South Korea: The only middle power of its kind

The Grenadier Guards?

The answer might simply be "we don't know" here.

> Right now no country seems to be able to stop this decrease in the modern/developed world. We are just currently shrinking.

Why is that being treated as inherently bad, though?

It's mostly due to political gridlock here, but look at all the crumbling bridges and dams -- the transit that never got built, and the feeling that somehow we are wealthy yet we never have any money for important issues.

Japan's GDP per capita still keeps growing. And the average Japanese still has an excellent quality of life.

Japan also has so many pointless infrastructure projects; things like laying concrete into river beds to control their flows, or retention systems to stop mudslides that only started because they clear-cut forests and replaced them with sugi as a make-work project... The workers are there, if they got rid of the make-work projects.

Can you share where you found that? I'd like to read more about it

> and the depopulation and dilapidation of Japan's second/third tier cities and the countryside is already striking and poised to accelerate rapidly as villages, towns and cities can no longer fund their basic obligations.

Isn't that a worldwide phenomenon though? Podunk towns can't keep their young people around because there is nothing for them to do and within in a generation or two they fade away. It's sad, but is there even a reason to save those towns?

Whether those public funds and private options will be enough, of course, is a different question.

GDP per capita growth is still growing a few percent (accounting for inflation).

I think this would make cities a bit more "pro-child" than they are currently.

Otherwise, maybe the ‘modern city’ is where cultures go to die.

Or, people now value cities more than they value having more children, leading to depopulation due to replacement rate reduction, rather than people leaving to have more children.

Or neither. Cities since at least the Roman era have been considered "population sinks". That is, they often maintain or grow their population by attracting surplus population born outside of the city.

As an experiment, if you ever find yourself in a large city like San Francisco, New York, London, or Tokyo, ask around and note what fraction of the residents you meet were actually born in the city.

At the other end of the spectrum the increasing gap between rich and poor pushed a lot of men completely out of the dating pool because they can no longer afford basic housing for themselves, so even if they would be willing to commit they don't have options.

1. Yes, obviously Japan housing prices have fallen from their insane 90s peak, but housing is still very expensive in Japan, and especially in urban areas where most Japanese (especially younger Japanese) live, space is famously at a premium.

2. I can barely count the number of times I've read articles on the reasons Japanese women don't want to get married. Unlike some Western nations, there is still a cultural expectation in Japan that women do a ton of housework and childrearing with little help from men, to the point that famously elaborate childrens' bento boxes are a source of stress. Many Japanese women with careers easily see marriage as a net negative, obviously different than decades past.

This times 100. The US education system has a lot of flaws, but for the most part, school placement is usually based on geographical location (which comes with its own set of problems), the SAT and ACT are not terribly difficult, and more importantly those college exams can be retaken multiple times a year.

East Asian education is extremely competitive with competition for spots starting as early as pre-K (age 3). Japanese media often shows how students get their grades ranked and posted outside of the classroom. The college exams are more comprehensive than the American ones; the South Korean Suneung is scheduled to take 9 hours. The Suneung (and Chinese gaokao, Japanese Center Test, Singaporean GCE) are only held once a year, so if you want to retest you have to wait the whole year.

And then there is the problem of school bullying: https://www.nbcnews.com/news/world/metoo-style-reckoning-ove...

> “A lot of the people used to say bullying matters in school were merely immature scuffles between teenagers,” she said. “Some would even blame the victims, saying that it is their problem that they cannot fit in.”

> Two decades ago, her daughter was beaten by a dozen schoolmates and spent five days in a coma. Yet, when Jo attempted to hold the students accountable, the wider community viewed her as a troublemaker, and her family was forced to move to another area.

Maybe I'm looking at it wrong, looks like Korea has a year, just split into maternity and parental, and Japan has a year off for both mother and father, although the father seldom takes it. Which countries are comparable to the US?

Also, our big cities have evolved to serve adults vs children. We have a proliferation of services for adults: sit in restaurants, cafes, coffeehouses, etc… Just look at turnstiles to the subway and the stairs you need to ascend/descend. Good luck trying to push strollers or drag children around in our urban areas.

Lois Bujold explored this subject - and, specifically, the socioeconomic and cultural implications - thoroughly in her Vorkosigan series, although it is referred to as "uterine replicator" there. And she is a married woman with children, so it's not exactly an abstract subject matter for her.

Only America is a country where you can call yourself American after living there for few years.

Sure, there is some minor "friction" because of my different ethnicity (basically I look white), such as random people first assuming that I am a foreigner, which is completely understandable for historical reasons. I do that myself, whenever I see a white or black person, my first reflex isn't to assume that they are Korean too, there is a 99% chance that they are foreigners. But all it takes is a 10mn conversation for them to know that I am "one of them". I sometimes get puzzled looks from people who have never met someone like me, but that's mainly because most of the population don't even know you _could_ naturalize and become Korean. At the airport, the staff speaks in English to me at first, but as soon as they see my passport they profusely apologize and switch back to "Korean" mode. That's about it.

I do however understand and sympathize with the fact that many foreigners, even long-term residents, might feel the way you described. I am just disputing your claim that it's "impossible" to become Korean.

I personally think because Korean society functions in a very binary way: either you accept everything and take it in as a whole and then can become a member of society, or you just do a few things (such as marrying a Korean person, speaking Korean to a certain level, etc.) and you don't. There are valid reasons to act like that, there is this instinct of jealously preserving Korean culture out of fear that it will be taken over by other giants: China, Japan, the US, etc. And Koreans would rather keep the bad aspects of their culture than risk losing it all. It's just part of the deal, and I think many foreigners have a hard time understanding/accepting this fact.

Sure, if you fail to outsource to other countries; or automate your economy enough.

> There's only so much juice you can squeeze out of a shrinking workforce, though.

For most countries, you can get access with a job offer. Countries are not against people who can get employment where they have shortages.

But a "bare human" is barely employable which is how he turns into a liability. ie: immigrating more people (randomly) will generate a negative return at least in the short-term.

For the developed world, where a lot of the wealth coming in is capital returns from global corps whose ability to generate wealth isn’t constrained by local population size, that just means you need to tap that more effectively. It’s a problem for the payroll tax model of social support funding, perhaps, but unless you are emotionally attached to that model, I don't see that as a big cost.

On the assumption that the economy is based on a workforce. An economy can be based on paper assets. An "innovation nation" that makes GDP out of intellectual property assets, banking and offshore investments could sustain itself without the need for an ever-growing labor force. SK isn't Luxembourg, but nor is it India.

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

In reality, age discrimination makes it nigh impossible to land a meaningful job once you're over the age of 60.

You can try to spur local demand by expanding your population (via birth or immigration) but what we really care about is GDP per capita. Most very populous countries are not wealthy.

This is so simplified that it is basically false. There are a range of reasons for not supporting immigration, but basically no one wants to "keep society in place". I will note that the USA had historically low immigration in the post-war period that was associated with rapidly rising wellbeing[0].

[0]: https://www.migrationpolicy.org/programs/data-hub/charts/Ann...

That heavily depends on the immigrant group, and is, on average, not true in most of Europe where many immigrants heavily depend on welfare and it turns into intergenerational dependency. I'm sure it's different in countries that aren't offering full benefits to immigrants, and are much harder to reach via illegal migration, i.e. the US, Canada, Australia or New Zealand, but that kind of blanket statement isn't accurate.

Maybe read what Marx wrote about Irish immigrants to UK. And those already spoke local language and shared similar culture.

Less humans means less demand means less work. In our current paradigm, this is a problem. In a healthy paradigm, it is a solution.

Less people? Rebalance human development with nature. Less consumption of resources? Wonderful. Less jobs? Great, let's all work less and live more.

Many would call this utopia, I call it sanity. I'd also say that couple not reproducing or doing so at increasingly old age, is the ultimate sign of how our economic system doesn't even support one of the most natural things there are: to form a family. It is openly hostile to this option.

And we want do double down on that? The trend of economic security is going to be even less, not more.

the wonder of economic development is that as a country's quality of life and wealth increases, consumption increases.

the typical american probably consumes about 4000x as much energy as the typical DRC. we still have a long, long way to go before we can accommodate the whole world living like an american.

even as population growth stalls, or even reverses course, the ability of humans to keep expanding its appetite for the finer things in life can never be quelled.

The higher up you are on the social ladder, the quicker are the spouses taken from the marriage market.

I was fortunate to go into somewhat prestigious highschool back in Russia. The last 3 bachelors from my class are all the people who managed to get it abroad.

Everybody else was gone by mid-twenties, anybody with higher education by 23 at most.

Seeing an unmarried woman with PhD level education, job, own roof over her head, and no skeletons in the closet over 30 in Russia is likely a hallucination. In Canada, I met new such almost monthly, and I grew rather rather complacent.

Not...really.

> UN report on Japan's birth rate policy attempts:

And details defects in the specific policies (notably, these defects are, one who is familiar with policies of the type will notice, ways they fall short of the support policies in many European countries that aren't even specifically trying to boost birth rates.)

E.g., a paid family leave policy with low payments and lacking legal force, so many employers haven't actually implemented it.

This is a government making a pro forma show of “doing something” about a problem, not a serious policy effort.

The other kind of trying is when you put vigorous effort into making it easier to have children. Dramatically ramp up childcare support. Strongly enforce anti-discrimination laws, particularly in the case of discrimination against mothers. Forbid employers from requiring more than 40h of work per week under certain (very high) compensation thresholds. Provide direct payments to parents that substantially offset the costs of additional children. Align housing policy with the need for larger dwellings for larger families, but still with decent commutes. Etc.

A typical example is a two-step argument equating race/biological heritage with culture and/or ethnic identity coupled with appeals to an imperative to preserve culture and/ot ethnic identity.

Something like this:

https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=28051854

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Decree_770

Also, there are non-economic factors at play, too. For example, South Korea could grandfather in North Korea's nuclear arms.

That's a nice way to put it, it's been actually decreasing clearly over time since 1989, with ups and downs on the way: https://mebfaber.com/wp-content/uploads/2009/12/japan.jpg

I am being a nitpicker here, but I think there is no correlation between country size and level of economic development. Many of the richest polities in the world are quite small. Places like Singapore & HK come to mind.

I think bigger countries, even if they are "1st world," can sometimes look rather rough, because there is a lot of variation between different regions / municipalities / neighborhoods. It can be surreal sometimes, but it is what it is.

That's because you're comparing small nations to a nation that is better compared to the EU in size and diversity. The EU has dozens of third-world ghetto zones and the bottom 10% of the EU is exceptionally poor by first world standards.

The poorest areas of France also look like and function like the third-world, the quasi ghettos on the outskirts of eg Paris. It's more rare for large nations to not suffer from such poverty problems, and few accomplish that (Germany and Japan get close).

The largest population nations: Russia, Brazil, Indonesia, China, India, US, Pakistan, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Mexico

Do I need to point out the condition of the bottom 1/3 or 1/2 in most of those nations?

Ever read up on how the bottom quarter in Russia - Europe's largest nation by population - are faring the past decade (it's beyond dire, to put it politely)?

It's a small miracle the US isn't far worse off than it is.

One of the complaints I had from my SK friend is that other subway platforms don't have safety walls

> Finally in Japan there's a lot still done by cash and weird single-purpose ticket machines. It would be a hardware hackers dream because of the variety and number of ticketing machines everywhere.

Are they connected to the internet?

This may change like next year but Japan has had a 5 year head start. https://www.imore.com/apple-pay-coming-korea-part-k-new-deal...

Japan has updated their taxis since 2017 - roll out has been slow but I've rode in them multiple times as a tourist since then. https://global.toyota/en/jpntaxi/

I love Seoul for it's nightlife/cheaper restaurants, but I can't help but notice that it once tried to be an urban sprawling American city. It's just not as pedestrian friendly as Japanese cities, and I find myself taking more cabs than I would in Tokyo despite the Seoul metro being world class.

The cheonggyecheong stream used to be a disgusting urban highway and I'm sure there are plenty more. https://www.landscapeperformance.org/case-study-briefs/cheon...

The only annoying thing so far is that my US based Visa card just can't be processed in some places even if Visa is advertised. When I called Chase to see if it was a security thing, they said they didn't even see the charge attempted, and said there are 2 different kinds of credit processing in Europe? I haven't done any research into that yet, though. Overall, I just bring my phone and pay for everything with my iPhone.

In part because it is, most of Tokyo's major subway lines were built in the 1960s to 1970s. Ginza line was built before WW1 and was the first subway in Asia.

The highways were all built soon after the war too.

Thus part of the issue is age. Japan stabilized much sooner than Korea and built up faster.

A bigger component though is Japan's preference to build new then let sit. Maintenance for visual reasons is rare. Thus combined with the high humidity stuff rusts and molds. You can see rust on iron beams waiting at the JR platform in Shibuya! Literal rust on one of the most high traffic stations in the world with gleaming skyscrappers as your backdrop.

In part Japan feels like a retired country. All the heavy lifting has been done. The mortgage paid. I joke with friends we are young people in an old country. Everything around us is going into the night, and we are just now waking up.

I like it, but I can see why others would prefer a newer country.

NYC's trains are constantly late, always go out of service, are deafeningly loud, incredibly slow, filthy, don't have great coverage outside of the Manhattan core and generally unreliable. Tokyo's are always on time, very clean, pretty silent, have incredible coverage of the entire metro area especially in combination with the bus networks (which also are efficient, clean, and don't hold lower-class stigma), and are super fast.

The lines that aren't underground in NYC tend to be depressing under the tracks and pretty unlivable around them, leading to tons of urban blight; the over-ground lines in Tokyo, thanks to their thoughtful design and reasonable noise level, are often full of shops, restaurants, bars, and walking paths that people actually use, positively contributing to their neighborhoods.

The main thing that feels "old" about Tokyo's trains is just that they look like they were decorated a long time ago or are kinda plain; but from a functional perspective they outclass practically any system on the planet, especially when taking into account the integration into the broader Shinkansen network. They have the best safety record of any rail system anywhere and are economically sustaining. The only major complaint I have is that it's relatively expensive fare-wise, especially considering transfers between different rail companies' lines/buses.

Also, it's worth checking out the pre-Olympics revamp of some lines - for instance Ginza Line (Shibuya station especially) and Odakyu Line (Setagaya Daita-Shimokitazawa in particular) got a lot of station and neighborhood renovations that give them that sparkly new shine.

Aside, I've also lived in Shanghai before - the rail network in China is something to watch, their high speed rail stations and urban networks are very nice as of late, although they need more express lines within city limits (Shanghai/Beijing are enormous so crossing the city by rail takes a long time).

The Seoul subway [1] opened its first line in the mid-1970s (8km of line 1). Most of their subway growth opened in 1995 and later, a huge amount post-2000.

The first Tokyo subway line [2][3] opened in 1927, with only 3 new lines since the late 1970s (and barely even any line extensions in the 2000s)

It feels newer in SK because it is.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Seoul_Metropolitan_Subway

[2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toei_Subway

[3] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tokyo_Metro

On the other hand, if you can read Chinese.. then reading signage in Japan is like having half Chinese half weird squiggly stuff but the Chinese half would still mostly make out most of the sense.

I think the anti-Japanese sentiment didn't really took off because, once you start looking into the matter, you'd rapidly realize that half of the country's ruling class was national traitors, at which point the question will become strictly verboten. By the time the country became democratic enough so that people could actually raise these questions, there was no point in becoming a "freedom fighter." Sure, everybody loves to hate Japan (especially when there's a soccer match), but nobody with half a brain would want to, say, visit Tokyo and blow up stuff ... it makes zero sense!

That's a core problem for every industrialized country. We've become addicted to the cheap goods that NAFTA has allowed us. And it may end up eating societies alive.

Also to answer the other comment, Russia has repeatedly toyed with the idea of a nuclear bombing to Warsaw as well as invading the baltic. The baltic states are more than within range for a ground invasion. Poland has a border with the Kaliningrad enclave as well. Now you might say, that Russia would not dare... Well ask any baltic state how scared shitless they were with how easy Russia imposed itself on Ukraine. I honestly do not see how Korea is in a much different scenario.

Assuming you have not already done so, perhaps becoming a surrogate or donating sperm would be an option for you? While it's not exactly handing a baby to the state, there are many couples who would be interested in raising children but are not biologically capable.

At least of the parents I know, I am skeptical that simply offering to take additional children off their hands would incentivize them to continue giving birth to more children.

> a woman would be paid a hefty sum to bear a child to term

In the US the market has determined that sum to be $25,000 on average.[1] I don't know whether you would consider that hefty, but it's at least an order of magnitude lower than what it would take to incentivize me to bear a child.

[1] https://surrogate.com/surrogates/becoming-a-surrogate/being-...

not too bad, as a percentage of population.

Most of Indiana by land is (very) rural, and in probably half of counties the fastest internet available will be sub 10Mbps.

In the major metro areas, Verizon/Frontier, Comcast, and AT&T "compete" and provide 1Gbps, with Frontier at least offering FTTH. I pay $60/month for 400/400 fiber.

source: i worked for a (rural) ISP in Indiana.