Japan Shrinks by 500k People as Births Fall to Lowest Number Since 1874 | Hacker News Reader

Japan Shrinks by 500k People as Births Fall to Lowest Number Since 1874

nytimes.com

58 pointspseudolus29 comments

Japanese population is a little over 126 million. 500k is a roundoff error -- literally. In reality the population is not growing. The issue is more that the population demographics is moving upwards in age. The big place I see a problem is with the ageing farmer population. Also, the demands on the pensions system are going to peak. Living in Japan, I'm quite worried about the pension system. They already "lost" a whole bunch of records and asked people to provide proof of employment over their lifetime or risk losing benefits at employment. They've pushed retirement age from 60 to 65 and I reckon they'll push it further.

But it's all good. We'll have some pain and the rest of the world can learn from it. We all need to do this and it's better that there is at least one country that's going through it now. I expect scandals and hardship, but in the end this country will be better off for it -- like the world itself.

A gradual reduction in population sounds like exactly what the world needs.

Exactly, figuring out how to increase happiness without growing the population exponentially, would be major progress. It has some hard limits in terms of resource consumption and distribution.

the government and conglomerates will not like this

I’d like To expand on this, Economic models are built on growth. To achieve growth there are three ways, increase the demand, increase the consumers, and increase productivity/efficiency.

The world economy has been expanding rapidly in party because there are more consumers brought about from an increase in population.

You need to fix the dependency on an exponential growth model before you can hope to have a reduction in population and I’ll take it a step further and this needs to be done to solve climate change.

By the logic of our current economic models (along with our observations of thousand years of economic history), we don't even have to figure anything out. As technology advances and capital accumulates without population growth; consumption per capita and wages go up, and rent of capital goes down. However, cutting down population growth (along with economic growth) is usually not in the nations' interests.

If Benatar is to be believed, happiness is increased in general only by decreasing the population (preferably to zero).

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/David_Benatar#Humans'_unreliab...

Why? We are getting richer, more efficient and better able to support more people

With CO2 emissions we need better technology to solve the problem. Low birthrate is no solution

Imagine if artificial wombs were possible. The government could control birth rates simply by producing children like they print money to increase inflation.

I had that idea and someone recommended I read Brave New World

I loved it sounds almost perfect! Ironic that its grouped with “dystopian futures” but that was news to me.

"The chains of nature... are called reason, freedom, morality and choice. The human chains foretold by Huxley are of a quite different composition: they are made entirely of flesh and the pleasures of the flesh. They bind so tightly that reason, choice and moral judgement can find no chink in which to grow and corrode them. So completely do they encircle the human soul that it shrinks to a tiny dot within the organism. There is no suffering in the Brave New World; no pain or doubt or terror. Nor is there happiness. It is a world of reliable and undemanding pleasures, from which the causes of suffering have been banished, and with them all striving, all hope, and all joy.

But love is a cause of suffering; so too are freedom, judgement and choice. Hence these things too will disappear from the Brave New World."

There has to be someone else here that finds that perfect

A completely hedonistic society with no consequence? Is everyone else focusing on different things?

The only problem I had was the antiquated racial views of the author. The caste system too wasn’t necessary but it didn't bother me. The concept? Loved it!

I am aware of the highly controversial views on homosexuality of the author (Scruton), but am unaware of anything controversial about race.

Regardless, a person can say many deeply true things across a number of domains, yet be quite wrong in various places. From what I have read from him, this seems to be the case.

Glad you liked that passage!

Yes, regarding the author I was referring to Huxley

For governments to completely control birth rates via artificial wombs/artificial births, they'd also need to neuter/spay the human population to prevent natural births. This would be simple for children of artificial births as the government could spay/neuter them at birth. But how would a government spay/neuter the naturally born population? Government handouts, tax incentives, compulsion? Get spayed/neutered for 20 years of no income tax?

If we were to go the artificial wombs route, then human sexuality/desire/etc would no longer be needed and spaying/neutering should take care of that. But would that lead to more productivity, creativity and progress? Or would it hinder productivity, creativity and progress? The desire to mate/create is a powerful motivator for work and production. But it can also be a source of destruction and decay.

Would we be better off like our pets - spayed and neutered and without any hope and urge for mating?

>But how would a government spay/neuter the naturally born population?

Probably by making it very obvious that someone came from an artificial womb. Then you can have racism against "naturals".

You’ve obviously never raised a child. The problem isn’t a lack of wombs or the first 9 months of childbearing.

As Japanese, I can say they are a few of the problems too. You can't take maternity leave most companies (when you're pregnant, it usually is time to quit), or you're not allowed to be pregnant until none of your coworker is pregnant.

> Case of child care worker chided for getting pregnant before her 'turn' not uncommon https://mainichi.jp/english/articles/20180402/p2a/00m/0na/00...

Reading this makes me sad and a little bit angry. It is ridiculous that a company/employer might suggest your right of getting children. In a different context this would be considered a joke or something you would read about in a dystopian book, but instead it's happening in one of the most developed countries in the would.

You are conflating economic development and social development. Go check out some youtube channels from westerners living in Japan and you'll see that the economic development has had a cost. I don't really know how to define it because it's their society and I can't put my American values on it, but the salaryman thing has a cost. This birthrate issue is probably it. Will Japan eventually collapse because of it?

Wow, no number of immigration can replace this. This is too little too late.

Immigration is not to replace, it is to substitute. So eventually Japan will be full of people again. Just of different culture and level of civilisation likely.

But then it wouldn't be Japan anymore...

What would you rather have? A civilization and culture extinct or a a civilization that adapts with newer people, creating a blend of the future?

Ceasing to be Japan would equal to have the culture be extinct so it's obviously not a solution.

Even if it wasn't (like you seem to argue), I would rather realize than in 10 years many jobs will be automated, so you won't need as much manual labor and Japanese will be just fine.

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