more sense.
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Your doing it wrong.
deleting the extra space after periods so i can stay relevant, yeah.
The actual goods and services consumed by pensioners will still be produced by the contemporary work force. The funding is just bookkeeping.
Not completely. If a person was foolish enough to not plan for retirement, they might have to live on Social Security. But that is a pittance. Many of us invested and saved and took advantage of every opportunity to provide for retirement.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Oh for fucks sake, quit it with this nonsense. This whole "exploitation of the majority for the minority" fits any form of government. Do you think the common man lived any better under the various feudal systems that predate the modern capitalist economies?
No, but that's no reason to "quit it" with what you call "this nonsense". The simple fact is that constant vigilance is the price of freedom precisely because human nature has not changed. Things are much better for the average person today than it was then, but the way we are living now (as a species) is unsustainable and is destroying our habitat. We can't just rest on our laurels because things are better today than they were during the dark ages.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
You know, in the USA, you are free to move to where the jobs are......?
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Hell I don't see people WANTING to live that long in old age misery.
The point you are missing is that there will be no "old age misery" until close to 150.
If you could feel like you were 40-50 until you reached about 130-140... why would you NOT want to do that?
It upends a lot of systems though, and drastically changes calculations around retirement.
Best prepare for it now though.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
Never underestimate Godzilla.
#DeleteFacebook
That's silly...there are plenty of jobs in the US, they just may not be located in Connecticut like the OP was talking about....
There are jobs in the US, you just may have to move to another state to get the job and wages, and cost of living you desire.
It is pretty simple really....you just can't be scared to move a few 100 miles or more away from mommy and daddy.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
People are having fewer children because we're so productive and good at keeping them alive, there isn't as much incentive to spawn half a dozen or more for extra farm labor. Household productivity is likewise vastly improved to the point where women can work part or full time outside of the house without the household falling into complete disarray so most of them don't want to sit around being a baby factory either. And its a good thing as well. The world doesn't need even more people when we haven't figured out how to make sure that the ones we have are all at a reasonable baseline and not committing various atrocities towards one and other.
Honnestly, I think you forgot the most important reason : We have Birth control now
Elok
It won't make a dent in overpopulation and it will destroy them.
Just like in Europe.
Please move to Cuba
They are a first world country, the level of consumption is already orders of magnitude more than most of the world. Having to dedicate more GDP to elderly care rather than consuming so much luxury is hardly a problem. It will not make them poor compared to most of the world, just less obscenely rich.
Unlike say Europe they are also less in competition for their best and brightest with foreign countries.
Having more paper doesn't create production out of thin air, the funding is still "just" book keeping.
"People are having fewer children"
No, they're not. Not globally, for sure.
Yeah, Japan, Western Europe, the US of A - also some Eastern European countries fit the profile of "diminishing population". So what? that's more than compensated by Africa, most of Asia, maybe South America (too lazy to look at the data). World's population is booming despite the reduction in western civilization countries.
Want to stop population reduction? Carefully select and allow immigrants in, without yelling "omg they gonna steal our jobs". There, population problem solved.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
You are correct about this - it is the largest number of people killed in such a short span of time since the beginning of history. But the time frame was more like 10 seconds, the time it took the blast wave to reach the periphery of Hiroshima and Nagasaki. For the most people killed in a 24 hour period though it was the Great Tokyo Fire Raid that did that.
Starships were meant to fly, Hands up and touch the sky - Nicky Minaj
Having more paper doesn't create production out of thin air, the funding is still "just" book keeping.
Not certain I understand. I'm making my money the same way I made it through my adult life, except for the actual working. Not certain how my living off of my investments is costing anyone anything. Is there some sort of problem with that?
The meme of the parasitic retired person is just that - a meme. That there are some folks for whom SS is their only money is true, but I'm not costing society anything.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
Personally I've experienced the worst manners from many Europeans
You do realize "Europeans" means nothing, right? Since you seem to want to look like a seasoned traveler.
Various European nations (and populations within them) are very different from each other.
Clearly, you've never traveled much or been outside your own community.
While you seem to have done that, I doubt you have learned much.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)
Work less and fuck more.
Slow down, cowboy! It has been 4 hours since you last posted. You must wait another few hours.
Japan is one of the only countries that still has a racial criterion for citizenship, but I was in no way "despised." I was just considered "different." They were shocked that I could learn kanji, a system which actually has a lot more internal logic, which assists learnability, than outsiders give it credit for.
I think you have a mistaken view of where capitalism really differs from previous systems. In a capitalist system, money is used to induce changes instead of other tools. Feudal societies had systems of obligations where the poor gave to the rich. Communist societies had their own systems of obligations and control. In a capitalist society, at least you get paid and you get a choice of where to spend the money you are paid. Is it always amazing? No. It's just much better than what preceded it, and it is looking like enough people feel the way you do that it is probably better than what will follow as well. Also, I think most of the problems that people have with capitalism has to do with "mega corporations" doing nasty things. I think you might find that these mega corporations are often enabled by governments to do the nasty things they do, whether that is building backdoors in their tools or getting corporate welfare. Big business and big gov are hand in hand, and that's not a problem specific to capitalism.
If you do move far from mommy and daddy, it gets harder to have those kids from a lack of support. I know, my parents (and my in laws) live on the other side of the country. Having young children and no family support network is pretty hard.
Great point. Free money isn't actually free. Also, the big banks get away with fraud and are rewarded with bailouts instead of actually being punished. There isn't much incentive to be honest, is there?
http://io9.gizmodo.com/how-rat...
How Mice Turned Their Private Paradise Into A Terrifying Dystopia
Universe 25 was a giant box designed to be a rodent utopia. The trouble was, this utopia did not have a benevolent creator. John B. Calhoun had designed quite a few mouse environments before he got to the 25th one, and didn't expect to be watching a happy story. Divided into "main squares" and then subdivided into levels, with ramps going up to "apartments," the place looked great, and was always kept stocked with food, but its inhabitants were doomed from the get-go.
Universe 25 started out with eight mice, four males and four females. By day 560, the mouse population reached 2,200, and then steadily declined back down to unrecoverable extinction. At the peak population, most mice spent every living second in the company of hundreds of other mice. They gathered in the main squares, waiting to be fed and occasionally attacking each other. Few females carried pregnancies to term, and the ones that did seemed to simply forget about their babies. They'd move half their litter away from danger and forget the rest. Sometimes they'd drop and abandon a baby while they were carrying it. ...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
When you say "cost" you are book keeping. You might see the rents on your financial capital and real estate as a moral absolute, but what paper gives, the state can take away with the stroke of a pen. Someone can always be found to declare that absolutely moral too.
Unlike the amount of rent you are due untaxed in the future, the equation production = consumption(+storage+spoilage) is simply a fact.
Civilized people. Cultured people. That's what a civilization, a civilized society is—people living in close proximity to each other. The closer you live to your neighbors, the more civilized you are, by definition.
In the USA, the goal seems to be to live as far from your neighbors as possible, and that's kind of sad.
Any sufficiently unpopular but cohesive argument is indistinguishable from trolling.
But the game is broken and I won't play. Not in the US anyway.
Don't sell the rest of the West short. Did you know that there is a feminist ideology based snow plowing system in Sweden? https://heatst.com/world/femin... It appears that clearning the roads is pandering to the Patriarchy, and since women are more likely to walk and bicycle, (their stupid assumption) the orders came down that the roads get plowed last, the sidewalks first. Didn't work for some reason.
One of the most amusing and stupid things about humanity is that no matter the political leaning - left or right - there are always asswipes who believe that their ideology trumps physics. Ideology only trumps intelligence.
Meanwhile, not playing the game is a pretty good strategy.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
produce > consume consume > produce
Choose one, rent-seeker.
I produced a lot in my career. Now I'm consuming the profits of that production.
Sad part is so few people understand.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
When you say "cost" you are book keeping.
Oy - by that definition, there is no wealth anywhere, since humans decide on completely arbitrary things ot attach wealth to. That includes gold.
Well okay, I have to go catch up on some of my imaginary money bookkeeping. Thanks for playing the Most pointless statements ever game - I think you won.
The shepherds did so well protecting the flock that the sheep no longer believed that wolves existed.
There are good odds that government will make a huge shift to the left, Bernie got close to presidency and Zuckerberg is pushing universal income. If that ever came to pass your paper wealth would be reduced massively, yet the equation production = consumption(+storage+spoilage) remains a simple fact.
There is a qualitative difference between bookkeeping and facts of economic reality.
Everybody knows that the massive increase in population, in the last century, is causing serious environmental issues.
But whenever a population is not growing as fast as it once was, it is considered a crises.
If only the mice had Netflix or some other form of virtual escape from their reality.
I suspect that humans are probably able to adapt to population densities far exceeding what mice can tolerate. Of course if we try that experiment we'll all go to prison for human atrocities.
“Common sense is not so common.” — Voltaire
But they have the biggest dick as president. That must count for something.
The latter condition drives the former. I used to wait politely for people to finish what they're doing and move out of the way. But they don't. They sit there in the middle of the aisle / lane, blocking traffic without a second thought while they yammer on their phone about who their cousin is dating this week. You politely ask them to move or say "Excuse me, please, may I get through?" and they glare at you like you just ran over their dog. If you're lucky, then they'll slowly amble out of the way while giving you the finger. Don't ask what happens if you're unlucky.
So yeah, Americans are the worst. And I grew up with them. I'm always cognizant of my surroundings and not impeding others. The rude behaviors I do have are simply coping mechanisms to deal with my fellow citizens who couldn't give two shits about anyone beyond themselves.
That said, when I travel overseas I leave all that stuff at home. No one reason to inflict it on the rest of the world. EU and Japan are a joy to visit.
In short: people are the problem.
I kind of doubt that, or at least I'd be pretty damned surprised. If we look at the experiment we can do some math to see what kind of population density we're talking about.
Cage dimensions:
108 x 108 x 54 inches
629,856 cubic inches in volume
If we make a silly and low ball guess that his mice were 2 cubic inches in volume, that gives each mouse an environment which is 143.15 times it's own volume.
If the average human is 0.0711 cubic meters in volume then you end up with 10.178 cubic meters of habitat. If you go with very low ceilings then you're looking at 5 square meters per person. And keep in mind that's not just the place where you crash for the night, that represents the entire space that you spend your whole life in. On top of that the experiment didn't actually give the mice the run of that entire space, they were limited to the sides and bottom of the box.
Do you think the common man lived any better under the various feudal systems that predate the modern capitalist economies?
Back then taxes for the peasants were 30%. And the nobles quite often paid no taxes.
Unit 731 was the epitome of high culture. Ancestral worship of war-criminals just needs to be accepted and appreciated for what it is! By the way, it wasn't a 'death march' so much as it was a spirited hike in the mountains.
Why yes, yes I am being a bit facetious. ;-)
"So long and thanks for all the fish."
On the other hand- despite food being available they stopped breeding.
And once enough mice died off, they didn't start breeding again.
That's damn strange.
It started with 4 mice. They started acting odd and killing each other long before reaching the space available. And their population peaked long before they reached the limit of available breeding spots (private housing so to speak).
Same thing happened with rats.
And we are mammals too.
I'm just raising the point that the japanese could have slid into a similar tho not identical behavioral sink. Their young men show the "beautiful ones" behavior.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
She was like chocolate when she drank... semi-sweet at first and then increasingly bitter.
It isn't hard and has been done for ages....
What about the wagon trains of years past...those folks left their relatives and likely NEVER saw them again.
My parents moved after I was born....and I grew up first half of my life not really knowing or seeing any relatives.
While its nice to have some grandparents to unload the kids on from time to time...it isn't a necessity.
Light travels faster than sound. This is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.........
Money is a claim on the goods and services. Without the goods and services, it's useless. Confederate money is just pretty paper, because it isn't a valid claim.
Unless we reach the Singularity, we're going to need working people to provide goods and services, and these people are going to have to make enough to give everyone enough stuff. Having a rapidly rising population means there's a lot of economically unproductive children, and having a rapidly aging population means there's a lot of economically unproductive or underproductive elderly, and that means that what working people produce has to be spread more thinly.
To put it in terms of money, as the population ages a lot of us old farts are going to need more nursing care, while the supply of people in the right age group to be nurses stays steady or diminishes. That means that nurses will become more expensive. Presumably this will attract people into nursing, but that will take people from other productive areas, so the supply of other stuff will get strained and get more expensive.
What we're going to see if we go along this path is inflation, since we'll have more demand for stuff and less supply. The money we've been putting away for retirement will be worth less and less.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
People absolutely hate falling standards of living. We're seeing social unrest in the US because it's harder to earn a decent living than it used to be. The elderly are likely to accept some decline, but if it starts cutting into the working-age standard of living there's going to be problems.
"When you have eliminated the unacceptable, whatever is left, however improbable, must be the truthiness" - Holmes
Three syllables:
Hen-ta-i
I never said one word about USA, and incidentally, I am well aware of the huge differences between states.
...gis sdrawkcab (usually not responding to ACs; don't bother posting as AC)