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Comment by abpavel | Hacker News Reader

I think these two paragraphs nicely frame theme of the problem: <i>Politicians, he added, have propagated the myth that foreigners commit crimes at a higher rate than Japanese and have suggested that more immigrants could make the country vulnerable to terrorism. Labor unions have also put up a fight.

“Look at nurses, they believe their income will be cut if we let in Filipinos and Indonesians,” said Katsuyuki Yakushiji, a sociologist at Toyo University in Tokyo. “They also say that these people can’t speak Japanese well and that could be risky. Yet, at the same time, they complain about severe overwork and say we need to add nurses.”</i>

On one hand a defiance, even in the face of Armageddon. On the other it reflects worldwide general negativity, in this case xenophobia under the guise of overzealous job protection, as noone is worried that there will be more nurses per se, just as long as they are not... the "other kind"

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Wanting your culture to not drift is expected. It's built into humans to prefer people like ourselves.

It's also expected that people don't want their wages depressed by imported labor.

A democratic government enforcing the above ideals (if supported by a majority of citizens) is expected. That's why Japan is exploring automation instead of immigration for its workforce.

EDIT: @krapp (HN is throttling my posting ability)

Japan is overhauling immigration, but only as a last resort:

https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2015-12-07/immigrati...

Automation solves the problem of filling some jobs (including undesirable ones).

It doesn't make the population younger/healthier, nor does it expand the local consumer base.

> Wanting your culture to not drift is expected. It's built into humans to prefer people like ourselves.

Or look at America, the world's biggest melting pot. Just because Japan has a preference for their own ethnicity (like most other countries around the world, India, China, most of Europe, etc.) doesn't mean they aren't wrong and IMO not on the wrong side of history. People I know here in the US have no issue having real friends, people they hang out with and regard as equals, who are ethnically Asian, Indian, African. In other countries, this simply wouldn't happen.

And politically speaking, we still have a huge group that is very xenophobic.

I think the grandparent is oversimplifying a bit. Even that group that is really xenophobic has people groups different then themselves which they are comfortable associating with, I think the unifying factor is everyone has some group of people they stereotype, or in more lyrical terms, everyone is a little bit racist, sometimes.

We do, but that is from your perspective, and your perspective is from a bubble. The US is weird: We have a huge group, the majority even, who are not very xenophobic, and this makes us unable to recognize that that kind of xenophobia is the usual state of affairs most everywhere else in the world - Including most of europe, even the top-tier liberal parts like France. The xenophobia differs, but if you go out of the major cities you'll find very little actual integration of immigrants, only enclaves and ghettos and occasionally whole towns, with a separate culture and values.

Only the US has had major success integrating on a national scale. There are parts of England, major cities in France and Germany are pretty good, but the countryside is still divided. And much of the countryside is still divided in the US, too, it's just that there is a visible contrast for us to speak out against.

America is the world's biggest melting pot relatively speaking. Most American's social circles look like themselves. Also I suspect there is a gap between the number of people who have no issue with having a diverse group of friends and those who actually do.

Drawing on techniques from social network analysis, PRRI’s 2013 American Values Survey asked respondents to identify as many as seven people with whom they had discussed important matters in the six months prior to the survey. The results reveal just how segregated white social circles are.

Overall, the social networks of whites are a remarkable 91 percent white. White American social networks are only one percent black, one percent Hispanic, one percent Asian or Pacific Islander, one percent mixed race, and one percent other race. In fact, fully three-quarters (75 percent) of whites have entirely white social networks without any minority presence. This level of social-network racial homogeneity among whites is significantly higher than among black Americans (65 percent) or Hispanic Americans (46 percent).

Links:

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/archive/2014/08/self-seg...

http://cdn.theatlantic.com/assets/media/img/posts/2014/08/cr...

http://www.prri.org/research/2013-american-values-survey/

Isn't that exactly what you'd expect statistically? That the majority members would mostly have circles representing the majority? In fact, its more telling that minorities have social circles that don't include many of the majority. Because that is a whole lot more self-selected - it can't be random. That black Americans' social circles have 65-percent minority membership is several standard deviations outside what could be normal.

The 2010 census shows the US as 64% non-Hispanic white. It's just as impossible for their social groups to be 91% white by random chance as it is for blacks' social groups to be 65% black.

You can explain the whites who have no connection to any nonwhite by saying that nonwhites tend to be concentrated in particular areas such as Louisiana or New York City, but that makes the nonwhites look significantly more integrated compared to the whites.

This is just white people. Asians stick with asians, blacks with blacks, hispanics with hispanics, natives with natives.

I love how people love to pretend that the US is some kind of idealized place. It isn't.

I mean look at all the Black Lives Matter stuff. Look at asians complaining about quotas in colleges and lack of opportunities in hollywood/etc. The same with hispanics.

> People I know here in the US have no issue having real friends, people they hang out with and regard as equals, who are ethnically Asian, Indian, African. In other countries, this simply wouldn't happen.

Either you haven't travelled very much, or you have but spent most of your time in resorts and tourist attractions.

Should have explicitly said 'most' other countries. I have lived as a digital nomad around most of the world over the last 3 years, actually.

> Or look at America, the world's biggest melting pot.

Oh stop it. We aren't a melting pot. We are nation with nearly 80% white population. And there has been tons of anti-immigration laws in the US.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chinese_Exclusion_Act

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Asian_immigration_to_the_Unite...

Yes, the cities have some diversity, but most of the country doesn't. The vast majority of towns/rural districts/counties/etc are 95%+ white. There are a few that are 95%+ black and 95%+ native/hispanic.

> People I know here in the US have no issue having real friends, people they hang out with and regard as equals, who are ethnically Asian, Indian, African.

And we also have racial strife, violence, etc. We also wiped out the natives, put japanese americans in camps, had pogroms against the chinese, enslaved and brutalized blacks, etc. Go read about the LA riots.

The US is one economic collapse from major racial hatred and violence. Go read about what happened to the chinese in the US and the mass lynchings during economic strife. As long as the bubble keeps getting inflated, everyone will behave more or less. If that bubble ever pops and there is an economic crisis, you'll see what american is really like.

>We are nation with nearly 80% white population.

The US is 61.6% white, 17.6% hispanic/latino, 13.3% black, and 5.6% asian.

Source: https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/table/PST045215/00

77.1% white including white hispanics (speaking Spanish doesn't make you not white!) Source: same link as parent

Do they have race riots in Japan like they do in the USA?

Not quite.

While US may be an ethnic melting pot, it is steeped in WASPy culture (apologies for the racial term).

Europe while bland food-wise is far more diverse (linguistically atleast), so there is more to "preserve".

Russia seems to remember the days of Eastern Orthodox vs the Vatican (now repeated by Putin et.al).

India is, diverse yes, but those who make it out are mostly the outputs of a colonial system which wanted to replicate WASPs. Kind of the same thing in Africa.

China is kind of asserting its own culture, but Mao's men didn't leave much tradition behind to stand on. The schizophrenia is now quite visible; but then it's not clear if it would have been better if Chiang Kai Shek held on to power.

Japan is slightly bit better, but the tradition seems to have become frozen, and quite irrelevant. I'm not sure if it was more fluid before Meiji.

Perhaps, the reason why the Anglo-American world is so fond of diverse peoples is its task - for the better or worse - of synthesizing a universal culture.

>That's why Japan is exploring automation instead of immigration for its workforce.

The premise that Japan would rather automate than allow immigration seems to be kind of a false dichotomy, since Japan is exploring immigration as well[0].

Culturally, in general, it may be true that Japanese people would rather have fewer foreigners than more foreigners, but the actual policies of the government seem to be slightly more pragmatic regarding automation versus immigration.

[0]https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2016/01/06/national/social...

> It's also expected that people don't want their wages depressed by imported labor.

Which is a myth. And especially in the case of Japan where the only people willing to learn the language are going to be those who are more educated/successful.

And from all accounts Japan is going to start suffering from the effects of an ageing population far quicker than it will take humanity to develop robotic technology capable of cooking food, caring, cleaning etc to a level equivalent to that of a human.

I have a sneaking suspicion that this whole "we will build robots to solve our demographic crisis" is just a ruse to allow entrenched corporate/political interests to continue down the softly-padded path to their graves, with the only cost being a few gimmicky displays of technology. This is not to mention that accomplishing their stated goal would require that Japan massively expand immigration to attract the necessary STEM talent. We in the west are probably being duped in the same fashion with all of the hype surrounding AI.

Actually in my experience the people who learn the language form a double distribution: those who are more educated/successful and those who have nothing but the will to survive. It happens in Spain, where poor foreigners know Spanish, highly educated ones also know Spanish, and the middle group can say some words or don't bother at all.

In Japan the main fear comes probably from China, since it's a lot easier for Chinese people to learn Japanese (similar characters) than for occidental people, and there is also a "relatively" high inmigration from poor Chinese people.

> It's built into humans to prefer people like ourselves.

That's like saying it's built into humans to murder and rape. Some 'innate' human behaviours are actually based in circumstance. And even if our xenophobia is truly something we're born with, not cultured into, we can still aspire to be better. We can make it our culture to aim higher.

What I'm getting from this is that you'd prefer people not be xenophobic. I assume from that that you are not xenophobic, since we tend to prefer people like ourselves. :)

To the extent that I'm xenophobic, I recognise it as something to be challenged, not indulged.

I wasn't accusing you of being xenophobic. Sorry if I didn't convey that accurately.

Bringing in "diversity" actually causes loss of diversity.

Suppose we let dogs breed randomly. Soon, there would be no poodles. There would be no golden retrievers. There would only be mutts.

Suppose we let bison and cattle breed freely. Pure bison would soon become extinct.

Invasive species all over the world are forming hybrids. Many pure original native species are being lost to these hybrids. Do we care? I think many people do care. It makes just as much sense to bemoan the loss of people who look Irish or German. Genuine light hair and eyes are going away. As recessive traits, they may pop up rarely, and much more rarely in combination.

Dismissing the argument that "more immigrants could make the country vulnerable to terrorism" as xenophobia is naïve.

E.g. look at the nonexisting problems Japan has with Islamic terrorism or non-integrating foreigners forming ghettos v.s. say France.

Given the tendency in Japan to blame criminal activity on foreigners or Zainichi Koreans (despite most crime in Japan being committed by the Japanese,) I think it would also be naive to assume xenophobia isn't a factor.

> (despite most crime in Japan being committed by the Japanese,)

There are a lot more Japanese in Japan than there are foreigners. Similarly, blacks in the US "only" commit a little under half of murders... but they are much much less than half of the population.

When I visited Japan, I noticed that public trash bins are extremely rare. I read later, that they were removed after that poison gas terrorist attack in the 1990s. The problem in European countries is the lack of integration. The USA have a long tradition to integrate immigrants and avoided those kind of ghettos. And today I read that during 2002 and 2016, toddlers killed more people than terrorists..

Heck diarrhea kills more; depression kills more. We talk less about clean water than stratospherically-unlikely events like winning the lottery, succeeding in Silicon Valley or being killed by terrorists.

"Look at nurses, they believe their income will be cut if we let in Filipinos and Indonesians"

That's obviously true isn't? If the intention is to import workers then clearly the supply of labor will increase which means wages will fall. When it's the rich advocating for their class interest (cheap labor and easy outsourcing) somehow they get away with claiming they're selfless. When it's the middle class advocating for itself apparently we call it "xenophobia".

What does Katsuyuki Yakushiji think about removing his tenure and exposing Japanese sociologists to cut-rate competition from the Philippines or Indonesia?

Politicians, he added, have propagated the myth that foreigners commit crimes at a higher rate than Japanese

That's not a myth. It's readily apparent in every country with Japanese and non-Japanese populations.

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