Japan PM Says Country On the Brink Over Falling Birth Rate (bbc.com) 298
An anonymous reader quotes a report from the BBC: Japan's prime minister says his country is on the brink of not being able to function as a society because of its falling birth rate. Fumio Kishida said it was a case of "now or never." Japan -- population 125 million -- is estimated to have had fewer than 800,000 births last year. In the 1970s, that figure was more than two million. Japan now has the world's second-highest proportion of people aged 65 and over -- about 28% -- after the tiny state of Monaco, according to World Bank data.
"Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society," Mr Kishida told lawmakers. "Focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed." He said that he eventually wants the government to double its spending on child-related programs. A new government agency to focus on the issue would be set up in April, he added. However, Japanese governments have tried to promote similar strategies before, without success. In 2020, researchers projected Japan's population to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century. The population is currently just under 125 million, according to official data.
"Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society," Mr Kishida told lawmakers. "Focusing attention on policies regarding children and child-rearing is an issue that cannot wait and cannot be postponed." He said that he eventually wants the government to double its spending on child-related programs. A new government agency to focus on the issue would be set up in April, he added. However, Japanese governments have tried to promote similar strategies before, without success. In 2020, researchers projected Japan's population to fall from a peak of 128 million in 2017 to less than 53 million by the end of the century. The population is currently just under 125 million, according to official data.
A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
OK, so granted, it's a problem when the proportion of elderly people in a country grows too large. But "Japan is standing on the verge of whether we can continue to function as a society..."??? A statement like that makes me think he's trying to push an agenda using scary-sounding rhetoric. I mean, he is a politician and all!
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Informative)
Japan has big problems. Most of them are exacerbated by the expanding elderly population.
For instance, labor force participation has been falling, especially for young men. Many of them become hikikomori [wikipedia.org], and not only drop out of the workforce but out of any participation in society.
The rising elderly population means higher taxes and lower growth, giving young men even less incentive to work and fewer opportunities.
One solution is to import workers from other countries, such as the Philippines (which has a "robust" birthrate), but there is much resistance to that idea. Another solution is more robots, but way too many jobs still require humans. So the only solution left is to convince families to have more babies. So far, the government has not found a way to do that.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
I'd venture to say that every country has "big problems" of its own, each set of problems is unique to that society and that history. I didn't dispute that the problems are "large." But that's a far cry from being "unable to function as a society." Japan will find a way through this. Its problems are far from the worst the world has seen.
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They are promoting more drinking of alcohol as a means to increase the birth rate [npr.org], what could possibly go wrong with that?
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Japan has big problems. Most of them are exacerbated by the expanding elderly population.
For instance, labor force participation has been falling, especially for young men. Many of them become hikikomori [wikipedia.org], and not only drop out of the workforce but out of any participation in society.
That's mostly the blame of the parents that allow them to live this way and still pay for their stuff. In other countries, such idiots quickly become homeless or finally get a job to stop feeling hungry.
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How does having lots of homeless people help the society, exactly?
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No, but instead it falls on all of society. They still need stuff to survive, so no matter what somebody, somehow is paying for it. If they use a shelter, that costs money. If they cause an increased need for law enforcement, that costs money. If they end up in prison, that costs money.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
There is another problem with lower work force participation: it is not stable in a democracy. Once more than half of the electorate is economically inactive, they will just squeeze more money out of the people who do, and working becomes less attractive. Japan already has pretty high taxes, and it is a very old society, so they are very much in danger of this.
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I sure hope that Japan decides that increasing its birth rate is not a solution to this problem, as the planet is already over-populated.
Hopefully, Japan will ultimately see this as a societal issue and not a political-football issue. Dealing with it holding an "OK, now here we all are, so now what" attitude
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Hopefully, Japan will ultimately see this as a societal issue and not a political-football issue. Dealing with it holding an "OK, now here we all are, so now what" attitude rather than anything more drastic is the only way forward for them while maintaining global stability. They are not the only country facing such an issue.
A societal issue is a political issue.
How do you suppose that this "gentle adjustment" is done if not through the political process?
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While not necessarily this, one thing that might help Japan is to allow immigration for once, in addition to dual citizenship. To this day they remain fairly xenophobic. And I get it, a big concern of theirs is that they don't like the idea of somebody else coming in and possibly fucking up their culture. I myself have seen first hand what progressives do after their crappy policies ruined where they came from and so they decide to leave and do it again somewhere else while showing utter contempt for their
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
They don't want more people.
They want more Japanese people.
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Pretty much any country these days
Not agreeing with it (Im an immigrant in a country where this sentiment is strong and all the countries ills are blamed on immigration - but the country also cant function without immigration) but its pretty standard as sentiments go.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:4, Insightful)
You can't work in a career for 38 years (from 26 to 64(Japanese average) and have that pay for both 21 years of retirement and to be able to pay for kids.
Japan has other issues like the way they treat women in the work force but even if they change that now, it's too late.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:4, Interesting)
Your list of issues is real, I grant that they include some serious problems. Yet they are very "first world" problems.
"Voters want everything." Well of course they do, but hard reality is a good teacher. It's not always a kind teacher, but a good and persistent one.
Guess what, as people live longer, they're going to have to work longer too, to make ends meet! Cushion those later years with government support, but that only goes so far.
Japan has some challenges. But if you want to see real problems, visit Haiti, or Venezuela, or Somalia. Japan could get a whole lot worse, and still have it better than people in these countries.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
Housing in Japan is actually pretty good. The average Japanese home is larger than the average British one, and that average is dragged down by very small inner city apartments. It's very affordable too, again compared to the UK, and 50 year mortgages are a thing with very low interest rates.
The problem is the availability of jobs in some areas, but again Japan has an excellent public transport network and decent roads. Plus now remote work is a thing, even if some companies are resistant to it. Some are reducing hours too, e.g. Panasonic is moving to a 4 day week.
The problem is simply the cost of having children. Well, not just children, the cost of finding a partner and creating a stable environment to have children in. There is also still a lot of pressure on women to give up their career to raise children, and a lot of men are reluctant to do too much to help out.
Money to support parents will help, but there also needs to be a cultural shift. Long work hours are already being rejected by younger people, but it needs to move faster. Flexible working is a must, so parents can e.g. take their child to school or the doctor when needed. Not just allowed in the company, but promoted as a good thing for the company so that parents don't feel guilty about "not pulling their weight" and their colleagues don't complain about it.
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There's a diff
Re: A little over the top there (Score:3)
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Informative)
Here's a set of obvious facts:
1. Societies function through the labor of their members, be it manual labor, intellectual labor, or creative endeavors.
2. People as a group aren't capable of maintaining their level of productivity past a certain age. And at a more advanced age they require medical services (to be provided by younger people). And then they die.
3. Absent a time machine, the way to replace the unproductive aged members of society is with more younger people.
4. One does his part in that great civilizational endeavor by finding a woman and convincing her to fuck. Several times over several years.
If that latter bit breaks down, there will be fewer people around to do the work that needs doing. And the standard of living will decline.
We are not in a post scracity star trek fantasy land. And we likely never will be. So we still need warm bodies to do stuff. Even the shit that grows on trees needs to be picked, cleaned, processed, and delivered to your door.
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
I agree with your points. And yet Japan is not doomed. They will find a way through this, not without pain, but they'll find a way. They are far from collapse. If you want to see what that looks like, check out Haiti, or Somalia.
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Sounds like you've written them off already. I happen to believe that people can become very resourceful when their survival is at stake.
Just a few years ago, people were talking about the "population bomb" that would destroy the world. Now we're already worried about the *loss* of population. Both extremes are over-hyped.
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Oh look, yet another "tool to control the behavior of others". It couldnt possibly be that people saw the ever increasing population and ignorantly thought that would go on forever. It must be an evil mind control conspiracy.
I bet you even think you sound credible saying nonsense like that.
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4 is not an obvious fact.
One could easily do one's part by finding an orphaned child outside one's society, or allowing a migrant to enter from a place that has many people wanting to emigrate.
But then one would have to disavow xenophobia and likely racism.
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4. One does his part in that great civilizational endeavor by finding a woman and convincing her to fuck.
Yeah, hard pass on that one. Even if I wasn't gay, I still realize that capitalism bears too much resemblance to a ponzi scheme and don't think it's fair to bring another life into an inherently flawed system.
And since I always seem to have to say it, I'm not implying that some other *ism would be superior to capitalism. Until we have that Star Trek post-scarcity society (which I agree with you that it will probably never happen), society is always going to be made up of haves and have nots, with an ever
Re: A little over the top there (Score:4, Interesting)
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"Having sex (and thus procreation) is probably the the highest thing on the agenda after food and shelter. It's wired into our brain"
Sex, yes. Procreation, not so much & we figured out a long time ago how to have the former without the latter.
In addition, many men have been very good at helping to *create* children but leaving the rearing to others.
Also the Japanese managed the somewhat miraculous feat of convincing many men to NOT want to fuck women
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Interesting)
I'm sure the issue in Japan is a complex one contributed to by culture and technology. I'd suggest that the men Japanese who are heterosexual and do not want to fuck women are clinically depressed. The availability of porn (passive, like images and videos, or active, like video chat and OnlyFans) and masturbation also is an outlet that, while not as good as the real thing, gets you 50% of the way there. But back to ...
Sex, yes. Procreation, not so much & we figured out a long time ago how to have the former without the latter.
You hand-picked one sentence of mine without including the later sentence of "The ONLY thing that stops people from having children is rational thought." Whether your reasoning is situational and circumstantial, or more broad, as in disagreeing with bringing a child into the world, it's only that thought that makes you take measures to ensure you have no offspring, but like I said, most of the people in the world don't feel the same, evident by a ballooning world population.
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Informative)
Or you know help soak up the costs.
You want young and work 40 hours a week and raise kids? From both parents then you better pony up $12000 a year per kid for the first 5 years to cover daycare so parent can work. That or make so one parent can stay home and they can live off just one salary.
In the mid 80's my electrician father salary could keep two cars, a string of ever larger houses, and 2 kids. It was only when kid number three came around that things got tight. Me earning his salary now won't cover 1 used car and rent.
You want people to have more kids. Pay for them.
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Interesting)
You can't really solve this issue with money. Countries have tried making life easier for parents with baby bonuses or childcare. It doesn't really solve the problem. Even places like Sweden with very generous child benefits are declining. More closer to home, in Quebec, Canada, they have universal childcare and it hasn't solved their birth rate issues.
People like to blame it on money because it is the easy answer, but really is a set of very deeply entrenched and complex societal management.
1. Time is a big one. I'm married with 2 kids. Just the way we live our life makes it very hard to have more than 2 kids. Both my wife and I followed a pretty boring path as far as things go. Go to university. Get a job. Get married. Have kids. I got married around 30. Wife was 28. Had 1 kid a few years after. Had trouble getting the second. Got the second one. By then, we just looked at our life and decided we're done. Risk of pregnancy issues goes up with a woman past 35-40ish. What magical time do you have to have a lot more kids. I'd say maybe you can squeeze out 3 if you follow society's model.
2. People have kids for themselves. This is a big one. We're not having kids for the government. In the culture we have, we live for ourselves. We're not nationalistic joining the army to make our country great or out-breeed our enemies. Kids are great, but I've got my fill with 2 kids in terms of enjoyment. I wouldn't say I'd enjoy things exponentially more if I had 3 or 4 or 10 kids.
3. Further to 2, how much your kids are your own has changed. There is a feeling that your kids aren't even yours yours. Child rights are a much bigger thing. When you have actual laws that will override a parent on things like their views on things like religion, LGBTQ+ issues...
4. Role of men/woman. Again, this is a huge cultural change. People take a long time to mature and grow and overcome whatever struggles they have in life. You can't just marry some young woman and work and run your home. That's way too much risk and terms of divorce, problems... You have to learn to pick a good spouse and figure it all out to stay. My parents had no idea what they were doing getting married. They probably hated each other, yet culturally, they stayed together to raise 3 kids. If either my mom or dad was 'modern enough', they'd have divorced. Our laws very much tilt towards individual lifestyles instead of family and children. This also makes it more risky for both men and women to 'commit' to the family unit for better or worse. You talk about having it so one parent can stay home. Maybe I was just risk averse, but myself and most of my friends actually went for working women because none of us wanted to deal with a divorce where we get killed financially in a divorce.
I don't think we know what the 'solution' is. Immigration has costs. Not increasing population has costs. Maybe we focus on automation and robots. Maybe we just learn to deal with lower population. Maybe increased healthcare costs. But lesser educational costs. Lesser housing costs. What happens to the economy or banking or funding for public services. Who knows.
Re: A little over the top there (Score:3)
The problem isn't labor (Score:5, Insightful)
Without that endless growth to feed expansion your economy grinds to a halt. It creates a variety of social problems. Even if there's enough food and shelter and entertainment and transportation and education to go around you don't have any mechanism to distribute it without that growth backing it up. You also have voracious eaters who want to amass huge amounts of wealth and you need to keep them satiated or they're going to cause other social problems.
It's a symptom of basing your entire economy on a growing GDP instead of on meeting the needs of people. The problem is I don't know how to transition to an economy built for people and not for the sake of the economy itself. It's pretty clear the stuff we tried in the 40s and 50s didn't work. The various forms of Communism and socialism.
Automation, process improvements and improved materials and goods means that we're quickly entering into a post scarcity economy. Much quicker than we thought we would. But it's not the kind of post that scarcity economy where we have Star Trek replicators it's just a kind where everybody can have decent food and shelter and healthcare. That's enough for probably 90 or even 99% of the population but it's that last few percentages it's going to cause all the trouble.
Re: The problem isn't labor (Score:2, Interesting)
Where did you go to economics school? Japan hasnâ(TM)t been dependent on growth, itâ(TM)s been dependent on heavy taxation. However there arenâ(TM)t enough tax payers, as the old adage goes, eventually you run out of other peopleâ(TM)s money. Post scarcity society will only develop once energy is no longer scarce, and given that violates the rules of thermodynamics it just goes to show that people contemplating that are major idiots, itâ(TM)s the perpetuum mobile for economics.
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Re: The problem isn't labor (Score:4, Informative)
You have it backwards, economies need to keep growing to pay for an ever growing state. If the state wouldn't grow or even diminish in size relative to the economy, you don't need to pay as much taxes, more opportunities to invest, raise families, grow your economy.
The perpetual growth is necessary to offset the perpetual growth of government
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This. They are not really worried about a future for their country and their culture, they are worried that there are not enough workers born to support the increasing number of retirees with complex medical needs. And they are right: this is not going to end well.
Re:A little over the top there (Score:5, Insightful)
My understanding is that Japan continues to be pretty xenophobic and has to face up to importing workers to take care of them [bloomberg.com]
I think that he is trying to clear a way to allow for more migrant workers and is trying to stave off the backlash
Most of Europe is facing a similar dilemma and the US will face it even more so, since we cannot seem to realize who grows our food, processes and prepares it for us (pssst, it's the immigrants), along with dozens of other jobs that we refuse to recognize or pay a living wage for
Re:A little over the top there (Score:4, Insightful)
Yes, they (and we) just might have to get over their xenophobia.
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Ha ha, there have ever been deleterious consequences to immigration!
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Always has been. The US also now gets a lot of its highly-educated workers (PhDs, MDs) from overseas as well. This is not a healthy trend for the native population, but you get what you ask for. . . or at least what the mega-corps demand and the general populace will tolerate.
Re: A little over the top there (Score:5, Informative)
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Well why bother even trying then, they're toast already, apparently!
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There's only two solutions:
1) Immigration, which Japan does not want
2) Lower the cost of living. Start nationalizing housing.
Because the two key reasons why people don't have children, or more children is because it's too expensive to have one. The Rich SOB's that own all the property don't care that they're single-handedly destroying the country.
This also applies to every country with declining birthrates.
Do something about the housing before people refuse to have children at all. Hell people don't even ha
Re: A little over the top there (Score:2)
Typical 2 bedroom apartment in Tokyo goes for about $2k/month (source: Deutsche Bank). That seems pretty reasonable.
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Typical 2 bedroom apartment in Tokyo goes for about $2k/month (source: Deutsche Bank). That seems pretty reasonable.
No that's not reasonable at all. The average income in Japan is like $2.3k/month (https://www.statista.com/statistics/1123481/japan-average-monthly-wages-among-full-time-workers/) and presumably that's the gross value before taxes etc.
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Solvin Overpopulation Issue, One Sucker At A Time. (Score:2)
Japan is successfully solving overpopulation issue, one sucker at a time.
And you ?
My take: it's not recoverable (Score:3)
Look at how WWII (a catastrophe) was just a tiny dent [statista.com] in their demographics vs. the decline that has already set in.
Not to say that the land in Japan will be unoccupied in a couple hundred years, but it will be totally unrecognizable.
Re:My take: it's not recoverable (Score:4, Insightful)
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Such simple, stark terms! Boil down all the problems of a complex society into three sentences. Japan will be doomed at about the same time as the Doomsday Clock reaches midnight.
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I can already see the hordes of White people proclaiming their Japanese-ness in a South Park episode [cc.com]
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Japan recovered from WWII, a far worse calamity than what's going on there now. They will recover. It won't be pretty, and people will have to give up some of the luxuries they've grown accustomed to, but they will find a way.
You're right, it won't be recognizable in 200 years. Just as it's not recognizable compared to what it was 100 years ago., or even during WWII.
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Demographically, WWII was nothing compared to what's happening now, and I already linked the graph to show it.
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Your graph shows the population trend, it doesn't show anything about how deep or how solvable its problems are, or how recognizable the country was or is.
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Yeah, it's big, it's a bad problem, people won't be as well off as their parents. But it's not the end of the world.
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It is a self-defeating problem. Once the younger people feel screwed by society (which they are), they will assume their children would be even worse off, and they may think twice about having children at all. No other country has been as deep into this problem as Japan, but we may follow their example with a few decades delay. So it is interesting to watch.
Raising kids is not a part time job (Score:5, Insightful)
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That can be resolved by adjusting immigration laws to allow hiring nannies from lower income countries. That's what other small rich countries do. Granted, it still costs significant money because you need a big enough home for at least two extra humans, since real estate may cost more than a nanny's salary.
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That can be resolved by adjusting immigration laws to allow hiring nannies from lower income countries.
There is much political resistance to that idea in Japan, partly driven by nationalist ideas about racial purity, but also driven by fears from Japanese women that the nannies will be competing with them for husbands.
Every country on earth except Africa (Score:5, Insightful)
Immigration isn't going to work. Other countries are not going to be giving up their young people anymore. Expect to see immigration curtailed by the countries themselves within the next few years. Are there indirectly through incentive programs in the nicer countries or directly through outright banning it in the less kind countries. Nobody is going to give up a shrinking population of young people needed to drive the economy.
The only real way out of this would involve things that I don't think people in general are willing to do. Basically various forms of socialism. The ruling class isn't going to give up enough power to make that happen and even if they would people in general get uncomfortable for that kind of thing. A lot of ink has been spilled in a lot of money spent to make sure people get uncomfortable with that...
I suspect this Will go on until eventually it gets bad enough that they get the American equivalent of a new deal and you start to see large structural changes in their economy needed to support an economy that isn't constantly growing. Other than that or they're going to do the same thing the US is flirting with, neo-feudalism. A handful of people have jobs serving a handful of elites and everyone else will live in abject poverty.
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I'm not sure that's an accurate analysis, given how much money this kind of work brings in, and the fact that it doesn't actually prevent a young woman from having a kid (provided she has grandparents that are willing to raise it in exchange for financial support). Arguably the poorer countries might outlaw it on moral grounds (mothers leaving their children behind and all), but in the short to medium term, it doesn't seem bad for the economy or birthrate.
In the long run, this kind of economic activity may
Re: Every country on earth except Africa (Score:5, Informative)
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It's interesting, you have to go down to number 52 to find a country that is outside of Africa, south Asia (specifically Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Tajikistan) and the Middle East, other than some small island nations. Then at number 68 you get into a bunch of South and Central American countries.
https://www.theglobaleconomy.c... [theglobaleconomy.com]
However that is a snapshot of birth rates as of 2020 and doesn't indicate which ones are going up or down.
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right, because it somehow was 'antisocialism' in Japan that prevents them from having kids. If by antisocialism you mean a crazy inflation rate created by the government money printing and propping up every failing industry, company and individual then I wonder how your form of socialism would compare to that.
Why do you think Japan has a crazy inflation rate?
4% is okayish relative to other countries.
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That can be resolved by adjusting immigration laws to allow hiring nannies from lower income countries. That's what other small rich countries do. Granted, it still costs significant money because you need a big enough home for at least two extra humans, since real estate may cost more than a nanny's salary.
Property prices in Japan are the real issue here. People can barely afford space for themselves, let alone a spouse or kids.
Nannies are a mad fantasy in that context. You might as well suggest winning the lottery as the solution.
Entitlement and risk. (Score:5, Interesting)
One major problem can be summarized thus: "*I* want there to be babies and I want *you* to pay for them." Obviously, raising kids is a 18 year commitment that requires a lot of sacrifice, and on top of that it is incredibly expensive. The incentives are all wrong here. If the government wants there to be more babies, then it must at least absorb the costs, so people don't have to give up on their retirement in order to have kids instead. That means taxpayer-funded government coverage of the costs of raising kids. Maybe that is a "bachelor" tax that punishes people who choose to remain single. Well, ALL taxes punish someone in order to benefit the greater good, so put it to a vote and see what the people say.
Another major problem is the life-destroying consequences of a divorce. Raising kids works best in a two-parent household (despite the propaganda from certain extreme political groups), so the whole getting-married thing is optimal for child-rearing. BUT in modern societies getting divorced is not just easy, but destructive. If one member of this union makes the majority of the money, then a divorce means that person loses the majority of their money AND a retirement-destroying percentage of their future income. They go from head-of-household to indentured servant just like that. It is a financial risk that NO rational person would ever take. There are, of course, reasons why people think this situation is necessary; well those reasons aren't worth arguing because they do not change the fact that this situation scares people away from marriage which further harms the population growth rate. No amount of moralizing, philosophizing, or politicizing will change this fact. It's too basic. The financial risk of marriage makes it fail a risk-to-benefit analysis, and that's that. So, make marriage financially safe or it won't happen.
The third major problem is the "work to death" culture. You cannot raise family if you must spend all your time at work, and there are no if's and's or but's about it. So long as that remains broken, the population will continue to shrink.
These aren't the only problems, but they are (in my opinion) the biggest three. I am not advocating for a return to a day of gender-based role specialization or oppression of women or anything like that. I am arguing for a step forward that finds a way to fix these problems without violating modern concepts of equality. I believe it can be done, others may not, but one thing is certain: if it is not done, the population will continue to shrink.
Plan B would be to import people instead of breeding them. Of course, the immigrants would need training and work, and somebody's got to pay for all that. I would suggest some sort of corporate sponsorship for all this, since they are the ones who need a labor force. AND you have to make it an attractive offer: nobody wants to be worked to death so that will still need to be fixed. I think this plan is beautifully fair and rational but requires getting over racism, which probably kills it, leaving plan A the best plan.
I don't have much faith that humanity has what it takes to accomplish either plan. The necessary level of enlightenment is just too high. Though I would be happy to be proven wrong.
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If you didn't socialize the benefits of raising kids in the first place, there would be no problem. You plan of socializing costs to offset this is fraught with further unintended consequences.
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WTH?
You think children are a private good, like a dog? A toy? A transactional investment?
I would hope that just about any country sees children as the future of society.
But yeah, that would be one way to solve the problem. No children, no society, no problem.
Overpopulation (Score:2)
Japan is successfully solving overpopulation issue , one sucker at a time.
And you ?
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Japan has a very generous social safety net. Taxes are high. Someone might draw a connection between the two.
More to the point: when you socialize the benefits of something; you get less of it. Japan is trying to offset this problem by socializing costs. This will only lead to more unintended consequences.
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There's the cost, but the government could address that with money. The issues go beyond just money though.
Women don't want to give up their careers and financial independence. The days of sticking with your husband even after he develops a drinking problem are long gone for them. At the same time, they also don't want to let down their colleagues by taking a lot of time off or reducing hours to have children.
Many younger people also just don't want the responsibility. Once you have a family you have to con
Do They Need 128 Million? (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they might want to relax. The looming problem in the world is what to do with all the workers that will be displaced by smarter and smarter automation. Their predicament might just turn out to be a boon, with robots serving the people, and only the really high-tech creatives, and the artists doing things that the machines won't be able to, and I'm not so sure about the hi-tech creatives. Otherwise, with robots doing so much, and robots not needing paid, the standard of living is likely to go up, as cheaper and cheaper goods made by robots enable better and better living.
Robots can't do elder care (Score:4, Insightful)
I think they might want to relax. The looming problem in the world is what to do with all the workers that will be displaced by smarter and smarter automation. Their predicament might just turn out to be a boon, with robots serving the people, and only the really high-tech creatives, and the artists doing things that the machines won't be able to, and I'm not so sure about the hi-tech creatives. Otherwise, with robots doing so much, and robots not needing paid, the standard of living is likely to go up, as cheaper and cheaper goods made by robots enable better and better living.
We're FAR away from robots taking care of the elderly or children. Also, robots are FUCKING EXPENSIVE. Believe me, if people build a robot to just cook dinner, a much simpler task than elder care, it would be a HUGE hit. 1. They can't build a self-sufficient food worker. They haven't mastered the technology to replace a kid working at McDonald's or even just a sous chef. 2. Even if the could, it would be so expensive it would never compete with even normal wages, let alone what we pay fast food workers. Hell...they haven't even mastered robots who can clean the floor. Ever notice how even the wealthiest tech companies, building robots, still hire massive cleaning staffs?
The instant a robot can make a salad from produce, you'll hear about it. It'll become a popular toy among the tech sector and a revolutionary invention. Every cash-flush Silicon Valley tech giant would love a kitchen staff on call 24/7 for novelty alone. Right now, useful robots are either super-specialized, like precision welders...or research projects. Even if you could automate simple elder/child care tasks or kitchen tasks...you'd still require a staff to maintain the machines...robots are not going to make things cheaper than a human being in our lifetimes.
I don't think many jobs are going to be automated in the next 20 years. I think population collapse is a very real and short-term threat...especially for Japan, Germany, and China.
Re:Do They Need 128 Million? (Score:4, Interesting)
I think they might want to relax. The looming problem in the world is what to do with all the workers that will be displaced by smarter and smarter automation....and robots not needing paid....
That trades problems for other problems. Robots may not need to get paid, but living still costs money. Small humans also cost money. If robots aren't making money - or spending it - that doesn't make the goods almost-free, it means there' less money changing hands to buy stuff.
"UBI!!" I hear you screaming. Well, two things. First, the philosophical problems with it remain; those have been argued to death so I won't cover them here. The second is that the money has to come from *somewhere*. Now, the most logical place to go with this is "tax the robots", and now we have a really big problem: defining "robot" properly. It obviously doesn't have to be human looking, but do those robotic arms in car manufacturing plants count? Does a lathe, a drill, a motor, a shell script, a cron job, a printer, an e-mail server, a vending machine, an ATM, a parking meter? where do we draw the line on what gets taxed so that it doesn't get rules-lawyered to pointlessness, but doesn't throw Japan back to the 1880s because nobody wants to pay the $50,000/year tax on a photocopy machine?
But let's hand-wave that away...I saw a video [facebook.com] a few years ago about millennials in Japan and the trouble they are having with dating. Now, this was a late-night TV show host doing a documentary-esque piece and seemed to treat "dating", "intercourse", and "procreation" as the same problem. Summing up socioeconomic issues in seven minutes is basically impossible when you're *not* trying to do so in a comedic context, add in the need for punch lines and you're guaranteed to end up with oversimplification. The question, however, remains a viable one.
If Japanese culture has shifted away from trends that make dating->relationships->sex->children a cultural norm (with 'marriage' thrown in there at some point, possibly). The video seems to want to point it to the absence of cars, but I'm unconvinced. Japan is 29th on the list [wikipedia.org] of vehicles per capita, beating out nearly all of the top 100 countries in per-capita births [worldpopul...review.com]. If North Korea is beating Japan in births per-capita 2:1, while Japan beats the DPRK in cars 624:1, it's not the cars.
I'm not well-versed enough in Japanese culture to have a go-to answer personally...but I do think that it's impossible to argue that the cultural shift away from parent/child familes in Japan can be solved with automation or cars. It won't be solved with UBI or tax incentives. No, whatever the problem is, it's deeper...and so too must be the solution.
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The second is that the money has to come from *somewhere*.
Some of the money comes from replacing current welfare systems with it. You don't add UBI on top of existing welfare, like many "experiments" are doing. It's supposed to be replacement.
Yet another way of reducing the cost of UBI is to make public housing free. UBI won't be so expensive if people weren't forced to spend most of it to pay greedy landlords.
Where do we get the housing supply, you ask? Hell, we have cities complaining that office buildings are going unoccupied. Just give people the free, e
You are missing the real problem (Score:2)
I think they might want to relax. The looming problem in the world is what to do with all the workers that will be displaced by smarter and smarter automation.
That is pretty much totally wrong for any country that does not have birth above replacement rates - because every modern country has retirement systems and currency that are outright Ponzi schemes.
If you don't have more suckers paying into it over time, the whole system just stops being to pay out those already in it.
Which is why inevitably countries
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If it wasn't for real estate, inflation would work pretty well to distribute money from the old to the young. Unfortunately there is real estate.
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It's not about the total number of Japanese. It's the proportion of people of working age who are paying taxes versus people of retirement age, who are the beneficiaries of taxes.
With a declining population, AND with elderly living longer lives, it's going to put a massive strain on the tax system. Young workers will have to bear a greater and greater tax burden, and in turn, that will further discourage people from raising children, which is also very expensive.
I'm not going to say "Japan is doomed", but
Solved with immigration (Score:3)
Re: Solved with immigration (Score:3)
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Time to implement smart decline... (Score:3)
...the inverse of smart growth.
How are those Asian policies working out? (Score:2)
How are those Asian policies working out?
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solution (Score:2)
pay people to have kids. pay a lot of coin. problem solved
pay women to get knocked up
2 choices: population collapse or welfare state (Score:5, Insightful)
Kids are fucking expensive....and yes, before you get all boomer on me and tell me some story about "back in my day..."...let's just cut that off early and say "your day" is gone...as is "my day." It seemed cheaper/easier when I was a kid...but those days aren't coming back. Kids need to live in today's environment with today's expectations. When I was a kid, internet was a luxury/hobby...now every kid needs a laptop and devices to do their homework or even just fit in with their peers. Kids get more expensive every year and what used to be excellence when I was a kid is underachieving today. Kids need to be smarter and more focused and compete more heavily for a job than I did when I graduated 25+ years ago. Which means in order for them to out earn you, you need to ensure they get in the very best schools...which means a lot of effort and often tutoring. My kids are highly unlikely to live more comfortably than we live now. To do so would require them to work twice as hard as my wife and I ever did.
So yeah, the USA gives no childcare...you have to pay a fortune for that. They give shit medical care...where most of us live one major illness + one clerical/insurance-hoop-procedural error from bankruptcy. Even if you have the money, have you ever tried finding childcare? You have to put a lot of work into finding a nanny...and most urban daycares require you to apply before your kids is born...sometimes even before they're conceived...so if you can even afford it, there's a great chance you won't get in. It's that way where I live. We hired a nanny when our kids are babies...and your nanny gets sick or quits?...yup...you're in for a rough few days to weeks there. It's entirely up to you to vet them and very time-consuming and honestly risky. Once they're in regular school, you have to pay a fortune to ensure they can get into a competitive school. With recent inflation, every aspect of live got a lot more expensive. Society + the US gov does all they can to discourage smart people from having kids....so why is everyone surprised no one is having any? (I assume Japan has a similar story)
And yeah, there are huge economic consequences...no one will be there to take care of you when you're elderly. Every company you invested your retirement funds will have less and less customers each year as there are less consumers with active incomes. Every year, more people will be on Social Security and unable to work...as advancements in modern medicine ensure people live longer....which further compounds the economic ruin because our children and grandchildren will have to pay people to take care of us and the tax burden will strangle the young...who will cut their spending...who will participate less in the economy and every company you invested your retirement funds in will have even less revenue.
Then there's the question of culture. Whatever you think of as your national culture will diminish each generation. I don't know if that's good or bad. The notion of the Japanese people will be quite diluted in 20 years as immigrants move in to take the elder care jobs to handle their population collapse. I live in a major city with a massive gentrification problem and in our grocery store, no one speaks English. I don't mind. I can speak enough Spanish to get by...(alth
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Funny, who do you expect to take care of you in your old age? Other old people?
take a day off and fuck (Score:2)
All Japan needs is 'Take the Day Off and Fuck' day, as in a National Holiday, and monthly. It will be weird at first but after a while everyone will just take the day off and fuck. Problem solved.
See Calhoun's Universe 133. (Score:2)
The current japanese and global population are too high. Crowding is too high. Divorce levels are punitive to men. And too few people have too much of the wealth.
And they are terrified of the incoming decline in real estate and other assets as the ponzi scheme ends.
Good luck Japan (Score:2)
Fight club (Score:4, Funny)
"I felt like putting a bullet between the eyes of every Panda that wouldn't screw to save its species."
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Japan needs a market collapse (Score:2, Interesting)
Lets create AGI while we can (Score:2)
It's not an AI apocalypse, it's an AI mercy killing.
Japan is worst but not the only one. (Score:4, Insightful)
Most developed nations have a problem with fertility rates, they just cover it up with high immigration. That is not a real solution because the children and grandchildren of immigrants end up with the same low fertility as the rest of the population. And Japan has rejected immigration. Japan has tied to use robots to solve their labour problems, but it turns out robots are great at transferring money from low skilled workers to highly skilled and stockholders. The idea that the problem is unfixable is ludicrous, the same economies had much higher fertility rates when they were industrialising. It's only difficult because developed economies have a large numbers of elderly voters who consistently vote to raise the price of their own houses while demanding more services. for themselves, instead of the healthcare and education services need to ensure their grandchildren's success (if they get to have any). Even Scandinavian countries have fertility rates around 1.6-1.7 when you need 2.1 just to maintain a steady population. Children don't have to be expensive either, it only when parents are driving them to expensive childcare, tutoring and extracurricular activities needed to ensure they get educated for skilled work, while they play on their personal iPads. That too is just the result of choices about where we allocate resources.
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Tofu is Soy, Soy-lent is people.